Not only the office of sheriff, but even justice of peace, has been in the hands of the fair sex. Among the Harleian manuscripts is a very remarkable note, taken from Mr. Attorney-general Noy’s readings in Lincoln’s-inn, in 1632, in which, upon the point whether the office of a justice of a forest might be executed by a woman, it was said, that Margaret, countess of Richmond, mother to Henry VII., was a justice of peace; that the lady Bartlet was made a justice of peace by queen Mary in Gloucestershire; and that in Sussex, one Rouse, a woman, did usually sit upon the bench at assizes and sessions among the other justices, gladio-cincta, girded with a sword. It is equally certain, that Anne, countess of Pembroke, exercised the office of hereditary sheriff of Westmoreland, and at the assizes of Appleby sat with the judges on the bench, which puts this point beyond a question.
Sam Sam’s Son
WOMEN.
It is the opinion of Mr. J. P. Andrews, that antiquarians are by no means apt to pay great attention to the fair sex. He says,
“Their Venus must be old, and want a nose.”
He instances, as among those who have “set themselves most warmly” against females, old Antony à Wood, whose diary affords some specimens of grotesque dislike.
Page 167. “He” (sir Thomas Clayton) “and his family, most of them womankind, (which before were looked upon, if resident in the college, a scandal and abomination thereunto,) being no sooner settled,” &c. than “the warden’s garden must be altered, new trees planted, &c. All which, though unnecessary, yet the poor college must pay for them, and all this to please a woman!”
P. 168. “Frivolous expenses to pleasure his proud lady.”
P. 173. “Yet the warden, by the motion of his lady, did put the college to unnecessary charges and very frivolous expenses. Among which were a very large looking-glass, for her to see her ugly face and body to the middle, and perhaps lower.”