“The gentry are sequestered all;
Our wives you find at Goldsmiths’ Hall,
For there they met with the devil and all.”[47]
In the first year of the Protectorate there was a petition presented to the Commons by tradesmen’s wives, praying for a redress of grievances. They assembled in great crowds before the doors of the House, and the commander of the guard, Serjeant-Major Skippon, aghast at the increasing numbers, asked the House what he was to do, for the women had told him—
“that where there was one now there would be five hundred the next day, and that it was as good for them to die here as at home.”
The major was told to use fair words and persuade them to go away, but down they came, as they had threatened, the next day, with a petition described as that of the—
“Gentlewomen, Tradesmen’s wives, and many others of the female sex, all inhabitants of the City of London and the Suburbs thereof.”
The phraseology of the petition, as well as the substance, shows the Puritan character of the petitioners.
The grievances which these tradesmen’s wives were so earnest to get removed had nothing to do with duties levied on merchandize, or any other of the hardships of which traders were wont to complain, such as the importation of foreign goods and the presence of foreign artisans and merchants. This petition was inspired by dread of the Papists, lest they should commit in England the “insolencies, savage usage, and unheard of rapes” which they had been committing upon women in Ireland.
“And have we not just cause to fear,” urged the petitioners, “that they will prove the forerunners of our ruin, except Almighty God, by the wisdom and care of this Parliament, be pleased to succour us, our husbands and children, which are as dear and tender to us as the lives and blood of our hearts; to see them murdered and mangled and cut in pieces before our eyes; to see our children dashed against the stones, and the mothers’ milk mingled with the infants’ blood, running down the streets; to see our houses on flaming fire over our heads.... Thousands of our friends have been compelled to fly from episcopal persecutions into desert places among wild beasts.”
After further denunciations of the Papists, the petitioners proceed—