“The remembrance of all these fearful accidents do strongly move us, from the example of the Women of Tekoah, to fall submissively at the feet of his Majesty our dread Sovereign, and cry, ‘Help, O King! Help ye the noble worthies now sitting in Parliament.’”
It seems unnecessary to apologize for presenting such a memorial, but the petitioners thought otherwise, and gave as one of their reasons that “women are sharers in the calamities that accompany both Church and Commonwealth.”
The petition was presented by Mrs. Anne Stagg, a brewer’s wife, in company with others of similar rank.
Pym was chosen as spokesman by the Commons, and, going to the door of the House, addressed the petitioners—
“Good women, your Petition with the reasons hath been read in the House and is thankfully accepted of, and is come in a seasonable time. You will, God willing, receive from us all the satisfaction which we can possibly give to your just and lawful desires. We intreat you, therefore, to repair to your houses and turn your petition which you have delivered here into prayers at home for us, for we have been and are and shall be, to our utmost power, ready to relieve you, your husbands and children, and to perform the trust committed unto us, towards God, our king and country, as becometh faithful Christian and loyal subjects.”
Although there was no longer a king upon the throne, Pym speaks as if he still had a sovereign to whom he owed obedience.
A few years later, in October, 1651, the women are petitioning the government again, but with a very different object. It is a memorial to Cromwell against imprisonment for debt, a grievance not to be remedied for many a year. The petition sets forth—
“That the Norman yoke of bondage and oppression is still continued upon this nation by the impious, oppressive, delatory, and most chargeable practice of the law, and destructive imprisonment of men and women for debt in the several prisons, goals, counters, holes, and dungeons of cruelty in this land.”
The petitioners complain that the Act for the relief of poor debtors is no benefit, and—