Women of England

by Bartlett Burleigh James

After this answer had been delivered to his lordship he discharged the home-made cannon at the castle, and it promptly exploded at the first shot; to which fact was due the ability of Baroness Ophaly to hold the castle against all attack through the long months until the rebellion had waned and the besiegers withdrew. What she must have suffered during all the dangers of the siege, in which ingenuity was taxed to the utmost to effect an entrance within the strong walls, can never be stated; on the one hand was the terror of famine, on the other, death. When she was rescued from her perilous situation by Sir Richard Greville, she went to her husband's late property of Colehill and there spent the remainder of her life, dying in 1648.

Among the Scotch Covenanters, the names of Isobel Alison of Perth and Marion Harvie of Bo'ness take high rank because of their undaunted courage and the strength of conviction displayed by them. It was in 1679 that a band of horsemen slew Archbishop Sharp upon Magnus Moor and then dispersed. Four of them, among whom was John Balfour of Kinloch,—the redoubtable Burley of Old Mortality,—took refuge in the house of a widow of the vicinity of Perth. Here they remained hidden, to watch as to what steps would be taken in regard to their apprehension. Afterward they retired to Dupplin, thereby escaping seizure. On June 22d the battle of Bothwell Brig was fought and lost to the Covenanters. At about this time the first subject of this sketch, Isobel Alison, an obscure maiden, comes into the stream of historical occurrence. She was about twenty-five years of age, resided at Perth, and was of excellent repute. She had been trained in the strictest Presbyterian faith, and was well versed in the Scriptures. She had occasionally had the privilege of hearing field preaching, although field conventicles were not common in the country. Her sympathies with the persecuted ministers of her faith and her personal acquaintance with several of them enlisted her aid for the fugitives in hiding them from the authorities, whose search for them was relentlessly pursued. The work of bloody persecution continued for eighteen months, during which many of the Covenanters died in the maintenance of their convictions. But it was not until the end of 1680 that Isobel attracted attention by reason of her outspoken utterances against the tyranny under which the country suffered. It was not long, then, before she was arraigned for her sentiments, and, in the simplicity of her nature, volunteered the confession that she was in communication with some of those who had been declared rebels. The magistrates, however, charitably sought to shield her from the effects of actions the serious purport of which they did not believe that she fully realized, and so dismissed her with a caution to be more circumspect in her speech. But she was not to escape thus easily; some busybodies speedily reported what she had said to the Privy Council, which issued a warrant for her arrest. Under a charge of treason, she was carried from the peaceful seclusion of her humble home, and immured in the prison at Edinburgh. At her hearing before the Privy Council, she acknowledged to acquaintance with all those for whom the authorities were seeking as assassins of Archbishop Sharp. When asked if she did not know that she was aiding those whose hands were dyed with the blood of murder, she replied that she had never regarded the death of the "Mr. James Sharp" as being murder. Her testimony was so self-condemnatory that, according to the law of the day, there appeared to be no recourse but to sentence her to hanging. She says: "The Lords pitied me, for [said they] we find reason and a quick wit in you; and they desired me to take it to advisement. I told them I had been advising on it these seven years, and I hoped not to change now. They asked if I was distempered? I told them that I was always solid in the wit that God had given me." She was then remanded for trial before the Judiciary Court. Leaving the thread of her story for a while, we will take up that of another young woman, who at about this time had come under a like accusation and was suffering imprisonment. She was but a poor serving woman, who had been a domestic at the house of a woman who had sheltered one of the same fugitives whose cause had gotten Isobel Alison into her straits. The story of her relations with the Covenanters, as told by her to the authorities, was a simple one. From the age of fourteen she had heard the field preaching of the Covenanters, and finally she had been informed against and arrested. Her demeanor during the ordeal of examination was firm and composed. The questions put to her she answered without hesitancy or reservation. The result of the examination showed her full sympathies with those who were under the taint of rebellion and treason. She justified their acts by affirming that the king had broken his covenant oath, and it was lawful to disown him.

