Chapter XXX: Sixteenth Century Women Students 295 (11)

PS. A captious correspondent writing the following week was very scornful about my calling this a “delightful little roll” when there were other manuscripts, (which I had mentioned), about my publishing extracts from it, indeed, as it had already been printed. Some form of it had appeared in Dr. Thomas’s edition of Dugdale, p. 147. But the printing referred to had been sandwiched irrelevantly into an appendix to a little-known book, “Fordun’s Scotochronicon,” by Hearne, and he certainly had _not_ taken this little roll as his copy. His recension is indeed different in some details from Harl. MS. 6388, and also from Add. MS. 11364. Neither of these seem to have been known to my critic, who thought he made a point, that a third MS., called the City Annals, containing similar entries, is to be found among the muniments of Coventry from 1350 to 1566, the continuation from that year having been torn away and replaced in a later hand. This, however, Miss Dormer Harris had mentioned in a note in her “Life in an Old English Town.” But the objections were made only to lead up to the discussion of the arrest of the prince. He did not consider the story at Coventry trustworthy, and blamed me for suggesting even that it might have given the idea to Shakespeare. He considered Shakespeare’s story incorrect, and only invented by Sir Thomas Elyot. Such a fact must have attracted attention, and must have been mentioned in some of the records of the time. But a most exhaustive search had been made, without avail, therefore it must be supposed to have been taken from the story of Edward II, who when a prince was expelled from Court for half a year for insulting one of his father’s ministers, though he was not imprisoned for the offence, as the Rev. A. J. Church noted in his “Henry V.”

The critic was desirous of supporting the character of Prince Hal, and added that the day after he succeeded his father he caused to be summoned to his first Parliament “Sir William Gascoigne Knight, Chief Justice of our Lord the King, assigned to hold pleas before our Lord the King, before the King himself.” He had also a grant of four bucks and does annually for life, which shows that the King did reappoint him, and his intention was to keep him in office. It must have been, therefore, at his own request that his patent was not renewed. To this I replied, pointing out that Henry V summoned his first Parliament on 23rd March, and appointed a new Lord Chief Justice on the 29th, _the only one of the Judges replaced_.

Miss Dormer Harris joined in the discussion as to the truth of the record, and added that there were two Ardens, John and Geoffrey, mentioned in the Leet Book in 1461; that it noted in 1545 “Shakespere’s house in the new rent vacant the yeir 2/6” that a “Richard Shackspeare of Hinkly and Jane Erdsone of the cittie of Coventry widow were marryed before Mr. Matthew Smith Justis of peace the 20th of August 1656” (Holy Trinity Register).

Lastly, the citizens in Hornby’s year, Candlemas 1412 to Candlemas 1413, lent £100 to the Prince (Leet Book 61).

Sir James H. Ramsay wrote to say historical students were much indebted to me for having published the extracts, especially the one about the Prince, which shows that a Prince _could_ be arrested. The original disputant wrote again against my “little roll,” as compared to the “other rolls” (which are paper quartos), and then turned his attention to demolishing Sir James Ramsay’s remarks,

The small quarto, Harl. 6388, was bought in 1690 by Mr. Humfrey Wanley, with accounts of Coventry and its Mayors from 1348 till the Revolution. The Collector’s name seems to have been Miles Flint, who gives the following account of his authorities: “This book was taken out of Manuscripts. The one written by Mr. Christopher Owen Mayor of this Citty, which contains the charter of Walter de Coventre, concerning ye Comons &c. to Godfrey Leg, Mayor 1637. The other beginning at the 36 Mayor of this citty and continued by several hands, and lately by Edmund Palmer, late of this Citty Counsellor, till Mr. Yardly late Mayor 1689 1690; and another written by Mr. Bedford, and collected out of divers others and continued to Mr. Septimus Bott: and two others collected by Tho. Potter, and continued to Mr. Robert Beake, and another written by Mr. Francis Basnett, to the first year of Mr. Jelliff’s mayoralty and another written by Mr. Abraham Ashley and continued to Mr. Sep’ Bott; and another written by Mr. Abraham Boune and Humphrey Wightwick, 1607.” On the title-page is recorded:

“Humphrey Wanley (that is Oneley) bought this of Mr. Tipper, December 17th 1690, price 6_d._” The book notes that--

“Richard Stoke 1356, brought in the good strikes.” John Smith is called “Smither,” and the Parliament is called a “layman’s parliament.” When it reaches the special date, it reads, “William Hornebye 1411-12. He arrested the Prince in the Priory of Coventry. A quarter of wheat sold for twenty shillings,”

“William Dilcocke, 1412-13. In his year died King Henry.”

The later entries are not dated, and John Yardeley was the last mayor mentioned.

Add. MS. 11364, “presented by Mr. Joseph Gibbs,” contains:

“A brief History of Ye city of Coventry from Ye most early accounts of it,” which tells about Leofric and Godiva.[103]

It begins in 1348 the story of the mayors with John War. It gives:

1412. John Horneby. He arrested ye Prince in ye Priory of Coventry.

1512. Richard Horsfell Draper seven burned in little parke and one did penance for heresy, viz. for hearing ye Lords prayre &c. in English.

1597. John Whitehead and John Breers. (Here is much writing of scarcity and its causes--great differences from roll.)

1703. Jonah Crynds (the last mayor mentioned).

Miss Dormer Harris, in the year after my paper, brought out her “Story of Coventry and the Kingdom,” in which she discusses the arrest, from the point of view of the fact that the later recorded arrest of the Earl of Warwick can be proved to be an error, and an explicable one.

