“His legal propositions may often be unsound in substance, but in his mode of stating what he believes or wishes to be law he often reaches the perfection of form” (Dict. Nat. Biography). This “form” may be sufficient to satisfy legal technicalities, but I think I have brought forward enough to show that intelligent women have reason to object to him as a “tainted” authority. [[vii].]
Coke tells us in his “Fourth Institute,” what properties a Parliament man should have. “He should have three properties of the elephant; first, that he hath no gall; second, that he is inflexible and cannot bow; third, that he is of a most ripe and perfect memory. First to be without gall, that is without malice, rancour, heat and envy.” We have shown that Coke was deficient in the first quality prescribed by himself for just judgment. His abject submission to the Archbishop after his Breach of the Canon Law, shows that he could bow very low to escape the consequences of his wrongdoing; his groveling in the dust before James, when he had roused the King to wrath, shows that he could do the same when he thought he was right, “from which we may learn that he was, as such men always are, as dejected and fawning in adversity as he was insolent and overbearing in prosperity” (Chalmers’ “Biography”). We must now prove that he was deficient in the third quality also. His memory was imperfect. He forgot one Statute when he was criticising another; he forgot what he had written in the “Second Institute,” when he was preparing his manuscript for the Fourth. It is only by self-contradiction that he can hold the opinion now under discussion. From his own works we must judge him on this count (Coke v. Coke). In the “Fourth Institute,” 5, he classifies women with minors. In the “Second Institute,” c. iii., 96, his authorised and corrected work, he says on the contrary, “Seeing that a feme sole that cannot perform knight’s service may serve by deputy, it may be demanded wherefore an heir male being within the age of twenty-one years may not likewise serve by deputy. To this it is answered, that in cases of minoritie all is one to both sexes, viz., if the heire male be at the death of the ancestor under the age of one and twenty years, or the heire female under the age of fourteen, they can make no deputy, but the Lord will have wardship. Therefore, Littleton is here to be understood of a feme sole of full age and seized of land, holden by knight’s service,[[15]] either by purchase or descent.” One would have thought this clear enough for a legal mind to follow. Women do not, therefore, come into the same class as minors in regard to their appointing deputies. But they do come into the class of Electors. (“Second Institute,” 119.) “A woman may be a free suitor to the Courts of the Lord, and though it be generally said that the free Suitors be Judges [[viii].] in these courts, this is intended of men and not of women.”
[15]. In discussing the “Parliament of Marlebridge” (52 Henry III., chap, vi., p. 3) he says: “Albeit the heir be not primogenitus, but an heir female, or male lineal or collateral, yet everyone of them be within the same mischief.”
We have already noted the illegal character of this opinion; but we repeat it here intentionally. Coke does not see that in avoiding one of the horns of a dilemma he throws himself on the other. If “women could be suitors,” and were “not intended to be judges” or pares, the only other duty left them as suitors, would be “to elect their knights of the shire!”
The study of the original statutes supports the freedom of women as to both duties, as well as the fact of their having exercised that freedom. In Howell’s “State Trials,” 19 (Entinck v. Carrington, 6 George III.), there is a question asked and answered, worthy of repetition here—“Can the judges extrajudicially make a thing law to bind the Kingdom by a declaration that such is their opinion? I say no. It is a matter of impeachment for any judge to affirm it. There must be an antecedent principle or authority from whence this opinion may be fairly collected, otherwise the opinion is null, and nothing but ignorance can excuse the judge that subscribed it.” That women had to submit then is no reason that they should submit now, as the same case explains—“It would be strange doctrine to assert that all the people of this land were bound to acknowledge that as universal law which a few had been afraid to dispute.”
A believer in Coke’s views and methods of perpetuating them was Sir Simon d’Ewes, High Sheriff of Suffolk. At the elections of 1640, Oct. 19th and 22nd, Sir Roger North and his Royalist friends had charged him with partiality towards the Puritan candidates. He cleared himself eagerly and then added, “It is true that by the ignorance of some of the Clarkes at the other two tables, the oaths of some single women that were freeholders were taken without the knowledge of the said High Sheriff, who as soone as he had notice thereof instantly sent to forbidd the same, conceiving it a matter verie unworthie of any gentleman, and most dishonorable in such an election, to make use of their voices, although in law they might have been allowed. Nor did the High Sheriff allow of the said votes, upon his numbering of the said Poll, but with the allowance and consent of the said two Knights themselves, discount them and cast them out” (Sir Simon d’Ewes’ Papers; Harl. MS., 158). Thus in a second illustrative case, personal opinion and prejudice were allowed to counteract law and privilege. And the law-abiding women yielded to what they were told was law, and, being kept in ignorance, they knew no better.
But in the very next year women showed that they took a strong interest in public affairs.
In vol. ii., p. 1673, Parliamentary History, is preserved the Petition to the Commons for Redress of Grievances, Feb. 4th, 1641. On the last day of sitting many women had been observed to crowd much about the door of the Commons, and Sergeant-Major Skippon applied to the House to know what to do with them, they telling him that where there was one now there would be 500 next day. The House bade him speak them fair.
Next day they presented their petition (printed by John Wright at King’s Head in Old Bailey).
“To the Honourable Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses of the House of Commons assembled in Parliament, the Humble Petition of the Gentlewomen, Tradesmen’s Wives, and many others of the Female Sex, all inhabitants of London and the Suburbs thereof, with the lowest submission showing, etc.”