She and her older sister in misfortune were brought together before the Judiciary Court, and both of the young women declined to acknowledge the authority of the king and lords. There was nothing remaining to do but to put them on trial, which was accordingly done. They both stood indicted for treason. The only evidence adduced against them was their own confessions, and because of the nature of these a verdict of guilty was rendered. The court postponed sentence until the following Friday, when they were condemned to be hanged. Not a particle of proof had been produced of their having joined in concocting any schemes against either Church or State; they had simply let their tongues wag too freely upon the impersonal question, so far as it concerned them, as to whether a certain assassination was justified. The prosecution had been conducted by the king's advocate, Sir George Mackenzie, that "noble wit of Scotland," as he was styled by Dryden, but whom the Scotch people have branded as the "bluidy Mackenzie" of the popular rhyme. This same advocate who secured the sentencing of the two young girls for expressions of opinion upon a question which was purely one of casuistry wrote in one of his Essays: "Human nature inclines us wisely to that pity which we may one day need; and few pardon the severity of a magistrate, because they know not where it may stop."

During the period intervening between their condemnation and their execution, they were visited by kindly disposed ministers of the Established Church and others, who sought to persuade them out of their beliefs. But to no purpose; even the promise of a full pardon failed to move either of them from the steadfastness of their expressed convictions. In order to surround their execution with as much of ignominy as possible, it was ordered that five women, convicted of the murder of their illegitimate children, should be hanged along with them. In their last hour upon earth, the young women were sustained by the fortitude of their faith. The attempt to make them hear the ministrations of a curate was frustrated by the two young women singing together the Twenty-third Psalm. Upon the scaffold they continued their religious devotions; and in the midst of their calm, confident declarations of faith in Christ and of their innocence of any real wrong, they perished.

The transit from religion to pleasure is, after all, but a short passage from one department of life to another, and the story of the women of Scotland and of Ireland would not be complete without notice of some of that group of famous Irish women who were conspicuous upon the stage of Great Britain in the eighteenth century—women whose excellence served to raise the dramatic art to the point of prominence and dignity which it attained during that period. One of the earliest of that group who gave lustre to the stage was Margaret Woffington. The story of her life is a record of high achievement in the histrionic profession, although it is as well a record of frailty—a fact unfortunately too often true of actresses in the eighteenth century, when the standards of their art were supposed to absolve them to an extent from the ordinary demands of circumspection in conduct. She had all the susceptibility of the Celtic temperament, and her warm Irish blood was easily made to surge through her veins in waves of passion, although, when not indulging in a fit of temper, she was bright, vivacious, witty, and entertaining to a degree. Arthur Murphy, in his Life of Garrick, says: "Forgive her one female error, and it might fairly be said of her that she was adorned with every virtue; honour, truth, benevolence, and charity were her distinguishing qualities." This much said for the weakness of her character, we can concern ourselves altogether with the strength of her genius. The circumstances of her birth were not fortunate, nor was there anything in them to predicate the distinguished place she was to fill in the public eye. The year of her birth is variously given. It was probably in 1714 that she first saw the light, in a miserable slum of the city of Dublin. Her father was a bricklayer, and died when she was but five years old. At that early age she had to take her part of the home responsibilities and earn money to aid in the support of her family; this she did by serving as a water carrier. The advent of a French dancer into Dublin at about this time marked an epoch in the life of Peggy. She brought with her a troupe of acrobats and rope dancers, and the exhibition she offered attracted large audiences. In order to afford a novel feature, which should at the same time affect local interest, Madame Violante, the head of the amusement company, arranged for an operatic presentation which should be participated in by some of the bright Irish children to whom she had been drawn. The Beggars' Opera was then in the height of its popularity, and this was the play she fixed upon. Little Peggy Woffington, not quite ten years old, had the chief female part. From this simple introduction to the amusement-loving public started the train of development in the life of this young Irish girl, which was to make her the captivating actress, the beautiful and witty woman, who bewitched Garrick and Sheridan.

The novelty of the conception attracted much notice, and the opera was given before large houses. Other plays and farces were staged in the same way. While Peggy played principal parts on the stage, her mother sold oranges to the patrons at the entrance to the theatre. Matters continued this way until Peggy Woffington was sixteen years of age, by which time she had become noted for ease and grace as a dancer, although her coarseness of voice and pronounced brogue debarred her from any important playing part. Her opportunity came, however, when a favorite actress who was to take the part of Ophelia was, at the eleventh hour, incapacitated from so doing. There was no recourse but to permit Peggy Woffington to take it. Notwithstanding the difficulties under which she labored, her interpretation of the character was quite favorably received. She had been developing in grace of figure and of feature, and had ripened into a young woman of dazzling fairness, perfect form, with eyes luminous and black, shaded by long lashes and arched by exquisitely pencilled eyebrows.