* * * * *

Mr. Fowler gave me an interesting note which may come in here, as it may have some bearing on the reality of Shakespeare’s Boar’s Head Inn. It is from Chancery Inquisitions, Post Mort., Vol. 151, No. 72. London, 1568-9.

Robert Harding held land in the city, including: “... one messuage, tenement, or tavern, called ‘Le Boares Heade,’ situated and lying in Eastcheap in the parish of St. Michael in Crooked Lane ... formerly in the tenure and occupation of John Broke and now of Edward Beltam. He it was held it of the Lady the Queen ‘in libero Burgagio ciuitatis London ... et valet per annum ... decem Libri.’”

FOOTNOTES:

[99] In Harl. MS. 6388: “The King Sent Process to the Sheriffes that they should choose no Burgesses nor Knights that had any Knowledge of the laws of the Realm by reason whereof it was called The Layman’s Parliament.”

[100] In the same MS., f. 15, there is a transcript of a similar text with notable differences: “John Hornby arrested the Prince in the Priory.” (Date a year earlier.) Also Add. MS. 11364.

[101] Referring to the popular risings which commenced at that date.

[102] I noted this name because Francis Collins of Warwick became Shakespeare’s lawyer, and town clerk of Stratford-upon-Avon after Thomas Green.

[103] The first note is of Canute’s time and St. Nicholas Church. The annals proper begin in 1348 with John Ward, Jordan Sheppy, Nicholas Michell, Richard Freeborne, “William Horne. 1352-3 a drie Summer, rained not from March till July, and there was a dearth.”

XXIX

THE STRATFORD POET

The Editor[104] has courteously allowed me to reply to his article, “The Great Stratford Superstition,” as I have studied all the works of Bacon and Shakespeare, most of the writings concerning the Baconian Heresy, and have answered the chief of them. The first recorded student of Shakespeare was a woman, Mrs. Ann Merrick, who, on 21st January 1638, wrote from the country to a friend in London, that she could not come to town that year, but must content herself “with the _study_ of Shakespeare and the History of Women” (State Papers, Dom. Ser., Charles I, 409 (167).) In these two interests, thus early and specially combined, I follow the lady’s lead.

One short magazine article cannot possibly deal with the subject exhaustively, therefore I only attempt to make a general protest against the Editor’s paper, and to illustrate a few of its weaknesses.

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law”; from which proverb it would seem that the arguments for Bacon’s authorship would require to be ten times as strong as Shakespeare’s, before they can have a reasonable chance of ousting the present possessor from his dramatic name and fame. On the contrary, there is no real _argument_ for putting Bacon out of the great sphere which he designed for himself, into one designed by his admirers, but utterly incongruous to his nature and powers. All his own contemporaries, all his immediate successors, and all their descendants for 250 years, attributed the plays to their author, Shakespeare. Guess-work began about the middle of the nineteenth century, and like a snowball rolling, gradually increased by external accretion, but not by vital energy. I do not deny that there are some apparent difficulties and some strange coincidences, or Baconianism, as a cult, could not have been possible. But these difficulties depend upon our temporary ignorance, these coincidences may be explained in a different way from that on which the Baconians insist.

Francis Bacon was a genius, and a well-trained one. He early saw the deficiencies of the science and philosophy of his day. His devotees to-day do not follow his prime advice for conducting investigations enunciated in his great “Novum Organum,” “to search after negatives” to any hypothesis they may start. On the contrary, they greedily accept everything, however unfounded, that tells in the favour of their new theory, and ignore whatever contradicts their points. No amount of repetition will make a hazy and unfounded tradition into a fact, and inferences from unsound premises give no worthy conclusion. I can only bring forward a few of my facts here, and still fewer of my inferences.

Echoing the cry of old, “Can any good come out of Nazareth?” the Baconians commence by crying, “Can any good come out of Stratford and Warwickshire?” and to give weight to the cry, strive to belittle the place.

It may be remembered that a fine German writer, Jean Paul Richter, insisted that a “poet should always have himself born in a small city.” There are many reasons that made the “small city” of Stratford eminently suitable for the birthplace of a poet. It was at the very heart of England, the centre of the converging influences of descent and of legend from British and Saxon and Danish ancestors. The great Roman roads crossed not far off, and Stratford, with her substantial bridge, was on the line of traffic. Stratford was a thriving town, “emporiolum non inelegans,” says Camden. Its gentle, undulating scenery lay just on the borders of a great forest,

Where nightingales in Arden sit and sing.

(Drayton.)

It had had an aristocratic semi-religious guild from ancient times, centre of the county families, an old college, now also passed away, and a noble church, still existing. Becon, a great scholar, in 1549 speaks of Warwickshire as the most intellectual of all the English counties, and Stratford, in Shakespeare’s time at least, had a town-council intelligent enough to know the value of a good schoolmaster, and to seek to secure him in the practical way by offering double the amount of salary enjoyed by the head-master of Eton and others. The books used in the grammar schools of the day can be found in the writings of Mulcaster and Brinsley, and by reference to the Stationers’ Registers. The status of the schoolmaster determined the character of the study and of the books. Those who say that Stratford was then a “bookless neighbourhood” speak without book. It is easy for a particular instance to destroy so universal an affirmative. There was, at least, one suit at law because a man had not returned a book he had borrowed; and from my own knowledge of their names, I can state that one curate alone had 170 books of the best selections in philosophy, divinity, history, literature, and legend. I know that Mr. Shakespeare bought at least one.

