The historian, biographer, poet, playwright, and story-teller have all related details of the career of Jane Shore. A sad tale it is, but one which has always been popular both with gentle and simple. It is not necessary to relate here at length the story of her life. She was born in London, was a woman of considerable personal charms, and could do what few ladies of her time were able to accomplish—namely, read well and write. When some sixteen or seventeen years of age, she married William Shore, a goldsmith and banker, of Lombard Street. She lived with her husband seven years, but about 1470, left him to become one of the mistresses of Edward IV. Her beauty, wit, and pleasant behaviour rendered her popular at Court. The King died in 1483, and within two months she was charged by Richard III. with sorcery and witchcraft, but the charges could not be sustained. Her property, equal to about £20,000 at the present time, was taken from her by the King. He afterwards caused her to be brought before the Ecclesiastical Court and[231] tried for incontinence, and for the crime she had to do penance in the streets of London. Perhaps we cannot do better than quote Rowe's drama to relate this part of her story:

Submissive, sad, and lonely was her look;
A burning taper in her hand she bore;
And on her shoulders, carelessly confused,
With loose neglect her lovely tresses hung;
Upon her cheek a faintish flush was spread;
Feeble she seemed, and sorely smit with pain;
While, barefoot as she trod the flinty pavement,
Her footsteps all along were marked with blood.
Yet silent still she passed, and unrepining;
Her streaming eyes bent ever on the earth,
Except when, in some bitter pang of sorrow,
To heaven, she seemed, in fervent zeal to raise,
And beg that mercy man denied her here.

We need not go into details respecting her life from this time, but briefly state that it is a popular error to suppose that she was starved in a ditch, and that the circumstance gave rise to the name of a part of London known as Shoreditch. The black-letter ballad in the Pepys collection, which makes Jane Shore die of hunger after doing penance, and a man suffer death on the gallows for giving her bread, is without foundation. She died about 1533 or 1534, when she was upwards of eighty years of age. It is asserted that[232] she strewed flowers at the funeral of Henry VII.

A curious act of penance was performed in Hull, in the year 1534, by the Vicar of North Cave. He appears to have made a study of the works of the Reformers who had settled in Antwerp, and sent over their books to England. In a sermon preached in the Holy Trinity Church, Hull, he advocated their teaching, and for this he was tried for heresy and convicted. He recanted, and, as an act of penance, one Sunday walked round the church barefooted, with only his shirt on, and carrying a large faggot in his hand to represent the punishment he deserved. On the next market-day, in a similar manner, he walked round the market-place of the town.

In the year 1602, a man named Cuthbert Pearson Foster, residing in the parish of St. Nicholas, Durham, was brought before the Ecclesiastical Court, charged with "playing at nine-holes upon the Sabbath day in time of divine service," and was condemned to stand once in the parish church during service, clad in a white sheet. In the following year, the four churchwardens—Rowland Swinburn, William Harp, Richard Surtees, and Cuthbert Dixon, men esteemed in Durham, and holding good positions—were[233] found guilty and admonished for a serious breach of duty, "for not searching who was absent from the church on the Sabbath and festive days, for it is credibly reported that drinking, banqueting, and playing at cards, and other lawless games, are used in their parish in alehouses, and they never made search thereof."

Of persons in the humble ranks of life who have performed public penance in white sheets in churches, for unchastity, there are numerous entries in parish registers. For immorality, prior to marriage, man and wife were sometimes obliged to do penance. The Rev. Dr. J. Charles Cox found particulars of a case of this kind recorded in the Wooley MSS., in the British Museum, where a married couple, in the reign of James I., performed penance in Wirksworth Church.

In parish registers are records like the following, drawn from the Roxby (Lincolnshire) parish register: "Memorandum.—Michael Kirby and Dixon, Wid. had 2 Bastard Children, one in 1725, ye other in 1727, for which they did publick pennance in our P'ish Church." "Michael Kirby and Anne Dixon, both together did[234] publick penance in our Parish Churche, Feb. ye 25th, 1727, for adultery."

A memorandum in the parish register of North Aston, Oxfordshire, states: "That Mr. Cooper sent in a form of penance by Mr. Wakefield, of Deddington, that Catherine King should do penance in ye parish church of North Aston, ye sixth day of March, 1740, and accordingly she did. Witness, Will Vaughan, Charles May, John Baillis, Churchwardens." We learn from the same records that another person, who had become a mother before she was made a wife, left the parish to avoid doing public penance.

In the old churchwardens' accounts of Wakefield, are several items bearing on this subject, and amongst the number are the following:

£s.d.
1679.—To Jos. Green for black bess penanc sheet000506
1709.—Allowed the Parish Churchwardens for goeing to Leedswith ye man and woman to doe penance050
1725.—June 13. Paid Jno. Briggs for the Lent of 3 sheetsfor 3 persons to do pennance00016
1731.—Nov. 6. Paid for the loan of two white Sheets6
1732.—Oct. 8. Pd. for the loan of 7 sheets for penances19
1735.—Nov. 1. Pd. for a sheet that —— had to do penancein10
[235]1736.—Sep. 27. Pd. for two sheets ye women did penans in8
1736.—Oct. 10. Pd. for a sheet for Stringer to do penancein4
1737.—June 23. Pd. for a sheet for Eliza Redhead penance4
1750.—Dec. 26. To Priestly for a sheet & attending awoman's penance50