“Sir, for Jak nor for Gille
Wille I turne my face,
Tille I have on this hille
Spun a space.”
It lingered on till the close of James’s reign. In 1619 we find in “Satyricall Epigrams”—
“Wille squabbled in a tavern very sore,
Because one brought a gill of wine—no more:
‘Fill me a quart,’ quoth he, ‘I’m called Will;
The proverb is, each Jacke shall have his Gill.’”
But Jill had become a term for a common street jade, like Parnel and Nan. All these disappeared at this period, and must have sunk into disuse, Bible or no Bible. A nanny-house, or simple “nanny,” was well known to the loose and dissolute of either sex at the close of the sixteenth century. Hence, in the ballad “The Two Angrie Women of Abington,” Nan Lawson is a wanton; while, in “Slippery Will,” the hero’s inclination for Nan is anything but complimentary:
“Long have I lived a bachelor’s life,
And had no mind to marry;
But now I faine would have a wife,
Either Doll, Kate, Sis, or Mary.
These four did love me very well,
I had my choice of Mary;
But one did all the rest excell,
And that was pretty Nanny.
“Sweet Nan did love me deare indeed,” etc.
Respectable people, still liking the name, changed it to Nancy, and in that form it still lives.
Parnel, the once favourite Petronilla, fell under the same blight as Peter, and shared his fate; but her character also ruined her. In the registers of St. Peter, Cornhill, we find the following entries:—
“1539, May 20. Christened Petronilla, ignoti cognominis.”
“1594, Sep. 15. Christening of Parnell Griphin, d. of John Griphin, felt-maker.”
“1586, April 17. Christening of Parnell Averell, d. of William Averell, merchant tailor.”