After decrying Stratford, the Baconians attempt to defame young Stratford Shakespeare. Fortunately, when he was young, his father was one of the most important men in the place, and as the grammar-school was free to all the sons of burgesses, it is more than reasonable to suppose that he had his full opportunities given him. Of course, he may have neglected them, which is an occasional way with a genius. There is _no_ authority for the statement that Shakespeare was apprenticed to a butcher. Even if he had been so, that circumstance would not have quenched a native genius that rebelled against it. Wolsey was the son of a butcher, so was Akenside. Keats was the son of a livery stable keeper. There _is_ authority for his early marriage, imprudent because his father was in pecuniary difficulties at the time, but just the kind of marriage one would have expected from his poetic, impulsive tendencies. His relations to life, property, and literature were more like those of Sir Walter Scott than any other man. When he found himself in difficulties, he bravely set himself to the task of attempting to retrieve the fallen fortunes of the family, and set off to London. The Baconians firmly believe that he had to fly to escape the consequences of his poaching affair, but has it never struck them how humorous it is to think that Bacon showed spite at Sir Thomas Lucy, for the whipping that Shakespeare received? Bacon in reality was a very good friend of the Lucy family. I exposed the whole falsity of this tradition two years ago in the “Fortnightly Review,” in an article entitled “Justice Shallow _not_ a Satire on Sir Thomas Lucy.”

When young Shakespeare went to London, there is proof that he renewed his acquaintanceship with his Stratford friend, Richard Field, the apprentice, son-in-law, and successor of Vautrollier, the great printer, who had two printing presses, and was allowed to keep six foreign journeymen. For some years, at least, it is evident that he took time to read Field’s books. Webster, his contemporary dramatist, calls him “_industrious_ Shakespeare.” I say it is evident, because with the exception of a few books referred to, such as Wilson’s “Art of Rhetoric,” “The Paradise of Dainty Devices,” “Seneca,” “Plautus,” “Holinshed’s History of England and Scotland,” and others, this one firm alone printed all the books that were _necessary_ for the poet’s culture, and all classics that he refers to directly.

The limitation in authorities is a strong argument against Bacon’s authorship, as well as the plentiful crop of unscholarly blunders to be found in the plays.

Besides Field’s library, another opportunity of education and culture was found for the poet in the romantic and faithful friendship of the young Earl of Southampton, a law-student and patron of literature. How can Baconians gravely assert that Bacon _could_ have written these two dedications of 1593 and 1594 to Shakespeare’s poems? How could he speak of the one poem as the “first heir of his invention,” when he already had written much and designed more? How could he say to Southampton in print, “What I have done is yours, what I have to do is yours,” while he was at that time a sworn follower of the Earl of Essex? Shakespeare had no position in society or literature sufficient to induce Bacon to use his name as a mantle, by the time that Shakespeare’s two poems were brought out by Shakespeare’s friend, Dick Field. The sonnets resemble the poems too much in phrases, feelings, and situations to doubt that the author is the same, and all the three are claimed by Shakespeare in print.

Now, can the Baconians explain how they can believe that Bacon, who at the age of thirty-one had already planned “The Greatest Birth of Time,” and, filled with the sublime self-conceit of conscious power, had written to Lord Burghley in that year that he “had taken all knowledge to be his province,” should have addressed the half-trained young lad, Southampton (among many other similar phrases), in the modest lines:

Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing,
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
Have added feathers to the learned’s wing,
And given grace a double majesty.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine and born of thee,
In other’s works thou dost but mend the style,
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be--
But thou art all my art, and dost advance
As high as learning my rude ignorance.

Bacon simply could not have written these lines, at least.

And it must be remembered that whoever was able to write the sonnets and the poems, might become able in time to write the fuller and richer plays.

There remain witnesses abundant that Shakespeare’s London career was a personal success. Greene’s envy, no less than Chettle’s praise, point to it, W. Covell, Thomas Edwards, the authors of the Parnassus Plays, John Weever, John Davies, and Thomas Thorpe; that he was a good actor, John Marston, the dramatist, affirms, by asking whether he or Burbage acted best; John Davies also couples their names together as players having

Wit, courage, good shape, good parts and all good.

and says of Shakespeare that he was a fit “companion for a king.”

Thou hast no rayling but a raygning witt,
And honesty thou sow’st which they do reape.

The praises of his “works” are emphasized by Professor Meres and many others; and the testimony of the love and appreciation of “his fellows” is unstinted. It must never be forgotten that perhaps the most undoubted praise was that which an admirer fixed upon his tombstone, a shelter to which surely Bacon cannot enter.

I must also protest against the assumption that Shakespeare “returned to Stratford to lead an illiterate life.” He returned there to live in the best house in the town, bearing arms (then a much greater distinction than now), as _all_ his friends and relatives did, to associate on intimate terms with the Combes, Collins, Walkers, Shaws, Nashes, and probably all the county families, as tradition says, especially that of William Somerville, of Edreston. He returned there, and continued to write his plays in the bosom of his family, with one son-in-law, the most distinguished physician of his time, the possessor of a good library, and his other prospective son-in-law, cultured up to the level, at least, of affixing a suggestive French proverb to his accounts, the year that he was Chamberlain.

_It is not a fact_ that he did not teach his favourite daughter to read and write. It is probably because she responded more rapidly to culture than her sister did that she became his favourite, as his will proves. She is recorded to have been “witty above her sex,” and like her father. Her signature can still be seen in Stratford.