She was just twenty years of age when she completely turned the heads of the Dublin theatre-goers by the magnificence of her impersonation of Sir Harry Wildare in The Constant Couple. Her first appearance in London was not at the behest of her art, but, unfortunately, as a result of the arts of an admirer to whose addresses she had given some favor, and who led her to go to the English metropolis with him under promise of marriage. This regrettable circumstance was soon followed by her repudiation of the man on finding out his real character. She was not long off the stage, and in 1740 the playbills announced the first appearance of Miss Woffington in England. She drew large houses, and greatly widened her reputation as a leading actress of her time. To give the plays in which she took principal parts during her first London season would be to enumerate the best productions of the English stage at that time. It is said of her that before the season was half over, Miss Woffington had become the fashion. Among the many swains who followed in her wake and indited to her amorous missives and verses was Garrick. He pursued his lovemaking with all seriousness, and made his assault not solely upon the heart of the butterfly beauty, but upon her mind as well. He saw that beneath all the audacities of her mind and irregularities of life there was a noble nature, which the circumstances of her birth and training had never permitted true expression. His intentions were entirely honorable, but whenever the subject of marriage was broached by him she managed to switch off the conversation to a lighter subject. Her coquettishness would not permit her to take seriously the addresses of the man whom she doubtless greatly admired and loved. When she was regarded by everyone else as without a moral equivalent for her artistic temperament, Garrick steadfastly refused to regard her simply as a vain, flighty, and vacillating person. He was rewarded by being the only man whom she ever seriously thought of marrying.

Her mode of life was not conducive to the furtherance of her health, and at the comparatively early age of thirty-seven years her friends saw a change both in the demeanor and the appearance of the witty woman. The seeds of an internal disorder had been sown, but, with her usual recklessness, she failed to heed the premonitions of nature until the malady was too far advanced for cure. At about this time the famous John Wesley was stirring London with his preaching. She attended his chapel through curiosity, and afterward from conviction. She was clearheaded and honest enough to see the force of the religious truth which he presented, and was brought quite under the influence of the great preacher. As a result of the awakening of her religious nature, she determined on the reformation of her private life, although she does not appear to have linked with that the purpose of quitting her profession. She resolved, however, not to remain before the public until they tired of her. As she herself expressed it: "I will never destroy my reputation by clinging to the shadow after the substance is gone. When I can no longer bound on the boards with elastic step, and when the enthusiasm of the public begins to show symptoms of decay, that night will be the last appearance of Margaret Woffington."

She was not destined to remain before the public until they wearied of her; on May 3, 1757, she appeared as Rosalind in As You Like It. The circumstances of the tragic close of her dramatic career, as quoted from a contemporary writer in Blackburn's Illustrious Irish Women, were as follows: "She went through Rosalind for four acts without my perceiving she was in the least disordered; but in the fifth she complained of great indisposition. I offered her my arm, the which she graciously accepted; I thought she looked softened in her behaviour, and had less of the hauteur. When she came off at the quick change of dress, she again complained of being ill, but got accoutred, and returned to finish the part, and pronounced in the epilogue speech,—'If it be true that good wine needs no bush, it is as true that a good play needs no epilogue,' &c., &c. But when she arrived at 'If I were among you, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me,' her voice broke, she faltered, endeavoured to go on, but could not proceed; then, in a voice of tremor, screamed, 'O God! O God!' and tottered to the stage door speechless, where she was caught. The audience, of course, applauded until she was out of sight, and then sunk into awful looks of astonishment—both young and old, before and behind the curtain—to see one of the most handsome women of the age, a favourite principal actress, and who had for several seasons given high entertainment, struck so suddenly by the hand of death in such a situation of time and place, and in her prime of life, being about forty-four."

Such were the circumstances attending the last appearance of Margaret Woffington, who, notwithstanding she died in the prime of life at the age of forty-seven, had been for twenty-seven years the delight of the play-going public. The three years she lingered as a mere skeleton of her former self were spent in trying to awaken the consciences of her late theatrical associates. Some of these scouted her new spirit as hypocrisy, and insinuated that religion was her recourse only when beauty and spirits had been lost. But the One who judgeth the secrets of men's hearts is not so uncharitable in His judgment of His creatures. It may be believed that the influence which she received from the chapel meetings of John Wesley was the beginning of a genuine religious life and character, and that it brought from her Maker that commendation which was ungenerously denied her by her associates.