London in the Time of the Tudors

by Walter Besant

John Clinch, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. 1584.

Sir Edward Coke, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. 1613.

From Planché’s Cyclopædia of Costume.

Marriages took place at an earlier age than is now common, both for men and for women. An unmarried girl of twenty was regarded as an old maid. Thus in the Crowne Garland of Golden Roses the maiden laments her virginity:—

“Twenty winters have I seen,

And as many summers greene,

’Tis long enough to breed despaire

So long a maidenhead to beare;

’Tis a burden of such waight