I now come to a stock statement of the Baconians that might seem to a careless student founded on fact, that he spent his time as a maltster and moneylender. They never have taken the trouble to find out (as I have) the number of contemporary Warwickshire Shakespeares. There was a second John in Stratford-on-Avon, and a third in a neighbouring village. There were several of the name of William in the immediate neighbourhood, There was even one at Hatton, who had a daughter _Susanna_ in 1596; there was another who was a malt-dealer and a money-lender. His transactions commence during the poet’s life, but, alas for the Baconian argument, they _continue for ten years after the poet’s death_. The receipts can still be seen at Warwick Castle. Of course, “selling malt” or not, is quite irrelevant to the question in hand. There is only one point, however, that may be noted in connection with it. In all the plays there is no allusion to the processes of malt-making, beyond the one proverb, or to the technique of brewing or wine-making, as there is, for instance, of printing. Shakespeare only treats the finished article, as sold in the taverns, or drunk in the halls. He only notes philosophically the effect that stimulants have on the hearts, brains, and characters of men. This question never troubles Bacon, but he knows all about the manufacture, the keeping, storing, curing of ale, wine, mead, and metheglin.

A similar powerful contrast may be seen regarding the differing treatments of the horse and the chase. The poems and plays are full of reference to the delights of the chase and the sympathy subsisting between a rider and his noble steed. The whole works of Bacon supply only three prosy references to the existence of “the horse.”

The great stronghold of the Baconians is “The Promus.” But the notes there are not _proved_ to be original. Some of them can be shown to be borrowed echoes of what the writer heard and read. Bacon was a great borrower, as Shakespeare also undoubtedly was. Only a poet is not expected to acknowledge “sources” in his dramas; which a prose writer, in leisurely detail, is expected to do (Robert Burton in his “Anatomy of Melancholy” did so). Only last month I came across one of Chamberlain’s letters, which records a witty saying of the Duchess of Richmond. The writer adds, it might have got into Bacon’s Apophthegms, which he had just published, “not much to his credit.” Whole passages and facts are borrowed by Bacon without acknowledgement from the ancients, trusting to the general ignorance of his readers. The very cipher he claimed as his own was published by Jean Baptist Porta in 1568, and by Blaise de Vigenère in 1587.

I do not attempt to deal with the absurd notion that any real poet could weight the wings of his muse with a cipher. Dr. Nicholson of Leamington gave the _reductio ad absurdum_ to Mr. Donnelly’s, and other writers have let in light upon later attempts at cipher mysteries.

The author of “The great Stratford Superstition” says there are no improbabilities in supposing Bacon to have written the plays. What? Bacon write “Romeo and Juliet”? He did not know what love was! In his Essay on Love he calmly asserts that the stage had been more beholden to love than the life of man. In his life without love, the “marriages” he sought, and the one he secured, were all mercantile transactions. He did not deserve to be happy in matrimony. Bacon write the humours of the fat knight? Bacon was full of wisdom and abounded in wit, but of humour he was absolutely destitute.

Unfortunately, once only have we a story of Bacon crossing Shakespeare’s path, a crucial illustration of the impossibility of his having written one play at least. “The Comedy of Errors” was based on the Menoechmi of Plautus, a translation of which was registered in the books of the Stationers’ Company on 10th June 1594. Books at that time were nearly always handed about in MS. before printing, seeking patrons. Very probably this one was shown to the Earl of Southampton, or Shakespeare may have seen it in MS. It was more than six months after the registration of the Menoechmi that the “Comedy of Errors” appeared in peculiar circumstances, which I have treated fully elsewhere. It was acted as a new play by Shakespeare’s company, amid the uproars in Gray’s Inn Hall, 28th December 1594, when the Prince of Purpoole’s plans came to grief. The Benchers felt it an intolerable disgrace, and appointed Bacon to write a proper play to retrieve the lost honour of Gray’s Inn. He wrote them the “Masque of the Councillors,” which pleased his fellows, and the company that they had re-invited to make amends for the “Night of Errors.” This masque may yet be read, and is exactly the measure of the dramatic capability of Francis Bacon. It is quite a mistake to imagine that a good play would have discredited him. On the contrary, the having written the first English blank verse tragedy was, even at the time, considered the highest distinction of a more aristocratic man than Bacon, a diplomatist too, Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst.

Bacon’s allusion to himself as “a concealed poet” can be clearly understood by those who study his works. He would have called the “Utopia” of Sir Thomas More a concealed poem, as he did call his own “New Atlantis,” (See “De Augmentis Scientiarum,” Book II, Poesy, chap. 13.)

On the other hand, he distinctly states, “I profess not to be a poet, but I _prepared_ a sonnet directly tending to draw on her Majesty’s reconcilement to my Lord of Essex, _which I showed to a great person, who commended it_!” Spedding, Bacon’s most able editor and biographer, says of the poor versions of certain psalms put into English metre, “These were the _only_ verses certainly of Bacon’s making that have come down to us, and probably, with one or two slight exceptions, the only verses he ever wrote.”

With Bacon and with Spedding I agree, and with Shakespeare.[105]

_“Broad Views,” April 1904._

FOOTNOTES:

[104] Mr. Sinnet, the Editor of “Broad Views,” had in March 1904 written an article in that Review under the above title in support of Bacon’s authorship of Shakespeare’s Works, and had allowed me to reply the following month.

[105] I had published my volume called “The Bacon-Shakespere Question Answered” at a time when I was under the dominance of Dr. Furnivall in regard to the spelling of the name, 1889.

