The Sad Fate of a Mediæval Ale-wife.
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The ale-wife is then carried off into Hell’s mouth by the attendant demons, and the play closes.
The illustration is taken from a miserere seat in Ludlow Church. The scene is a very similar one to that just described. A demon is about to cast the deceitful ale-wife into Hell’s mouth. She carries her gay head attire and her false measure. Another demon reads the roll of her offences, and a third is playing on the pipes by way of accompaniment.
Elynour Rummynge, the celebrated ale-wife of Leatherhead in the reign of Henry VIII., has been handed down to fame by the pen of Skelton, the Poet Laureate of the day. It may be, as Mr. Dalloway, one of Skelton’s editors, suggests, that the poet made the acquaintance of Elynour while in attendance upon the Court at Nonsuch Palace, which was only eight miles from her abode. That the Laureate had a very intimate knowledge of this lady, may be gathered from his minute description of her unprepossessing person:—
Her lothely lere Is nothynge clere But ugly of chere,
Her face all bowsy, Comely crynkled Wondrously wrinkled, Lyke a rost pigges eare, Brystled wyth here,
Her nose somdele hoked, And camously croked, Her skynne lose and slacke, Grained like a sacke; With a croked backe.