[290] Symonds, Emily Morse: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Her Times, p. 201.
[291] Ibid., p. 169.
[292] Letters and Works, vol. II, p. 41. The debate referred to was on the conduct of the Spanish government, and took place on Thursday, March 1, 1739. Mrs. Pendarves, afterwards Mrs. Delany, gives the following slightly different account of the matter: "Lady Westmoreland ... and the Duchess of Queensberry, Mrs. Fortescue and myself, set forward for Westminster, and got up to the gallery door without any difficulty. There were thirteen ladies more that came with the same intention. To tell you all the particulars of our provocations, the insults of the doorkeepers and our unshaken intrepidity, would flourish out more paper than a single frank would contain; but we bore the buffets of a stinking crowd from half an hour after ten till five in the afternoon without moving an inch from our places, only see-sawing about as the motion of the multitude forced us. At last, our committee resolved to adjourn to the coffeehouse of the Court of Request, where debates began how we were to proceed? It was agreed amongst us to address Sir Charles Dalton (gentleman usher of the Black Rod) for admittance. The address was presented, and an answer returned that whilst one lady remained in the passage to the gallery, the door should not be opened for the members of the House of Commons, so we generously gave them the liberty of taking their places. As soon as the door was opened, they all rushed in, and we followed."
It is of interest to compare the events of this attack on the House of Lords with two similar attempts to affect legislative action in the seventeenth century. In 1643, when some peace propositions had been under consideration in the House of Commons, but had been finally abandoned, the women of London, with white silk ribbons in their hats, went in great numbers to the House bearing a peace petition. The House sent out a deputation of three or four members to meet them, mollify them, and induce them to return home. Rushworth recounts the further progress of the affair:
"But the women, not satisfied, remain'd thereabouts, and by noon were encreased to five thousand at the least; and some men of the rabble in women's cloaths mixt themselves amongst them and instigated them to go to the Commons door and cry 'Peace, Peace,' which they did accordingly, thrusting to the door of the House at the upper stairs head; and as soon as they were pass'd a part of the Trained Band (that usually stood sentinal there) thrust the soldiers down and would suffer none to come in or go out of the House for near two hours. The Trained Band advised them to come down, and first pulled them; and, afterwards to fright them shot powder. But they cry'd out 'Nothing but powder,' and having brickbats in the yard threw them apace at the Trained Band, who then shot bullets, and killed a ballad-singer with one arm that was heartening on the women, and another poor man that came accidentally. Yet the women not daunted, cry'd out the louder at the door of the House of Commons, 'Give us these traitors that are against peace that we may tear them to pieces, give us that dog Pym.'"
This "Female Riot" had a disastrous end. When Waller's troopers went by with his colors in their hats, the women snatched some of the ribbons, calling the men Waller's dogs. The troopers defended themselves, at first with swords "flatways," but later cutting so furiously over hands and faces that most of the women fled. The few who remained were later dispersed by a troop of horses.
[293] On her return she brought nineteen volumes of this journal which she entrusted to her daughter. Lady Bute kept them under lock and key, occasionally reading passages from them, and once allowing her daughter, Lady Louisa, to read the first portions. Before Lady Bute's death the manuscript was solemnly burned as a sacred duty to her mother's memory.
[294] Montagu, Lady Mary: Works, vol. II, p. 211 n.
[295] Montagu, Lady Mary: Works, vol. II, p. 314.
[296] Ibid., vol. I, p. cxxvii.