XXX

SIXTEENTH CENTURY WOMEN STUDENTS

Though we are all familiar with the lives of certain notable ladies who reached a high standard of learning during the sixteenth century, little or nothing is known concerning the general education of girls and women of that period. No Royal Reports enlighten us concerning their opportunities, and no private study has elicited and combined a definite series of details. It is therefore important to note and collate all that may be gleaned concerning this interesting subject.

There is reason to believe that in earlier times the schools that _were_ founded, were intended for “liberi”--not “pueri” alone--and that what education there was for the people was open to children of both sexes, as the trades were. I may illustrate what I mean by the statute enacted 7 Henry IV, c. 17.

“That no man or woman, of whatsoever estate or condition they be, shall put their son or their daughter to serve as an apprentice, except he or she have land or rent to the value of 20 shillings by the year, and no man or woman shall receive an apprentice contrary to this ordinance, provided ... always that every man or woman of what estate or condition that he be, shall be free to set their son or daughter to take learning at any manner school that pleaseth them within the Realm.” (Statutes of the Realm.)

But by a limitation of meaning, the word “children” lost its ambiguity of sex, and privileges became limited to boys which our ancestors intended for girls and boys. This took place all the more rapidly in the sixteenth century. Reforms and reformations have always a tendency to be to the disadvantage of women.

The intellectual developments of England during the sixteenth century were moulded by three main streams of influence--that of the Italian Renaissance, which partially passed to us through France; that of the German and Swiss Reformation; and that of the rapid improvements in the art of printing. Social and political changes stimulated the national intellect to high fervours, and the literary spirit predominated. How much women shared in the general advance of culture is too frequently only a matter of inference, just as we may learn that a sheep, which we have not seen, has passed through a hedge by a fleece of wool caught on the branches. That many women had learned to read we may infer from the religious history of the time. We hear of women as amid those who flocked to buy the testaments of Tyndale and the great Bibles of Rogers; of women who suffered as heretics during the first half, and as recusants during the second half, of the century, doomed by the discovery of their _books_. And we know, on the other side, that Dr. John Hall, of Maidstone, in his “Court of Virtue,” reproached the gayer maidens of the country with reading wicked songs and romances, when they should have been reading the Scriptures. When the decisions of the foreign universities against King Henry’s marriage “were publyshed, all wyse men in the realme moche abhorred that marriage; but women and such as wer more wylful than wyse or learneyd spake against the Determinacion and sayde that the Universities were corrupt, and enticed so to doo,”[106] an opinion that many wise men have held since. How _were_ they educated? Probably all mothers who knew taught their daughters, if only for the sake of acquiring medical and cookery receipts. Doubtless, all who were rich enough had tutors, and there is every reason to believe that any number of unrecorded Dame Schools flourished throughout the length and breadth of the land, where children of both sexes were taught the elements of reading from the Hornbook. (One lady who was admitted to the Guild of Boston in the early part of the century was described as a _schoolmistress_.) I have been fortunate enough to find corroboration of my opinion in the pages of a notable book on the education of boys, by Richard Mulcaster, First Master of the Merchant Taylors’ School, 1581. He says: “Seeing that I begin so low as the first elementary, wherein we see that young maidens be also _ordinarily trained_,” etc. That seems to imply primary education for many, if not for the mass of the people.

A still thicker veil hides us from the true state of their secondary education. The destruction of the convents involved the destruction of many opportunities of feminine culture. Fuller says of them: “They were the schools where the girls and maids of the neighbourhood were taught to read and work, and sometimes a little Latin was taught them, music, and Church History.”

Among the numerous schools founded or refounded in the century, the Collegiate schools seem always to have been reserved for boys, but we have no means of knowing whether the schools founded by private laymen for _children_ were not originally intended for both sexes in England, as they always were in Scotland, at the Reformation. We know that Christ Church Hospital was so, and it is quite probable that many others have since drifted into the one-sided channel of masculine privilege. Stow includes in his list of “charitable men” the names of many women. The number of grants to schools and colleges is remarkable, and suggests sympathy with education, that might have extended to that of girls. He concludes: “Thus much for the worthiness of citizens, both men and women, in this citie.” I have not yet met an instance of a private foundation of a school expressly for girls, or even of one in which they were _stated_ to have been included, until the next century. Then Lucy, daughter of Sir Henry Goodyere, niece of Drayton’s Warwickshire “Idea,” prevailed on her husband, Sir Francis Nethersole of Kent, to found a school in her native town of Polesworth, with “a liberal maintenance of a schoolmaster and schoolmistress, to teach the _children_ of the parish, the boys to read and write English, the girls to read and to work with the needle.” Whether the founders were following an old custom, or whether they found that unprotected foundations were apt to lapse, their intention was preserved by cutting in stone over the doorways, associated with their coats of arms, the words “puerorum, puellarum” (Dugdale’s “Warwickshire” under “Polesworth”).

Whatever may be proved of foundations, I have always been convinced of the existence of voluntary secondary schools (_see_ “L.L.L.,” iv, 2), and here again Richard Mulcaster supports my opinion. As master of a boys’ school, and professing only to write for them, he might well have passed over girls, but he did not. He devotes a whole chapter to the subject of their education. Seeing that some still doubted the wisdom of teaching them _further than the elementary_, he gives, as four good reasons for doing so:

First. Because it is the _custom of my country_.

Second. Because it is a duty which we owe to them, wherein we are charged in conscience not to leave them lame in that which is for them.

Third. Because of their own towardness, which God would never have given them had He meant them to remain idle.

Fourth. Because of the excellent effects in that sex when they have had the help of good bringing up.

Their natural towardness ought to be cultivated because we have it by commandment of the Lord, to train up, not only our own sex, but our females, and He makes an account of natural talents.

In expanding these heads, he adds suggestions that in modern terminology at least would imply that there were special opportunities for girls; for he says: “The custom of my countrie hath made the maiden’s training her approved travail,” though elsewhere he states that “there is no _public_ provision, but such as the professors of their training do make of themselves.” He would not have them go to the public grammar schools or the universities, but advises all parents to educate them according to their powers. He regrets that girls _in general_ only study until about the age of thirteen or fourteen, “wherein the matter which they must deal withal, cannot be very much in so little time, for the perfitting thereof requireth much travail!” “Some _Timon_ will say, What should women do with learning? Such a churlish carper will never pick out the best!” “Is it nothing to us to have our children’s mothers well furnished in mind, and well strengthened in body?” Mulcaster would give them the pencil to draw, the pen to write; teach them some logic, rhetoric, philosophy to furnish their general discourses, and the knowledge of some tongues, as well as housewifery. He says that the selection of studies depended upon whether a girl was intended to marry or to earn her bread. As the trades-guilds were then open to them, education would be of value to those prepared to enter any of these, or to become teachers, or practitioners in some branches of medicine, such as barber-surgeons, midwives, etc. Mulcaster, besides giving theories, states facts:

We see young maidens taught to read and write, and can do both with praise. We heare them sing and playe, and both passing well; we knowe that they learne the best and finest of our learned languages to the admiration of all men.... Whoso shall denie that they may not compare even with our kind in the best degree.... Do we not see some of that sex in our countrie so excellently well trained as to be compared to the best Romaines or Greekish paragonnes--

to the German, the French, or the Italians?

If no storie did tell it, if no state did allow it, if no example did confirme it, that young maidens deserve trayning, this our own myrrour, the majestie of her sex, doth prove it in her own person, and commendes it to our reason. We have besides her Highness as undershining starres, many singuler ladies and gentlewymen so skilful in all cunning of the most laudable and loveworthy qualities of learning, as they may well be alledged as presidents to prayse.

As they are “educated according to the wealth of their parents, the greater born have better means of prosecuting it best.”

I quote so much, as this is the sole special authority I have for their _secondary education_. We know of their higher culture from Spenser, Harrison, and others. It is evident that private tutors were the teachers of at least the higher education to women, and after the suppression of the monasteries the number of these “poor scholars” would be greatly increased for a time. But the profession of governess had already been established.

In Dr. Dee’s Diary he notes, 1st September 1587:

I covenanted with John Basset to teach the children the Latin tongue, and I to give him seven duckats by the quarter.

September 1st, 1596, Mary Goodwyn cam to my service to governe and teach Madinia and Margaret my young daughters.

I have not been able to learn anything of voluntary schools in general, but there is reference to one in the description of the education of one girl of the wealthy upper middle classes of London, daughter of one great merchant, and wife of another. Though her fame shows that her successes were not quite commonplace, it also suggests that she had numerous competitors and rivals. Elizabeth Withypoll[107] is included by Ballard among his “learned ladies”; and Stow notes her distinction, as may be seen on her tombstone in the south aisle of the parish church of St. Michael in Crooked Lane. Many such may have passed into oblivion; this has been handed on to us.

Every Christian heart seeketh to extoll
The glory of the Lord, our only Redeemer;
Wherefore Dame Fame must needs inroll
Paul Withypoll his childe, by Love and nature
Elizabeth, the wife of Emanuel Lucar
In whom was declared the goodness of the Lord,
With many high vertues which truely I will record.

She wrought all needleworks that women exercise,
With Pen, Frame, or Stoole, all pictures artificial,
Curious Knots, or Trailes which Fancy could devise,
Beasts, birds or Flowers, even as things natural.
Three maner handes could she write them faire all.
To speake of Algorism, or accounts in every fashion,
Of women, few like (I think) in all this nation.

Dame Cunning her gave a gift right excellent,
In goodly practice of her science musical,
In divers tongues to sing and play with Instrument
Both Vial and Lute and also Virginall;
Not only upon one, but excellent in all.
For all other vertues belonging to Nature
God her appointed a very perfect creature.

Latine and Spanish, and also Italian
She spake, writ and read, with perfect utterance
And for the English, she the _garland_ won
In Dame Prudence Schoole, by graces purveyance
Which cloathed her with vertues, from naked Ignorance
Reading the Scriptures, to judge light from darke
Directing her faith to Christ, the only marke.

The said Elizabeth deceased the 29th day of October, An. Dom. 1537, of yeeres not fully 27. This stone and all hereon contained made at the cost of the said Emanuel, Merchant Taylor.

It is interesting to know that there _was_ at least _one_ school for upper class girls in England, where English was taught, and where Elizabeth won the prize, interesting also that she used her English to read the Scriptures at that date. There is almost a hint that her husband taught her accounts, and it is possible she helped him with his business affairs. Doubtless Elizabeth, however, learned her accomplishments from tutors and masters, and there she becomes a link with the upper ten thousand, educated in the same way to a high standard in learning and accomplishments, such as we see suggested in “The Taming of the Shrew.”

Petrucio Ubaldini, a Florentine who came to England in 1551, says:

The rich cause their sons and daughters to learn Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, for since this storm of heresy has invaded the land they hold it useful to read the Scriptures in the original tongue.

Erasmus, in his Epistles, says:

31. The scene of human things is changed: the monks, famed in past times for learning, are become ignorant, and women love books. It is beautiful that this sex should now betake itself to ancient examples.

Udall, the Master of Eton, speaks with admiration of their advance in learning:

The great number of noble women not only given to the study of human sciences and strange tongues, but also so thoroughly expert in Holy Scriptures that they were able to compare with the best writers, as well in enditing and penning of godly and fruitful treatises to the instruction and edifying of readers in the knowledge of God, as also in translating good books out of Latin or Greek into English, for the use and commodity of such as are rude and ignorant of the said tongues. It is now no news in England to see young damsels in noble houses, and in the Courts of princes, instead of cards and other instruments of idle trifling, to have continually in their hands either psalms, homilies, or other devout meditations, or else Paul’s Epistles or some book of Holy Scripture matters, and as familiarly both to read and reason thereof in Greek, Latin, French, or Italian, as in English.

Dr. Wotton, in his “Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning,” says that “learning was so very modish then, that the fair sex seemed to believe that Greek and Latin added to their charms. Plato and Aristotle untranslated were the frequent ornaments of their closets. One would think by its effects that it was a proper way of educating them, since there are no accounts in history of so many great women in any one age as are to be found between the years fifteen and sixteen hundred.”

Amid all the discussions over the causes of the great outburst of literature in the sixteenth century I have never noted any one allude to the fact that the cultivation of the _mothers_ paved the way for the higher development of the sons. Sir Thomas Elyot, who wrote “The Defence of Good Women” (1545), also advised his sister, Margery Puttenham, on the bringing up of her children, Margery, Richard, and George who wrote “The Art of English Poesie.”

Lyly dedicated his “Euphues” to the ladies and gentlewomen of England, a work which more than any other one volume refined the old and moulded the later English speech; Shakespeare wrote of, and to, cultivated women; numerous ladies were patronesses of struggling authors, and nearly every poet of the time has his dedication to, if not his adoration of, some peerless woman. The very delicacy and power of the poems on the passion of love bear witness to the culture of the women as well as that of the men: for example, the “Amoretti” of Spenser.

Two causes, besides the inspiration of the reforming spirit of the age, may be considered in regard to the advance of Englishwomen. The first was the association of the sexes in so many spheres. Foreign ambassadors note of the women that they go everywhere with their husbands, even to outdoor sports, such as hunting and hawking. In the semi-religious guilds established for good fellowship and a community of good works through life, and common prayers for each other at death, the initial and nobler forerunner of the modern _Club_, women joined freely in equal numbers and with privileges equal to men, the same standard of morality being demanded from each.

Most of the trade guilds were open to women by inheritance or by apprenticeship, and all were open to the widows of freemen. Women went to all the guild dinners with their male relatives; they went to the secret Bible readings, to the public sermons, and when the time came, to the theatres.

The other cause lay in the fact that the higher education of women was distinctly _fashionable_. I do not think that the reason it became so has ever been sufficiently realized.

Our natural detestation of Spanish religious intolerance and our political rivalry with Spain have blinded our eyes to much that we owed to that country. The widening of our geographical horizon seemed to stimulate and suggest new poetic ideas. There is no doubt that the English Sebastian Cabot did much for his country, but a greater halo of romance and wonder floated over the sails of Columbus that bore him to the golden islands of the Spanish Main. But women, as a sex, owed something more to Spain than the dreams of El Dorado, for thence came, early in the century, the noble but unfortunate Queen Katharine of Aragon. It was her intelligent culture that first made the higher education of women _fashionable_ in the best sense of the word. She was the youngest of the four distinguished daughters of the “Ferdinand and Isabella to whom Columbus gave a new world.” Isabella was the most learned woman of her time, and she had taken special care of the education of her daughters.

When Katharine came to England as the affianced bride of Prince Arthur, the greatest lady in the land was the King’s mother, Margaret, the Countess of Richmond and Derby. She was a woman of wonderful abilities, with a tenacious memory and a piercing wit. She spoke French fluently, and had some acquaintance with Latin, but she always regretted that in her youth she had not made herself mistress of that language. She was very pious. About the beginning of the sixteenth century she translated out of French a Latin book called “The Mirroure of Gold for the Sinful Soul,” and “The Fourth Book of Dr. John Gerson’s Treatise of the Imitation and Following the Life of Christ.” She also commanded other translations, was a patroness of learned men, founded lectureships, schools, colleges, almshouses, and decided and wrote down the orders for state etiquette and the management of the Royal household.

But the culture of Katharine was more varied and liberal, and during the period of her supremacy she did much to mould the tastes of the Court. Everything that was best in Henry responded to her influence; it was only when he turned from her that his character began to change for the worse. Learned men sought her Court and her favour. Erasmus dedicated to her his book on “Christian Matrimony,” Ludovico Vives his work on “Education.”

The first sixteenth-century woman student of whose training we have any clear information was her sole surviving daughter, Mary Tudor, born 18 February 1515-16. The third day after, she was christened, confirmed, and proclaimed Princess. Not only had she a nurse selected in Catharine, wife of Leonard Pole, Esq., but a “Lady Maistress,” or governess, in Lady Margaret Bryan, a lady of great good sense and ability. The Countess of Salisbury was made State governess and head of her household.

Dr. Linacre, the learned physician, who had formerly been one of Prince Arthur’s tutors, was appointed her physician and her instructor in Latin. He wrote a Latin grammar for the child’s use, which seems crabbed enough to modern minds of riper years, and dedicated it to her with a complimentary preface, in which he speaks with praise of her docility and love of learning. This is all the more remarkable when we remember that Linacre died when she was eight years old. Lilly, who brought out later editions of this grammar, added his praises to those of Linacre. To Queen Katharine we may be said to owe the first treatise on the “Theory of Education for Women.”

Ludovico Vives, born 1492 in Valentia, who was accounted one of the three most learned men in Europe, was one of her correspondents. Knowing her desire to educate her daughter wisely, he published a treatise on the “Education of a Christian Woman” (1523), and dedicated it to her as the most learned woman of her age. (This was translated into English, and published in 1541, thus becoming the guide to many sixteenth-century mothers.) Queen Katharine asked him to draw up a special further course of study for her daughter, which he did. His works are even yet well worthy of study.

He considers the intellects of women inferior to those of men, but he would not on that account refuse them instruction, which they needed the more to develop their character. He said that a learned woman rarely or never failed in virtue. He did not fix the age at which they should commence to learn, but remarked that they should learn sewing and knitting at the same time as reading. He is not particular whether they begin their serious study in their sixth or seventh year, but of the seriousness of the study there is no doubt--in science, philosophy, and languages. He knows hard work is not agreeable to all women, any more than it is to all men. He does not speak of Art: there was no Art-culture in his day beyond illuminations and embroidery; but, strange to say, he does consider _hygiene_, air, exercise, the amount of sleep necessary, the due _hardness_ of the bed. He has a chapter on decoration, and says hard things of the face-painting of the period. “How can a woman weep for her sins, when her tears would stain her face?” She should not over-dress. (He blamed the painters who represented the Virgin Mary with robes of silk and ornaments.) She should have no affectation, she should be modest in society, but when she does talk she should be able to talk well. Her parents should choose her husband; affection will come after marriage. But he disapproved of precocious marriages, and thought seventeen or eighteen years the lowest age possible. There ought to be no rejoicings at a marriage, because the results are very uncertain. He gives advice regarding servants, showing that the domestic troubles of to-day existed even then. A woman should know a little medicine, so as not to call in the doctor and apothecary continually. Even a girl should set aside an hour daily for meditation and prayer. She should read the Gospels and the Fathers; for recreation, moral stories, such as stories from the Bible, from Papyrius in Aulus Gellius, of Lucretia in Livy, and of the patient Griselda, but _no romances_.

The “Index Expurgatorius” that he gives is interesting to the bibliographer:

The laws ought to take heed of such ungratious books, such as be in my countrey of Spain, “Amadis,” “Florisande,” “Tirante,” “Tristram and Celestina,” “Le Prison d’Amour.” In France “Lancelot du Lac,” “Paris and Vienna,” “Pontus and Sidonia,” “Pierre de Provence,” and “Melusyne.” In Flanders “Flory and White Flower,” “Leonella and Canamour,” “Curias and Floreta,” “Pyramus and Thisbe.” In England “Parthenope,” “Genarides,” “Hippomadon,” Wylliam and Meliour, Livius, Arthur, Guye, Bevis and many other, and many translated out of Latin; the “Facetiæ Poggii,” “Euryalus and Lucretia,” and the “Hundred Tales of Boccaccio,” in Italy:

Of maids some be but little mete for lernyng lykewise as some men be unapte, agayne, some be even borne unto it, or at least not unfit for it. Therefore they that be dulle are not to be discouraged, and those that be apt should be harted and encouraged. She that hath learned in books hath furnished and fenced her mind with holy counsels.

He gives among examples of women good and learned: Portia, the wife of Brutus; Cleobula, daughter of Cleobulas; and the daughter of Pythagoras, who, after his death, became the ruler of his school.

Ludovico Vives was invited in 1523 to come to lecture at Oxford and to superintend the education of Princess Mary. This he did.

She went to live at Oxford to be near him, and therefore was the first woman student in that university town. His lessons to the Princess were so interesting that the King and Queen often came to Oxford to listen.

He says a girl ought to be taught to pronounce clearly, and every day commit something to memory and read over before retiring to rest. He allows the use of a Latin dictionary, recommends translation from English into Latin, and conversations in Latin with her preceptor. He advises the learning by heart of the “Distiches” of Cato, the “Sentences” of Publius Syrus, and the “Seven Sages of Greece,” lately collected and published by Erasmus. The course of reading drawn up included Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch; some dialogues of Plato, particularly those of a political turn; Jerome’s “Epistle”; part of St. Ambrose and St. Augustine; the “Enchiridion,” “Institutio Principis”; the “Paraphrases” of Erasmus; and the “Utopia” of Sir Thomas More; a portion of the New Testament to be read morning and evening, and of the Christian poets, Prudentius Sydonius, Paulinus, Arator, Prosper, and Juvencus, as well as Lucan, Seneca, and a part of Horace. Before selections such as these even a modern candidate for classical honours might feel nervous.

Poor little Princess! With these grave studies and serious maxims were her natural high spirits toned down to meet her melancholy fate. She proved an “apt” student and prospered in her work, being encouraged and guided by her loving mother, who delighted in revising her Latin exercises and criticizing her style. Many learned men watched her progress with interest. Lord Morley, one of the literary nobles of the day, dedicated a book to her at the time of her fallen fortunes, when men were little likely to overestimate her powers, in which he says: