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Marketing women: representations of working women in early modern London

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MARKETING WOMEN:
REPRESENTATIONS OF WORKING WOMEN IN EARLY MODERN LONDON

by

Kimberlee Diane Keeline

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(ENGLISH)

August 2008

Copyright 2008 Kimberlee Diane Keeline

ii

Dedication

This dissertation is dedicated to my husband, James, without whose support,
both financially and emotionally, I would never have finished this project. His
unwavering love, in the face of an often grumpy writer suffering through the
difficulties of the writing process, is forever appreciated. He is truly one of the finest
people in the world and I do not deserve him.
iii

Acknowledgments

This project was very trying at times and I might not have continued if I had
not had the support and advice of a number of people. I would especially like to thank
my committee chair, Rebecca Lemon, whose comments and support were invaluable.
I was truly lost before Professor Lemon agreed to become my chair and gave me
advice on my draft which brought me back on track. She believed in me when others
did not.
I would also like to thank the generous support of the rest of my committee:
Bruce Smith, Anthony Kemp, and Jack Wills. All three of them worked under a time
crunch to help me meet my deadlines and graduate on time. My entire committee
went above and beyond the call of duty to support and advise me.
I would also like to thank three previous mentors, women who were highly
influential in my studies and my life. Professor Dorothea Kehler worked with me
when I was an undergraduate and introduced me to close reading, obscure early
modern plays, feminist scholarship, and literary theory. During my master’s program
at Washington State University I worked closely with two scholars, Professor Louise
Schleiner (sadly taken from this world too soon) and Professor J.M. Massi. Both were
supportive mentors who taught me a great deal about literature, writing, and life.
These three women and Professor Rebecca Lemon of USC were my role models for
academic scholarship during the writing of this project.
iv

Flora Ruiz, in charge of Graduate Student Services for the English Department
at the University of Southern California, was always patient and helpful in explaining
the bureaucratic process. I would like to thank her and the members of the Thesis
Editing department for the university for their assistance in answering questions.
Lastly, I would like to acknowledge the support and love of my family: my
husband, James; my parents, George and Laura; my grandmother, Inez; and my
mother-in-law, Marilyn. They are all wonderful people whose love means more to me
than they will ever know.
v

Table of Contents

Dedication ii

Acknowledgements iii

List of Figures vii

Abstract viii

Chapter 1: “To know what was the score”: Economic Sexuality, Elynour
Rummyng, and Early Modern History 1
Women’s Employment, Consumption, and Language: Two Case Studies 6
The Critics at Work: Women and Economics 34
A Look Ahead: This Project 46
Chapter 2: “To bring thy husband profit”: Deloney and the Supporting
Role of Women 51
“How diligently hee followed his businesse”: Virtues of the Guilds 57
“May thank his wife for that”: Tensions in the Household 67
“I will not marry a stranger”: Foreign Threats and the Household Business 91
“Vertuous subjects labour with delight”: The Bee-hive, Politics and Gender 97

Chapter 3: “Go to, you thing, go”: Shakespeare’s Mistress Quickly and
Women in Exchange 112
“To take is not to give”: Circulation, Sex, and Power 116
“You are in an ill name”: Mistress Quickly, Credit, and Reputation 126
Commodities, Sex, and the Gaze of the Neighborhood 151

Chapter 4: “As fine as the players”: City Comedies and Women in
Performance, Women in Retail 159
“I envy no man my delicates”: Women and Commodities 168
“The world’s a theater, the earth a stage”: The Theater of Retail 180
“This cap does convince!”: Sumptuary Laws, Pawning, and the Theater 198
“‘Tis no sin for a man to labor in his vocation”: Sex and Retail 205

Chapter 5: “O, the policy of women and tradesmen”: the Economics of
Prostitution and Marriage in the City 212
“The bane of chastity” and the “commodity of beauty”: Westward Ho 222
“Reward of a thrifty course”: Eastward Ho 244
“We are not current till we pass from one man to another”: Northward Ho 264
London Ho! The City as Character 279

vi

Conclusion: “Neither fish nor fowl”: Working Women and
the Ties that Bind 297

Bibliography 315

vii

List of Figures

Figure 1: Moorfield with woman accosted by man carrying sword. 162
North section of Copperplate Map of London.

Figure 2: Moorfields with kneeling figure accosting laundress. 163
Detail from Agas Map of London.

Figure 3: Eastcheap Market from Hugh Alley’s Caveat (1598) 284
viii

Abstract

Frequently in early modern London, as Elizabeth Fowler aptly put it, “the
sexual is constituted in economic terms, and the economic is construed in sexual
terms.” Reproduction, production, and consumption are linked in early modern
ideology. This project builds on and extends the many historical studies about
working women by turning to fictional representations as another site of evidence. In
this project I focus on the male voices of popular literature (including John Skelton,
Thomas Deloney, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Webster, and Thomas
Dekker), when viewing women in artisan, retail and service situations, the most
common forms of women’s urban work, in order to see how women’s identities are
based on sexual reputations, which play out in association with issues of credit, the
gaze, spectacle, theatricality, and movements across the city.
This project will examine the popular culture of early modern London to see
what ideology has to show us about women’s work and attitudes about women in and
on the market. By examining the language of consumption and sexuality that
intertwines all images of women in the workplace, I will show the constraints within
which real women worked in early modern London. But, beyond this historical
investment, the project more broadly demonstrates the ways in which the imagination
of women working, the fictional representation of women at work, served not only as
a mimetic representation of actual women working in early modern England; it also,
more potently, reveals the symbolic position held by women during a period of
ix

transition and anxiety. Representing working women offered a means for thinking
through issues of change. Thus fictional women function both mimetically and
symbolically, both mirroring their real life counterparts and signifying broader
concerns. Early modern London was undergoing cultural changes related to
capitalism, class, national identity, and religion. Women in the popular literature of
the time became the battleground upon which ideological changes were fought;
representations of working women, because of the way production, consumption, and
reproduction were linked, particularly bore the brunt of these ideological battles.
1

Chapter 1
“To know what was the score”:
Economic Sexuality, Elynour Rummyng, and Early Modern History

In the 1936 movie A Woman Rebels, Katherine Hepburn plays a single mother
who tries to find work in Victorian London only to find that the men of the film
dismiss the prospect of a woman working as too preposterous to consider. A series of
quick scenes show her pursuit of employment, where she is quickly dismissed as
inappropriate based on her gender. One man, when she asks for a job, intones that
having a girl as a secretary would make him the laughingstock of London. Later, the
editor of a woman’s magazine agrees to give her a job but remains dubious, concerned
that it will set a dangerous precedent.
What this film ignores, of course, is the long history of working women,
extending well before the Victorian period. The idea of a woman journalist (the
supposedly groundbreaking position which Hepburn’s character eventually wins)
would not have been unknown (Nellie Bly being just the most famous of women
journalists), either in the time period supposedly represented or the time the film was
made.
1
What we find, however, is that Victorian England is the tradition that is

1
Interestingly, the NY Times Review on opening day indicated that the rebellion of the Victorian woman
would not seem particularly daring to today’s women (of 1936) who “work alongside men with no loss of
prestige.” However, he states that, for Victorian women, such an idea would be extremely daring. He is not alone
is believing that women left the household and worked (beyond low status jobs for the extremely poor) for the first
time in Victorian England, or indeed later. I have asked numerous freshmen classes in community college courses
(for the past five years) when women began regularly working outside the home, and most believe it is a recent
2

appealed to–as a period that exposes both the social pressures for women to stay
home–as well as the opportunity for women to break out of this confinement with talk
of women’s rights and suffrage.
Since Alice Clark’s groundbreaking 1919 tome on women’s work, however, it
is hard to believe that anyone can still point to the past of women and claim that they
stayed home and did not work.
2
It is clear that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
were filled with working women working both inside and outside the home. What has
not always been clear to modern critics, and what this project explores, is what to
make of these women, their place in society and any changes that might have been
taking place in attitudes and laws towards these women.
This project explores this issue of working women by tracing early modern
attitudes towards women and work in London as represented in the plays, ballads, and
other fiction of the time. Specifically, I examine certain ideologies around working
women, as expressed in popular literature of London, and the ways in which women in
economic circulation were frequently sexualized. In early modern London, as
Elizabeth Fowler aptly put it, “the sexual is constituted in economic terms, and the
economic is construed in sexual terms.”
3
When women are shown as workers in this
society, how does this link between the sexual and the economic work out?

phenomenon, from the 1960s or later (and if they believe it is an earlier time, no one chooses before Victorian
England), and many of them, particularly the Hispanic community of San Diego, tell me that they wish to return to
“traditional home values” of having only men work, across the entire nation.

2
Alice Clark, Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century (New York: Augustus M. Kelley,
Bookseller, 1919, 1969).

3
Elizabeth Fowler, "Misogyny and Economic Person in Skelton, Langland, and Chaucer," Spenser
Studies 10 (1992): 123.
3

Reproduction, production, and consumption, as this study reveals, are linked in
early modern ideology. The link between these three are shown most clearly in the
popular culture of the day along with changing attitudes towards work, class, and
consumption. This project is not about real women, actual material practices, or the
recovering of women’s voices. There is good work going on in all of these fields, to
uncover real working women, economic practices, and women’s voices hidden in our
historical documents. For example, the work of Judith Bennett on medieval brewsters
(women brewers), Marjorie Keniston McIntosh on women’s participation in the
market economy, and Merry Weisner on women and the guilds help illuminate the
range of roles available to women.
4
This project builds on and extends these historical
studies by turning to fictional representations as another site of evidence on working
women. Specifically I turn to popular literature, most often male-authored, in order to
view women who are represented in artisan, retail and service situations, the most
common forms of women’s urban work. In examining this popular literature I explore
the ways in which women’s identities are based on sexual reputations, which play out
in association with issues of credit, the gaze, spectacle, theatricality, and movements
across the city.
While it may be tempting to blame cultural or individual misogyny for the
negative view of women that often colors these popular forms of literature, I argue,

4
Judith Bennett, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), Marjorie Keniston McIntosh, Working Women in English Society, 1300-
1620 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), Merry E. Weisner, "Spinsters and Seamstresses: Women in
Cloth and Clothing Production," in Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early
Modern Europe, ed. Margaret W. Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan, and Nancy J. Vickers (Chicago and London: The
University of Chicago Press, 1986), Merry E. Weisner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, New
Approaches to European History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), Merry E. Weisner, Working
Women in Renaissance Germany (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1986).
4

because women were portrayed by men in the theater and there was already a long-
standing tradition of arguing over the nature of women (e.g. the querelle des femmes),
women became a focus for examinations of authority, class, nation, and the new
market of expanding commodities. Because of their place in the family—where they
both maintained the household and were the biggest consumers in the new
marketplace—women naturally bore the brunt of concerns over the new proto-
industrial capitalist economy. Because they were often on the fringes of the
workplace, filling in jobs in low-status and low-paid professions, or the most likely to
be affected by economic or technological shifts, tracking women offers a way to show
the changes in society. Because they were particularly associated with a desire to
climb socially and because as class status changed they were more likely the first to
change their working and clothing situation first in an attempt to show a new, higher
class level, they were the center of anxiety over class changes.
Of course, as suggested above, the primary reason women occupy such
marginal and vulnerable social positions could be said to be patriarchy. Yet this
project does not focus on a social conspiracy of men trying to keep down women, as
some critics have read and deployed the word “patriarchy.” Instead, this project
illuminates the social constructs which, without seeking to oppress women, have the
tendency in that direction due to a number of social factors, many of which are
perpetuated by women as often as men. Some of these factors are even said to be
there to help women, but serve to reinforce structures which ultimately keep women in
a lesser position.
5

This project will examine the popular culture of early modern London to see
what ideology has to show us about women’s work and attitudes about women in and
on the market. By examining the language of consumption and sexuality that
intertwines all images of women in the workplace, I hope to show the constraints
within which real women did work in early modern London. But, beyond this
historical investment, the project more broadly demonstrates the ways in which the
imagination of women working, the fictional representation of women at work, served
not only as a mimetic representation of actual women working in early modern
England; it also, more potently, reveals the symbolic position held by women during a
period of transition and anxiety. Representing working women offered a means for
thinking through issues of change. Thus fictional women function both mimetically
and symbolically, both mirroring their real life counterparts and signifying broader
concerns.
In order to introduce the concepts at stake in my project, I first turn to two
short works which bookend the project chronologically. I will begin with Skelton’s
“The Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng” from the early sixteenth century and move to a
complementary ballad on women consuming alcohol from almost exactly a hundred
years later.
5
Despite a change in drink (from ale to sack), the attitudes towards women
gathering in a community and the connection between sex, disorder, and retail remain
consistent across these two works, as they do for the other works discussed in my

5
All references to “Elynour Rummyng” are from John Skelton, "The Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng," in
The Poetical Works of John Skelton, Vol. 1, ed. Rev. Alexander Dyce (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company,
1866).; the ballad is "Fowre Wittie Gossips Disposed to Be Merry/ Refused Muddy Ale, to Drinke a Cup of
Sherrie./ Their Husbands Did Their Iudgements Spend/ Strong Ale Was Best Who Did Intend/ to Try It./ Their
Wives Reply to Euery Man/ That Sacke Is Best and No Man Can/ Deny It," in English Broadside Ballad Archive
(University of California-Santa Barbara, London: printed for H.G., c. 1632).
6

project. My discussion of these two works will introduce the issues which the later
chapters develop more fully.

Women’s Employment, Consumption, and Language: Two Case Studies
Working women appear frequently in popular literature, particularly in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One well-known example, although not
particularly well-liked by many readers, is John Skelton’s poem (circa 1523) “The
Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng.”
6
The poem, which is often praised for its use of
language, realism, and its status as a “verbal painting” (from Stanley Fish),
7
is also
uncomfortable for critics because of “the poem’s unsparing physicality, especially its
treatment of the female body.”
8
Interpreters such as Arthur F. Kinney view the poem
as a Christian condemnation of sin while feminist critics such as Elizabeth Fowler,
Gail K. Paster, and Linda Woodbridge, see the descriptions of the female body “as a
rehearsal of either clerical antifeminist satire or more generalized masculine fears of

6
Herman points out that Skelton is not terribly popular for analysis or reading, and Elynour is either
ignored or reviled. The “rare critic who does grant the poem’s existence usually does so only to condemn it.”
Peter C Herman, "Leaky Ladies and Droopy Dames: The Grotesque Realism of Skelton’s the Tunnynge of
Elynour Rummynge," in Rethinking the Henrician Era: Essays on Early Tudor Texts and Contexts (Chicago:
University of Illinois Press, 1994), 146.

7
Stanley Fish, John Skelton's Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965).; see also Pollet for
discussion of Elynour as containing excellent detail inMaurice Pollet, John Skelton: Poet of Tudor England, trans.
John Warrington (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1971). or the “To the Reader” for the 1718 reprint of the
poem which praises the details and compares Elynour favorably to Chaucer and says Skelton is one “who can
discover nature in the lowest Scene of life, and receive pleasure from the meanest Views” as quoted in Anthony
Edwards, John Skelton: The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge, 1981).

8
Herman, "Leaky Ladies and Droopy Dames: The Grotesque Realism of Skelton’s the Tunnynge of
Elynour Rummynge," 146. Linda Woodbridge, Women and the English Renaissance: Literature and the Nature of
Womankind, 1540-1620 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1984). Gail Kern Paster, "Leaky
Vessels: The Incontinent Women of City Comedy," Renaissance Drama 18 (1987). Jane Griffiths oddly says it is a
double-voiced poem with celebration followed by condemnation in Jane Griffiths, John Skelton and Poetic
Authority: Defining the Liberty to Speak (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006).
7

women meeting together.”
9
In fact, the poem spends most of its time on the women
who come to buy the ale and then gather drunkenly and incontinently to celebrate.
Elynour’s employment is as an alewife, apparently making and selling her wares to all
comers, but the clientele which the readers specifically see is exclusively female.
Elynour, herself, is ugly and unpleasant on many levels. Skelton tells the
reader that she is “well worne in age” (8) and very ugly, “For her visage / It would
aswage/ A mannes courage.” (9-11) The typical hag of literature, her face is
“Lyke a rost pygges eare,/ Brystled wyth here.” (20-21) This portrait becomes an anti-
blazon of leaky parts with lips that slaver “a ropy rayne” (22) and a hooked nose that
drips (27-30), with parts that seem unhinged from her body, much like her “huckels”
(45) which are so loosely fixed that they must be fastened on with buckles (46-7).
Everything about Elynour is dirty or disgusting, including her customers and product.
Some recent critics have tried to move beyond simple disgust at the apparent
misogyny of the poem to reclaim it as either subversive feminism or as an economic
argument. For instance, Peter C. Herman argues for a Bakhtinian interpretation where
rather than being
evidence of personal or cultural misogyny, I suggest we consider that
he challenges conventional expectations by turning Elynour and her
customers into vessels, albeit leaky ones, for the festive values of
transgression, contestation, and inversion. The alehouse itself clearly
constitutes a festive marketplace writ small, a delimited area where
holiday license rules amid the noise and confusion.
10

9
Herman, "Leaky Ladies and Droopy Dames: The Grotesque Realism of Skelton’s the Tunnynge of
Elynour Rummynge," 146.

10
Ibid., 147.
8

This reading is an intriguing and tempting one, since it would go a long way towards
recovering the scenes of “the material acts and eliminations of the body—eating,
drinking, defecation, sexual life.”
11
Indeed, as Bakhtin writes, the body finds renewal
in these activities. The all-female community of the poem is filled with grotesque
bodies in a carnivalesque atmosphere, and as Peter Stallybrass points out, the
grotesque body is gendered: “The female body is ipso facto grotesque, that it must be
subjected to constant surveillance precisely because, as Bakhtin says of the grotesque
body, it is ‘unfinished, outgrows itself, transgresses its own limits.’”
12
Certainly, this
female-gendered grotesque body of transgression fits perfectly with the narrator’s
account of the poem’s drunken, pissing women.
Herman also argues that this carnival world is one in which the women are
empowered, partly through the bartering system they use to gain ale. He argues that
they “trade in symbols of female labor and subjugation.”
13
While he sees the
“grotesque realism of their bodies” as challenging to women’s “subservient role,” so
too he sees bringing in household items to the festive inn as allowing “these women
the freedom to invert these emblems of female disempowerment, to first
metamorphose them into a currency of their own and then utilize it to buy a product
made by a woman for women.”
14
This allows, he argues, Elynour and her crew to
build an “autonomous, exclusively female economy that challenges the increasing

11
Ibid., 148.

12
Ibid.

13
Ibid., 157.

14
Ibid.
9

marginalization of women.”
15
Herman then historicizes this by pointing to the
burgeoning research on alewives which shows that women were being pushed out of
what had been a female-dominated field.
16
Since Skelton has an alewife in a thriving
business during a time when women were increasingly having difficulty in the field,
Herman posits that Skelton “intervenes in the gradual exclusion of women.”
17

About a poem known for its satire against women, Herman argues for a
positive women-centered, “you go, girl” sort of world. “By setting up a business run
by a woman only for women, a business not dependent upon masculine capital or
patronage, Elynour keeps herself in business while the other women of the beer
industry were being pushed out.”
18
While Herman agrees that the poem makes the
female grotesque body disgusting and that there is misogyny in the narrator’s
comments on these bodies, he believes the poem goes in two directions at once, with
the other side being that Skelton represents independent women and, given the
conditions of the ale industry, showing a female producer grants “them a legitimacy
that cannot be entirely contained.”
19
Therefore, the poem cannot “be considered a
purely carnivalesque or a purely antifeminist text but rather an unstable, complex
mixture of both.”
20

15
Ibid.

16
Bennett, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600 156.

17
Herman, "Leaky Ladies and Droopy Dames: The Grotesque Realism of Skelton’s the Tunnynge of
Elynour Rummynge," 159.

18
Ibid.

19
Ibid., 163.

20
Ibid.
10

As compelling as this interpretation might be, in illuminating the poem’s
complexity, it nevertheless relies on a false binary of carnival versus antifeminist. In
relying on Bahktin’s definition of the grotesque as defined as feminine, the article
plays into a long history of woman being defined as the frightening other, whose body
is the sum of cultural fear. Does the representation “as the carnivalesque
representation of female bodies contests patriarchal attempts at enclosure and
control”
21
or does the grotesque body show why we need control? The out-of-control
revelry of the poem’s women is, in this reading, undermining to society, viewed as a
“fall,” equated with the devil and witches, shown as bestial, and against thrifty
business practices and the structure of the family and marriage. The male “I” is
reporting on a female gathering to a reader who is seen as male and ends with “an
antifeminist moralization.”
22
The narrator even asks if he must go on, apparently
finding the topic so offensive that he wishes he could stop, but seems compelled to
continue gazing and reporting, almost like at a street-side accident.
23

With a male narrator and male readers, the poem trades in a female commodity
of disgusting bodies to learn the moral that drink is hurtful to work (body) and
spirituality (soul). Here we can think of Freud’s interpretation of jokes as aggression,
where two men share a dirty joke in the presence of a female bystander; they are
sharing male aggression towards the female. Showing a female producer is not
empowering when it is shown with all the reasons that were used to get rid of women

21
Ibid., 160.

22
Ibid., 161.

23
e.g., “To cease me semeth best,/ And of this tale to rest,/ And for to leue this letter,/ Because it is no
better, / And because it is no swetter;/ We wyll no farther ryme/ Of it at this tyme” (235-241)
11

as producers.
24
It seems that the poem is at once both carnivalesque and antifeminist
since the carnival participates in an economy where the female is the other who is
dangerous and disgusting and transgressive. They are not two opposing sides, but
rather, in this case, the carnival bolsters the poem’s antifeminism.
Thus, despite Herman’s argument on the poem’s potential for female
empowerment, instead the poem offers a dark portrait of the linkage of gender, sex,
and commerce. Not only does the carnivalesque atmosphere contribute to the poem’s
antifeminism, but the use of household items traded for ale shows not the
empowerment in a female economy, as Herman argues, but instead a relegation of
women to the household; they are household items, tied to their place in the home and
to sex
25
and the grotesque and the disordered are not appealing—they are not
challenging when they are in fact part of a long legacy of women who are represented
as too much of leaking, spending, talking, pissing, drinking, etc. The economy of
women here is more complex. The tie between financial and sexual does not serve to
create a female economy but to show how females are the economy to be traded by
men, much as the narrator and the audience are male, trading on the grotesque female.
Rather than intervening in an exclusion of women from ale making, the poem
could be seen as participating in the exclusion of women by equating the industry with
disgust. Judith Bennett has shown how women’s “amateur” home-based brewing of

24
Judith Bennett’s book on alewives has extensive documentation showing that filth was a major
complaint against women’s production of ale, making Elynour’s ale with chicken dropping additives part of a long
history of dirty ales. Bennett, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a Changing World, 1300-
1600.

25
See the wedding ring traded in for ale, imagery to be further discussed in the third chapter of this
project.
12

ale was portrayed as filthy in order to improve the reputation of beer (a mostly male
production); beer became associated with higher quality and technology while
women’s ale (once the most popular and quintessentially English drink) was reduced
in popularity.
26
It is similar to how the physician’s college promoted the male doctor’s
abilities while equating the female midwives with amateur and filthy practices.
27
If
women’s product was seen as unclean, it reduces the market for it. Skelton’s poem
may show a successful business woman, but it neither makes her appealing nor makes
her product one which a reader is likely to want to buy.
Elynour’s tavern is not an all-female business, despite Herman’s and other
critics’ claim. It is true that we only see women on the one night of the poem, but
Skelton makes it quite clear that Elynour sells to anyone, and even lists multiple
occupations, many traditionally male dominated. The poem’s examples of customers
are given as all female, probably because it makes their transgression all the worse.
Women are supposed to be the ones who are in charge of household items and
expenses, managing the household and business dealings thriftily.
28
Women are the
major consumers of this time period. By having them consume in a manner that
wastes their household products, ones that represent the ability to live, eat, work, and

26
Bennett, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600.

27
For more on women and medicine, see Harriet Bradley, Men's Work, Women's Work (Minneapolis,
MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), Doreen Evenden, The Midwives of Seventeenth-Century London
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), Monica Green, "Women's Medical Practice and Health Care in
Medieval Europe," in Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages, ed. Judith M. Bennett, et al. (Chicago and London:
The University of Chicago Press, 1989).

28
e.g. “take huswife from husband, and what is he than” and “Housewife, who is the mother and mistris
of the family, and hath her most generall imploiments within the house” and many others, quoted in Suzanne Hull,
Chaste, Silent and Obedient: English Books for Women, 1475-1640 (San Marino: Huntington Library, 1982) 64,
185.
13

maintain their marital relations, Skelton paints an image that would be frightening to
his readers.
Since female gatherings were already viewed with suspicion, and it is not
uncommon to see gluttony and excess as part of such gatherings, Skelton participates
in a long tradition of condemning such meetings.
29
However, he seems to be doing so
to show the dangers of drunkenness on the body and soul. The consumers, gendered
female in the poem, lose the ability to work, hold on to important household objects,
maintain social relations, and become like animals. They become divorced from
outside society and its normal restraints and they also are pictured as being fallen—
physically and spiritually.
Herman is not the only recent critic to make a compelling case to read the
poem as more than either simply “realism” or “misogyny.” Elizabeth Fowler makes
the argument that the poem’s concerns are economic, with “a commercial plot waged
under cover of the topic of the incontinence of women.”
30
She points out that, as with
many other texts of the time, there is an analogy between female sexuality and
commerce. Comparing Mead from Piers Plowman, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath and
Elynour she shows that “characterizations, occupations, or position in the economic
world . . . [are] as a key to sexual behavior.”
31
Fowler’s concentration is on the
exchange of money for ale; “in the exchange each commodity undergoes a

29
Bernard Capp, When Gossips Meet: Women, Family, and Neighborhood in Early Modern England
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Paster, "Leaky Vessels: The Incontinent Women of City Comedy." Joy
Wiltenburg, Disorderly Women and Female Power in the Street Literature of Early Modern England and Germany
(Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1992).

30
Fowler, "Misogyny and Economic Person in Skelton, Langland, and Chaucer," 111-12.

31
Ibid., 115
14

metamorphosis into ale, in the same way the women are reduced to beastly, squalid
things—bodies unadulterated by spirit or mind. As they fill with ale, they empty of
humanity.”
32
This is particularly intriguing when Fowler points out that Elynour’s
husband calls her “conny,” “honny,” and “monny” and then just nine lines later, the
customers bring in “conny” and “honny” instead of “monny” to buy ale.
33
Therefore,
the long list of commodities used to buy ale is generated out of Elynour’s body.
34

Ale becomes the standard by which all commodities are judged and also what
all commodities become, as each item effectively is transformed into ale. Fowler
argues that Skelton has ale become an “economic ‘universal or general equivalent,’ the
one commodity which is selected to be the marker of value in all others. . . . the rise of
a general equivalent accompanies the commercialization of an economy and the
process of its saturation with money.”
35
Instead of what Marx said happened in the
“Fetishism of Commodities” section of Capital, “Skelton projects the behavior of
commodities back on the human agents of commodity exchange.”
36
The women begin
to act as dirty and adulterated as the ale is shown to be. The depreciation of each item
brought in for trade is shown to us through the actions of the former owner who
“embodies that depreciation in our eyes.”
37
Fowler argues that the women are fully
estranged from their society, where the commodities are separated from the labor

32
Ibid., 116.

33
Ibid., 117.

34
Ibid.

35
Ibid., 121.

36
Ibid.

37
Ibid.
15

which produced them and the women are separated from all societal ties, including
kinship, marriage, occupational status and membership in social groups. “Their social
existence is dissolved along with their humanity, and above all, they are emptied of
their productive capacity, becoming merely dissolute, depreciated, consumed.”
38

However, while Fowler recognizes the anti-blazon nature of the poem and the
description of both Elynour and her list of customers, such a list is also, crucially, the
sign of an anti-liturgy in the form of a Mumming. Mummings, which the Churches
both opposed and tried to co-opt, were pagan parades and performances, sometimes
with elaborate costumes (especially when they incorporated parades) and when they
were shows they were often about rebirth—a character is killed and then brought to
life by a doctor with a magical potion.
39
The poem ends with Skelton calling the poem
a Mumming.
40
However, no one is brought to life; Elynour has a magical potion that
she claims makes people younger, her ale. The efficacy of this brew, however, is
called into question. Even though she claims to look younger, the narrator indicates
that she is quite ugly and old looking: “Her lothely lere / Is nothynge clere,/ But vgly
of chere” (lines 13-15) Also, the women who drink her ale are turned into beasts, a
type of rebirth which is far less positive than the one celebrated in the Mumming
plays. The parade quality of the poem is clear when the women appear serially and
each is described, usually according to clothing or item in hand: “Som bryngeth her
husbandes hood, / Because the ale is good ;/ Another brought her his cap/ To offer to

38
Ibid., 122.

39
Robert Chambers, The Book of Days: A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities (W. & R. Chambers ltd,
1832) 739-41.

40
line 620-1: “Of this mad mummynge / Of Elynour Rummynge”
16

the ale tap.” They often have exaggerated and easily recognized signs, including
unlaced dresses. These over-the-top signs of disorder fit naturally into a Mumming
parade.
Some critics have pointed out that the poem is structured similarly to a
liturgy.
41
The word “liturgy” comes from the Greek and is translated as “public work
at private expense.” Skelton’s women, however, are really doing private work at the
public expense. Their community is one that destroys the community. They fight,
become animals (particularly pigs) and lose all ties to industry and family.
42
The
poem shows the sin of drunkenness and how it destroys work and community. Hence,
the mumming, or anti-liturgy, is a sign of a female church, one that destroys
community, the value of work, and shows the dangers and disgust of a female rule.
The poem, which has most frequently been read as a sexist diatribe against
women, could also be read as a diatribe against drunkenness, with women as the prime
evidence, for their fall is seen either as more grievous or that they are more
susceptible. The ale mars the women’s judgments and makes them into animals.
Elynour’s judgment about herself is shown as impaired because she is wearing very
old clothes, despite what seems to be a roaring business, that she has apparently worn
many times:

41
Arthur Kinney, John Skelton, Priest as Poet: Seasons of Discovery (University of North Carolina
Press, 1987) 45, 70.

42
Kinney emphasizes the liturgical satire against gluttony, pointing to the swearing by Christ in the
poem. However, he does not connect any economic argument to references of Christ buying Elynour and reads the
line “the swine eate my draffe” as literal pigs instead of Elynour’s reaction to women who request credit. Kinney
denies the misogyny of the poem and revels in how funny the scenes are. In fact, he seems more interested in
seeing the customers as all male and as an “antitype” to Hampton Court as an accusation against Wolsey Ibid. 170-
72, and 218, note 30.
17

More then fourty yere;
And so doth it apere,
For the grene bare thredes
Loke like sere wedes,
Wyddered lyke hay,
The woll worne away; (58-63)

Women, who are generally stereotyped as having a concern with clothing, here do not.
Elynour is not the only woman in the poem to have theadbare clothes or whose clothes
are in extreme disarray. However, Elynour shows her poor ability to recognize the
truth, for apparently “She thynketh herselfe gaye” (65). For a woman whose business
seems thriving, she is not much of a consumer of other people’s wares. Her lack of
self awareness is probably in proportion to her drunkenness, again emphasizing the
degradation involved with excessive drink.
Such drunkness extends from Elynour to her customers, who do nothing but
stare and waste their finances. In an attempt to banish care, they take to drink, instead
of religion.
To trauellars, to tynkers,
To sweters, to swynkers,
And all good ale drynkers,
That wyll nothynge spare,
But drynke till they stare
And brynge themselfe bare,
With, Now away the mare,
And let vs sley care,
As wyse as an hare! (lines 104-112)

Here the female retailer is put in opposition to other pursuits. The mare and hare
references are important because the drinkers are dismissing their horses, which are a
valuable and important commodity, without which many workers would be in dire
need, and they do so with the wisdom of a hare. Aesop’s fables had been translated
18

and the story of the tortoise and the hare would be familiar, so that the hare, who is
foolish and fast, does not maintain the hard work and perseverance, giving up his
natural advantage to the harder-working tortoise. Hence, ale makes these people poor
workers. The retail of one woman is destroying the ability of others to make a living.
The workers are there all day, drinking and doing nothing. Drinking causes idleness
(lines 116-117).
While Elynour would not sell on credit, she does have a thriving system of
barter or pawning. The women come with many trade items, which as Fowler and
Herman point out, are from the household. While Fowler sees this as a negative sign
of capitalism and the debasing of commodities from the labor which produces them,
Herman sees it as a positive female economy of trade, showing them thriving in a pre-
capitalist micro-economy. However, since the items they trade are symbols of their
work, for their household, but also include their husband’s caps (symbols of their work
status) and their wedding rings (which, as I discuss in my third chapter, are symbols of
marital status but also function as symbols of female genitalia, a sign of their sexuality
and the ability to give it to others), their trade takes away their ability to do work,
destroys their husband’s work status and their family ties (276-86). Like Fowler, I
believe that the trading of household objects for ale is a negative one, but for different
reasons. The sexual component of these items and the gendered trading of them is the
true debasement of them, more than strictly capitalist fetishisizing.
19

Since one’s ability to work was tied to one’s reputation, it is telling that the
poem says that one woman “of trust” spins thin wool, apparently in a need for thrift (to
earn more ale). The women’s work quality suffers from their thirst.
An huswyfe of trust,
Whan she is athrust,
Suche a webbe can spyn,
Her thryft is full thyn. (253-6)

While the women do not care what is said about them (“They care not what men say,/
Be that as be maye” 260-1), some still hide and sneak into the inn, in order to drink ale
(262-5). Some are “so narrowe” that they even pledge all of their work instruments,
including the valuable spindle, needle and thimble (297-300); “Here was scant thrift/
Whan they made suche shyft” (301-2).
When Elynour refuses to give ale on credit, or let them drink “for nought”
(166), she swears this “By hym that me bought!” (167). This reference to Jesus who
paid for men’s souls, stated in extremely economic language here, even as she refuses
to extend credit to others, is a queer mixture of the religious and the secular, especially
with the well-known references to taverns as the devil’s church and the earlier
reference to Elynour being the devil’s “sib.” These non-paying customers are driven
away with a staff and treated as if they are pigs:
With, Hey, dogge, hay,
Haue these hogges away!
With, Get me a staffe,
The swyne eate my draffe!
Stryke the hogges with a clubbe,
They haue dronke vp my swyllynge tubbe!
For, be there neuer so much prese,
These swyne go to the hye dese,
The sowe with her pygges;
20

The bore his tayle wrygges,
His rumpe also he frygges
Agaynst the hye benche!
With, Fo, ther is a stenche!
Gather vp, thou wenche;
Seest thou not what is fall?
Take vp dyrt and all,
And bere out of the hall:
God gyue it yll preuynge
Clenly as yuell cheuynge! (168-186)

The non-paying woman is seen as physically falling, who must “gather up,” but it is
also a religious falling. Her inability to pay is likened to the Fall of man. The woman,
bearing the dirt from her fall, must leave the community. Elynour separates herself
from the dirty woman, despite the description earlier making it clear just how dirty she
is, by hoping that she will “preuynge” as cleanly as the other woman will change.
“Preuynge” can be read as “be successful,” “prevail” or “prove” but regardless, it
shows her in triumph.
This triumph is in direct contrast to her dirty ale, which has the “donge of her
hennes” (202). Elynour, ever the saleswoman, actually brags about this disgusting
brew,
Drinke now whyle it is new;
And ye may it broke,
It shall make you loke
Yonger than ye be
Yeres two or thre,
For ye may proue it by me;
Beholde, she sayde, and se
How bryght I am of ble!
Ich am not cast away,
That can my husband say (211-220)

21

Elynour’s Mumming elixir revives women, supposedly making them younger, rather
than bringing them back to life. However, since the narrator makes it clear that she is
quite old looking, her sales pitch is suspect. Also, the secret is learned from a Jew,
which both adds to the anti-church element of Elynour’s tavern and to the denigration
of her craft. Rather than an all-female economy, there is a structure of apprenticeship
to a male outsider. Since Elynour and her clients are closely connected to pigs
throughout the poem, this also takes a deeply ironic tone.
This drunken community of women is set in opposition to the Church. The
connection to the devil, the fall, and mumming/anti-liturgy were made earlier in the
poem, but Skelton takes this one step further. One woman, drunken Alice (whose
name is spelled in the poem the same as the drink she consumes), connects
pilgrimages and work identity, by telling first of visits to saints’ relics, reminding us of
the Wife of Bath and her pilgrimage to Canterbury, and then she goes into a tale of the
apprentice riots against foreign workers (lines 351-362). She makes both tales equal,
to entertain her comrades. After having told these tales, she offers Elynour a “typpet”
for some ale (lines 366-9). While a tippet can be a hood or shawl worn by a woman,
the name equally applies to a piece of a clergyman’s robe. Alice is connected to
pilgrimages and toasts Elynour with a hope that God will give her good sales. Then,
after she pisses and weeps from drunkenness, she is given more ale by Elynour and
looks for relics in it, so the clergy connection in the trade item is likely.
Elynour toke her vp,
And blessed her wyth a cup
Of newe ale in cornes;
Ales founde therin no thornes,
22

But supped it vp at ones,
She founde therin no bones. (376-381)

Elynour’s community forms a sort of church, with the sale of ale a mock religion.
Luckily no relics are found in Alice’s cup, considering the adulterated ale. Obviously,
we are not to take Alice’s pilgrimages seriously, if her church is more often a tavern
and her search for relics is in the bottom of a cup.
This anti-Church of drunkenness is soon interrupted by another participant.
This one, however, has an exciting entrance.
There came an old rybybe;
She halted of a kybe,
And had broken her shyn
At the threshold comyng in,
And fell so wyde open
That one myght se her token,
The deuyll thereon be wroken!
What nede all this be spoken? (492-499)

The woman, referred to as a rib (i.e. Adam’s rib, hence Eve), falls down at the
entrance due to a sore on her foot and falls so that we may see her “token.” A token
can be a sign or symbol distinguishing one object from another, so that her token can
be a mark on her body, or as the joke seems to imply, even her genitalia. The word
“token” also meant at the time something that serves as evidence, or an act
demonstrating divine power (i.e., a sign or omen). It could also mean a sign given to
authenticate a person or message, and, hence, a mark giving security to those who
possess it. Her token is evidence of something, perhaps of a sign from God or to
authenticate her as someone worthy to enter.
23

This is even clearer when one realizes that shortly after Skelton’s time, “token”
even extended to a stamped piece of metal given (originally given after confession) as
a voucher of fitness to be admitted to the communion.
43
She shows her token to
authenticate her entrance into their church, but is summarily rejected as not
authenticated.
She yelled lyke a calfe:
Ryse vp, on Gods halfe,
Said Elynour Rummyng,
I beshrew thé for thy cummyng!
And as she at her did pluck,
Quake, quake, sayd the duck
In that lampatrams lap;
Wyth, Fy, couer thy shap
Wyth sum flyp flap!
God gyue it yll hap,
Sayde Elynour for shame,
Lyke an honest dame.
Vp she stert, halfe lame,
And skantly could go
For payne and for wo. (500-514)

The fallen woman is excommunicated from this church of drinkers, urged to cover her
token, and banished. The narrator had earlier reacted with horror at her token, urging
the devil to be revenged on her and wondering why he must continue discussing such
things; now Elynour, like “an honest dame,” ejects this fallen heretic from their
midsts. Apparently too much openness is not accepted here, with Elynour urging the
woman to cover up and be ashamed. Considering all of the other moments of

43
The fact that the OED has its first recorded usage of a communion token after Skelton’s death does not
prove that he would not have been familiar with the concept and use of the term. However, even if that is not so,
the other usages of the word, which were current for his time, still leave intriguing connections between God and
authenticity.
24

uncovering, peeing, and display, this is the only woman completely ostracized from
the community, and her token not accepted for joining in their communion of ale.
In his intriguing article “The Value of Culture and the Disavowal of Things,”
Peter Stallybrass argues that “capitalist societies . . . attempt to separate cultural value
from economics, persons from things, subjects from objects, the ‘priceless’ (us) from
the ‘valueless’ (the detachable world).”
44
He insists that the precapitalist society of
Shakespeare’s age saw power not as from being a “‘free subject’ (an etymological
contradiction) but from the value of objects (land . . . ; privileges; honor) that swell out
and give material and ideological substance to the subject.”
45
He then points out the
economic aspects of the Christian story, where the debt incurred by Adam and Eve’s
transgression against their landlord (God) is paid by a benefactor (Jesus) and, in fact,
overpaid so that the children of Adam and Eve can pay their debts as well. The
Church, then, becomes the financial institution which manages the paying of the debt
and its records, with some clients overpaying their debts also (becoming saints).
46

This summarization of Christian beliefs as economic appears as a travesty to
the modern reader, Stallybrass argues, because of a modern attempt to “drive
economics out of belief” so that the Latin credere (which had both the sense of
believe, trust, and “to put credit in”) is separated. However, for early modern times,
credit was both a financial and moral idea—to trust someone was also to be able to

44
Peter Stallybrass, "The Value of Culture and the Disavowal of Things," in The Culture of Capital:
Property, Cities, and Knowledge in Early Modern England, ed. Henry S. Turner (New York and London:
Routledge, 2002), 277.

45
Ibid., 276.

46
Ibid., 279-80.
25

trust that person with money. Stallybrass goes on to argue that such mingling of
economics and religion continued in a troubled fashion through Protestant changes,
evident particularly, to Stallybrass, in problems with Jews. One specific example
involves a woman who is in debt to a Jew and has pawned the gown she needs to wear
for Easter Communion. In order to retrieve the gown, she agrees to give the
pawnbroker the Host, which he then desecrates. Stallybrass uses this as an example of
“the anxieties around the possible transformation of the sacred things into a
commodity.”
47

Skelton’s Elynour participates in a similar vein, with an anti-church of
commodities, each undergoing a transformation (much like the miracle of the loaves
and fishes, but this time goods for ale, or perhaps like the transformation of the Host
for the body of Christ). The participation of the drinkers is determined by their
worthiness (by their ability to pay and whether or not their token is accepted). The
economic connection of Christ buying Elynour was invoked early in the poem, when
she swore that she would not accept credit, and now, like the story of the woman who
allowed the desecration of the Host for the return of her Easter gown, the women are
the means by which the commodification of culture is discussed. The anxiety
surrounding commodities, their values, and religion falls upon the heads of Elynour
and her customers, with the fallen woman exiled, but the church of drinkers
continuing, some pawning clerical robes or searching for relics in their drinks. The
debasement of the sacred into a valueless mundane object of trade becomes gendered,
with the women connecting all of it to a sexualized economics of flapping, pissing

47
Ibid., 281.
26

women. Skelton also participates in what Stallybrass describes as a “demonizing of
Jewish economics”
48
since it is through a Jew that Elynour learns her horrendous
trade.
While the woman with the uncovered token is rejected from the church of
drinkers, the one who is accepted is a witch, at least according to the narrator.
49
Like
the discussion of the profession of the alewife which Skelton participates in,
50
here the
profession of the female herbwife is derided. She seems “halfe a leche” (449) so
Skelton knows she performs medical work and seems almost a doctor. Women had
long performed medical tasks but during this time men were beginning to formalize
the practice of medicine and the education involved. In connection to midwives and
other female medical practitioners, the charges of superstition, dirtiness, and
witchcraft were common, just as alewives faced charges of dirt, false measurements,
and rowdy crowds in taverns.
51
Once again Skelton participates in the language of
exclusion in female businesses. This customer of Elynour’s tells her audience about
various remedies, the last of which is:
And wyth good ale barme
She could make a charme
To helpe wythall a stytch.
She semed to be a wytch. (455-8)

48
Ibid., 282.

49
Elynour also meets the stereotypical description of a witch. For more on witches and this poem, see
Deborah Wyrick, "'Withinne the Devels Temple': An Examination of Skelton's the Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng,"
Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 10 (1980).

50
Bennett argues that while the audiences may have reassured themselves that their hostess made cleaner
ale, Skelton’s poem would inhibit women’s trade. Bennett, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in
a Changing World, 1300-1600 135.

51
For a good summary on research on medical practices and accusations of witchcraft see Green,
"Women's Medical Practice and Health Care in Medieval Europe."
27

Ale is her final remedy, and we finally hear that she seemed a witch. Up until that
moment, she might have been a doctor, but after the ale, her status is clear. Other
women in the poem are turned into animals, but this woman is turned into a witch by
the ale. The male narrator equates the pursuing of a trade by a woman with being a
witch. Thus, Skelton participates not only in the stereotypes which were used again
makers of ale (arguing that women made filthy ale and ran lewd shops) but also
against female medical practitioners who were viewed with increasing suspicion as the
role of the male doctor became more established. The ale becomes the turning point
for both suppressions of formerly popular female occupations.
The poem ends with some customers unable to pay, having neither money nor
items to pawn. They score their debt with chalk or by cutting it into wood, so that
they may pay later (607-616). The narrator ends this description of women owing
money with “God gyue it yll hayle!” (617) What the narrator wants God to give bad
luck to is unclear, but perhaps he disapproves of debt. Certainly his fingers itch, both
an indication of his desire to stop writing, but also similar to the old superstition that
hands itching indicates either money coming or going (depending on which hand).
Whether he is tired of writing about Elynour or he is feeling affected by the debt of her
customers, Skelton’s narrator ends by calling it a Mumming.
Skelton’s poem reveals the intertwining, then, of religion, commerce and sex
in a way which is truly frightening to both the narrator and his audience. A similar but
more secular configuration is a ballad written approximately a hundred years later,
entitled:
28

Fowre wittie Gossips disposed to be merry
Refused muddy Ale, to drinke a cup of Sherrie.
Their Husbands did their Iudgements spend
strong Ale was best who did intend to try it.
Their Wives reply to euery man
that Sacke is best and no man can
deny it (c.1632)

to the tune of “the Mother beguilde the Daughter.” This ballad is about a group of
women who, after a day in the market, go to a tavern to drink sack. There they
express their dismay that their husbands (who spent the previous night at the tavern)
prefer Ale. They explain why their judgment is sounder, the benefits of sack, and
unite together as women against their husbands, with the older women encouraging
the younger and more timid to disobey. They spend the entire night drinking,
eventually needing to pawn their clothing to pay the bill.
One of the reasons the women are against their husbands and their drink choice
seems to be the male community of drinking. The previous night the men stayed out
all night drinking ale and the women were not happy.
Our husbands home did make small hast,
all night until the morning:
But if we had not all been chaste,
they well might feare the horning:
But why doe they this Ale commend,
which being thicke is loathsome?
But rather should their money spend
in sack so pure and wholesome,
Wee will not depart,
well drinke a quart
of Sacke to make us merry.
Your Barlie broth fild up with froth,
is nothing like old sherrie.

29

It is interesting to note that the women indicate that their husbands could have been
made cuckolds the night before, but were not, because of the women’s own chastity,
not because they lacked justification. They spend a great deal of the ballad deriding
their husbands’ judgment, saying they are fools for preferring ale to sack/sherry. The
reasons for a distaste of ale include that ale is dirty, thick, foamy, expensive (because
it has wasted space in foam), and homegrown. Sack is pure, wholesome, cheaper,
smarter and sweeter.
Although the women drink sack instead of ale, as in Skelton’s “Elynour
Rummyng,” there is a strong female community.
. . . . Thus the day was almost spent
in merriment and laughing:
Their husbands to the Tavern sent
yet could not find them quaffing,
The younger wives did weep for feare
their husbands would abuse them:
Quoth mother Joane be of good cheere
And said she would excuse them.
Wee will not depart &c.

This old wife was somewhat stout
and so also was Bridget?
They tho are two cups should go about
and every one should pledge it:
This good old wench begun the round
to many that was weeping
Yet Mall did stoutly stand her ground,
and drunke to Nel a flapping,
Wee wil not depart, &c.

The women support each other and, like the title of the music which this ballad is sung
to, the older women convince the younger women to stay against their husbands’
30

desires. Drinking, stoutness, and flapping all sound like the women who visit
Elynour, even though they do not like ale.
Another similarity in portrayal to “Elynour” is that the women cannot afford
their drink. This time, however, they are paying a male drawer, rather than an alewife.
Then to the Drawer they did call:
to know what was the score,
Twelve shillings quoth he there is in all
Besides a quart before:
Wee will not depart &c.

Did Jane begun the shot the take,
each one lay down their store,
And just ten shillings they did make,
and not one farding more:
Here take your money said old Jane
wee have no more about us:
Gives one quart more, well come again
you need not for to doubt be,
Wee will not depart &c.

Here is my girdle for a pawne
and Mal leave you your Bodkin,
And Bridget leave your piece of Lawen,
well pay him to a bodkin,
And Nell her silver thimble too,
because weel goe together,
To try what our good men will doe
till we meet at the Feather,
Thus will wee depart,
with this last quart, &c.

Once again, items are put in trade for alcohol, but the female community is in direct
opposition to men, including the one who is being paid and is called to “know the
score.” The suppression of the female alewife is complete in this ballad, with a male
drawer collecting the errant women’s clothing and trade items for their drink. The
31

women band together to pay, to reassure the drawer that they will come again, and to
protect each other from their angry husbands’ reactions to their absence.
Ale and beer are local productions and usually homebrewed, particularly ale.
Ale is very local, as it did not have hops added to it until the late sixteenth century,
and then less than beer. Since hops are a preservative, they allow the liquor to be
exported.
52
Ale without hops will not last long enough to go beyond its own local
sphere. Beer took over as most popular national drink in the late sixteenth century and
was a male-dominated industry; ale had been a smaller production and was dominated
by many small female producers. For almost two hundred years ale was seen as the
national drink of England, and this attitude would still be common when this ballad
came out. Sack, or sherry, on the other hand, was a Spanish wine. It comes from
‘sacar’ the Spanish word for export. Note also its similarity to “sack” for invading, or
looting an invaded town. Sack was well known from the mid 1400s in England;
Henry I proposed a barter of English wool for sherry wine with the people of Jerez,
but sack really became a popular drink for the middling sort after Sir Francis Drake,
on setting fire to the Spanish fleet in the Bay of Cadiz, stole 2,900 casks of the wine.
53

Hence the ballad participates in a clash between local and international trade items,
showing the women preferring the imported wine over the homegrown ale, which had

52
Bennett, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600 9-11.

53
Andre Louis Simon, The History of the Wine Trade in England, vol. 2 (University of Michigan, 1907)
209.
32

been the traditional staple of England and produced by women. Sack, on the other
hand, is connected to Spain, conquest, and importing.
54

There are two factors at work in this ballad. One is a class issue. As Kelly
Amienne argues in Eating Disorder: Food and Class in Early Modern England,
Christopher Sly in the Induction to Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, refuses
sack and demands ale, stating that the fancy food and drink offered to him are not fit
for a peddler and tinker such as himself.
Not only does Sly reveal a varied and indefinable class status
(depending on education, birth, or profession), he also defines himself
by what he does and does not eat and drink: beer not wine and jellied
beef rather than dainties. . . . labels “sack drinker” and “beer drinker”
might prove more accurate ways of designating class than “lord” and
“laborer.”
55

In the same way, the women are more conscious of social climbing (a stereotypical
characteristic of women at the time), and are drinking a wine connected to a higher
status.
The female community, built on gender, is in opposition to their men, who are
drinking ale, a drink associated with lower class and a strong national identity. The
ballad, while in the women’s voices, makes fun of the women. Like Skelton’s poem,
the feeling of a male narrator to a male audience remains. The female community is
treated as less disgusting and threatening, but it is still a danger, encouraging adultery,
defiance, and a waste of money, while showing strong concern for class climbing and

54
The connection of women with the spoils of battle might appear to be gender crossing, but I believe
instead participates more in a concern over class boundaries. Sack, as an imported wine, was connected with the
upper classes, so seeing these women prefer sack and make fun of their husbands for preferring ale indicates that
they are associating themselves with the upper classes, to the detriment of any national identity or family hierarchy.

55
Kelly Amienne, "Eating Disorder: Food and Class from Reformation to Revolution" (University of
Chicago, 2005).
33

national identity in the choice of drink. The tone is gentle amusement at this female
community, while Skelton’s is one of anger and disgust. What remains is a concern
about the female community of women workers and what drinking leads to for all of
them.
These two works reflect all of the issues which this dissertation will examine:
working women; the marketplace; consumption; pawnbrokering; theater; class;
national, urban, and working identities; and sexuality. There are certain
commonalities in the way women are portrayed, throughout this time, even though the
details sometimes differ. The similarities and the differences help the modern reader
understand early modern ideologies on working women, whereby women of the time
experienced both continuity and change. In both works, working women are used by
the male writer to become fodder for complaints about drunkenness, class climbing,
and (in the ballad’s case) the national drink losing its cachet with the female middling
sort. Their consumption, and overconsumption, of drink and clothing become a site of
anxiety, leading to potential sexual looseness and a breakdown in thrift, marriage,
work standards, and class. In Skelton’s poem, it is even turned into a religious Fall,
where the community of women are in opposition to the Church. I will argue in the
chapters to come that the fictional representations of working women did much more
than simply paint a picture of real working women, but instead show how working
women function in their society’s imagination. Early modern London was undergoing
cultural changes related to capitalism, class, national identity, and religion. Women in
the popular literature of the time frequently became the battleground upon which
34

ideological changes were fought; representations of working women, because of the
way production, consumption, and reproduction were linked in this culture,
particularly bear the brunt of these ideological battles. When the plays, ballads, and
stories contain women in retail or other working environments, the figures of the
women show the tensions facing the society.

The Critics at Work: Women and Economics
Alice Clark’s Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century has shaped
critical conversations about working women in both the Middle Ages and early
modern period since its publication. She argued that there was a “golden age” for
women in medieval England, which was brought down by the advent of capitalism.
56

Her book deserves its place in our studies, for its thoroughness and attention to a
subject which had been little researched before her; however, many subsequent
historians have had trouble with her thesis. The major threads that have spun off from
her book are whether women ever had a “golden age” where they were able to work in
high-status occupations (and when such an age might have been, if it existed), what
might have caused a change from this “golden age” (capitalism, patriarchy, or some
other issue), and whether there even was a change (one way or the other) to women’s
work or was it always the same story of low-status jobs mostly undertaken for
economic survival, with few opportunities for more.
Because of Alice Clark’s contention that there was a better time for women’s
employment before capitalism moved work from the home, there has been much good

56
Clark, Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century.
35

work done on the Middle Ages and the status of women.
57
Medievalists were
intrigued by Clark’s account of a “golden age,” when it seemed out of place with the
historical period they knew. One important work in this field is Martha C. Howell’s
Women, Production and Patriarchy in Late Medieval Cities, where she attempts to
explain how women’s work is the product of the intersection between the sex-gender
system and an economic system which organizes the way goods are produced,
distributed and consumed. She argues that there were many women in late medieval
Europe who were able to hold high-status jobs, through a particular form of family
economy which only exists under certain structural conditions. She then explores
Leiden and Cologne to show the complex patterns of women’s work, and eventually to
explore changes to the economic and sex-gender system which influenced the changes
to women’s work which she shows.
58
In the end, her thesis resembles Alice Clark’s in
that she believes there was a time where at least some women had high-status jobs, but
she situates the change from this to an earlier time and has some differences in the
causes for the change.

57
e.g, Judith M. Bennett, et al., "Introduction," in Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages, ed. Judith M.
Bennett, et al. (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1989), Douglas Bruster, "The Horn of
Plenty: Cuckoldry and Capital in the Drama of the Age of Shakespeare," Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
30, no. 2 (1990), Maryanne Kowaleski and Judith Bennett, "Crafts, Guilds, and Women in the Middle Ages: Fifty
Years after Marian K. Dale," in Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages, ed. Judith M. Bennett, et al. (Chicago and
London: The University of Chicago Press, 1989). Judith Bennett, "Medievalism and Feminism," Speculum 68, no.
2 (1993), Judith Bennett, Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender and Household in Brigstock before
the Plague. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), Madeleine Pelner Cosman, Women at Work in Medieval
Europe (New York: Facts on File, 2000), P.J.P Goldberg, Women, Work and Life Cycle in a Medieval Economy:
Women in York and Yorkshire, C. 1300-1520 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), Ruth Mazo Karras, Common
Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), Ruth Mazo
Karras, "Women's Labors: Reproduction and Sex Work in Medieval Europe," Journal of Women's History 15, no. 4
(2004), Mary Wack, "Women, Work, and Plays in an English Medieval Town," in Women's Alliances in Early
Modern England, ed. Susan Frye and Karen Robertson (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

58
Martha C. Howell, Women, Production, and Patriarchy in Late Medieval Cities (Chicago and London:
The University of Chicago Press, 1986).
36

As the introduction to Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages puts it, “The
history of medieval women, then, is in part a history of the constraints of economic
disadvantage, familial duty, and prescribed social roles. But it is also in part a history
of women’s agency within and against these constraints.”
59
Many critics have
examined these constraints and examples of women who gained agency despite them.
In addition to the excellent work within the abovementioned collection, other
medieval scholars have sought to examine this relation, including P.J.P Goldberg with
the detailed Women, Work and Life Cycle in a Medieval Economy, which is one of
several studies focused on one area, in this case York and Yorkshire.
60
A similar local
focus which achieved large results is Judith M. Bennett’s work on Brigstock.
61
Such
studies have provided empirical data from which fruitful discussions about the role of
life cycle, marriage, and demographics play in women’s employment. The “Golden
Age of the Middle Ages” is no longer able to be argued as a generalization, although it
is clear that in both that time and the early modern age, there were segments of the
female population who did have access to more freedom and ability to work in high-
status jobs, and that different segments changed at different times. There has been no
consensus yet about the exact causes and time frame for these changes.
In fact, there has been an argument instead over whether it is even right to
consider change as the appropriate way to discuss women’s work at all. Since the

59
Bennett, "Introduction," 6.

60
Goldberg, Women, Work and Life Cycle in a Medieval Economy: Women in York and Yorkshire, C.
1300-1520.

61
Bennett, Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender and Household in Brigstock before the
Plague.
37

intriguing question of “Did women have a renaissance?” was asked by Joan Kelly in
1977, critics have sought to answer her.
62
In the field of the study of women’s work
this eventually led to another debate: whether women’s roles have ever changed in
society. Judith Bennett vigorously contributed to this discussion, arguing that women
have always been in low-paying and low-status positions throughout history.
63
Since
this article, numerous critics have weighed in on how much change or continuity can
be found in women’s roles. Much fruitful work has been done in this area, although
the binary can be somewhat limiting and some recent critics have tried to move
beyond this concentration.
64

The most recent large study on women’s work, Marjorie Keniston McIntosh’s
Working Women in English Society: 1300-1620, argues, as others have before her, that
the plague of 1348 allowed wider opportunities for women. However, using
microhistorical studies and many historical documents, McIntosh also insists that most
opportunities had disappeared by the late sixteenth century. Like Goldberg, Caroline
Barron and others, McIntosh believes the plague was a strong force for positive
change, but she does not agree with earlier critics that women’s “situation was rosy
even in the best of periods.”
65
She attempts to explore how both continuity and

62
Joan Kelly-Gadol, "Did Women Have a Renaissance?," in Becoming Visible: Women in European
History, ed. Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1977).

63
Judith Bennett, " Women’s History: A Study in Change and Continuity," in Women’s Work: The
English Experience, 1650-1914, ed. Pamela Sharpe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

64
There have been numerous works on women’s employment in Europe in the last twenty years,
including: Merry Wiesner’s excellent Working Women in Renaissance Germany, Susan Cahn’s flawed book called
Industry of Devotion: The Transformation of Women’s Work in England, 1500-1660, Susan Broomhall’s Women
and the Book Trade in Sixteenth Century France, and Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England:
Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600, etc.

65
McIntosh, Working Women in English Society, 1300-1620 30.
38

change were true for women in late medieval and early modern England, arguing that
women suffered under a number of handicaps that made it difficult for most women to
work in high-status occupations. However, she also believes that some changes did
occur in women’s work, mostly driven by demographics affected by the plague, but
she does not agree that it was a “golden age” since it affected a relatively small
percentage of women, and by 1600 women and their work were charged issues with
greater anxiety regarding women’s place in the economy.
Whether the view of women found change or continuity, the forces behind
women’s status have been much debated. Alice Clark blamed capitalism for the shift
she saw in women’s status; she believed that women’s roles were reduced as
capitalism took work outside the home. More recent arguments have ranged from
demographics, economic structures, patriarchy, life cycles, to changing attitudes
towards family, consumption or religion. Others have pointed to the general exclusion
of women from many forms of work, regardless of what factors may have changed
some women’s roles.
66

In addition to such historiographical debates, scholars of English literature and
cultural history have increasingly focused on the economic language of the literature
of early modern England and how women approached issues of work identity, slander,
reputation, sexuality, and commodities. Laura Gowing’s work on slander and

66
For instance, Maryanne Kowaleski in “Women’s Work” who notes that women rarely benefited from
formal training and held marginal positions. Sandy Bardsley even argues that both prior and after the plague,
women held lower-paying positions to men for the same work in “Women’s Work Reconsidered,” contradicting
other studies that argued for improvement. Maryanne Kowaleski, "Women's Work in a Market Town: Exeter in the
Late Fourteenth Century," in Women and Work in Preindustrial Europe, ed. Barbara Hannawalt (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1986). Sandy Bardsley, "Women's Work Reconsidered: Gender and Wage Differentiation
in Late Medieval England," Past and Present 165 (1999). Also, see the interesting debate over Bardsley’s article in
John Hatcher’s “Debate: Women’s Work Reconsidered: Gender and Wage Differentiation in Late Medieval
England.” Past and Present, No. 173 (Nov 2001), pp. 191-198.
39

reputation has heavily influenced a number of critics, with many recent studies
looking at how people interact on an economic level, particularly how the language of
commodities was connected to sexual behavior.
67
I am indebted to a number of
critics who have come before me in discussing intersections involving women, credit,
theater, clothing, and work. While such debts will show more fully in later chapters, I
will here lay out some of the major works which I draw from and which contribute to
my project.
Heavily influenced by critics such as Jean Howard and Laura Gowing, I look
at the ways female identity is linked to space and language. Their work ties in with
mine in various ways, in the ways in which I explore women’s attempts to work
within the city, the power of the neighborhood to define morality, and how the texts
define the city even as the city shapes the texts. I draw on such critics as Karen
Newman, Gail Paster, Wendy Wall, and Linda Woodbridge to look at women in
relation to issues of the body, power, and the city. To these women and others who
will appear later in my work, I am indebted for allowing me to see how one can
discuss issues of women in the early modern period.
While I am participating in the narrative which speaks of women being
“trafficked” as I explore the commodification of women and how they circulate
between men, I am also, like Natasha Korda in Shakespeare’s Domestic Economies,
seeking to “explore the configuration of female subjectivity” in relation to
commodities for sale, the “moveables” which made up the typical household and were

67
Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London (Oxford: Oxford
UP, 1996).
40

most often purchased by women and sometimes sold by them as well.
68
Like her, I
attempt to understand how women’s control over the household property (or, for me,
women’s work in retail and other urban occupations, often related to her work in the
household) “became important sites of struggle and resistance” so that women are
both “subjects, as well as objects, of property.”
69
However, while she seeks to avoid
discussing women as passive property passed between men, I argue that it is the
tensions between the expressed desire to control and traffic in women and the breaking
of this passive traffic through women in positions in businesses, such as selling in the
market, which opens up such fertile ground for conflict in the texts discussed in this
project. The logic of the passive woman passed between men remains prevalent in the
literature, even as the relations of the women to various objects, men, and each other
become much more complex and varied. Although Korda acknowledges women
working, her category of the domestic concentrates more on housewife and consumer
than on work within the household business or in her own business (whether
domestically-related, such as ale making, or otherwise).
I also am intrigued by the huge growth in consumer goods in early modern
London and its impact on women,
70
but I am particularly concentrating on the way

68
Natasha Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2002) 12.

69
Ibid.

70
For more on this, see particularly the first chapter of Korda’s book and also, Jean-Christophe Agnew,
"Coming up for Air: Consumer Culture in Historical Perspective," in Consumption and the World of Goods, ed.
John Brewer and Roy Porter (London; New York: Routledge, 1994), Joyce Appleby, "Consumption in Early
Modern Thought," in Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. John Brewer and Roy Porter (London; New York:
Routledge, 1994), Peter Burke, "Res Et Verba: Conspicuous Consumption in the Early Modern World," in
Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. John Brewer and Roy Porter (London ; New York: Routledge, 1994),
Jan de Vries, "Between Purchasing Power and the World of Goods: Understanding the Household Economy in
Early Modern Europe," in Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. John Brewer and Roy Porter (London ; New
41

texts written by men use women in productive economies (in retail, service, or
household businesses of any sort) as a focus for anxiety. Some of that anxiety, I
argue, comes from increased consumerism and women’s place as both seller and buyer
of the new trade items available in the market. Korda argues, in discussing Taming of
the Shrew, that Kate’s final speech seeks to render the economic invisible and to make
her seem a passive person while her husband labors. Housework is devalued and since
production is being moved from the household and only consumption is now part of
the ideology for the household, “it also marks the emergence of the ideological
separation of feminine and masculine spheres of labor (and with it the separation
between home/market and housework/work), . . . constructing the household as a
refuge from the market.”
71
I am building on Korda’s fascinating work of how
women’s relationship with household goods form female subjectivity, but I am
looking at women from both the productive standpoint of workers as well as their role
as consumers. While Korda mentions a number of times the idea of women as
workers and feme covert merchant and feme sole, the emphasis of her texts is more on
how they manage and consume household goods. I take these concepts and examine
different texts, keeping in mind women’s roles in various businesses, in and outside of
the home. Like her, I am interested in the circulation between women and the theater,

York: Routledge, 1994), Grant McCracken, "Culture and Consumption: A Theoretical Account of the Structure and
Movement of the Cultural Meaning of Consumer Goods," The Journal of Consumer Research 13, no. 1 (1986),
Sara Pennell, "Consumption and Consumerism in Early Modern England," The Historical Journal 42, no. 2 (1999),
Joan Thirsk, The Development of a Consumer Society in Early Modern England, Economic Policy and Projects
(London: Clarendon Press, 1978).

71
Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England 72.
42

from the work women provided (for instance, in clothing and pawning goods) to the
parallels between their social roles and the players.
Since the texts I examine frequently tie women’s economic roles with their
sexual roles, I naturally examine marriage, jealousy, adultery, and prostitution. I argue
that adultery and prostitution are both portrayed more on the basis of economic
exchange and social roles than on sexual relations. This is partly due to the
commodification of women, as when Korda discusses how
the discourse of jealousy as predicated on the institution of private
property would thus seem to depend upon the equation of women with
objects of property or, more specifically, with ‘high-pris’d
commoditie[s]’ or exclusive ownership. What produces this resistance,
and the jealous male subject’s consequent anxieties of dispossession,
[Kordas argues], is the purported extravagence of female desire.
72

Female desire, of course, becomes related to her leaking body, her sexual desire, her
purchasing of commodities, and her open mouth. Lena Orlin spoke of this as part of
the “anxiety of possession” where Othello “elucidates a key problematic of the
patriarchial system as it both asserts possession and finds possession always
uncertain.”
73
For Orlin, the uncertainty comes from the patriarchy, while others, such
as Stallybrass, see it as coming from the leaking bodies being open and transgressing
boundaries.
74

72
Ibid. 138.

73
Lena Cowen Orlin, "Desdemona's Disposition," in Shakespearean Tragedy and Gender, ed. Deborah
E. Barker Barker and Ivo Kamps (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 185.

74
Peter Stallybrass, "Patriarchal Territories: The Body Enclosed," in Rewriting the Renaissance: The
Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe, ed. Margaret W. Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan, and
Nancy J. Vickers (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1986).
43

The commodification of women and their selling, purchasing, and managing
commodities lead to this “anxiety of possession.” Korda argues that there is a tension
between a woman’s duty as keeper of goods for the household and the need to spend,
which is how a household shows status. Woman as object, the most prized
commodity in the household, is also a productive member who works (whether the
increasingly devalued housework or through work in the household business or her
own business) and who keeps the goods secure and yet spends enough to maintain
status. Her own body is the possession that must always be kept by her and the proof
of keeping is impossible, no matter how vigilant either she is or her husband is.
Hence, the jealousy of possession occurs and latches on to the woman and connects to
both sexual and economic language. Her status as producer and keeper and spender
all leave her open for trading the one good that is always hers, herself. Like Korda, I
examine the “anxiety [which] attaches itself to the figure of the housewife, who,
through her excessive consumption, insufficient vigilance, extravagant curiousity, or
disposal of paraphernalia, threatens to undermine patrilineality from within the
familial household,”
75
but I examine different texts and look particularly at women
who are represented as participating in work (at least to some degree) to see if the
anxiety differs for these women.
Like Jean Howard, I believe that the city affected the theater, but the “theater,
in turn, was important was shaping how people of the period conceptualized or made

75
Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England 175.
44

sense of this fast-changing urban milieu.”
76
Women worked in London within specific
locations, and this was changing over time with more work leaving private
households. Since there is a great deal of literature at the time which expresses
anxiety over women’s wandering across the city, I analyze how the texts use the city,
both to interpret women’s lived experiences within the city, but more importantly, to
determine how the texts shaped people’s understandings of the city and its relation to
women’s work. Howard argues that the “plays helped to transform specific places
into significant social spaces, that is, into environments marked by the actions,
movements, and daily practices of the inhabitants.”
77
I agree with her work in Theater
of a City where she argues that the plays cite specific locations within London, not just
to give their audiences the pleasure of recognition but that by naming places and
filling them with action, the plays build the city and made it intelligible to its residents,
helping to define the allowable actions for that region.
78
“Through their stories of
brothels, bourses, and ballrooms, London comedies repeatedly, even obsessively,
attempt to come to terms with the changing place(s) of women in urban life and to
draw and redraw the boundaries of permissible action.”
79
By examining the already
excellent work done in this field by Jean Howard, Lawrence Manley, Theodore

76
Jean Howard, Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy, 1598-1642 (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvannia, 2007) 2.

77
Ibid. 3.

78
Ibid. 23.

79
Ibid. 27.
45

Leinwand, and Steven Mullaney, I look to how the city is defined and both working
women and theater’s place in it.
80

Using these works and a few others, most notably Leinwand’s Theatre,
Finance and Society in Early Modern England and Jean-Chrisophe Agnew’s World’s
Apart: The Market and the Theater in Anglo-American Thought, 1550-1750, I look at
how concerns about the theater are similar to concerns about women in shops; there
was a belief that their bodies, like the bodies of the actors, generate desire, break class
boundaries, sell themselves while pretending to sell something else, and lead to
disorder. Plays like Bartholomew Fair and The Roaring Girl stage women in shops in
a way which interrogates the tensions that both theater and women in retail bring
about, and, I argue, question concerns about the theater. These tensions may also
explain the lack of women in public theater performance, because although they were
acting in pageants and other venues, the concerns about public performance in the
theater, in combination with the threats already seen in working women in public
settings, may have been too much.
When discussing economic language and the intersection of female sexuality
with that rhetoric, the question of credit will naturally appear. Laura Gowing’s work
on slander, naturally, is influential to this study, as is the work of Craig Muldrew and

80
Ibid, Theodore B. Leinwand, The City Staged: Jacobean Comedy, 1603-1613 (Madison, WI: The
University of Wisconsin Press, 1986), Lawrence Manley, Literature and Culture in Early Modern London
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, New Ed edition, 2005), Steven Mullaney, The Place of the Stage:
License, Play, and Power in Renaissance England (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988).
46

Ceri Sullivan.
81
Credit, a term which encompasses both financial responsibility and
moral reputation, was an important concept for the middling sort, the increasingly
influential merchant class which was growing in London. Looking at how this group
dealt with identity, including issues of clothing, as discussed by Marjorie Garber’s
Vested Interests and the exciting book, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of
Memory by Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass, can illuminate social roles,
including class issues regarding working women.
My project, then, covers a wide ground regarding women’s identities, as
reflected in literary texts which portray working women. Drawing on a wide range of
materials, I seek to examine more closely the status of working women in early
modern London.

A Look Ahead: This Project
My project looks at the continuity of women’s status, in that early modern
ideology seems to be consistent in its connection of women in working positions with
sexuality (which seems to add to the disadvantages to actual working women, in
connection to their ability to build credit and work without restrictions and increased
supervision). By examining the language of consumption and sexuality, which has
already been fruitfully mined, and connecting it to women’s working roles, I hope to
show how women and the theater may have had more in common than realized, with
both causing class anxiety and gender confusion. Because of the societal link between

81
Craig Muldrew, The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early
Modern England (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998). Ceri Sullivan, The Rhetoric of Credit: Merchants in Early
Modern Writing (London: Associated University Presses, 2002).
47

sex and economics, women in clearly defined occupational positions, whether that is
as part of a family or as an individual worker, were the lynchpin to discuss cultural
concerns with class and the market. I am interested in how the male authors of
popular literature and drama built female identity.
The next chapter of this project, entitled “‘To bring thy husband profit’:
Deloney and the Supporting Role of Women,” argues that Thomas Deloney, in his
popular proto-novels, uses the same ideology seen in Skelton’s poem to push a
political agenda. Deloney was supporting guild policies at the expense of female
workers, naturalizing their exclusion and using women as the example of weaknesses
in society. He wished to support an ideal community built around charity and
community, but protected by thrift and an exclusion of foreigners, and women become
his focal point for each of these issues. Using images such as Penelope from the story
of Ulysses, historically a famous weaver but in Deloney’s text imagined as a spinner
exclusively, Deloney sought to promote male workers at the expense of women
workers who were once more prominent in these fields. In order to convince his
queen to support the guilds, Deloney tries to support the guilds’ importance to
England, because of their ability to promote good values in society, support the poor,
and make England more powerful than other nations. However, there are tensions in
the guild structure, including a concern with class issues, and Deloney’s female
characters become the signal of these tensions.
While Deloney used these issues for a political purpose, these same issues
were abundant in the popular literature of the time. My third chapter focuses on
48

Mistress Nell Quickly, the hostess of an inn in Henry IV (parts one and two) and
Henry V. Entitled “‘Go to, you thing, go’: Shakespeare’s Mistress Quickly and
Women in Exchange,” the chapter looks at images of women in circulation (through
the giving of a ring, which represents both male identity and female genitalia) and how
Mistress Quickly’s credit (both financial and reputation) is tied to the “world’s wide
mouth” which leads her in an opposite trajectory to the triumphant Prince Hal (1H4
I.iii.153). I argue that the hostess tries to manage her reputation by verbally displaying
visual status symbols (her household goods) and does not recognize how to work
within the legal system which ultimately fails her (because of the link between sex and
economics which Falstaff understands but which she does not). This is in direct
contrast to the Mistress Ford and Mistress Page of the Merry Wives of Windsor who
self-regulate themselves and their household stuff with their gaze. Even Mistress
Quickly’s character in Merry Wives is better able to manage herself verbally,
presenting her status in such a way as to win money from multiple men and to triumph
over Falstaff as the Queen of the Fairies. The differences in credit between these
plays shows how women in circulation are at a disadvantage in credit relations.
The next chapter of this project, called “‘As fine as the players’: City
Comedies and Women in Performance, Women in Retail,” explores The Roaring Girl,
The Wise Woman of Hogsden, and Bartholomew Fair, looking at a connection
between women workers, commodities, sexuality, pawnbrokering, and the theater. I
argue that the playwrights portray women as commodities traded between men. Both
adultery and prostitution are ultimately shown as financial transactions which may or
49

may not lead to sex. Women’s role in the marketplace is as objects. The anxieties
around these women are parallel to the anxieties surrounding actors. Women’s display
in the market was thought to initiate desire on the part of the spectator. In the same
way, their viewing of commodities was thought to initiate desire in them, as spectator.
Also, women’s desire for clothing (and the sumptuary breakdown of class standards)
are similar to actors who dressed outside their social class. Acting as role playing and
the issue of social roles as they relate to women, and the connection of the theater,
pawnbrokering, and women all show how plays explore two sites of anxiety about
exchange: women and the theater. Drawing on Natasha Korda’s work on household
goods and Jean Howard’s Theater of a City, I argue that women and the theater were
connected by the same anxieties, perhaps explaining the inability for women to act in
public theater, as this would have only increased the anxiety surrounding both.
The fifth chapter, “‘O, the policy of women and tradesmen’: the Economics of
Prostitution and Marriage in the City,” examines three plays, Westward Ho, Eastward
Ho, and Northward Ho, in order to argue how the plays connect prostitution and
marriage, with adultery being more about money than sex. The plays use the city of
London as a playground of spatial morality, to connect all financial arrangements with
sexuality. Identity is figured as either internal or external, but either way women and
sexuality become the pawns for tensions in the marketplace and marriage. Like the
maps of the city of London, where people are not shown except at the outskirts, these
three plays have the characters move out of the center of town in order to find out who
they really are.
50

In the conclusion, “‘Neither fish nor fowl’: Working Women and the Ties that
Bind,” I discuss the implications of this project for teaching and politics. This
dissertation examines the various nuanced ways a number of popular London authors
dealt with women and work. While many of the female characters discussed are
strong-willed and vocal, their roles are generally negative and oppressive. However,
real women in London did work and have agency, voice, and work positions, of both
high and low status. There were women printers and women blacksmiths, plus silver
drawers, sempsters, washerwomen, and many other occupations—however, while
their history is increasingly known by people in academic circles, this history has not
become common knowledge for the wider public. In popular literature of early
modern London, women were the canary in the coal mine—used as the sign of
troubles facing their society in face of a growing market and changing attitudes
towards class. In my conclusion, I briefly explore what the ideologies that faced early
modern working women might mean for today’s women and call for increased
teaching of women’s place in our past and the ideologies which affected them.
51

Chapter 2
“To bring thy husband profit”:
Deloney and the Supporting Role of Women

Thomas Deloney, the “balletting silke-weaver of Norwich,” wrote many
ballads, particularly on historical subjects. One ballad is about women and their
virtues, advising men to seek for a hardworking woman rather than simply a beautiful
one:
82

He that a gracious wife doth find,
Whose life puts vertue chiefe in vre,
One of the right good huswife kind,
That man may well himselfe assure,
And boasting say that he hath found
The richest treasure on the ground. (lines 1-6)

The ballad goes on to describe this rich treasure as a “carefull nurse, want to prevent”
in order for the man to avoid becoming a beggar (line 10). Throughout the ballad,
women are viewed as the careful, thrifty worker who holds the family together, but not
just as husband and children, but as a business. By monitoring the family (both blood
relations and the workers who live in the household) and managing the household, the
wife should:
By true and faithfull industrie,
T'increase his wealth, and to insure
His state in all securitie:

82
Thomas Deloney, "Salomons Good Houswife, in the 31 of His Proverbes, C. 1607," in The Works of
Thomas Deloney, ed. F.O. Mann (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912, 1967). Note that the English Broadside Ballad
Archive at the University of California-Santa Barbara indicates that the attribution to Deloney is uncertain, but it
was contained in his Strange Histories in 1607 and is included by F.O. Mann under Miscellaneous Ballads.
Regardless of the true origin of the ballad, it fits very neatly with attitudes expressed elsewhere by Deloney
regarding wives and household duties.
52

To seeke his quiet, worke his ease,
And for a world no way displease. (lines 14-18)
She will partially do this through being a role model, working at the spinning wheel
and other household duties, “her hands also / The way to worke will others show”
(lines 22-23). This ideal woman is quiet and giving, but, most of all, increases his
financial wealth.
Waking before the sun, the wife will buy those things needed for the
household, maintain the house and the land (if any) and generally manage all goods
coming in. She, herself, is like a ship scattering goods from foreign shores
“Dispearsing treasure to the land” (line 30). Idleness is the worse thing, apparently,
one can accuse a wife of, for the ballad makes clear that the wife is needed to work the
business, bring in more profit with tapestry and needle, clothe and feed the household
and manage the workers and family members. In addition, she must be dressed well to
help her husband’s business and political status: “And she in Scarlet costly drest, /
When Senators assembled be, / Her husbands honor there shall see” (lines 52-54).
Beauty in clothing is useful, but the ballad is not suggesting looking for pretty wives,
for beauty fades with age, but beauty within (by which Deloney means lack of
idleness) helps men:
May bachelors of each degree,
In choosing of a beauteous wife,
Remember, what is ioy to see
May lead to wofulnesse and strife:
Beauty is not a brave outside;
Beauty within is beautys pride. (lines 90-95)

53

In this way, we see that dress is not about a pretty wife but about presenting
indications of wealth and class to promote an image to other men. These ideas about
the perfect wife were commonly repeated in the time, from marriage manuals and
other prescriptive literature to the resurgence of interest in Oeconomica and other
classical texts about household management.
83
Deloney, however, used this idea of
the supporting role of the busy woman not just in ballads; he also wrote several prose
works for the guilds where this womanly role of work and display takes on a deeper
political meaning.
Thomas Deloney’s political goals for his prose narratives dedicated to specific
guilds was to promote community through charity and hospitality, in addition to
promoting specific practices towards the clothing or shoe industry to the Queen. He
naturalized the displacement of women in the workforce during more difficult
economic times, even as he showed the importance and strength of women in many
places in his texts. Contemporary changes in work structure caused Deloney to have
concerns about community (as it became less family structured), which he believed
could lead to abuse of the workers. In addition, the texts show concerns about
increased competition from foreigners (and women) and their place in the power
structure. Deloney used nostalgia to promote values that he saw as having a positive
impact on a changing society.
84
However, in these nostalgic tales of quasi-historical

83
For more, see Natasha Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic Economies: Gender and Property in Early
Modern England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2002) 26-7, 66.

84
The most common analysis of Deloney is to see him as a supporter of middle class values (against the
idle and lecherous aristocracy). Max Dorsinville, "Design in Deloney's Jack of Newbury," PMLA 88, no. 2 (1973).
Jane M. Kinney, "Rewriting History: Thomas Deloney's Jack of Newbury and Elizabethan Politics," Philological
Paper 44 (1998-1999), Roger A. Ladd, "Thomas Deloney and the London Weavers' Company," Sixteenth Century
54

male merchants, there are many powerful female characters, who highlight the
tensions and problems facing society. In the ultimate working-class texts of the day,
women become the signal for issues facing society.
Deloney’s popular prose works, Jack of Newberie, Thomas of Reading and The
Gentle Craft, parts one and two, are all working-class fantasies aimed at specific
guilds.
85
Jack and Thomas are about famous clothiers while The Gentle Craft ties
together tales about shoemakers. In each story, Deloney sought to justify the
importance of that guild to the country, model how the ideal member of that guild
should behave, and entertain with some simple jokes and ballads. While the works
have political and social commentary, they are muted in tone and not as controversial
as his earlier works, such as the Ballad in Want of Corn, which sent him to jail for
presuming to lecture the Queen about famine policy.
However, the less direct political entreaties do not mean that Deloney’s tales
do not address social issues, one of which is the role of women in mercantile society.
Indeed, closer examination of Deloney reveals how his texts, in an effort to encourage
the guild members to adopt the virtues he though would benefit the community,
represents women as props to this goodness who encourage and support the men but
who are never to be more than ancillary to the guild men. Deloney’s fantasies of

Journal 32, no. 4 (2001), Hyder E. Rollins, "Notes on Thomas Deloney," Modern Language Notes 32, no. 2 (1917),
Mihoku Suzuki, "The London Apprentice Riots of the 1590s and the Fiction of Thomas Deloney," Criticism: A
Quarterly for Literature and the Arts 38, no. 2 (1996). Laura Caroline Stevenson, Praise and Paradox: Merchants
and Craftsmen in Elizabethan Popular Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

85
All references to these works come from F.O. Mann’s edition of Deloney’s writings. Thomas Deloney,
"Jacke of Newberie," in The Works of Thomas Deloney, ed. F.O. Mann (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912, 1967),
Thomas Deloney, "The Gentle Craft (the First Part)," in The Works of Thomas Deloney, ed. F.O. Mann (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1912, 1967), Thomas Deloney, "The Gentle Craft (the Second Part)," in The Works of Thomas
Deloney, ed. F.O. Mann (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912, 1967), Thomas Deloney, "Thomas of Reading," in The
Works of Thomas Deloney, ed. F.O. Mann (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912, 1967).
55

nobles who pretend to be workers, and workers who become like nobles, are always
built upon the backs of the women workers—the wives, daughters, and servants who
are not members of the guilds to whom these stories are addressed. The stories
acknowledge the women’s importance in society even as the narratives brush them
aside, making them either a support for men or a signal of tensions in class status,
gender relations, national identity, and business practices.
Deloney has often been described as a conservative spokesperson for the
middling sort. Some recent critics have questioned this, as does Jane Kinney in her
“Rewriting History: Thomas Deloney’s Jack of Newberie and Elizabethan Politics.”
86

Kinney argues that Deloney’s political background, where he was thrown in jail once
and almost jailed a second time for daring to lecture the Queen on economic policies,
and Jack Wichcombe’s beehive speeches at the end of Jack of Newberie (to be
discussed at the end of this chapter), shows him as both a conservative and a radical.
She believes that while the text did not cause the political uproar of his earlier works,
Jack of Newberie issued subtle challenges to authority.
Mihoko Suzuki agrees and sees Deloney’s work as coming out of a time of
apprentice riots and other political unrest involving merchants.
87
She points to a
political tract which Deloney is believed to have co-authored entitled “Complaint of
the Yeomen Weavers Against the Immigrant Weavers.” This text is interesting in that
while it criticizes the practices of the “Straunger” weaver, it does so specifically by
fearing their “Wooemen and Maydes at work” who will learn the occupations and

86
Kinney, "Rewriting History: Thomas Deloney's Jack of Newbury and Elizabethan Politics."

87
Suzuki, "The London Apprentice Riots of the 1590s and the Fiction of Thomas Deloney."
56

marry “men of contrary trade, and so bringe that which should be our lyvinges to be
the mainteymance of those that never deserved for it, and theis likewise increase an
infinite number.”
88
While earlier critics saw Deloney as a “bourgeois propagandist,”
Suzuki argues that his proto-novels “perform the complex cultural work of
interrogating the social order while masking their most subversive messages under the
guise of comedy and carnival.”
89

I agree that Deloney is questioning the social order, or at least pointing to
tensions in it, but believe he is doing so while trying to be a fairly conservative
propagandist for the merchant class. These questions about social order become issues
with gender. Mark Thornton Burnett argues that “a debate about men and women’s
roles encourages reflections upon the nature of authority and its traditional
functions.”
90
Recent criticism is now coming to see Deloney as showing a control of
women and foreigners in his attempt to support practices for clothiers. His texts are
“reflecting inconsistencies in patriarchal ideology and the anxieties that women
continue to stimulate.”
91
Burnett argues that it is tempting to see Deloney’s texts as
conservative but that “political criticism is at work in Deloney’s construction of
aristocratic practices and government policy, and related insecurities, particularly
about the capabilities of masters, inform the treatment of social responsibilities and the

88
Ibid., 186.

89
Ibid., 187.

90
Mark Thornton Burnett, Masters and Servants in English Renaissance Drama and Culture: Authority
and Obedience (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997) 55.

91
Ibid., 67.
57

management of crises of subsistence.”
92
I agree that there is political criticism as these
three recent critics have contended and that any conservative ideology is shown to
have tensions; however, I argue that Deloney’s initial reputation as conservative
supporter of the guilds is not to be taken lightly, and Deloney tries to place the
tensions off of the main idealized male characters and onto women, who stand in for
the problems facing society. This displacement allows Deloney to cover over the
tensions, to some extent, and support his ideal society of communal guilds.

“How diligently hee followed his businesse”: Virtues of the Guilds
In order to understand the ways in which Deloney represents women, we must
first examine how he uses his texts as polemics for reform and support of the guilds.
Deloney’s stories were dedicated to members of specific livery companies, telling
them how noble and good they were through quasi-historical guild figures. Jack of
Newberie is from the time of Henry VIII, Thomas of Reading is set in the twelfth
century, while the two parts of The Gentle Craft wander across history picking stories
from many different eras. This historical nostalgia helps to promote policies on both a
state and individual level which Deloney felt would benefit the guild leaders and the
community as a whole. Specifically, he seeks to counteract changes he saw in current
business practices, by promoting certain virtues as ideals for a mercantile society—
particularly charity, hospitality, and thrift.

92
Ibid., 73.
58

For instance, in the introduction to Jack of Newberie, Deloney writes,
regarding clothiers, “among all manuall Arts used in this Land, none is more famous
for desert, or more beneficiall to the Commonwealth” and adds that it is “nourishing of
many thousands of poor people” (p. 2). The title character rises from a poor
journeyman to one of the wealthiest and most powerful in his trade, and the virtues
which are consistently praised are his hard work, thriftiness, and generosity.

In The
Gentle Craft, Part I, the beginning explicitly states that Deloney will show how kings
and lords practiced shoemaking and found it to be a good trade, better than any other
for them because Shoemakers are so good (p. 70). Of the shoemakers, he says, “Good
houses kept they euermore, releeuing both the sicke and poore” (p. 70). Almost every
tale ends with how the person eventually died, leaving a great fortune, having
employed a large number of people, and having helped the poor. Apparently, no
greater accolade could be given to a person. In Thomas of Reading, we end on a
summary of describing how all nine merchants in the story died rich and how they
helped the poor during their lives. For example, William Fitzellen “also dyed a most
rich man, hauing builded many houses for the poore, whose sonne Henry after was the
first Maior that was euer in London” and “Sutton of Salisbury did also at his death
much good, and gaue an hundred li, to be yeerely lent to poore weauers of the towne,
to the worlds end” (p. 272). These tales praise acts of charity, which range from
outright gifts to charitable institutions, setting people to work in large numbers, to acts
of hospitality such as sponsoring large meals or other events where items are given to
the poor. Deloney sees these as important community-building acts and clearly feels
59

they needed to be encouraged in the merchants by reminders of past merchants’
generosity and accompanying fame.
93

Hospitality is closely related to charity. Like charity it is a community-
building act and one that was particularly modeled on aristocratic values. In the past
only a nobleman would throw large feasts, feed the poor, or open his house to guests.
Deloney, however, shows his characters engaging in both charity and hospitality,
sometimes in exaggerated amounts. For instance, Deloney relishes the tale of Simon
Eyre who sponsors a pancake breakfast for apprentices once a year and lingers on
descriptions of Jack of Newberie’s wedding feast and how many people are fed by this
one event. Jack also opens his home to impoverished noblemen, in addition to the
numerous poor people who are employed and cared for in his business. Charity and
hospitality are both ways of spending money to help others, and both are praiseworthy
events meant to help society and increase the reputation of the one who gives the
money, food, or other items.
In addition to charity and hospitality, Deloney’s other most-often encouraged
virtue is thrift. While the first two virtues are aimed at the community, this virtue is
focused on the household and is a private goal. The narratives show that thriftiness and
the frugal management of a business is an ideal, by showing men who have gained
through thriftiness or who lost their livelihood through the lack of it. The most
common gain one gets through thrift is marriage, where a young man is admired by
women because he manages his money well. In Jack of Newberie, the title character is

93
The importance of these traits in household manuals at the time and their place in building
credit/reputation is well discussed in Craig Muldrew, The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social
Relations in Early Modern England (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998) esp. 157-68.
60

a journeyman to a widowed Dame and has run her shop for three years when his
thriftiness and hard work catches her eye. Jack works hard and his merit is noticed
throughout the town:
Thus was Jackes good governement and discretion noted of the best
and substantiallest men of the Towne: so that it wrought his great
commendations, and his Dame thought her selfe not a little blest to
haue such a seruant, that was so obedient vnto her, and so carefull for
her profite: for shee had neuer a Prentise that yeelded her more
obedience than he did, or was more dutifull: so that by his good
example, hee did as much good as by his diligent labour and painfull
trauel: which his singular vertue being noted by the widow, shee
beganne to cast a very good countenance to her man John, and to vse
very much talk with him in priuate. (p. 4)

Jack is not shown as desiring the Dame or her attention. He simply works hard and
she notices and pursues him. There are several factors at play in the Dame’s attraction
to her journeyman. First, his thrifty, hard-working behavior attracts notice of other
men, showing that he will be successful. Secondly, she recognizes that in his status as
her employee, he is obedient to her.
94
Thirdly, Jack is shown to be thrifty not just with
his own money (not spending at the pub with his friends, for instance), but with her
money, being careful with her profit, so that the Dame begins to favor him, and,
indeed, starts wooing him over the business’ account books. These business virtues of
thrift and hard work are signs of success and, indeed, lead Jack to the first break in his
fortunes, his marriage to his Dame.
Similarly, The Gentle Craft has two stories of men who attract women through
their business sense. One of the stories is of Widow Farmer who is rich and beautiful

94
This is noted twice in one short segment. It will also lead to conflict in their marriage when the
obedience issue will come to the forefront, as their roles change and Jack becomes both husband and master and
both the wife and his former coworkers must adjust to his new status, as shall be discussed in detail later in this
chapter.
61

and several important men are wooing her, but she loved her last husband so much,
she is not interested in remarrying. Her apprentice, William, loves her and when he
comes to go over her financial accounts, he tells her of his love (p. 201). She is angry
with him and makes him give up his position in the shop and work in the kitchen,
fetching water and performing other menial tasks far below his position. She appoints
another man to run the shop (for, although he is called an apprentice in the tale, it is
clear that he handles the shop and is answerable to the widow for the bookkeeping).
When William gladly works in his lowered position, she begins to regret her decision,
thinking that his behavior shows he will “proue a kind husband” (p. 201). She then
surprises everyone, including William, by announcing their marriage, saying it is his
virtue and true humility that wins her over.

She praises his thriftiness, hard work, and
willingness to serve her in all things.
Another example of the power of thriftiness as an inducement to marriage is
Richard Casteler who does not seek attention but his hard work attracts all the women
in his town, so that he cannot even turn around in church without a young woman
trying to catch his eye (p. 141). The town women, “noting what a good husband
Richard Casteler was and seeing how diligently hee followed his businesse, iudged in
the end he would proue a rich man: for which cause many bore vnto him very good
affection, and few there was that wished not themselues to be his wife” (p. 141). When
he travels through town the
Maidens (after their businesse was done) standing at their Masters
doores and spying him, would say thus one to another: Now verily,
there goes a proper ciuill young man, wise & thrifty: yea such a one as
62

in time will proue wonderous wealthy, and without all doubt, will come
to great credit and preferment. (p. 141)

Although in the end Richard chooses a wife from London who does not pursue him,
his thriftiness is seen as a prime virtue which attracts all women to him. For Deloney,
this could be seen as similar to today’s marketing schemes to sell a product: “Do this;
it will bring you women without you even trying.” It is hard not to picture scenes like
the hordes of women trying to “hold that Tiger” (because a particular shirt is going to
attract lots of women), when you read the story of Richard and all the women
following him around due to his overwhelming attractiveness brought on by his
business skills.
Richard, that most thrifty of gentlemen, is just one of the merchants in the
stories who is also praised for his generosity—practicing both charity and hospitality.
However, Deloney does see a conflict between these virtues. If a merchant spends too
much money on hospitality, and is not sufficiently thrifty to maintain his household,
then he will lose the ability to support the community with charity later. It is a careful
balancing act of spending and saving. If someone does not manage this balance then
community breaks down. Hospitality is a form of charity, as is work, since it is often
referred to as putting poor people to work or maintaining them. People should help
others, but the text shows there are breakdowns in community, for not everyone is
willing to help. Some merchants fall upon hard times and are not helped out, at least
at first, which is judged shameful. It leads to distrust and a lack of fellowship and a
breakdown of the relationships between neighbors, servants and the merchant.
63

Deloney has several small tales of men brought down through unwise spending
who lose all of their friends in the process. Only after they return to wealth can they
regain their status in society. For example, Thomas Dove wastes his wealth away and
the people around him abandon him (p. 267). His servants disdain him and when they
leave, he reminds them that he took them up when they were poor; they say, they are
not slaves and they need to look after themselves (p. 268). “We can have better wages
and serve a man of credit” (p. 269). He is arrested partly because of a servant’s actions
in betraying him to his debtors (p. 269). Tom sends his wife to the neighbors to get
bail but she is refused, even when she appeals to family (p. 270). Luckily, Thomas of
Reading, who has been murdered, has left Tom Dove money, and this causes the other
clothiers to decide to give him money also, now that he already has some. So now he
is richer than ever and the former friends came
fawning vpon him and when he had no neede of them, then euery one
was ready to proffer him kindnesse. His wicked seruants also that
disdained him in his distresse, were after glad to come creeping vnto
him, intreating with cappe and knee for his favour and friendship. And
albeit he seemed to forgiue their trespasses done against him, yet he
would often say, he would neuer trust them for a straw. (p. 270)

The story ends by telling us that he eventually dies rich, having helped the poor and
left his children great lands. This story is supposed to be a morality tale of managing
money better to avoid debt and abandonment, but it also clearly disapproves of a
society where only those who do not need help, find it easy to receive help. Deloney
praised those who helped others, but he also clearly felt that it was an uncommon
virtue, much in need of promoting. The wife of Thomas Dove seeks help and is
turned away by neighbors, members of Tom’s guild, and the rest of society. Only
64

when Tom is left money in a will do the rest of the guild suddenly give him loans and
other help.
The breach this causes in the community is left unhealed, with this portion of
the tale ending in permanent distrust from Tom Dove. Thomas of Reading shows the
tensions surrounding hospitality and charity in the story of Tom Dove who loses his
business and credit through excessive spending, something that breaks down the
household and estranges his servants from him. Although Tom Dove eventually
regains his status through the help of other clothiers, the reunion with his servants
remains uneasy.
95

Another example of overspending leading to abandonment is the oddly-named
Green King of S. Martins who was a shoemaker called that for his green clothing he
wore in front of the King. He had a good inheritance, forty servants, and, in addition,
God blest him with the gift of a good wife, who was a very comely
young woman, and therewithal very carefull for his commoditie: but he
whose minde was altogether of merriment, little respected his profit in
regard of his pleasure: insomuch that through his wastefull expence he
brought pouertie vpon himselfe ere he was aware, so that he could not
do as he was accustomed. (p. 203)

Some of his friends avoid him because he does not have money (p. 204). His wife had
told him it would happen, so often that he claims she might have been a witch to tell
the future so well. He leaves her, having pawned many of their possessions. His wife,
however, while he is gone
became so carefull in her businesse, and gouerned herselfe with such
wisdome in all her affaires, that during her husbands absence she did
not onely pay many of his debts, but also got into her house euery thing

95
Burnett, Masters and Servants in English Renaissance Drama and Culture: Authority and Obedience
68.
65

that was necessary to be had, the which her diligence won such
commendations, that her credit in all places was verie good, and her
gains . . . came so flowing in, that before her husband came home she
was had in good reputation with her neighbours: and having no need of
any of their fauours, euery one was ready to proffer her curtesie. (p.
206)

The neighbors offer help now that she does not need it and she is disdainful of them
for only being fair-weather friends. When her husband comes back, he thanks God all
is well (but does not seem to thank his wife) and behaves the same, except he also
remembers that his friends were only friends when he had money (p. 206-7).
In both of these cases, we see that money makes money. As Simon Eyre finds
out in his story in the Gentle Craft, if you have money, more comes to you. Only by
pretending to be a rich alderman, can he eventually become one. His wife recognizes
that people pay attention to clothing and will not realize the fraud he is attempting.
Those who are rich are given credit; credit was not only being trusted with money on
loan, but was a measure of reputation and trust. Those who have money have credit to
get money from others. The lessons taught in these stories is that the readers should
help others, but beware that others may not help if poverty strikes. There is a real
sense of betrayal and distrust in both of these stories. Each character discovers that
most men are fair-weather friends who will help out only when help is not truly
needed.
The guilds Deloney addresses were built on a sense of community, one strictly
regulated as to who could join, its power structure, and its rules. The guilds were
under a family-based structure, but were moving to a more factory-like system, while
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still working under the terms of the older system. Deloney was nostalgic for these
older times and virtues, but he also saw these three virtues (charity, hospitality, and
thrift) as a way to curb abuses in the changing system and to promote order. However,
there was tension in the system—tensions between hospitality, charity, and thrift,
concerns about the changes in social status and power, the gender relations within a
family, and issues of credit and appearance. Women stand at the center of each of
these problems—as the balancing point for the narrative.
I have already explored how Deloney promoted hospitality as a virtue. From
Jack’s open table, his glorious wedding feast (for the second wife), or Simon Eyre’s
famous apprentice breakfast, hospitality and charity are one way Deloney seeks to
soften the problems of poverty and dearth rampant in his time, and underplay the
tensions caused by a system that was changing a patriarchial household work structure
to a more factory-like setting. By encouraging a continuation of family attitudes
between master and workers, and a need for charity and community for great men, he
believed he could solve some of society’s problems. Women are the linchpin to this
system, as they are ultimately responsible for maintaining the family structure of the
workplace and the financial stablity of the home while continuing charity and
hospitality. This shown in the ballad which opened this chapter, almost every
domestic guidebook of the period, and, of course, these pieces of guild propaganda.

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“May thank his wife for that”: Tensions in the Household
Thriftiness is a virtue that is important for maintaining status, but, as I have
just argued, it is in opposition to charity and hospitality. Thriftiness is also in
opposition to another item used for maintaining status, the use of clothing which
indicates rank. It is not a surprise that in a culture with sumptuary laws and visual
clues to status, like a hood or chain to show high merchant status, people are judged
by appearances.
Clothes make the man. One example of this is a chapter of Jack of Newberie,
where Jack goes to London and runs into Randoll Pert, a draper who owes him five
hundred pounds. He had been thrown into prison over his debts, his children have lost
their home, and his wife has taken up work. Previously she
for daintinesse would not foule her fingers, nor turne her head aside, for
feare of hurting the set of her neckenger, was glad to goe about and
wash buches at the Thames side, and to be a chare-women in rich mens
houses, her soft hand was now hardened with scouring, and in steade of
gold rings vpon her lilly fingers, they were now fild with chaps,
prouoked by the sharpe lee, and other drudgeries. (p. 58)

When Jack arrives in London to represent his town in Parliament, he calls for a porter,
and Randoll, just released from prison, arrives to take his trunk. Porters were a
common occupation for the poor members of a guild who could find no other way to
earn a living; sometimes these jobs were given by the guild to maintain someone who
fell on hard times. Randoll, in very ragged clothes, comes to get Jack’s trunk.
However, when he sees Jack he runs away in fear that Jack will throw him in jail for
still owing him money. He loses both shoes in running, and then his worn-out
breeches tear, causing him to trip and fall in the street (p. 59). Jack does not believe
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the man has a chance of paying his debt as long as he is in prison or working in the
lowly position of a porter; he scolds the man that “thus hath your prodigality brought
you to, your thriftlesse neglecting of your businesse, that set more by your pleasure
than your profit” (p. 59). He has Randoll sign a bill for the money he is owed and then
gives him fine clothes and financial help (including helping him set up shop with loads
of cloth), saying the money will not have to be repaid until the man is sheriff.
Although others laugh at this idea because of the porter’s clothes, Randoll Pert does,
in fact, become sheriff; “ hee grew againe into great credit, and in the end became so
wealthy, that while master Winchcombe liued hee was chosen Sheriffe, at what time
he payed fiue hundred pounds euery penny, and after dyed an Alderman of the Citie”
(p. 60).
Jack Winchcombe is shown as unusual here, for the other people whom
Randoll Pert owes money throw him in jail; the scrivener thinks the man should sign a
bond, not a bill, so Jack will have more legal recourse against him, since few others
trust money to money; and others laugh at the idea that Jack would consider this porter
a candidate for sheriff. Jack is an ideal model because he is willing to invest in a man
and realizes that only money brings in more money. With poor clothing and a low
job, there is no opportunity for Randoll to improve. Even his wife’s attempts to earn
money only get him out of jail and no further. Hard work is praised in both cases, for
both genders, but the wife’s work is underplayed, making no real difference to their
lives. Only through the help of a great man and the work of the husband is their
fortune restored. This great man, who is held as an ideal who is willing to take a
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chance where other merchants will not, recognizes the need for appearance of wealth.
Only if Randolph Pert has the clothing and money to work a business will he be able
to make the money to repay his loans. Deloney is recognizing the Catch-22 of a
credit-based society; you must have money to make money and people will not trust
you unless you are proven successful.
This concern with making a person by clothing is related to business, but it is
also most often shown positively as related to men. Women are often shown as being
concerned with clothing in the stories of the time but in ways that undercut thrift and
propriety, and Deloney’s texts are no exception. Simon Eyre’s wife is excited with
each promotion her husband receives, because it means she can wear better clothing
and show off her hood and chain. Deloney’s second wife, Ann, is encouraged to wear
fine clothes by her neighbor. In Thomas of Reading, one of the clothiers allows his
wife to go with the other wives to visit London and immediately Sutton’s wife wants
to dress like the rich Londoners (p. 238). Her husband’s reaction shows just how
important clothing is as a clue to status; he immediately worries about what the
neighbors will think of her new choice in clothing.
what will the Bailiffes think, if I should prank thee vp like a Peacocke,
and thou in thy attire surpasse their wiues? they would either thinke I
were madde, or else that I had more mony then I could well vse . . it is
enough to raise me vp in the Kings booke, for many times, mens
coffers are iudged by their garments. (p. 238)

The wife who wants to spend money and clothe herself finely is shown as working
against the family’s best interest, partly because she is going against thrift, here seen
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as social pressure, to some extent with the husband’s concern that people will think he
has more money than he can use.
While the husband complains that it is indecent for a country wife to dress like
Londoners, just as it is indecent for Londoners to dress like courtiers, he indicates that
some do so (p. 238). The wife recounts the fancy clothes she saw in London which she
is being denied “because our husbands be not so kind as Londoners” (p. 238). She
saw a cobbler’s wife in London who dresses better than the best clothier’s wife in the
country, while “London Oyster-wiues, and the very kitchin-stuffe carryers, doe exceed
vs in their Sundaies attire: nay, more than that, I did see the Water-bearers wife which
belongs to one of our Merchants, come in with a Tankerd of water on her shoulder,
and yet halfe a dozen gold rings on her fingers” (p. 238). Obviously, there is status in
clothing and the wife feels that the lower orders of women and their occupations
should not be better dressed than she, the wife of a rich clothier of the country.
While her husband argues that Londoners dress for the honor and credit of the
whole country, he also counters about the water-bearer with the gold rings, “you may
then thinke, wife…she got them not with idlenesse” (p. 238). While this could just
imply that he feels that she works hard bringing water, doing more than his wife
perhaps, it may also be a reference to how else she might earn such riches—through
sexual favors. The idea that a poor woman doing fairly menial tasks (the wife ranks
her as one of the lowest she mentions, to show just how outrageous it is that this
woman has more than she does) might earn riches through prostitution is a common
one, and shows the suspicion that female workers faced at the time. Deloney ends this
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story with the husband eventually giving in to her demands, after she falls sick with
grieving over her lack of fine clothing. She and all of her cohorts will only dress in
London gowns from now on “so that ever since, the wiues of South-hampton,
Salisbury, of Glocester, Worcester, and Reading, went all as gallant and as braue as
any Londoners wiues” (p. 240). It is notable that the concern over propriety in
showing a high status and looking inappropriate in the eyes of others also becomes a
concern over the sexual promiscuity of the women, with the implication that some of
the women the wives hold up as models are prostitutes in order to afford such riches.
Another example of how appearances of wealth affects status is Simon Eyre’s
story in the Gentle Craft. First, Simon is counseled by his wife to pretend to be an
alderman in order to seal a deal which will eventually lead to his great wealth. He
dresses in clothing greater than his current rank allows and is not recognized as the
same shoemaker who had spoken to the ship’s captain earlier in the day; the details of
the clothing Simon will use while impersonating the alderman are quite formidable,
down to the last detail of “tawny satin…branched damask, furred around the skirts
with the finest foynes. . . and for thy wrists a pretty pair of cuffs” (p. 114). The
disguise works so well that it is not long before he has earned the right to wear such
clothing, thanks to the money he earns with this deal. He is elected sheriff partly
because everyone believes him to be very wealthy, but when he objects that he cannot
afford to hold that position and asks to wait for a year or two, they deny his request.
Apparently he has been heard claiming that he has a little table upon which he eats
breakfast which he would not trade for a thousand pounds. Anyone who can make
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such a claim must be wealthy enough to be elected sheriff. Simon gives in to this
promotion, only to have it discovered afterwards that his “little table” is, in fact, his
wife’s lap. When the men who elected him see that his table is his wife’s lap covered
with a napkin, they laugh and say “you herein haue vtterly deceiued our expectation”
and Simon replies, “Euen so did you mine . . . in making me Sheriff” (p. 125). While
Sutton’s wife was viewed as fooling the neighbors into believing them of higher status
and wealth with her clothing, here it is the wife’s body alone which is the fooling
commodity. The “little table” is worth a thousand pounds to Simon and this fools the
others into believing he is wealthy.
These tales show many tensions involved with social climbing. While many
characters move up and down the social scale, some working their way up from
poverty to mayor, while others fall from nobility to shoemaking or other servitude,
there are many signs of tensions that this causes. While we are to view people such as
Jack as successful because of their change in status, still all is not positively viewed.
Previously I have examined how several of the characters gain wealth through
marriage, but are excused of ambition or greed by having the woman do the majority
of the wooing and winning of the match. Simon’s trick to gain wealth is his decision,
but it is his wife’s plan and she is clearly the driving force in their early business
dealings, with Simon saying in wonder, at one point, “I perceiue wife (quoth he) thou
wouldest fain be a Lady, and worthy thou art to be one, that doest thus imploy thy wits
to bring thy husband profit” (p. 113). However, once these men get their wealth, there
are further indications of some discomfort about social climbing.
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All three stories of a man’s business virtues attracting women also have
interesting moments of tension in them, where we see complications arise. For
instance, in two of these stories (the stories of Jack and William discussed earlier),
Deloney has an employee marrying his widowed employer and thereby gaining the
run of the business. This was a troubling image for his time, where fear of workers
being able to better themselves through marrying a widow was a real issue, one that
occurred in real life as much as fiction. Since our male characters are ideals whom the
readers are supposed to admire, Deloney absolves them from blame or any hint of
ambition by having the women do all the pursuing.
Even when Jack realizes his Dame’s interest in him, he is shown to consider
the possibility and then reject it, because of their age difference and the fact that
having been his employer, she probably would never obey him (p. 13). The Dame
takes complete control, just like she did when ridding herself of unwanted suitors
earlier in the story. She declares that he will join her for dinner and then has him sleep
in the master’s best bed. At midnight she sneaks into the bedchamber and joins him in
bed, claiming cold feet because of the weather. Jack is described by her as a “kind
young man” who could not say no to a plea for warmer feet and so they spend the
night together in one bed

(p. 15). In the morning she has him travel with her to the
chapel where she announces to him that she is there to get married. She has the priest
and witnesses there and when asked where the bridegroom is, she pretends that he was
to meet her there. After waiting a suitable time and appearing as if she has been stood
up, she declares that since she came to church to be married, the priest should marry
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her to her man John who is nearby. “Iohn seeing no remedy, consented, because hee
saw the matter could not otherwise bee amended; and married they were presently” (p.
16). This makes it sound like the marriage is a problem which cannot be solved, with
Jack thrust into a contract—literally and figuratively—which cannot be “amended.”
There was much talk during Deloney’s time of ambitious young journeymen, and even
apprentices, trying to woo widows so that they might have a business. Deloney, by
making Jack not only reject the idea of marrying his Dame but get tricked into
marrying her and essentially doing so under duress, completely clears Jack of any hint
of ambition or impropriety. The woman’s control over the matter takes all blame from
Jack.
The reason why Jack must be cleared of blame becomes clear upon their return
home from the wedding. Deloney spends a page on a rather uncomfortable
homecoming. Upon entering the house, Jack kisses his new wife, “which the other
seruants seeing, thought him somewhat sawcy” (p. 16). Not informing the household
of the marriage, the Dame sets Jack at the head of the table in the best chair in the
house, and places a good napkin on his trencher. Then the rest of the household is
called into dinner, and all of Jack’s fellow workers come in and are startled to see Jack
at the head of the table with the Dame sitting beside him. “They wondring to see their
fellow John sit at the tables end in their old masters chaire, began heartily to smile,
and openly to laugh at the matter, especially because their Dame so kindly sate by his
side” (p. 16). By moving the journeyman to the position of Master, and doing so
without anyone who works with Jack knowing, it sets up a scene where the power
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structure is broken down and the servants are laughing at the master. The Dame
reprimands them and says that Jack is now her husband and they should show good
manners before their master and begin to “acknowledge your duety towards him” (p.
16).
While Jack had originally rejected the idea of this marriage partially because
he feared that his Dame would not obey him, at the start of their marriage, the issue
first is whether or not those who worked with him as journeyman will accept his new
position as their Master. The household workers are surprised by this sudden change
of status “maruelling at this strange newes” and Jack reassures them that he is not
affected in pride and will not forget who he has been. This is meant to reassure them
that they will be treated well. However, he follows this with the slightly more
ominous sounding: “Notwithstanding, seeing I am now to hold the place of a master, it
shall be wisdome in you to forget what I was, and to take mee as I am, and in doing
your diligence, you shall haue no cause to repent that God made me your master” (p.
16). While Jack will not forget who he was (and, therefore, will treat them well and
not abuse his new power), they are to forget who he was (and not try to trade favors or
behave as if he is still one of them and not their employer).
This clearly sets up the power structure: Jack will be a dictator, but promises
to be a benevolent one. They hear this, and “as also knowing his good gouernment
before time, past their years with him in dutifull manner” (p. 16). Jack’s virtue and
promise of continued good treatment, in addition to his threat that they should
remember their place and they will not regret his becoming master, solves the problem
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in the narrative, but does not solve the difficulty such changes would have caused in
real life. Mark Thornton Burnett indicates that Jack is shown as being in a household
authority structure to his workers but that “the conjunction of the two economic
polarities of factory and family, and the idealized attempt to reconcile these conflicting
modes of production, serve only paradoxically to expose the difference between them
and the uncertain relationship between Jack’s many guises”
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Deloney also explores another source of conflict inherent in promoting a young
man through marriage, and how this will affect who is in charge in the household.
Jack’s new wife does not accept his new position as Master as easily in the text as the
workers do. Neighbors hear of the marriage and tell the Dame that such “a lusty
young man as he” will never love her because of her age, so she says she will test his
patience and “her gossips did likewise encourage her” (p. 17). Therefore, for the next
month, she leaves the house in the morning and does not return until night, leaving all
her management of the household undone. Jack tries to counsel her against this,
gently at first, but she replies, as he feared she would, “he that was my servant but the
other day, will now be my master; this it is for a woman to make her foote her
head . . . I, pittying thy poverty, made thee a man, and master of the house, but not to
the end that I would become thy slave” (p. 17). Since the woman has power over Jack,
from her former position as employer and her greater wealth and age, her subservient
role, as dictated by custom, is not working. Also, the role of wife in keeping the house
is here equated with slavery, from a female character that previously ran a business

96
Ibid., 58.
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and household frugally and now spends all of her time on entertainment and shopping.
Jack fears that she will never listen to him, seeing that she was older, richer, and
formerly his employer; she fears he cannot love her because of the same things and
that he only married her for the better position.
The climatic scene of their argument over authority occurs when she comes
home late one night and he locks her out of the house. She asks if he expects her to
“lye in the streets like a Strumpet” and he replies, “Whether like a dogge or drab
(quoth hee) all is one to mee, knowing no reason, but hath as you haue staied out all
day for your delight, so you may lye forth all night for my pleasure” (p. 17). Staying
away from home and not returning until late in the evening is equated with being
either an animal or a prostitute and, even, as against human nature as Jack goes on to
say that all other animals, even the lowliest ones, “obserue a conuenient time to
returne to their habitation” (p. 17). Having now equated disobedient wives, the lowest
of the animals, and prostitutes, Jack bars the door to their home. She gets him to open
it by pretending that her wedding ring has slipped off her finger at the doorstep and he
must bring a candle to find it. When he does so, she slips by him and locks him out.
This scene is important because it is examining the dynamics of power in a marriage
not based on mutual age and wealth. Her claim to have lost her wedding ring in the
street is significant because the wedding ring is a site of anxiety over female sexuality.
Widows were commonly perceived as lusty in literature at the time, and when
combined with the image of the ring as female genitalia (for instance, the ring in the
Merchant of Venice, we are told, has the danger of people thrusting into it), a
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dangerous image of a lusty widow out of control and potentially cuckolding Jack
emerges.
97
Certainly her disobedience of his wishes is being equated with sexual
looseness.
The solution to the other workers’ reactions to having Jack promoted was the
paradoxical “I’ll never forget who I was, but you should.” The solution to the power
dynamic in marriage is just as paradoxical. Jack says in exasperation that he will
never try to restrain her or give her advice or otherwise try to rule her desires; she says
that because he swears so, she promises to rule herself so that she shall never offend
him. She will behave as he wishes, as long as he does not impose those wishes on her.
“Nowhere are the tensions between residual and emergent forms of service better
exemplified than in the opening stages of . . . Jack of Newberie. A debate about men
and women’s roles encourages reflections upon the nature of authority and its
traditional functions.”
98
Deloney has set up a situation where the Dame is a troubling
figure—too much in control of Jack and his relationship. Pages were devoted to her
strong-willed wooing of Jack and dismissal of her other suitors. However, once the
couple is married, Deloney must explore the changing nature of Jack’s position. He
was her servant and now is her Master, in addition to Master of his fellow workers. In
a workplace modeled on a family structure, it is natural that tensions involving
workplace promotions should also play out within the structure of husband and wife.
If Jack is not shown as winning the authority over his former Dame (now wife) then
he cannot become the great Master which is the point of the story.

97
For more on this idea, see chapter three of this project.

98
Burnett, Masters and Servants in English Renaissance Drama and Culture: Authority and Obedience.
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A few sentences after they reconcile with the agreement that he will not
impose his will and she will, therefore, obey him, Deloney kills off the character of
Jack’s wife with the simple line “after this time, they lived long together, in most
godly, loving, and kind sort, till in the end she dyed, leaving her husband wondrous
wealthy” (p. 19). In the very next sentence Jack has picked out a new wife, but rather
than chose the “mens daughters of good credit and widows of great wealth” now
available to him, he apparently decides that he will ensure a power structure where he
is the master, and proposes marriage to one of his servants (p. 19). The point of the
story of the Dame is how she brings him wealth and power, giving him authority. She
does not need to remain in the text once her task is done, and so she is summarily
escorted out. Deloney here brings up the specter of disobedience and a questioning of
Jack’s authority, only to brush it aside and reward Jack with access to a new wife who
will be in no place to question his role as head of the household, since she has been his
servant.
As Mihoku Suzuki points out, correctly, Jack’s employer is able to articulate
her desires, manipulate her surroundings, and work out a relationship which will keep
her within her own guild (since her others suitors pursue different lines of work, guild
law would have excluded her on her marriage to any of them). She goes so far as to
say that Deloney “celebrates the widow’s agency” even while recognizing that Jack
sees the relationship as potentially troubling from a mastery viewpoint—for how can
one be master of a household where one was once a servant?
99
Once this tension is
swept under the rug by the quick death of the new wife, his subsequent remarriage is

99
Suzuki, "The London Apprentice Riots of the 1590s and the Fiction of Thomas Deloney," 191.
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to one who was his servant (thus reducing any possibility of tensions over household
authority). While I certainly agree that the widow is a strong and inviting figure for
the reader, her threat to authority and her subsequent dismissal from the narrative is
not to be taken lightly.
The other story of a worker marrying an employer is William and Widow
Farmer. Although William does pursue his Dame, telling her of his love while going
over the business account books, it is the Widow who ultimately does the pursuing and
winning of her apprentice. She tests him and sees that he truly loves her and will serve
her even in the lowest ways, and then she sends for him and announces that she will
marry him. Although Jack’s story worries about who is in charge after such a
marriage, this story does not but, instead, revolves around two disquieting notes.
First, their marriage is precipitated by a breakdown in the power structure of
the home. The other workers in the household speak harshly to William when he
serves in the kitchen, saying that they would never serve under such conditions. In
fact, they go so far as to say that they would see their employer with the devil “before
I would doe it” (p. 196). Then, when the widow tests her servants’ willingness to obey
orders by sending for some oysters at Billingsgate, her workers each refuse her order.
The first man says he is too busy in the shop and says to send another, and to “make a
drudge of some other and not of me, for to be plaine I will not goe” and then the man
she put in charge of the shop says she should send a porter to fetch the oysters rather
than him, for “I scorne you should require any such matter of me” (p. 197).
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William’s willingness to fetch the oysters, even though he is “of so good
parents and hauing so little a while to serue” is what proves his worthiness to the
widow. However, it also points out that the order of her household is troubled, for no
one obeys orders in her workplace if they find it beneath their status. When the
marriage is announced, and William is still covered with dirt from his work in the
kitchen, the other workers are brought in and “she made them do reuerence vnto him,
whom they for his drudgerie scorned so much before” (p. 201). Although their lives
are described as long and prosperous, we are never given a solution to the workers’
feelings about authority or William’s promotion.
The second note of discord around this marriage is one of the spurned suitors
of the widow, Harry Neville, who takes their marriage as a sign to move on—and he
proceeds to try a number of different professions, each time seducing either the wife or
daughter of his new Master. He seduces the goldsmith’s daughter, then becomes a
Barber-Surgeon, only to have an affair with the wife (p. 203). Then he tries being a
cook and then leaves that profession after “he grew something cunning, hauing done
some shrewd turne in that place” and then he tries his hand at being a Smith, only to
seduce their maid, Judith (p. 203). Afterwards, he tries to be a Joyner, till his father is
taken ill and comes looking for him and reconciles, leaving him a great fortune (p.
203). Harry then pretends to be a relative of his and goes to each of the former
employers and offers money to recompense them for losses during Harry’s time with
them. The goldsmith says he robbed his daughter of her maidenhead and that cannot
be repaid, although she is now married and is fine. Harry gives her forty pounds
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“towards her maintenance” and the Barber then complains about his wife, but the wife
says that they never had an affair but that her husband’s suspicion that they did caused
her to be beaten. Harry then gives her twenty Angels “so your husband will not take it
in dudgin” and then the smith complains of his maid and Harry gives twenty pounds
towards her marriage (p. 203).
Thus after hee had fully ended with them all, hee made himselfe
knowne vnto them, at what time they all reioyced greatly, and then
after he had bestowed on them a sumptuous dinner, they all departed.
And euer after, this Gentleman kept men of all these occupations in his
own house, himself being as good a workman as any of them all. (p.
203)

William and the widow’s marriage is capped by a display of occupation and seduction
that ends with the payment for any inconveniences caused and all the men joining
together in celebration that they are paid by the man who served in their house and
betrayed the women at the same time. The breakdown of order is glossed over by the
supposed reformation of Harry, but really he just uses his money and power to buy
favor, and his reason for keeping men of these occupations in his house and his
supposed abilities at work hardly fit smoothly with the earlier description of his youth.
This shows the tension in the story that order has broken down.
William’s story is a short one, like most from the Gentle Craft, so we do not
see how long his marriage lasts or if it is a happy one. However, Jack of Newberie
follows the title character through his life, so the reader can also see that even though
Jack’s second wife, Ann, was a servant in his household before their marriage, there
are still problems with authority and household management with his new wife. After
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the marriage, she listens to her neighbor, named “her Gossip” throughout the story,
about how she should run Jack’s business and house. This neighbor, however, is
motivated out of jealousy. She remembers Jack from when he was a lowly apprentice
and knows Ann was just recently a servant girl. Ann brings out her new French hood,
silk gown, and the gold chain and bracelets that she will wear now that Jack has been
elected to represent the town in Parliament (p. 54-5). After having seen these fineries,
the Gossip gives Ann bad advice, telling her to scrimp on feeding the servants and
make other savings in order to have more money for finery (p.. 56). Later, when the
angered servants get the Gossip drunk (in order to humiliate her publicly), we find out
that she has been trying to undermine Jack and Ann because
your Mistresse, now shee is rich, and I am poore, but its no matter, I
knew her a draggle tayle girle, marke yee? . . . . Mistresse Winchomb,
mistresse? No, Nan Winchcombe, I will call her name, plaine Nan:
what, I was a woman when she was sir-reuernce a paltry girle, though
now shee goes in her Hood and Chaine of Gold: what care I for her? I
am her elder, and I know more of her trickes. (p. 62)

Such a great change in status incites envy and leads to a breakdown of social order.
This Gossip is paraded through town drunk, thanks to the angry servants of Jack
Winchcombe, who seek to protect their meals and other benefits, which the Gossip
counseled Ann to shortchange. Jack is angry at the Gossip too, banning Ann from
seeing her, saying that she will ruin his good credit (p. 57). His reputation is partly
based on how well he treats those who work for him. As his wife, Ann is directly
responsible for those decisions and, therefore, for his reputation.
84

The Gossip “is blamed and scapegoated as an unruly (and disgusting) woman
so that any challenge to Jack’s authority can be deflected without implicating or
punishing his heretofore obedient wife.”
100
Also, as with his marriage, Jack is freed
from any blame. He does not pursue his first wife so he cannot be accused of social
climbing. He does not have to worry about her authority for long because she dies.
He does not have to worry about the Gossip for long because his workers rally to
protect his interests. A well regulated household apparently keeps out all threats
without the Master even being aware. Jack, as the ideal merchant, is never guilty of
any impropriety.
Another example of Jack’s household protecting him and shielding him from
impropriety is when his female workers ritually humiliate the king’s fool. Will
Summer, who visited Jack’s workplace with the king, spends his time with the
maidens, talking to them and spinning “as they did” which they then inform him will
cost him a “forfeit of a gallon of wine” (p. 38). Will Summer refuses to pay, trying to
change the debt to kisses “rating euery kisse at a farthing” (p. 38). The maidens refuse
this exchange saying that they would be giving as much as getting in this offer, and
instead take their revenge on him in a more aggressive manner. They bind his hands
and feet and tie him to a post. Because he had talked so much, they gag him. The
next scene is described in vivid detail:
Then one of them got a couple of dog droppings, and putting them in a
bagge, laid them in soke in a bason of water, while the rest turned down
the coller of his Ierkin, and put an house-cloath about his necke in stead
of a fine towel: then came the other maide with a bason and water in
the same, and with the perfume in the pudding-bagge, flapt him about

100
Ibid., 196.
85

the face and lips till he looked like a tawnie Moore, and with her hand
washt him very orderly: the smell being somewhat strong, Will could
by no means abide it, and for want of other language, cryed Ah ha ha
ha. (p. 39)

When they free his tongue he swears at them and they laugh. He tries to pay them by
throwing down an “English Crowne” but they refuse and threaten to shave him. When
he begs for them to stop, he admits he may have “done a trespasse to your Trade” but
asks for forgiveness. They reply that he has damaged their equipment and refused to
pay their fine for working in their place, so they insist that he feed their hogs before
they will let him go. He agrees but when he gets to where the pigs are kept, he drives
out all the female pigs, saying that he only promised to feed the hogs, not the sows.
He then feeds the male hogs, singing in triumph that he has done his task “therefore
farewell you drabs” (p. 40). The women are upset (apparently feeling that he is fooling
them, and perhaps taking offense at his gender specific riddle about the hogs and his
calling them “drabs”) and decide there is one hog which must still be fed—him. He is
force fed the pigs’ slop before he is allowed to return to the king and tell his tale
(which the king laughs at).
The fool is ritually debased by Jack’s female workers, and as Suzuki correctly
points out, this carnivalesque moment can be seen as taking the effigy of the king and
humiliating King Henry by proxy. Notably, both Will and the King respond to this
with laughter, Will because his horror at his treatment, and the presence of a gag,
seems to drive language from him, the King from amusement (but it remains an
ambiguous amusement when reacting to a scene which could be seen as hostile to him
and his authority). Since Jack has been lecturing to the king just pages before and
86

acting with great pride about his own little kingdom of workers, this scene could be
interpreted as the workers punishing the king.
However, it is more than that. The women are specifically protecting their
own jobs as spinners. Will is seen as attempting to supplant them and to connect sex
and work (by demanding kisses). Their reaction humiliates him, connects him to
strangers (by painting his face like a Moor) and while protecting the household from
the King’s authority (for Jack) also potentially endangers the household, if the King
responds poorly. It also shows the potential revolt on Jack’s hands if he threaten the
workers’ jobs. The women may have been supplanted from their roles as weavers,
but they will protect the jobs which remain to them—violently, if need be.
Jack’s career is capped with the final chapter on “How one of Jacke of
Newberies maides became a Ladie” (p. 64). Sir George Rigley, was not rich, although
he was brave on the battlefield and earned the title of knight, but during peace his
“credits grew weake in the City” so he goes to the country to stay with friends. Jack
opens his home to nobles such as him who have little money and “kept a table for all
comers” (p. 64). This is part of the hospitality which Jack is praised for throughout the
story. However, while staying at Jack’s house, Sir George seduces Jack’s maid, Joan,
with talk of marriage. When she tells Sir George she is pregnant, he abandons her,
saying, “Why thou lewd paltry thing . . . commest thou to father thy bastard vpon me?
Away ye dunghill carrion, away: Heare you good huswife, get you among your
companions, and lay your litter where you list” (p. 64). Joan, feeling desperate, tells
her Mistress, Ann, what has happened. Ann, “after she had giuen her many bitter
87

checks and taunts, threatening to turne her out of doores,” tells Jack what has
happened (p. 65). Jack decides to trick Sir George into marrying Joan. He does so by
dressing her up as a wealthy widow, and making her wealth and status so enticing that
Sir George will rush to marry her.
Jack, however, does not do this for Joan’s benefit. It is his pride and reputation
that is damaged by this event. He angrily asks Sir George afterwards, “came you to
my table to make my maide your strumpet? had you no mans house to dishonor but
mine? sir, I you should well know that I account the poorest wench in my house too
good to be your whore, were you ten knights” (p. 67). Jack is not kind to Joan, saying,
as he puts a fancy gown and hood on her, “Come ye drabbe, I must be fayne to couer a
foule fault with a fayre garment” (p. 65). When Sir George finds out he has been
fooled into marrying the maid, he is furious, but seeing that Jack gives Joan a hundred
pounds, and thinking how Jack’s wealth and connections could help him, he takes “his
wife by the hand, gaue her a louing kisse, and Master Winchcombe great thanks” (p.
67-8). For the next two years, Joan and Sir George live with Jack and Ann in their
household, and Ann curtseys to Joan, giving her the “upper hand in all places” (p. 68).
The King, hearing how Jack tricked Sir George thinks it is very funny and sends Sir
George “a liuing for euer, the better to maintaine my Lady, his Wife” (p. 68).
This is how the story ends, with Jack helping his maid become of higher status
than himself, but there is great discomfort in the tale. Joan is repeatedly vilified but as
soon as she is the accepted wife of a Knight, she sits at the upper station and takes
status over Ann. Sir George is shown to be a villain, treating Joan poorly and seeking
88

only to gain for himself, yet he is rewarded. Much like the tale of Harry Neville in
The Gentle Craft, where he repeatedly seduces women and then “makes things right”
by paying people off (with the lower class women get less money than the merchant’s
wives and daughters), Jack and Sir George participate in an exchange of money and
favors meant to gloss over the bad behavior of one. Jack seeks to protect his
household from outside incursions, which is what a good master should do, but the
tone of the story and its place at the end of Jack’s life sets a disquieting note. Is it
really the best sign of Jack’s success (since we do not have his dying days and a list of
his charities as we do for other merchants in Deloney’s tales) that his maid is seduced
by a knight who is then tricked into making her a lady?
The maidservant marriage is an enactment of “the reassembly of class barriers
[which] muddles their distinguishing features, so that accident dictates the restoration
of the social order, and doubts are raised about the ability of the aristocracy to weather
its self-inflicted impoverishment.”
101
Earlier in the story Randolph Pert was made a
new man through clothing and it was ultimately a positive event, leading to his
restoration of credit. This attempt to restore credit, through the disguising of the
maidservant, however, is a con game. “This successful ‘passing’ of the maidservant
subverts the supposedly essential difference between classes, confirming the anxiety
of the upper classes expressed in Elizabeth’s repeated proclamations outlining
elaborately detailed sumptuary laws.”
102
The success of the con and the subsequent

101
Burnett, Masters and Servants in English Renaissance Drama and Culture: Authority and Obedience
67.

102
Suzuki, "The London Apprentice Riots of the 1590s and the Fiction of Thomas Deloney," 197.
89

discomfort when the formerly vilified maid sits at the head of the table as the highest
ranking woman show a breakdown in class structure which Deloney tries to cover up
but does not entirely succeed in obfuscating.
In Jack of Newberie the protagonist’s “repeated and successful mastering of
the threat of the unruly woman functions as an index of his dominance over the
aristocracy; the women moreover provide safer targets for overt hostility than those
who stand above him in the social order.”
103
Like Horatio Alger, Deloney creates a
social fantasy where the hard work of becoming a master is mystified.
104
Social
mobility is mythologized and affirmed, but at the same time the text “gives voice to a
profoundly subversive questioning of the natural fixedness of social hierarchy.”
105

Suzuki argues that the tensions regarding class hierarchies become entwined with
issues of gender because women “occupy a position similar to that of apprentices.”
106

Both women and apprentices could not be part of the administration of the guilds,
although both were members of the guilds, and apprenticeships were arranged much
like marriages.
107
However, I would like to point out that women do not outgrow
being women, while apprentices were just one stage of development for a man, who
might one day become master, leaving women, of all ages and stages of life, a site of
anxiety.

103
Ibid., 189.

104
Leonard Mustazza, "Thomas Deloney's Jacke of Newbury: A Horatio Alger Story for the Sixteenth
Century," JPC 23, no. 4 (1990): 165.

105
Suzuki, "The London Apprentice Riots of the 1590s and the Fiction of Thomas Deloney," 190.

106
Ibid.

107
Ibid.
90

Deloney’s time was a changing one, where the family structure that had been a
part of the workplace was slowly fading. He reaches back into nostalgia to encourage
this structure to continue, even in the large businesses such as Jack’s weaving.
Neither Jack Winchcombe nor Richard Casteler have children, yet each man is spoken
of as having a family—his workers. Deloney is here whitewashing a concern about
poverty and the treatment of workers. If all clothiers took such pains to maintain their
workers as if they were family, then the community would be supported. Nobody
would go poor in a world where everyone was like Jack. This ideal world is the one
Deloney is promoting, probably because he does not actually see it happening enough
around him. He has already acknowledged in the text that when a man loses his
wealth, it is likely that others will abandon him; this is in direct contradiction to his
desire for community and charity.
Another problem which is alluded to is that when one live in such close
proximity to one’s workers, there is a greater chance for intimacy. Both Widow
Farmer and Jack’s Dame fall in love with and marry their employees (and tensions
erupt in the text regarding these marriages). There is one further example of this
concern. In Thomas of Reading, Margaret is the daughter of an exiled Earl and goes to
a fair to find employment (hiding who she is). She is taken as a maidservant by Good-
Wife Gray, even though Margaret admits that she knows few skills. As soon as they
return from the fair, Master Gray tells his wife, that it would be better to have not
hired Margaret, for she is so pretty that she will attract too many men. The wife
replies that she hopes Margaret will “haue a better care both to her owne credit, and
91

our commodity then so” (p. 225). A short two lines later, however, Good-Wife Gray
regrets her decision to keep Margaret when she hears her husband praise her. She tells
Margaret to pack immediately: “I will not nourish a snake in my bosome” (p. 225).
Margaret is overcome with terror at losing her employment and falls to her knees
begging to stay, “for rather then that shall hinder my seruice, this my knife shall soone
disfigure my face, and I will banish beautie as my greatest enemy” (p. 225).
In a household where people live so closely together, the idea that one or more
members of the household might become attracted to each other is a threat to the
social order. Although Margaret keeps her position in the house, the text continues to
indicate that the master may be overfond of her, calling her “Margaret of the white
hands” and praising her beauty. When Margaret’s status as a noble is known, near the
end of the narrative, her Dame pretends she thought of her like a daughter, and had
been considering her as a marriage partner for her son (p. 271). However, until her
nobility is known, Margaret is, instead, a threat to domestic tranquility. Even the ideal
of work based on family structure and contained within the home is shown as having
problems, again revolving around the figure of a woman.

“I will not marry a stranger”: Foreign Threats and the Household Business
Another tension in Deloney is the impact of foreign workers in the household.
“Foreigners within the city itself posed a threat of greater material urgency to trading
and commercial interests. . . . Dutch and French refugees, in particular, were charged
92

with causing unemployment, a decline in trade, and a rise in prices.”
108
In 1595
Deloney joined other members of his livery company in a complaint and was jailed for
it. The complaint specified that “strangers” were making use of the trade of weaving
and that they only sought their own wealth by breaking many of the rules including,
“many of them kepe Apprentices and Loomes twice or thrice as many as they
ought . . . They haue opened and discovered the secretes of our Occupacion . . . by this
means many a poore English man is . . . brought to . . . miserye.”
109
Deloney’s prose
fiction abounds with the French, Italian, and Dutch journeymen seeking employment
from the clothiers and shoemakers of his tales. While they are accepted into the
workplace, they are also shown their place, which is as inferior to the Englishmen.
In Jack of Newberie, a young Italian merchant seeks to seduce Joane, the
clothier’s servant and wife to one of his weavers. He first tries to pay off the husband,
and then flatters Joane with fantasies of becoming a lady. However, Joane and her
husband fend off these advances and revenge themselves upon him by tricking him
into bed with a sow and he leaves the town in disgrace. Thus, “In the face of the
infiltration of alien forces, servants rally to act upon a community’s principles:
economic and sexual property is defended, and the hierarchal structures which
maintain Jack’s power are triumphantly validated.”
110
Much as with the Gossip, the
household servants promote the ideal and protect the structure of the patriarchal work
environment.

108
Burnett, Masters and Servants in English Renaissance Drama and Culture: Authority and Obedience.

109
qtd in Burnett 60

110
Burnett, Masters and Servants in English Renaissance Drama and Culture: Authority and Obedience.
93

In Engendering a Nation, Jean Howard and Phyllis Rackin write that “nations
are artificial creations . . . communities that are imagined into being by certain cultural
practices and ideas” and “conceptions of national unity both enabled and were enabled
by a set of evolving material practices”
111
In the same way history plays tried to
fashion the spectator into a heroic English man,
112
the texts Deloney writes were
meant to refashion the guild men into heroic and generous English men and to show
the Queen how she should treat them.
Joane’s story is also about women protecting the household from foreign
threats, again relating sex and economics. Joane states “thinke not the wives of
England can bee won by rewards or intised with faire words, as children are with
Plums” (p. 53). Her would-be lover, the Italian merchant, ends up in bed with a pig,
much like Will Summer’s humiliation ends with feeding pigs and eating with them.
Suzuki rightfully calls this “a xenophobic and nationalistic ‘moral’ that affirms the
constitution of the English nation as a sum of its various parts: ‘Barkeshire maides will
be no Italians strumpets, nor the wives of Newberie their bawds.’”
113
By affirming
their sexual chastity, Joane also affirms her identity as an Englishwoman. “Sexual
restraint was an identifying feature in the contruction of both the English nation and
the prosperous class of worker-merchants.”
114
Both the nobleman who seduces the
maid and the Italian who tries to seduce the maid are held up as opposites to Jack, who

111
Jean Howard and Phyllis Rackin, Engendering a Nation: A Feminist Account of Shakespeare's
English Histories (London and New York: Routledge, 1997) 12.

112
Ibid., 12-16.

113
Suzuki, "The London Apprentice Riots of the 1590s and the Fiction of Thomas Deloney," 196.

114
Ibid., 198.
94

defines the good Englishman of the merchant class, who has taken on the duties once
held by the upper class.
Similarly, in The Gentle Craft, part I, Deloney has John, a Frenchman, and
Haunce, a Dutchman, compete for the same woman, Florence, only to be defeated by
the English journeyman Nicholas. Here the danger is not expelled but absorbed, with
Simon Eyre approving the new marriage (indeed, we hardly see Florence agreeing to
it), and then helping both John and Haunce economically, so that while they do not get
the girl, they do still benefit. Florence comes close to marrying both of the foreign
journeymen. Haunce is only stopped by the other man making him too drunk to show
up at the wedding, while John is stopped by the reappearance of his wife, whom he
thought was dead (p. 131). Upon learning of his wife’s return, John says “seeing she is
aliue, I will not lose her for twenty thousand crowns” and Florence rejoins that she
will not marry a “stranger” for they all might have wives hidden back at home.
Having rejected all foreign-born suitors, Florence is set up with Simon’s journeyman
Nicholas “marrying them out of his house with credit, giving them a good stock to
begin the world withal” (p. 131).
John and Haunce, who are both made fun of for their heavy accents and
stereotypical likes (the Dutch, for instance, are well known for their drunkness), are
rewarded by Simon as well, with John taking over the shoemaking shop since Simon
is too busy becoming Mayor and Haunce is given money and steady employment.
However, Deloney is never as positive about foreigners as some other writers. For
instance, Thomas Dekker, in covering the same story for The Shoemaker’s Holiday,
95

sees the Dutch journeyman as being part of a Protestant community and treats him
fairly well, although still as a source of humor. Deloney, however, while encouraging
community amongst trade practitioners, is still deeply concerned with the
trustworthiness of foreigners and their impact on English business. There is a tension
here between the community of workers which Deloney wishes to encourage and the
threat he saw from the influx of foreigners. He uses the figure of a woman, who will
chose the Englishman over a “stranger,” to restrict them within the community,
accepted into it, but only so far.
The French appear in another place in The Gentle Craft, where the King is
fighting them in Bullen. Robin, a servant to Richard Casteler takes a break from
tormenting Meg and Gillian about their love of his master, and sings a song to the
king. In this song, we are told that Bullen was “a famous Maiden towne” and “By
conquest neuer was she won, / She is a Lady of most high renowne” (p. 168). The
King lays siege to the town and “our King most deeply swore, / Her Maiden-head that
he would obtaine” (p. 169). Ordinance are shot at the town:
Hee sent her many a token,
Firie balls, and burning brazen rings:
Faire, broad arrows sharpe and swift,
Which came among them with a drift,
Wel garnishd with the gray goose wing. (p. 169)

Thus war becomes wooing, with the traditional rejection of the lover’s offer, the
sending of gifts, and then the winning of the woman. Of course, this is a violent
wooing, more akin to rape, where the town falls upon her knees and begs for her life,
telling the King to “take my maiden-head” (p. 169). Having been “gifted” enough with
96

ordinance and arrows, the town of Bullen is figured as a noble woman weeping to the
King for her life. Her defeat and his victory become figured as a giving or offering,
for the army is described as entering the town (with a brutal, almost sexual implication
of penetration) after she “ventures” herself (something that might be said of a
prostitute offering herself to a client). “Lo, thus her selfe she ventred,/ and streight her
streets wee entred, /And to the market place we marched free” (p. 169). In a story
dedicated to merchants, it can surely be no coincidence that the market is the first
place they will take control of, the heart of the fair town. While foreigners (or
“strangers” as the people of the time called them) are at least partially accepted into
London mercantile society, although seen as a threat that must be controlled, here the
figure of a foreigner is a subdued and conquered one, a fantasy of a female brought
down by a triumphant male who forces himself on her and frees her marketplace—
opening it up to the British army’s step.
Mihoko Suzuki argues “Deloney’s effective advocacy of the interest of English
male workers comes at the expense of women and foreigners who are demonized as
competitors and encroachers.”
115
Joan Pong Linton agrees with Suzuki’s analysis that
Deloney’s texts are building a certain type of English manhood. She sees Jack of
Newberie as a story “of an ideal bourgeois manhood elaborated through the economics
and politics of cloth-making.”
116
The cloth-making hero is given aristocratic values,
which “emphasizes service to the commonwealth, signaling a reorientation of the self

115
Ibid., 208.

116
Joan Pong Linton, "Jack of Newbery and Drake in California: Domestic and Colonial Narratives of
English Cloth and Manhood," ELH 59, no. 1 (1992): 23.
97

from regional feudal loyalties to an alignment with a centralized nation-state.”
117

Linton argues that the “civilizing process” is tied to gender identities, where “it
fostered . . . an idea of man as the mediator of domestic and civil authority.”
118
What
we find is that class and national conflict are filtered through gender representation.
However, since the main characters of the guild members, like Jack, are idealized,
they seldom do the actual punishment or action, but are seen as unthreatening figures
of community building. The women, who are also being displaced from work or as
figures of authority, are not only sites of anxiety, but in the end are also the enforcers
who protect the household which is run by the man.

“Vertuous subjects labour with delight”: The Bee-hive, Politics and Gender
Deloney was a master writer of ballads, and his tales are sprinkled with songs,
some more connected to the story than others. In The Gentle Craft, I have just shown
how one song about a maiden town’s siege and surrender serves to show foreigners as
kept in place by the triumphant Englishman. In Jack of Newberie, Deloney uses two
songs for a different purpose—to keep women in their proper place in the workforce.
Women had long been a part of weaving history but were increasingly excluded by
guild regulations so that by the early seventeenth century they were mostly regulated
to the lower-end of wage earners in the field, doing mostly carding and spinning.
“Jack of Newberie idealizes this history of male monopolization of the trade in the

117
Ibid., 24.

118
Ibid.
98

story of one man and redefines the economic displacement of female weavers as
man’s domestic mastery over women.”
119

Joan Pong Linton points to how the narrative of Jack’s marriage to the widow
(who conveniently dies and then is replaced by a servant girl) “enacts its own
inscription within the patriarchal economy” and yet at the same time by raising the
specter of the first wife who questioned his authority the narrative retains “the traces
of what manhood displaces as a register of its achievement.”
120
Jack’s rise in power
economically displaces more than just his first wife but numerous women weavers
from the cloth trade and this is made visible in the story through some ballads.
The King comes to visit Jack’s shop and is treated to a song by the 200 male
weavers employed by Jack. Jack has an ordered and peaceful workplace, seen as an
extension of his household—so much so that the employees are termed family. In all,
almost a thousand workers are described: men, women, and children at work in
weaving and spinning tasks, plus a support staff to feed, clothe, and maintain them.
This is described as a “great household and family” but Jack is a widower (at this
moment, since he is about to marry his second wife) with no children (nor does it
appear he fathers any with his second wife) so we are not seeing a true family but a
business one.
What this description is supposed to do in the narrative is support the
practices of those, like Jack, with big businesses. Although it had been more common
for men such as Jack to hire out spinning and other labor to people who worked from

119
Ibid., 25.

120
Ibid., 26-7.
99

their homes, Jack, despite being in the more old-fashioned business of wool and kersie
(rather than linen or silk), is following a newer practice of working people in almost
factory-like conditions. Weaving and other processes are done all together in one
place. This had been true of a number of crafts, but was fairly new for weaving.
Deloney is making it seem like the best situation, with all the happy singing people
being described, given good food and looked after by their benevolent “father” Jack
who makes sure of his employees’ welfare and happiness.
These two hundred men working at weaving sing a song for their king. Hidden
in the classical references in the song is a message about the state of weaving. The
song begins when times were good for the weavers and “loue and friendship did agree,
/ To keep the band of amitie” (p. 31). This is the time of Hercules, who spins thread,
and Pallas, who “wrought upon the Loome” (p. 31). During these ancient days, when
times were good, men spun and women wove. However, the song notes that hard
times did come and “brought poore men to hard extreames” (p. 31). Now “Penelope
apace did spin” while the weavers work with “mickle joy . . . though little gaines were
coming in” (p. 31). The significance of this is in the legend of Penelope. She was a
popular figure in fiction of the time, but she is best known for her weaving. In order
to hold off her suitors while her husband returned from the war, Penelope wove all day
and then ripped out her progress at night. Now Penelope, one of the most famous
weavers, is reduced to spinning, while male weavers have great joy despite the small
100

profits.
121
What the weavers claim in this song is that the economic hard times shifted
who did the weaving.
In the next stanza, the weavers wish that Helen had sat “carding wool” for then
she would not have caused the Trojan war by being “Paris trull” (p. 32). The end of
the song concludes with three stanzas about how the great people of the world endure
more grief than the poor, for a Prince will march with spear and shield while a
shepherd sleeps; however, people are not thankful for what they have “And no man
through the world so wide, / liues well contented with his state” (p. 32). The weavers
tell the listener/reader that if Helen had been occupied with a lowly task for the
weavers she would not have been able to be a loose woman for Paris and cause a
bloody war with her beauty. Penelope spins and the Trojan war is retold to place “the
ideology of the household in which productivity and propriety are merged” into the
sphere of English domesticity.
122

The weavers also state that many people desire a higher status, not realizing
they should be grateful for what they have. During this time, there were many
attempts to keep women from the looms. The economic times were difficult and by
keeping the higher-paying jobs in the hands of men, the guilds felt that more people
benefited. Women were spinning and carding almost exclusively, at least according to
guild regulations. We do know that a number of weavers outside the guild broke the
rules, having more looms than regulated, hiring too many apprentices, and having

121
Ibid. For more on Penelope and spinning, see Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance
Clothing and the Materials of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) Ch.5, especially p. 112-13.

122
Linton, "Jack of Newbery and Drake in California: Domestic and Colonial Narratives of English Cloth
and Manhood," 31.
101

women (particularly family members) work the equipment. These complaints were
commonplace and even appear as an issue against the foreigners working in silk, in
Deloney’s pamphlet on silk weaving. Deloney’s ballad naturalizes the shift in
workplace power. By removing the most famous weaver from her loom, and telling
the listeners to be happy with what they have, a political agenda that is motivated by
hard economic times and a desire to keep the higher positions in men’s hands becomes
clear.
After the Weaver’s song, Deloney shows the King enjoying a second song
from Jack’s workers, this time the women, all of whom are spinning, carding, or
otherwise doing assistant tasks to the male weavers. Mark Thornton Burnett argues
that the men are shown as more important in Jack’s workplace by their numbers and
by the pretty boys who attend the workers which suggests social harmony and a
continuation of the system through the involvement of the younger generation; he sees
the songs as an expression of contentment, showing the united work of the employees,
with the clothier controlling women’s economic contributions.
123
However, the song
shows more than that.
The weaver’s song naturalized the displacement of women during hard times,
while the women’s song tells of betrayal when a young woman, ignoring her better
judgment and her duty to her father, releases a prisoner and helps him escape to his
homeland of Scotland, only to be abandoned there by the man who already has a wife
and family. The lesson is “All you faire maidens be warned by me, . . . Scots were

123
Burnett, Masters and Servants in English Renaissance Drama and Culture: Authority and Obedience
58.
102

neuer true, nor neuer will be” (p. 36). First, it is interesting that Scotland is the focus
of the women’s ire, for the weavers described their work as producing “mickle joy”
and “mickle” is a Scottish word. However, during Deloney’s time Scotland was of
real concern and the threat of war loomed at various times. Deloney has the men
present an image of weaving work that must be protected from the hardships of war
and of men who are given better positions, supplanting women in their original place
as weavers, while the women are concerned with sexual matters, like the ballad of the
betrayed jailor’s daughter—betrayed by a man and ending with the lesson to women to
distrust men. This song cements the position of the men as responsible and learned
(their song is filled with classical references, after all) while the women’s minds are
occupied with lighter matter, but it is disquieting if seen as a commentary on their
displacement—the women might be seen as feeling betrayed and used.
Earlier in the text, a ballad was sung to celebrate a victory over the Scotish
army. This ballad “rall[ies] English manhood to the defense of national and domestic
boundaries.”
124
Now the women sing about a Scottish nobleman and conflate the
nation’s honor with a woman’s honor. “The ballad sung by Jack’s female workers,
defines them not by their productive capacity as labourers, but by an upper-class
femininity in need of protection.”
125
The women who sing the ballad are all dressed

124
Linton, "Jack of Newbery and Drake in California: Domestic and Colonial Narratives of English Cloth
and Manhood," 27.

125
Ibid.

103

alike, an attire which “identifies them as Jack’s workers, preserved by the work and
economic security he provides from the dangers of sexual seduction.”
126

The “harmonious division of labor” which Jack of Newberie celebrates glosses
over the displacement of women from an occupation which they traditionally were a
major contributor.
127
The women are described as singing like Nightingales, which as
Linton indicates, is probably a reference to Philomela, who in her story used her
weaving as a way to regain her voice after being raped and losing her tongue. This
draws attention to the fact that the women are no longer weavers but are carders and
spinners. Philomela’s traditional skill with weaving was already being revised as skill
in embroidery in contemporary translations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
128
“That
ballad’s revision only makes the myth conform to the gendered economics of the cloth
trade, thereby normalizing into cultural mythology the economic rape of women—the
loss of their trade as weavers.”
129

Notably, the weaving is not just an occupation for Philomela but a way to
express herself and give herself a voice she has been denied. Linton points out the
irony of this with what she calls the “second point of revision” of the myth, the
cheerfulness of the women’s nightingale song, when Philomela was transformed to a
nightingale to lament her rape after it is avenged.
130
The women are not given a true
voice in Deloney’s text in that we know that they sing at this point, but we don’t know

126
Ibid., 28.

127
Ibid., 29.

128
Ibid.

129
Ibid.

130
Ibid., 30.
104

what content they actually sing. Judith Broome Mesa-Pelly views the female
characters as speaking for the silenced male weavers who are invisible in the texts.
She believes that the ballads in Jack’s household are set apart from the rest of the
narrative so as to draw attention to their “fictionality” and “hint at a sinister
undercurrent in Jack’s success.”
131
Whether the women here are representing their
own displacement (as I argue) or the displacement of smaller manufacturers who were
being supplanted by people like Jack (as Mesa-Pelly argues), the women are here
happy Philomelas who have lost their voice once again, a powerful image of women
lacking in power.
Jack’s place of production and his household are conflated, even when they are
no longer the same location. His workers are figured as part of his household, like a
family. He is seen as protecting them (from poverty and from seduction) and they in
turn protect his household from outside intrusions. Linton argues that Jack controls
everything by protecting the household from the gossip, the Italian gentleman, and the
nobleman who seduces his maid.
132
However, I argue, it is the females of the
household who do most of this protection, and are seen as threatening in doing so.
Jack’s anger at the maid (and his attempts to “protect” her are really after the fact,
since she is already seduced and he does not arrange her marriage for her benefit but
because he sees her disgrace as reflecting on him). Although there are strong women

131
Judith Broome Mesa-Pelly, "Fantasy and Social Change in Thomas Deloney's Jack of Newbury and
Thomas of Reading," Studies in Humanities 23, no. 1 (1996): 89.

132
Linton, "Jack of Newbery and Drake in California: Domestic and Colonial Narratives of English Cloth
and Manhood," 32-3.
105

in Deloney’s texts, they must be put back in their place, to preserve class and national
identity. The “gender hierarchy [is] the basis of the social hierarchy.”
133

The occasion of the King’s visit to Jack’s household is meant to emphasize the
charitable aspects of the clothier’s business practices in addition to its place as his
family. Throughout Jack of Newberie, Deloney uses the idea that clothiers employ
poor people and set people to work. Nothing was of more concern for the social order
than poverty or famine and the concern that poor people without work were sure to
cause trouble. The guilds connected to the cloth industry were constantly using the
idea of poverty and setting poor people to work as a justification for why they
deserved more support. Their charters mention this idea and every petition to Queen
Elizabeth displays this claim prominently. Supporting this idea is one of Deloney’s
major concerns in his narratives. He states it as a controlling idea in his dedication
and does not hesitate to repeat it at suitable intervals, especially when Jack lectures
King Henry VIII on why weaving is so important to England, through his use of
allegorical pageants, gifts, and eventually a petition for trade reform. Deloney uses
Jack and his dealings with Henry as a more subtle way to influence Elizabeth. Unlike
in the Ballad on the want of corn, where he was in serious trouble with the court for
directly lecturing the queen on a delicate political topic, here he directs the comments
to her late father and, by having the King speak highly of the weavers and agree to
Jack’s pleas, Deloney hopes to convince those in power in his time, like his Queen, to
continue to support weavers, but without getting himself thrown in jail.

133
Ibid., 34.
106

Jack appeals to the king several times in order to better the political standing of
clothiers in the nation. The most elaborate appeals he makes use imagery of animals,
the ant and the bee, to make his point. In both of these appeals, Jack indicates that his
status is like the king’s—to his people he is their leader. This would be a threatening
image from a man who has already provided men for the Queen’s fight at Flodden
field and who has refused to ride out to the king but made the king come to him
instead, except that Deloney has Jack refuse knighthood.
134
This could be seen as
threatening because, as Linton argues, Jack does not need to accept knighthood from
his king because his status as head of a large household figured like a mini-nation
already gives him high social status. He is even able to have a direct relationship with
the king, who knows the value of the clothiers to the nation.
135
However, I believe
that Jack does not accept knighthood partly because he does not need to, but also to
make him less threatening. Like his passivity in his rise in power, he is able to deny
wanting social status even as he has it already. In this way Jack can threaten the
king’s authority and still stay a middling sort. Like the scene where Jack’s workers
punish the king’s fool, the king is both threatened and completely safe.
Jack’s entertainment of the king starts with a staged meeting in a field where
he stands guard over an anthill, calling himself the Prince of Ants (p. 27). The king
sees him and sends for him to ride to talk with the king, but Jack replies that he must

134
Jack specifies that his workers which the king sees around him are his ants and bees whom he protects
and that he honors them more than “vaine titles of Gentility” (p. 38). Although the king does reward both Jack and
his workers, no political settlement is reached until later in the text. Within four paragraphs of the discussion of
knighthood, the fool, Will Summer, will be tormented by Jack’s female workers.

135
Linton, "Jack of Newbery and Drake in California: Domestic and Colonial Narratives of English Cloth
and Manhood," 34.
107

remain where he is because he must protect his ants from the butterflies, “Lest they
should disturb this quiet Common-wealth, who this Summer season are making their
Winters prouisions” (p. 27). The king takes this message kindly and rides to see him,
promoting him, for Jack only called himself a prince but the king refers to him as an
“Emperour of Ants” (p. 28). When the king rides to the anthill, Jack and his servants
pretend that King Henry’s arrival is enough to have frightened away any foes to the
ants, bringing “great peace to the poore labouring people” (p. 28). Jack then lectures
the king about the enemies of the commonwealth, including the grasshopper and
caterpillar (who are idle and live on the work of others) and the butterfly (the most
dangerous, who caused wars and dressed expensively—this is usually interpreted to be
Cardinal Wolsey and the courtiers who are standing near the king even as Jack
speaks).
136
Obviously, Jack is both flattering the king, arguing for the importance of
workers such as clothiers, and making a political statement about some of the most
powerful men in the land, a threatening image indeed.
As if this were not enough allegorical politics, when the King continues on
with Jack, he is presented with a Bee hive, covered in gold and covered with golden
statues of bees. An apple tree is growing from it, and the figures of Prudence and
Fortitude are shown protecting the tree from serpents who seek to destroy it. It has an
engraved plaque, just to make sure the king understands the message:
Loe here presented to your Roiall sight,
The figure of a flourishing Common-wealth:
Where virtuous subjects labour with delight,

136
The text specifies that the Cardinal was “galde by the Allegory of the Ants” and also that his policies
of war had hurt the trade of clothiers in particular. Oddly, the king makes sure the beehive is handed over to the
Cardinal and asks him to deliver it to Windsor Castle (p. 29).
108

And beate the drones to death which live by stealth:
Ambition, Envie, Treason, loathsome serpents be,
Which seeke the downefall of this fruitfall tree.

There are three points to be made here. First, there is the obvious repetition from the
anthill, where the workers are the commonwealth and should be protected. Secondly,
although the image does not have anything about killing of drones (male bees), the
engraving specifies this. Drones are different than the worker bees in the colony.
They are there purely to mate with the Queen and are even killed by the colony when
there are too many bees for the amount of food available. Thirdly, until 1660, bees
were thought to be ruled by a king, even though in modern day we know that bee
hives have queens which the drones tend. So, while Deloney is obviously familiar
with the concept of the non-working drone, there is no mention of the gender of the
ruler. While some might want to believe that the beehive is a particularly good
reference to Elizabeth, a queen, it made a very good reference to her father in his time
since women are removed from the equation in beehives—like Jack’s workers
themselves, women are displaced.
Jack of Newberie has some of the most direct appeals to Queen Elizabeth, in
the personage of her father, but the other proto-novels do this to some extent as well.
Thomas of Reading contains scenes where the merchants go to the King and ask for
certain concessions or explain the state of weaving. While some of this is to explain
how certain traditions came about, it is also accompanied by a “prophecy” which
clearly consists of discussion of what has happened in Deloney’s time to the industry
of weaving and what he hopes can be changed. While the prophecy song indicates
109

that weaving will be “decayed,” it also speaks of an improvement, but they will have
to fight to keep these gains for “huswiues leue their wheele. / Then pouerty upon each
side, / Vnto those workemen shall betide” (p. 237).
The Gentle Craft, neither in Parts I nor II, contains any counseling of the
Queen, directly or indirectly, but this is probably for two reasons. First, Deloney
himself was a clothier and had more at stake to promote their business interests in a
political fashion. Second, the tales in The Gentle Craft are more loosely tied together
and many are set in different times (perhaps because of the first reason). However, in
the two narratives involving clothiers, Deloney clearly has a political agenda, which
he pushes through ballads, animal imagery and direct appeals to the historical monarch
of the text’s setting.
In Deloney’s works we see that women are often the strength behind men. The
women are shown to be witty and clever, steadfast and loyal, but they are also
sometimes dangerous. They are often interested in clothing, talking, and spending
money that they should be saving. A woman’s main role is to run the household, and
this means they are a major player in the husband’s business (since businesses were a
part of the household in this time), where they must maintain the servants and the
money to their husband’s credit. While some of the women portrayed in his stories
have their own businesses, most work for the main male character or are the wife or
love interest for one of the male characters. The merchants’ wives must spend enough
to maintain status and keep order among the journeymen, apprentices, and servants,
and yet not too much to cause financial distress. The women in the stories are to be
110

loved for their beauty but blamed for enticing men with it. They are mistrusted for
being (potentially) sexually dishonest. In the stories, women are a stepping stone to a
good business, whether by marrying into the position of master or taking her financial
advice to become mayor. However, they must be watched to make sure they do not
think they are in charge because of it. And, lastly, a woman’s place in the workforce
must be regulated and never interfere with a man’s place.
Deloney offers a conservative social portrait praising the virtues of obedient
working classes and the virtues of English men over foreigners, in order to persuade
Elizabeth to support the guilds. Deloney represents potential social unrest through
containing it, just as his main character of Jack can challenge authority and still never
directly act. Women become both the symbols of tensions and the ones who act to
protect the household from problems (foreigners, the king, and other women). Linton
calls this the “gendering of class identity” and sees Deloney as participating in a
naturalization of the economic inequality between the sexes where the “Elizabethan
celebration of the bourgeois hero effaces the material conditions that enabled men to
advance while women lost ground in the trades.”
137

Mesa-Pelly argues that while Deloney is often thought of as an “apologist” for
the middle class and approving of middle class values of hard work and thrift, the texts
are “marked by internal contradictions and textual disruptions.”
138
These
contradictions and disruptions “utilizing the household as a trope, . . . explore shifting

137
Linton, "Jack of Newbery and Drake in California: Domestic and Colonial Narratives of English Cloth
and Manhood," 25.

138
Mesa-Pelly, "Fantasy and Social Change in Thomas Deloney's Jack of Newbury and Thomas of
Reading," 85. She believes that the loss of status for small independent weavers is what is glossed over in the text,
while I see women’s role in weaving as the main focus for this same technique.
111

centres of power within the domestic unit, at a time when new economic structures
moved manufacture away from the home and into larger industrial arrangements.”
139

Like the honored wife of the ballad with which I began this chapter, the women of
Deloney’s texts support the guild members through their hard work, but it is only a
supporting role, as it is the male guild members who will profit from this work. In the
end, Elizabeth is asked to take up her supporting role and recognize the importance of
the guilds and their place in her nation.

139
Burnett, Masters and Servants in English Renaissance Drama and Culture: Authority and Obedience.
112

Chapter 3
“Go to, you thing, go”:
Shakespeare’s Mistress Quickly and Women in Exchange

In the Pepys collection of ballads, under the Love-Pleasant category, are a
number of laments from women who are betrayed by their lovers. One such ballad is
entitled “The Distressed Damosel” with the subtitle which gives away the plot: “for
the loss of her Bridgroom: Who having received the Sum of Twenty Shillings,
together with a Ring, Shirt, and Aparrel, which she had borrowed, in order for their
Marriage, but giving her the slip, he went away with all the aforesaid things, to the
great shame and discontent of the Maid; who sounds forth her sorrow in these lines
that follow. To the tune of My Life and My Death.”
140
Like so many of the ballads
about lost love and cons, the maiden sings as a moral lesson to others, to help them
avoid falling into similar traps.
Our singing maiden is particularly distressed by being left at the altar, not over
the loss of the man but over the loss of the money, clothes, and ring which she
borrowed from others to give to him.
Was ever poor Maiden so left in distress,
My grief and my trouble is great you may guess
For he that pretended my true love to be,
He’s gone and have proved false-hearted to me,
He took rings and money ne’r bid me good by,
Was ever poor maiden so served as I.

140
"The Distressed Damosel/ for the Loss of Her Bridgroom: Who Having Received the Sum of/ Twenty
Shillings, Together with a Ring, Shirt, and Aparrel, Which She Had Borrowed, in Order for Their/ Marriage, but
Giving Her the Slip, He Went Away with All the Aforesaid Things, to the Great Shame and Dis-/ Content of the
Maid; Who Sounds Forth Her Sorrow in These Lins That Follow.," in English Broadside Ballad Archive
(University of California-Santa Barbara, Printed for I. Deacon, at the Angel in Guiltspur street without Newgate).
113

The man who has abandoned her seems, from her point of view, to have been acting
for the money all along. This first stanza indicates that he pretended to be in love with
her and in the second stanza the listener learns that he pursued her for a “long time”
before she agreed to marry him. Having gotten her “at last in the mind” he informs
her that he would marry her if “he had but money and Cloathing beside” and that she
“being willing a husband to have” decides to get him these things so that they can be
married. She gives him twenty shillings, “Then borrow’d a Ring and what e’re he did
lack, / With every thing, nay, the Shirt to his back.”
Having received the money, clothing and ring, he kisses her and it seems she
yields to him for the night, since they are to be married in the morning. She describes
his “sweet kisses” and how “nothing then seemed my peace to annoy” and she was
“transported with raptures of joy.” The next morning, however, she is in for a rude
awakening.
And thus to be marry’d unto him I went,
But little mistrusting his evil intent,
For when we came almost unto the Church door,
He made an excuse bidding us go before:
And there I stay’d waiting for him in the Church,
At length I perceived I was left in the lurch.

She sits in the church for six hours before she admits that he is not coming. Rather
than mourn the man, she then mourns the loss of the clothes.
She had been happy to gain him, despite his lack of clothing (indeed, she
repeatedly insists that even his shirt came from her), but losing him is much worse
since she must repay the clothes. She ends her story with this moral:
114

Both Clooths and the Ring I must pay for them all,
Besides I am laught at wherever I go,
This fills my poor senses with sorrow and woe:
I needs must confess I was something too free,
Let all other Maidens take warning by me.

The worst thing for her is the repayment of debt, the loss of the money, and the
laughter of people around her who know how she has been used. Her reputation then
is lost, for the people must know that she was not only deceived and robbed but that
she is not technically a “maiden” any longer, despite her use of the term in the first
stanza.
She has been “something too free” but this type of freedom comes with a price,
for she has lost more than material goods but her reputation. She made him whom he
was, giving him everything, and he returns this by breaking his promise and leaving
her in debt to others and devalued as a marketable commodity besides. The ring,
which is mentioned prominently, throughout the ballad is a symbol of how far she
would go to secure the marriage. He gave her promises and in return she give him
everything, including herself.
The ring had long been a sexual innuendo, and would have been familiar to
this ballad’s audience as a symbol for female genitalia. When he puts on the ring
which she was in debt for, he was putting on her as well. The giving of the ring
coincides with her making of him as a new man (in gallant clothing right down to the
shirt) and with the night of rapture which they share. His identity is changed by the
clothing, and hers is changed by the sexual exchange. She loses, however, in the
115

bargain, since she is now less valuable on the marriage market as a “used” good.
141

She felt that he should be in debt to her for the clothing, ring, and money, but the only
debt which is owed in the end is the one to her creditors.
In this chapter I further examine the imagery of the ring as the circulation of
sex, power, and identity. This then leads me to Mistress Quickly, the Hostess of the
inn where Falstaff meets with Prince Hal. In the two parts of Henry IV and a section
of Henry V, Shakespeare presents to his audience the image of a working woman
whose reputation is on an opposite trajectory to the young Machiavellian prince.
142

While he is rising from the image of a carousing ne’er-do-well to a victorious leader,
she goes from honest wife and businesswoman to whore. The process by which she
loses her reputation involves a ring and, like Prince Hal, the effect of being in the
“world's wide mouth” (1H4 I.iii).
According to Mervyn James and Craig Muldrew, England was shifting from a
“lineage society” to a “civil society”—in other words, from a society where stability
within the community depends on bonds of kinship and loyalty to lineage and
contracts are connected to patronage and status to a society where contractual
obligations are based on “equality of bargaining and contract, and on access to the
courts to maintain the right of such equality.”
143
If this is true, then both the Henry IV

141
This sentiment is expressed directly in many plays, including Northward Ho (to be discussed in the
next chapter where the woman who has been used by others is described as a tiltboat which others have entered and
a bow that has already been stretched (V.iii).

142
All Shakespeare cited in this project is from William Shakespeare, The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G.
Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974).

143
qtd in Nina Levine, "Extending Credit in the Henry Iv Plays," Shakespeare Quarterly 51, no. 4 (2000):
413.; see also Craig Muldrew, The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early
116

and V plays and Bartholomew Fair (to be discussed in the next chapter) seem to
emphasize that while women have access to contracts and courts, they are failed by
them, as they are associated with sexual access even as they, and others, are denied
fair court representation and everyone is for sale, especially women. The women in
the plays seem to point to the fears and failures of the system of credit because, like
the market itself, they are seen as circulating sexuality (like a ring circulating between
men).

“To take is not to give”: Circulation, Sex, and Power
One way to see this issue of women as commodities in circulation (and its
subsequent damage to credit) is by following the imagery of rings in early modern
theatre. Since the Middle Ages, the connection between rings and female genitalia
had been a common joke; they function as both sexual and fiscal currency. Such a
connotation is implicit in Gratiano's parting line in Shakespeare's The Merchant of
Venice about “keeping safe Nerissa's ring,” (V.i.307) and is clear in Middleton and
Rowley's The Changeling when Albius, worried about his wife's fidelity, says: “I
would wear my ring on my own finger; whilst it is borrowed it is none of mine, but his
that useth it” and his confidant replies, “You must keep it on still then, if it but lie by,
one or other will be thrusting into it”

(I.ii.29-33). In both plays, each reference to rings
as female genitalia is wrapped up in the question of the woman's sexual fidelity. Rings
are objects into which things can be thrust easily–much like De Flores thrusting his

Modern England (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998) and James Mervyn, Society, Politics and Culture: Studies in
Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
117

fingers in the sockets of Beatrice-Joanna's castaway gloves in the Changeling
(I.ii.241-7). As Jachimo tells Posthumus in Shakespeare's Cymbeline, “Your ring may
be stol'n too”

(I.iv.90).
Valerie Traub, in her insightful article “Jewels, Statues, and Corpses:
Containment of Female Erotic Power in Shakespeare's Plays,” argues that “the threat
of female erotic power is psychically contained by means of a metaphoric and
dramatic transformation of women into jewels, statues, and corpses.”
144
However, as I
will show, the image of women as rings does not contain anxiety but instead
emphasizes it because rings are the very metaphor of female erotic power that is the
subject of the masculine anxiety. Rings in circulation play off the anxiety caused by
women in circulation. Much like the retail economy, women’s play is in an uneven
power structure where they are exchanged more than they participate in it.
Rings are particularly dangerous in circulation because of the associations that
they have had throughout time. Rings have been used as symbols of offices (the Pope,
Bishops, Cardinals, and Kings all have special rings), as symbols of heredity (such as
Count Bertram's “monumental” ring in All's Well That Ends Well), as love tokens, as
death tokens, and as the ultimate symbol of matrimony. In Beowulf we hear leaders,
like Hrothgar or Beowulf, referred to as “dispenser of treasure” and “ring-giver,”
symbolizing the ties that the giving of a ring meant to the Germanic society of early
England. This powerful association was still lingering in the English Renaissance,
even if the text of Beowulf was not yet rediscovered and transcribed. Hence rings

144
Valerie Traub, "Jewels, Statues, and Corpses: Containment of Female Erotic Power in Shakespeare's
Plays," Shakespeare Studies 20 (1988).
118

were symbols of male identity at the same time as being connected to female sexuality
and the “openness” of it, as well as to the circulation of wealth and credit.
145

Heredity rings were a symbol of identity for men. In The Taming of the Shrew,
the Lord plans on confusing the poor man's, Christopher Sly’s, identity:
Sirs, I will practice on this drunken man.
What think you, if he were convey’d to bed,
Wrapp'd in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,
A most delicious banquet by his bed,
And brave attendants near him when he wakes,
Would not the beggar then forget himself? (Induction.i.36-41)

The “beggar” will forget himself because he will be appareled in clothing and jewelry
that do not belong to him, put in a setting he is not accustomed to, and given a wife.
The rings are a symbol of wealth, but are likely also signs of heredity–signet rings to
signify membership in a noble family. Rings (and the pun on rings for female
genitalia–hence the sexual favors of the wife that Sly is told he has as part of the joke)
are part of how one molds identity. A surviving example of a historical ring showing
family/male identity is the Middleham ring, which has both an interior and exterior
engraving. The outer engraving is a symbol of power, with a series of the letter “S,”
identical to that found in the collar of SS, the insignia used by the Lancastrian Kings

145
In discussing “the materialist vision” of city comedies, Douglas Bruster argues that “one can trace an
intensification of the practice of inscribing identity into dramatic props. Rings . . . and other chattel served as the
tabulae rasae on which plays literally wrote the persona, subjectivity thus becoming tightly involved in the cultural
status of property.” Interestingly, this is just following a paragraph explaining how women were portrayed as
commodities and women’s chastity and the control of it were figured in terms of financial gain. Here I connect the
two interests. Douglas Bruster, Drama and the Market in the Age of Shakespeare (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992) 43.

119

of England. The interior engraving is the phrase “Sovereynly” which indicates a sense
of rule or how the wearer wanted to act.
146

As markers of identity (and social rank) rings are used to confer a special
status upon another individual as well—in effect, to lay claim to an individual of lower
rank. In Henry VIII, Cranmer, who is about to be sent to the Tower, is given a ring by
the King and told that
If entreaties
Will rend you no remedy, this ring
Deliver them, and your appeal to us
There make before them. (V.i.149-52)

When Cranmer does so, the councilors react with horror, and after confirming that the
ring is genuinely the King's, realize the danger they have put themselves in by
attacking a man protected by the King.
'Tis the right ring, by heav'n! I told ye all
When we first put this dangerous stone-a-rolling,
'T would fall upon ourselves. (V.i.153-55)

Cranmer has the King's ring, and thereby has become connected to him. Like the little
finger of the monarch, Cranmer's little finger is not to be “vex'd.”
This can be further extended to the marriage ceremony, where two are made
one, because while the rings serve for males as a way of identifying oneself, even

146
Middleham Ring, York Museums Trust, St Mary's Lodge, Marygate. My thanks to Professor Anthony
Kemp for pointing out this beautiful artifact and its related Middleham jewel. An example of a collar of “SS” can
be found in the portrait of Sir Thomas More. For more fictional examples of rings and male identity: in King Lear,
the disguised Kent uses his family ring as "confirmation that I am much more / Than my out-wall" (III.i.44-5);
similarly, in Pericles, Thaisa confirms the identity of Pericles by the ring that her father had given him (V.iii.37-9);
in Titus Andronicus Martius recognizes the dead body he finds in the dark pit as that of Bassanius because "upon
his bloody finger he doth wear / A precious ring that lightens all this hole" (II.iii.226-7); the Winter's Tale follows
along the same line by having the shepherd be able to confirm the death of Antigonus by showing "a handkerchief
and rings of his that Paulina knows" (V.iii.65).
120

when one is not oneself, rings can also function as symbols of betrothal and marriage.
Gayle Rubin reminds us that
marriage transactions–the gifts and material which circulate in the
ceremonies marking a marriage–[are] a rich source of data for
determining exactly who has which rights in whom. . . . Kinship
systems do not merely exchange women. They exchange sexual access,
genealogical status, lineage names and ancestors, rights and people. . .
in concrete systems of social relationships.
147

Conduct books of the time make this no secret. A Bride Bush (1617) describes the
bond of matrimony as mutual yet stresses that the man must be more abundant and
giving because he is the Master, and “his place is higher and more excellent.”
148
The
ability to give is tied up with the ability to be superior to another. For that reason the
book reminds couples that they should love each other because they are gifts to each
other from God–the supreme giver and, therefore, supreme master.
Although the custom of exchanging wedding rings was becoming more
common in the sixteenth century, probably in response to the growing concept of
companionate marriage, the Book of Common Prayer’s marriage ceremony, even in
1640, has only the man giving a ring to the woman. The minister's speech refers twice
to the fact that the couple pledges their troth and join hands, and that “the ring given
and received is a token and pledge.” The man takes the ring, and after laying it on the
Bible, places it on the woman's finger with the words: “With this ring I thee wed, with
my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.” The woman is
given no reply or parallel speech in the ceremony.

147
Gayle Rubin, "The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex," in Toward an
Anthropology of Women, ed. R. Reiter (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975).

148
W. Whately, A Bride-Bush (1623)
121

The man as giver is the superior in this relationship. When Lear cries out in
anguish over the rebellion of his daughters that “I gave you all,” (II.iv.249) it is not
just the claim of an aging King who finds his daughters ungrateful for his gifts, but the
claim of giver to one whom is bound by the obligation.
149
This is the logic of
Elizabethan society–there is power to gain by giving because it forms social ties, and
the ring-giving marks this power. One example of the threat of this power is found in
Cymbeline when Imogen marries a man beneath her social status. As her new husband
Posthumus is leaving court, on orders from the enraged King, Imogen gives him a
diamond ring. Posthumus accepts the gift and places it on his finger with the words:
Remain, remain thou here,
While sense can keep it on. And, sweetest, fairest,
As I my poor self did exchange for you,
To your so infinite loss, so in our trifles
I still win of you. For my sake wear this:
It is a manacle of love, I'll place it
Upon this fairest prisoner. (I.i.117-23)

Posthumus, the receiver of a gift, immediately gives in return a bracelet. However, he
acknowledges it to be but a trifle compared to her diamond. Imogen is capable of
going against her father's wish and giving Posthumus both diamond ring and her hand
in marriage. Posthumus, who is shown in the play to have rather strong views about
the essential nature of women, can hardly help but be threatened by the imbalance of
power opened up by her gift and responds by trying to make her a metaphorical
prisoner, even while he clearly is the one who is feeling trapped.

149
A similar sentiment, of course, pervades the ballad which began this chapter where the forsaken bride
laments that the man left her, after she gave him everything, right down to the shirt on his back.
122

This imbalance in power is further substantiated by the power relationship of
giving rings as love tokens. Rings were common love tokens, often with little poems
inscribed on the inside, as is evidenced by the 1624 book Love's Garland, or Poesies
for Rings, Handkerchers, and Gloves, and such pretty tokens as lovers send their
loves, which lists different sayings that could be put on gifts.
150
The book also gives
the replies women could give (either cruel or kind) on gifts of their own. The only
poem given from a maid that is not in reply to a gift is in reply to the lover's
abandonment of her. Again we see that the man is traditionally the active giver with
the woman, at most, merely replying.
In this vein, the giving of a ring to a woman is shown in several plays. Richard
III's wooing of Lady Anne over the body of Henry VI, involves attempts to make her
the active and, therefore, guilty part in his acts. He accuses her of bewitching him so
that he had to kill the people she loved, and offers her the active role of vengeance by
giving her a sword to slay him with. Upon reducing her from the active, powerful
woman of curses to a woman barely capable of uttering a full sentence, he gives her a
ring.
Richard: Vouchsafe to wear this ring.
Anne: To take is not to give.
Richard: Look how my ring encompasseth thy finger,
Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart:
Wear both of them, for both of them are thine. (I.ii.201-5)

While the imagery he gives to her is active, the ring suggests a passivity that mirrors
her own helpless state. Richard may claim to Anne that her breast encloses his heart,

150
Loves Garland or, Poesies for Rings, Hand-Kerchers, and Gloves, (London: Printed by N.O. for
John Spencer, are to be sold at his shop on London Bridge, 1624). This book was so popular that it was reprinted
numerous times.
123

but it is his ring that is enclosing her heart's blood for the ring finger was believed to
contain a vein that ran straight from the heart and back. The ring is his symbol of
dominance over her–a symbol of victory given in the guise of humbleness. As Anne
points out, “To take is not to give.” It is giving that gives the power, and Anne is left
as powerless.
As we have seen, for Elizabethans, giving (whether giving a ring or extending
financial credit) is a subtle act of aggression; giving is the act “of exposing the other to
the threat of one's own superiority.”
151
Monarchs have traditionally used the ability to
give land, patronage, and titles as a way to gather the nobility together for support.
Queen Elizabeth I was no exception to this rule; in fact, she was a master player at it.
Elizabeth and her nobles exchanged costly gifts on such holidays as New Year's Eve.
In addition to these types of gifts, Elizabeth routinely gave out ceremonial functions,
patronage, wardships, subsidies, annuities, and other items of profit or power; in fact,
for her courtiers the “distribution of patronage was a key to political power”
152
and the
patronage was channeled through the Queen to her favorites to their supporters, and so
on.
153

151
Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (New York: Routledge, 2002) 111.

152
Simon Adams, Leicester and the Court: Essays on Elizabethan Politics (Manchester, UK: Manchester
University Press, 2002) 70. For more on patronage, especially in the Stuart court, see Linda Levy Peck, Court
Patronage and Corruption in Early Stuart England (New York: Routledge, 1990).

153
Being able to give a truly impressive gift to the Queen was a way to win favor at court. In 1562
Elizabeth exchanged presents with the Duke of Norfolk, thirteen marquises and earls, a viscount, thirteen duchesses
and countesses, two viscountesses, twenty lords, and thirty ladies, as well as some bishops and courtiers. In one
holiday the Queen was given up to one thousand-two hundred pounds worth of gold, and gave out around five
thousand ounces of silver plate. These gifts were a way to gain power and prestige and a way for Elizabeth to
maintain control over her people-by keeping them obligated to her. The plays of the time show the power of gift
giving well; in Richard III we find that when Richard is not "in the giving vein" (IV.iii.116), Buckingham swiftly
leaves to start a rebellion. For more on such gift giving see Natalie Davis, The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France
(Wisconsin Press, 2000).
124

The power of giving can be seen in the concern that some conduct handbook
authors have over whether a wife could give away goods and property. William
Gouge's treatise, “The Duties of Wives” (the third treatise in Of Domesticall Duties
[1622]) spends a number of pages discussing whether women have the right to give
gifts, alms, or in any way distribute goods unless their husbands have given them
permission. The decision is that, even if the goods or property are owned by the wife
before marriage, nothing shall be given without a man's consent–not even the alms
which the Bible instructs all shall give. Women, unless they are widows or rich
heiresses, exert no true ownership of objects or money–men must give consent. The
treatise even instructs that the woman shall not make a will, unless the man agrees to
it. Gouge describes what would happen if a woman was given the right to distribute
goods as “mischief.”
154
The reason for this is that gifts are a way of getting power.
What should become clear here is that rings, tied up in establishing male
identity through wealth, social class, and family, are a very special kind of gift,
especially since they also represent female sexuality. If female sexuality is given in the
wrong way, men’s identity is lost–the family doesn't continue (for whose children will
they be?). One of the greatest fears is that only a woman knows who the father of her
child is. If men must trust women to not give themselves and their sexual favors to
others, but their genitalia is like a ring–open and possibly easily thrust into by others,
as it is commonly discussed in plays–then male identity is certainly threatened. It is no
wonder that a woman who gives a ring is a major plot device in many early modern
plays, and that this is a source of high anxiety for the audience, unlike our modern

154
William Gouge, “The Duty of Wives,” Of Domesticall Duties (1622).
125

audiences where rings no longer have the same symbolic significance. As I have
shown, women are not supposed to give anything, and certainly they are not supposed
to give rings (or sex) and when they do, in the plays, there is conflict. In the same
way, women in retail situations were seen as possibly selling themselves. Both gift
giving and selling open up women to inversions of the power structure and accusations
of promiscuity. The deep anxiety this opens up for society about consumerism, social
class, and sexuality follows the female characters.
Rings are male identity and are to be controlled by men in a one-way direction
of giving, but they also are also female sexuality–the one thing that must be trusted to
women to give. Female sexuality, then, threatens to destroy male identity. If women's
sexuality is also a ring then that particular type of giving is dangerous to the structure–
it threatens power relationships and male identity.
None of the women involved with rings in these plays that I just discussed
seem to earn their living in any way; however, the anxiety demonstrated in the plays’
handling of the ring plot carries over into the way women in retail are routinely
treated, both in fiction and in reality during this time period. Because women’s
sexuality is a threat to the inheritance of property (and businesses), and because they
are seen as so dangerously open, their role in retail becomes very troubled. If giving
(of a ring or any other item) is a subtle act of agression, selling seems to be an act of
sexuality. This brought trouble to women and apprentices, but since apprentices
eventually grow up yet a woman stays a woman, it affected female retailers most
heavily. When a woman in a selling position is portrayed in literature, like Mistress
126

Quickly in Shakespeare’s plays about Prince Hal and Falstaff, this anxiety over
selling, credit, and power becomes even clearer.

“You are in an ill name”: Mistress Quickly, Credit, and Reputation
Rings, as I have just argued, are a dangerous combination of male identity and
female sexuality. This ability to use the family ring as identity is played on in part one
of Henry IV, when Falstaff complains that his pockets have been picked and that, in
consequence, he has “lost a seal-ring of my grandfather's worth forty mark”
(III.iii.100). Both the Hostess and the Prince claim the ring is not valuable but merely
cheap copper, “A trifle, some eight-penny matter” (1H4 III.iii.104). Falstaff is quite
indignant that the ring's value is being slighted, for it would decrease his family status.
Falstaff connects his loss to Mistress Quickly’s sexual status by stating that
“This house is turn’d bawdy-house, they pick pockets” (1H4 III.iii.97-8). Hence
Falstaff’s lack of identity is directly tied to women’s sexuality and prostitution, and he
furthers this by claiming there is no truth, faith or womanhood in the Hostess, finally
calling her a “thing, a “beast,” and an “otter” (III.iii.112-117, 122-123, 124-8). This
last term for the Hostess comes back to the ring again, for she is an otter because
“she’s neither fish nor fowl, a man knows not where to have her” (1H4 III.iii.112-
117).
As I show in the rest of this chapter, this statement is part of the slide in
reputation which Mistress Quickly undergoes in the plays, closely connected to
prostitution, but here it is also part of the play on the threat of female genitalia (the
127

ring) to male identity; Falstaff’s identity is lost with his grandfather’s ring (in addition
to money which he claims was with it—although the only other thing he had in his
pocket in reality was a record of debt to Mistress Quickly). Upon accusing her of
stealing the ring, he questions Nell Quickly’s identity as a woman (even indicating
that her genitalia may be hard to find as her species is so uncertain), but when she tries
to counter him, she leaves herself open, literally, by saying that “any man may know
where to have me”—her ring is visible and open to any man.
Only when Falstaff finds that the Prince has picked his pockets and can return
his family ring, does he attempt to put the Hostess back in a position of credit, saying:
Hostess, I forgive thee. Go make ready my breakfast; love thy husband,
look to thy servants, cherish thy guesse. Thou shalt find me tractable to
any honest reason; thou seest I am pacified still. Nay prithee be gone.
(1H4 III.iii.170-4)

However, it is too little too late. His perfunctory apology and sweeping away of both
her concerns and her body (as he hastily forces her exit to serve him breakfast) does
not fix the break to the Hostess’ credit. When Falstaff felt his identity was threatened
by the Hostess’ sexuality, he struck back and it left a permanent mark on her credit.
Nina Levine has argued that while many critics have focused on the economic
language of Henry IV and Henry V, most have argued that it showed a fall of the
nobility to commercialism and self-interest, emphasizing the Machiavellian building
of identity through a play on credit and debt.
155
Levine argues that the economic
language is, in fact, more complex and shows an understanding of the nature of credit
at the time which encompassed both reputation and a building of community through

155
Levine, "Extending Credit in the Henry Iv Plays," 403.
128

mutual agreement and bond.
156
Credit is about reputation and trust, and it is also what
binds people in obligation, and there was a high emphasis on consent and the equality
of the two people in the contract.
157
As she points out, credit had come under some
change in the sixteenth century and there had been a debate against usury that it was
for private welfare above the community. However, it began to be argued that self-
interest and private good would help the community.
158

Levine rightfully points out that reckoning of bills and “ethics of credit” are
first brought up in 1 Henry IV when Falstaff, in response to the Prince’s question—
“Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern?” replies “well, thou hast
call’d her to a reckoning many a time and oft” (I.ii.47-50). The section that follows
shows “credit’s multivalence in early modern London and puts into play its potential
to promote both self-interest and trust within communities, all the while blurring
traditional distinctions within social and political hierarchies.”
159
In other words,
reckoning here could be a financial accounting or a moral accounting. “With this
punning comes a slippage in power and privilege as the fixed categories of prince and
subject, reconstituted as customer and hostess, dissolve into the contingent, and
exchangeable positions of debtor and creditor.”
160

Hal’s Machiavellian use of his tavern friends has long troubled the critics and
an attempt to read it as a contract does not resolve the issue that his contract is based

156
Ibid., 404+.

157
Ibid., 406.

158
Ibid., 409.

159
Ibid., 416.

160
Ibid.
129

on betrayal nor that early modern credit does not guarantee trust nor community
bonds. She argues that “credit does, however, require a mechanism whereby trust can
be negotiated.”
161
Levine points out that Falstaff’s weaseling out of debt to Mistress
Quickly through “gestures of intimacy to imply a promise of trust and reciprocity” is
similar to the later actions of John who seems to promise peace and forgiveness with
the rebels but when they send away their armies, he arrests them for treason.
162
John
also promises a relationship which he never truly intends to keep. Shakespeare is using
Mistress Quickly to show the breakdown of contracts, for like John and his treatment
of the rebels, Falstaff is never brought to account for his treatment of Nell Quickly.
The end of 2 Henry IV seems to have an end of contractual obligation and civil
society, with a return to lineal succession over commercial practices. Falstaff is
banished and Mistress Quickly is imprisoned. Levine believes that
it could be argued that the notion of credit, based in consent and
mutuality, is merely a fiction, in politics as well as economics,
connected in this play to a comic plot that has, finally, no basis in
reality. But, in light of the play’s end, the scene of singular sovereignty
may be the fiction and not the diverse community bound by credit and
exchange.
163

The epilogue of Henry V has a character who steps forward and binds the playwright
and audience in a contract. The speaker “delineates an elaborate economic network

161
Ibid., 417.

162
Ibid., 426.

163
Ibid., 428.

130

that links the play’s performance as well as its ‘matter’ to the commercial exchanges
of everyday London.”
164
The audience is figured as bound together in a
a relationship of mutual consent and mutual gain . . . thus [the
Epilogue] capitalizes on the theatre’s function as a site of both holiday
pleasure and commercial exchange, it gives shape to a community
based more on the contingent relations of early modern credit and
commerce than on the fixed hierarchies of patronage and privilege.
165

Henry V starts by asking the audience to fills in the details with imagination; the
epilogue makes clear the commercial as well as imaginary relations between audience
and playhouse, one built on credit and commerce, more than lineage, just as Levine
argues the play shows Prince Hal moving from lineage to contract, and the weaknesses
of both. Ironically, the theater is also a place, like the plays, where women’s credit is
stained by sexual potential, women are not allowed to participate but are an item of
exchange between the male actor portraying the woman and the audience, and women
who came to the plays to participate in this exchange came under greater scrutiny for
their reputations than any men would suffer.
While Levine’s argument builds fruitfully on credit and its functions in the
plays about Prince Hal’s change to King Henry V, her argument fails to take in gender
as an issue in the terms of credit and identity building. Mistress Quickly, hostess of
the tavern in Eastcheap, is repaid by the Prince for his own debts, but she never gains
recompense from Falstaff and his compatriots. She is cheated out of her money
through promises of marriage, marries Pistol, loses her ability to take in boarders and
eventually succumbs to prostitution as a profession, presumably out of poverty, and

164
Ibid., 429.

165
Ibid., 430.
131

dies from venereal disease. If the play is exploring how credit can build community,
rather than how the crown has been reduced to commercialism, it is a community
which does not benefit women, because the exchanges are tied into sexuality and are
not made between equals.
Mistress Quickly’s fall in society is inversely proportional to the Prince’s rise
in power and status. While he trades on his credit, she slowly loses hers (both
sexually and monetarily—the two being closely linked both by her and the others
around her). Since identity, monetary/social credit, and the giving or withholding of
sexual favors were so closely linked in this society, the ability for women to hold onto
social credit is made increasingly difficult.
While Levine believes that “a more inclusive and more equitable community,
even with the framework of chronicle history” is possible if read “in conjunction with
the fluid relations of early modern credit,”
166
I argue that women are shown by
Shakespeare and other authors of the time to have a more troubled role within the
community of early modern credit because of their role as exchanged commodities
whose exchange is supposed to be limited.
Craig Muldrew has argued that although there was great discussion of self-
interest against the community, credit fostered alliances, cooperation and trust.
167

“Sixteenth-century definitions of contract imply the need for credit fostered both
cooperation and self-interest, trust and betrayal.”
168
Also, it assumed a certain equality

166
Ibid., 405.

167
Ibid., 410.

168
Ibid.
132

among consenting partners. However, in practice, it is clear that equality and
mutuality in bargaining and contracts was not universal.
Henslowe’s account books suggest the reality of this pattern of
spiraling debt, coercion, and ruin for the lower orders as well, detailing
the degree to which credit enabled the entrepreneur to control the
playwrights and actors in his pay. As Henslow himself was said to
admit, ‘Should these fellows come out of my debt, I should have noe
rule with them.’
169

Those who lend money or extend credit are one half of an unequal power relationship.
“What, will you make a younker of me? Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn
but I shall have my pocket pick’d?” (1H4 III.iii.79-81) Falstaff, who has boasted of his
refusal to pay debt, refuses to pay Mistress Quickly, making himself a victim and
taking ownership of the inn away from Mistress Quickly, denying her the right of
receiving payment for his ability to take his ease in her inn. His unpaid bill is “a grim
reminder of the cost of self-interest and bad faith to the community’s welfare.”
170
It is
a debt which is never paid. Mistress Quickly’s debt is a sign of an imbalance in power
relations in a supposedly civil society based on contracts. In a similar way the women
who are in circulation as rings discussed earlier in the chapter show a lack of equality
between partners. They cannot participate in the economy the same way as men for
their circulation and connection to sexuality undermines the ability to be equal in the
trust and reputation needed for credit and contracts in this society.
Levine recognized that the first mention of credit has to do with Falstaff
mentioning that the Prince has paid his bar bills with her many times. What she fails

169
Ibid., 411.

170
Ibid., 415.
133

to note is that the Prince’s denial of having anything “to do” with my hostess of the
tavern is a sexual innuendo indicating that the Prince’s first reaction to Falstaff is that
he is implying sexual exchange between the Hostess and her royal customer, adding
an extra layer of the slippage in power and credit. As Levine later indicates, the
Prince “finesses his debt to the Hostess by shifting from economic to erotic currency,
claiming to have paid, ‘Yea and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch, and where
it would not, I have us’d my credit.’”
171
However, I would argue, since women’s role
in this mechanism was troubled by issues of the selling of sex destroying the ability of
women to obtain credit and their role as commodities in circulation mean that they
never obtain the equality that was necessary for them to be true givers of credit; the
scenes with Mistress Quickly and her fall from good reputation (even as Prince Hal
manipulates his reputation) is an indication of breakdowns in the system.
Levine says that Quickly is “accurately acknowledging the interplay between
the erotic and monetary debt that Falstaff continually exploits”
172
but he also exploits
his name and lineage (swearing to her as a knight, and playing up his identity through
his family ring). Since Falstaff never fulfills contractual obligations, he is the symbol
of the failure of the civil society and the lineage society. His carnival status
undermines his ability to function in any hierarchical structure, as he is all play, excess
and timelessness (as opposed to ordered society of obligation, frugality, and
timeliness). The Hostess, in her attempt to marry Falstaff for his social position, is a
member of the civil society who seeks status in a lineage society—and both let her

171
(1H4 I.ii.54-6); Ibid., 416.

172
Ibid., 424.
134

down. While the Chief Justice does demand that Falstaff repay her (both financially
and morally), Falstaff’s ability to con Mistress Quickly undercuts any legal judgment
against him.
However, Mistress Quickly’s character and her fall indicate the cracks already
apparent in this world of credit. Falstaff had said that Mistress Quickly was an otter,
because “she’s neither fish nor fowl, a man knows not where to have her” (1H4 III.iii.
127-8). When Mistress Quickly tries to defend herself, she speaks in a way that leaves
her open for criticism:
Host: Thou art an unjust man in saying so. Thou or any man knows
where to have me, thou knave, thou!
Prince: Thou say’st true, hostess, and he slanders thee most grossly.
(III.iii.129-131)

While Nell ignores the sexual innuendo of Falstaff’s claim about men having her, by
doing so, she implies that she is open to both Falstaff and “any man.” The Prince’s
reassurance that Falstaff is slandering her is hardly reassuring when he is agreeing that
“any man knows where to have me.” Her credit has begun to crack until it will finally
be obliterated altogether with her doubling with Doll (as I shall show momentarily).
In Shakespeare’s Henry IV (parts one and two) and Henry V, the tavern keeper,
Mistress Quickly, suffers a slide in reputation directly connected to prostitution. Her
occupation and changing marital position seem directly related to the increasing taint
of prostitution on her reputation. These plays, of course, focus on the play of identity,
from Prince Hal’s (later Henry V’s) Machiavellian machinations to shine in the light
of low expectations that he has himself manufactured (using his supposed friends at
the tavern) to Falstaff’s constant lies about his bravery and high status. The tavern
135

which Hostess Nell Quickly runs is where the majority of this identity play is staged,
until the battlefield takes over. Mistress Quickly is the wife and honorable landlady of
a tavern in 1 Henry IV, if a little questionable because Falstaff is a customer.
173
The
Prince praises both Mistress Quickly and her husband, without the irony which will
later be heaped on the Hostess once she is a widow in the second part of Henry IV.
In 2 Henry IV, she is widow and her tavern has bawdy-house implications (in
addition to Doll Tearsheet, whose reputation as a prostitute is fairly clear), and she
herself is questionable in virtue with Falstaff and is hauled to jail. She tries early in
Act II to arrest Falstaff for owing her money. The ensuing brawl in the streets attracts
attention which the Hostess acknowledges by saying:
I pray you, since my exion is ent’re and my case so openly known to
the world, let him be brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a
long one for a poor lone woman to bear, and I have borne, and borne,
and borne, and have been fubb’d off, and fubb’d off, and fubb’d off,
from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is
no honesty in such dealing, unless a woman should be made an ass and
a beast to bear every knave’s wrong. (II.ii.23-38)

The shame of public viewing weighs on the widow, who tries to use her status as a
“poor widow of Eastcheap” to push her case with the Chief Justice (2H4 II.ii.69-71).
However, her complaint is undercut by the innuendo of “borne” and “fubb’d off,” both
of which have sexual connotations. The Chief Justice immediately notices that
Falstaff has been taking advantage of Mistress Quickly in ways other than

173
“Do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have search’d, I have inquir’d, so has my husband, man
by man, boy by boy, servant by servant. The [tithe] of a hair was never lost in my house before.” (1H4 III.iii.54-8);
“What say’st thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy husband? I love him well, he is an honest man.” (1H4
III.iii.92-3). Her husband, however, does not appear nor seem to be directly involved with her business.

136

financially.
174
He insists that Falstaff “Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the
villainy you have done with her. The one you may do with sterling money, and the
other with current repentance” (2H4 II.ii.118-121).
However, it was the financial arrangements which really interested the
Hostess, because for her they also encompass the sexual ones.
Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin
chamber, at the round table by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in
Wheeson week, when the Prince broke thy head for liking his father to
a singing-man of Windsor, thou didst swear to me, then, as I was
washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my lady thy wife. Canst
thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher’s wife, come in then
and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar,
telling us she had a good dish of prawns, whereby thou didst desire to
eat some, whereby I told thee they were ill for a green wound? And
didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more
so familiarity with such poor people, saying that ere long they should
call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thirty
shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath. Deny it if thou canst. (2H4
II.ii .85-103)

Mistress Quickly is the master of particulars. For her, everything is valued and
enumerated; her goblet is “parcel-gilt” and her fire “sea-coal” and even the day can be
established through details. She gets so bogged down by the particulars, especially the
commodification of her life and status, that she is almost incoherent, making it easy
for Falstaff to accuse her of madness brought on by poverty.
175

What is interesting here is her use of commodities. Throughout the three
plays, she marshals her goods as evidence for her, apparently unaware that they do not
make sufficient witnesses to Falstaff’s promises. So why the constant references to

174
You have, as it appears to me, practic’d upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her
serve your uses both in purse and in person (2H4 II.ii.114-116).

175
“My lord, this is a poor [mad] soul, and she says up and down the town that her eldest son is like you.
She hath been in good case, and the truth is, poverty hath distracted her” (2H4 II.ii.104-108).
137

her tapestries and other goods? Natasha Korda in Shakespeare’s Domestic Economies
points out that in early modern London there is a great proliferation of “household
stuff.”
176
However, there was a difficulty in defining household stuff which “arises
from a material excess, from the increasing volume, value, and variety of goods
available for domestic consumption.”
177
Korda analyzes women’s control over
household property at the time and argues that as lower status people were able to
purchase more goods, relationships to goods changed. Items were not just seen by
use-value within the home but had a value determined by the market and culture.
“One of the effects of this shift is that household objects took on what Norbert Elias
calls a ‘civilizing function’; they came to serve as what Pierre Bourdieu terms ‘signs
of social distinction’. Household objects thereby functioned to signify the subject’s
place within the social order.”
178

Clothing, of course, was one way to mark social identity,
179
but so were
household items and other forms of moveable property:
The dressing up of the household, like the dressing up of the subject,
was clearly a source of ambivalence in the early modern period, an
ambivalence tied to the sense of confusion brought about by both the
social ubiquity and mobility of status objects. The power of luxury
goods in particular to breach previously entrenched social boundaries
(e.g., between high and low) and conceptual categories (e.g., between
the necessary and the merely superfluous) made them the focus of
controversy.
180

176
Natasha Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2002) 1-2.

177
Ibid., 3.

178
Ibid., 19.

179
Ibid., 19-20.

180
Ibid., 21.
138

What Nell Quickly is attempting to do, unsuccessfully, is verbally marshal visual
markers of her social status. In order to manage her reputation, she attempts to protect
herself by indicating her value through household goods. Her reminders that she has
valuable commodities is a protection from the visual pressures she feels from the
neighborhood, the people who she indicates are nearby and judging her: the neighbor
who comes in to borrow vinegar, and the minister who (as I am about to discuss) is
nearby when another man complains that she is seen as not respectable.
Her case is “open” because her access to the legal system leaves her open to
accusations of promiscuity—by being seen in public. The irony is that in an attempt
to manage the legal system which is marshaled against her, she verbally describes her
commodities, the very thing which Falstaff is after. Falstaff, the master of
verbalization (for he always gets out of trouble through his ability to speak), is able to
manage the system better. Falstaff understands that she will appear addled to the
Justice and that by insinuating a lack of status on the Judge’s part (by saying that the
poor woman has been speaking of him in a disrespectful way) he can make her claim
against him weaker. Mistress Quickly is vigilant in managing her household goods and
also attempts to manage her reputation and the oversight of her neighbors, but she just
is not very good at legal recourse or understanding witnesses and other evidence. She
is too caught up in the managing of her household goods and the enumerating of them
to indicate her status, which she thinks is respectable partly through her goods, that
she doesn’t see how much Falstaff knows about manipulating credit.
139

Ironically, her use of pawning
181
(a normal resort for the financially unstable)
to give money to Falstaff robs her of the very commodities which she is using to
support her reputation. These signs of status which she trades will clearly not come
back and Falstaff indicates that as old commodities they should be replaced with
newer fangled commodities—painted pictures, for instance—indicating a troubled
relationship with the market:
Fal: As I am a gentleman! Come, no more words of it.
Host: By this heav’nly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both
my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.
Fal: Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking, and for thy walls, a pretty
slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or the German hunting
in waterwork, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangers and these
fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, and
‘twere not for thy humors, there’s not a better wench in England.
Go wash thy face, and draw the action. Come, thou must not be in
this humor with me, dost not know me? Come, come, I know thou
wast set on to this.
Host: Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles. I’ faith, I am loath
to pawn my plate, so God save me law!
Fal: Let it alone, I’ll make another shift. You’ll be a fool still.
Host: Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope you’ll
come to supper. You’ll pay me all together?
Fal: Will I live? [to Bardolph] Go, with her, with her, hook on, hook
on. (2H4 II.ii.138-162)

The collapse between sexual and financial discussion between Falstaff and Mistress
Quickly brings her to pawn her commodities. Falstaff uses his status as a knight to
convince her to trust him, but he also means (with his “dost not know me?”) that their
sexual relationship should make her trust him. Mistress Quickly seeks his status as
knight as protection of her reputation in the same way that she uses her commodities

181
Both theatres and women were often involved in pawning, to get their fine clothing or to use their
clothing to extend their financial credit. Henslowe, in his famous diaries, shows how he ran his theatre, all the
while using pawning as a way to gain money, clothing which could be used by the company, and power over his
debtors. Women were frequently customers of pawnbrokers (and some women also made their living in this
profession, especially for clothes). More on this can be found in chapter four of this project.
140

to bolster her claims for respectability. His inherent untrustworthiness, however,
means that any commodities she does pawn are unlikely to return. He tries to make
her believe that she would be better off without the items, since they are out of date
and worn, but in the end she will even give her gown to help him.
Her desire for Falstaff is not sexual but social, desiring the claim to higher
status that marrying a knight would bring; he, on the other hand, uses false promises of
marriage and higher status to get her money and food. For a woman who is so
attached to material items and the wealth they display, she is angry at losing them for
no return on her investment. The relationship they have is an economic one and she is
pursuing him for breaking the legal contract of money and goods for marriage and
status, a contract he never intends to keep since he is conning her (and another woman
mentioned in passing, Ursula, whom he has also promised marriage, in order to get
money from her).
Mistress Quickly manages her household commodities to secure her status.
Unfortunately for her, she is in an “ill name” and her reputation suffers because her
neighbors have observed her and speak of her in ways which she cannot fight. While
displaying one’s credit through clothing and goods is easily manipulated, as we will
see in later chapters where various women of the city comedies change their status
through their displays of clothing, verbal reputation is the hardest to manipulate.
Mistress Quickly is particularly bad at it, as she tries to verbally line up her visual
commodities to shore up her reputation, and is overwhelmed by the very verbal
Falstaff. No matter what people say about him (and, indeed, most people seem to
141

know exactly what sort of man he is), he almost always gets away with what he is
doing by verbal skill and his status as a man the prince likes.
Until the prince himself banishes him and refuses his verbal skills, Falstaff is
able to manipulate others around him. He tries to convince the judge that Mistress
Quickly (with her list of commodities) is mad, something that seems reasonable based
on her sputtering incoherency. The problem is that Mistress Quickly relies on the
wrong support. She does not understand the legal system and the ideas of evidence
and witnesses. Instead she appeals to her goods as protection. Worse, it is these very
goods which Falstaff will trick her into pawning so that he can have money. She
verbally tries to protect herself through visual display, a contradiction which she does
not seem to notice. She loves markers of status and falls for Falstaff because of the
idea that he is a knight. She wants the protection that such a marriage would mean.
Desperate for a husband whose status can protect her, she wrongfully chooses Falstaff,
and like the ballad of the “Distressed Damosel,” she is out her precious commodities
and does not gain a husband in the exchange but only a bad reputation for being too
free and open.
Further evidence that her reputation has slid since 1 Henry IV, is when the
Hostess tries to deny entry to Pistol, who is described as a swaggerer. She refuses him
entry into her house for “No, by my faith, I must live among my neighbors; I’ll no
swaggerers, I am in good name and fame with the very best” (2H4 II.iv.73-8). Despite
her claim that her name and fame are the best, within lines we find that she has been
142

warned by others in the neighborhood that her reputation is suffering because of the
clientele of the tavern.
Tilly-fally Sir John, ne’er tell me; and your ancient [swagger, ‘a] comes
not in my doors. I was before Master Tisick the deputy, t’ other day,
and, bas he said to me—‘twas no longer ago than Wed’sday last, I’
good faith—“Neighbor Quickly, “ says he—Mayster Dumbe, our
minister, was by then—“Neighbor Quickly,” says he, “receive those
that are civil, for,” said he, “you are in an ill name.” Now ‘a said so, I
can tell whereupon, “For,” says he, “you are an honest woman, and
well thought on, therefore take heed what guests you receive. Receive,”
says he, “no swaggering companions.” There comes none here. You
would bless you to hear what he said. No, I’ll no swagg’rers. (2H4
II.iv.83-96)

She is “before” the deputy, for an unknown reason but perhaps to answer a complaint,
and he warns her that in order to keep her reputation as “an honest woman” she needs
to watch whom she let into her house as a guest (in other words, her customers). Since
businesses such as Mistress Quickly’s tavern and inn were run out of the same
location as the owner’s living quarters, customers were essentially the same as guests
in a home, especially in establishments for food, drink, or lodging (all of which
Mistress Quickly’s business would provide).
182
This means that personal reputation
and business reputation are one and the same, for those who pay for services were also
guests in a home.
The distinction of private and public does not work for the economy of the
time. Businesses would not start becoming more separated from homes as a norm
until later in the Jacobean era, and would continue down that path through the
Industrial Revolution when it became the main system. Hence the running of a
business out of a home is more likely to influence the opinion of your neighbors on a

182
Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England 109.
143

woman’s honesty (which always takes on a sexual connotation for women, but not for
men). The pressure of the neighborhood opinion is seen by Mistress Quickly’s
concern to keep out swaggerers (which is her quick-fix solution to avoid an ill
reputation) and her need to point out that, while the deputy was warning her (with
repeated calls to “Neighbor Quickly”), “Mayster Dumbe, our minister, was by then,”
showing the power and concern of how others might view her, because of her
“guests”/customers.
However much Mistress Quickly strives to keep her honest reputation, it is
apparent that she is not managing to do so. The Prince, who had spoken without irony
of her honesty and her good husband, seems downright sarcastic about her reputation
now. The Prince has been spying on Falstaff and his interactions with Mistress
Quickly and Doll Tearsheet and when he reveals himself, Falstaff welcomes him “by
this light flesh and corrupt blood”— meaning Doll (2H4 II.iv.298). The Prince, who
has already expressed doubt about Doll’s virtue privately, rounds on Falstaff for
speaking ill of Doll:
You whoreson candle-mine, you, how wildly did you speak of me now
before this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman! (2H4 II.iv.300-2)

The Hostess is pleased by this recognition of Doll’s honesty, apparently not
recognizing the overly polite tones for sarcasm. She blesses the Prince for his speech
and confirms Doll’s honesty “by my troth”
(
2H4 II.iv.303-4). Falstaff tries to explain
that he spoke poorly of the Prince only to warn the wicked away from him and the
Prince asks him to say whether he believes the others around him, such as Doll and the
Hostess, are wicked. Falstaff says Doll is “in hell already, and burns poor souls; for t’
144

other, I owe her money, and whether she be damn’d for that, I know not” (2H4
II.iv.337-40).
The following conversation about Falstaff’s claims of damnation to the
Hostess is illuminating:
Host: No, I warrant you.
Fal: No, I think thou art not, I think thou art quit for that. Marry, there
is another indictment upon thee, for suffering flesh to be eaten in
thy house, contrary to the law, for the which I think thou wilt howl.
Host: All vict’lers do so. What’s a joint of mutton or two in a whole
Lent?
Prince: You, gentlewoman—
Doll: What says your Grace?
Fal: His grace says that which his flesh rebels against. (2H4 II.iv.341-350)

Falstaff knows that Doll the prostitute will burn in hell, but wonders if the Hostess
will, and the reasons for her burning are related to her work—extending him credit and
serving food. In both cases, it seems that the one who has received the goods would
be culpable (in other words, Falstaff for taking credit and for eating meat at Lent), but
he pushes the blame to the retailer, much like Doll who burns in hell and in doing so
“burns poor souls,” a reference to venereal disease but also, it seems, blaming the
prostitute for damning others. So the customer is, in Falstaff’s view, not at fault for
any wrongs done in a transaction, only the woman who provides the service.
The Prince, in the scene above, may be addressing either of the women as
“gentlewoman” for the Hostess was the last to speak and would make more sense in
context, but it is Doll who answers, apparently incredulous at hearing the term or
uncertain what he is going to say. Falstaff indicates that the Prince’s very flesh rebels
against calling the woman “gentlewoman,” but we never learn whom he was referring
145

to since an interruption ensues. The staging of this in today’s theatre would have to
decide to whom he was addressing, but as it is vague in the text, the irony of the
Prince’s address falls equally on Doll and the Hostess, who are increasingly equated in
this play and its sequel.
The end of the play has the various tavern-friends of the Prince falling on hard
times. Falstaff is banished, and the Hostess and Doll are arrested, apparently because
a man is dead. Again, Mistress Quickly and Doll are closely linked, with both being
blamed for the same crime and heading off to suffer the same punishment.
183
The
Beadle is going to whip them (a common punishment for prostitutes) and Doll
proclaims it will make her miscarry her child. The Hostess backs her up, but the
Beadle implies that Doll has used one of the Hostess’ pillows up her dress, so no harm
done. Prostitution once again is closely connected to Mistress Quickly and one of her
material possessions, as the Beadle pulls the two women off stage to prison, pulling
the Hostess’ shoulder out of joint (2H4 V.iv.1-31).
By the end of the two parts of Henry IV, Nell Quickly has gone from a
reasonably respectable married woman who runs a tavern to a woman accused of
being involved in prostitution and murder. How she gets to this low point is through
an improper management of credit. While the Prince is able to manage expectations
and manipulate how people talk about him, Mistress Quickly is under scrutiny of her

183
In Engendering a Nation, Rackin and Howard argue that the “sexualizing and criminalizing” of
Quickly coincides with her economic well-being as evidenced by her list of commodities (p. 178-9). They see the
tavern as being a “sexualized scene of female entrepreneurship” which becomes the center for anxiety about
lawlessness and the women’s arrest a site of displaced anxiety about the threat of Carnival (p. 179) and her
visibility and volubility are part of the gender anxiety she represents as “entrepreneurial urban woman” who cannot
exist in Shakespeare, according to them, except as examples of crime (p. 180). Note that this differs from my
argument that the reason we hear of her economic commodities is that she is trying to manipulate a sliding
reputation.
146

neighbors who talk about her in increasingly unflattering ways. Without the
protection of a husband, she attempts to manage her reputation through an
enumeration of her valuable commodities, which she recognizes can be a visual sign
of status. Unfortunately, her open house and open case with Falstaff (whose
knighthood is an enticement to marriage because of the status it would bring her)
makes her increasingly notorious. In addition, her commodities which she sought to
use as protection are being pawned, one by one, in order to give money to Falstaff (in
what she sees as a trade for marriage, but which is just a con game for the verbally-
adept knight) and the other commodities, such as her pillow stuffed in Doll’s dress, are
so connected to the credit she has earned in her neighborhood that they are little more
than inadequate props attempting to protect a notorious prostitute.
In the next play, Henry V, the slide in Nell’s reputation is clear. Mistress
Quickly is out of prison, with no explanation, but Doll, although mentioned twice
(both as in the “spittle”) does not appear. Perhaps she was not so lucky. The Hostess
has apparently just broken off an understanding with one man and is returning from a
marriage ceremony to Pistol (whom she disliked as a “swaggerer” in the previous
play). Nym, the discarded suitor, is angry at Pistol for winning her hand and greets the
newly married Pistol:
Nym: How, now, mine host Pistol?
Pistol: Base tike, call’st thou me host?
Now by [Gadslugs] I swear I scorn the term;
Nor shall my Nell keep lodgers.
Host: No, by my troth, not long; for we cannot lodge and board a dozen
or fourteen gentlewomen that live honestly by the prick of their
needles but it will be thought we keep a bawdy-house straight.
(
H5
II.i.27-35)
147

Pistol scorns the title of host, either because he will not take part in his wife’s
business, or as seems likely from his next statement, if they run a tavern but not an
inn, the term would not apply. Either way, the dislike of being a host stems,
apparently, from its close connection to prostitution. The newly-married Nell Quickly
agrees to stop keeping lodgers, recognizing that their reputations suffer. Of course, a
bawdy-house could disguise itself under the guise of a lodging home for honest
seamstresses, but the Hostess’ comments seem ironic considering her close
connections to Doll Tearsheet in the previous play, with whom she was imprisoned.
There are two direct references to Doll in Henry V, and in both she is
connected to the Hostess, by the speaker, her new husband Pistol.
No, to the spittle go,
And from the powd’ring-tub of infamy
Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid’s kind,
Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse.
I have, and I will hold, the quondam Quickly
For the only she; and pauca, there’s enough too. (H5 II.ii.72-79)

In this first reference, Doll is in direct opposition to Mistress Quickly. Doll is the
lesser woman, diseased and infamous, whom Pistol recommends to Nym for marriage,
instead of Nell. Pistol affirms his need for only one woman, his new wife.
The second reference, however, equates the two women. Pistol’s last scene is
after the terrible battle and his humiliation at the hands of a Welsh soldier. At this low
point, we learn he has received bad news.
Doth fortune play the huswife with me now?
News have I that my Doll is dead i’th’ spittle
Of a malady of France,
And there my rendezvous is quite cut off.
148

Old I do wax, and from my weary limbs
Honor is cudgell’d. Well, bawd I’ll turn,
And something lean to cutpurse of quick hand.
To England will I steal, and there I’ll steal;
And patches will I get unto these cudgell’d scars,
And [swear] I got them in the Gallia wars. (H5 V.i.80-89)

Notes on the text suggest Pistol is Falstaff in an early version and so Doll is given here
instead of Nell as a holdover mistake, but really, it shows the interchangeableness of
the women—wife/prostitute are not so far apart in this world.
184
As Jean Howard and
Phyllis Rackin indicate, “the momentary textual conflation of the two women . . .
underscores the symbolic conflation of two types of ‘public women.’”
185
Pistol who
was swearing that Nell was his all is now unable to differentiate between the women.
In addition, Pistol will pick up two professions, neither of which are expected,
and cover them with fake honor from war wounds from a different war. A cutpurse
“of quick hand” is not an expected occupation for someone who is self-described as
old and has “weary limbs,” while bawd is unexpected because it was more commonly
portrayed as older women. Mistress Quickly is portrayed as a potential bawd, as are
many older women in popular literature. Although there were many men who ran
prostitute houses, the common literary portrayal at the time was to see older women as
seducers of younger women and leading them into the profession of prostitution
through a desire for clothing and material goods.
Presumably the tavern and all of Mistress Quickly’s possessions are her
husbands’ since he was concerned with his moveables when he left for war, but

184
see also Jean Howard and Phyllis Rackin, Engendering a Nation: A Feminist Account of
Shakespeare's English Histories (London and New York: Routledge, 1997) 176-85.

185
Ibid., 180.
149

whether he will run his new business from the tavern (perhaps carrying on her possible
profession of maintaining people like Doll Tearsheet in her home under the pretension
of honorable work) is unknown. What is known is that Pistol confuses his new wife
for the prostitute whom he said was open to the others when they couldn’t have his
precious Nell, and she is dead with a disease that connects her with prostitution.
Before Pistol left for war, his preoccupation with the Hostess was her
managing of his goods, which seem to have been her goods (the tavern and inn she has
been running since her first husband was alive).
My love, give me thy lips.
Look to my chattels and my moveables.
Let senses rule; the [word] is “Pitch and pay”;
Trust none;
For oaths are straws, men’s faiths are wafer-cakes.
And Hold-fast is the only dog, my duck;
Therefore Caveto be thy counselor.
Go, clear thy crystals. Yoke-fellows in arms,
Let us to France….
Let huswifery appear. Keep close. I thee command. (H5 II.ii.47-55,
62)

Pistol forbids her to earn a living as she has done before, claims her possessions, and
she loses the specificity and interest in material goods. When before she wanted to
raise her social status through marriage with a knight (even one whose reputation was
less than stellar) and recounted the commodities of her inn with a relish which left
coherence in the dust, now she has married a man who previously she tried to stop
from entering her home, for fear that he was a swaggerer. She has broken off a
possible engagement with another man who seems no better in status than Pistol and
has lost all control or rights over her goods and her ability to provide service. She
150

agrees to it meekly, saying that it is best since it is hard to run a place without
accusations of prostitution. This is certainly true and a suggestion that Pistol bristles
at, which may explain his obsession with protecting his goods. She will apparently
still serve food and drink, but take no lodgers for fear of accusations of indecency.
Pistol also advises against extending credit. Considering her poor success with
getting repaid by Falstaff and how Falstaff used her belief in their eventual marriage to
bilk her of money and goods, and possibly have a sexual affair with her, this concern
is, perhaps, justified. However, it also cuts off the very community of the tavern
which was shown in all its glory in both parts of Henry IV. For a man just back from
his marriage ceremony he is also quite certain of the insignificance of men’s oaths and
how little men are to be trusted. Having gained ownership of Mistress Quickly and all
of her moveables, he leaves for masculine camaraderie on the battlefield, ordering his
wife to stay close at home, with fewer ways to maintain her self financially. “I thee
command” has a force that rings of worry that she will not stay close and may stray
into lodgers (read this as prostitutes) and extending credit (and read this as possibly
sexual favors).
Therefore, Mistress Quickly begins the three play sequence with a fairly good
reputation and honored husband. After she becomes a widow, she quickly falls in
esteem with the neighbors, the Chief Justice and the Prince. She ends up in jail with
Doll Tearsheet, marries a less reputable man, seems to run a bawdy house, and,
finally, is called a prostitute’s name by her own husband, after she dies a prostitute’s
151

death. Despite her repeated attempts to shore up her credit, the cards were stacked
against her.

Commodities, Sex, and the Gaze of the Neighborhood
Barbara Sebeck in her intriguing “Good Turns and the Art of Merchandizing:
Conceptualizing Exchange in Early Modern England” follows Keith Wrightson in
seeing a change from “traditional” social relations which are “based on an ethic of
neighborliness and paternalism and deference, and the emergence of capitalistic
relations operating beyond the local level, based on calculated profit and economic
gain.”
186
She argues that social relations become understood as relations of exchange
and that they “both articulate or symbolize social and personal identity, and serve as
the mechanisms by which these identities are formed.”
187

There are two forms of exchange which she investigates: gift exchanges and
commodity exchanges. In gift exchange the people involved are in "reciprocal
dependence" while those in commodity exchange are in a state of "reciprocal
independence” because the exchange of gifts creates "personal relations between
people," while commodity exchange creates "objective relations between things." Gift
exchange binds people together in a network of giving and receiving gifts. This is the
logic which was explored earlier with the discussion of the ring and how unequal
power relations can be opened up if an overly generous gift is given or if a gift is not

186
Barbara Sebeck, "Good Turns and the Art of Merchandizing: Conceptualizing Exchange in Early
Modern England," in Early Modern Culture: an electronic seminar, Issue 2 (2001).

187
Ibid.
152

reciprocated. Queen Elizabeth and her court partly operated under a gift exchange
concept where lavish gifts to the Queen were given in an attempt to bind the giver to
the Queen (and potentially receive a gift back, in terms of monopolies or other prizes).
While gift exchange creates both social and personal relationship, commodity
exchange does not because the commodities are separate from the person and have a
value determined by the market.
188

Mistress Quickly thinks she is in a gift economy where her gifts of money and
goods from her pawning will create a relationship with Falstaff. However, Falstaff,
who indicates that he knows that commodities can be purchased in the market and
encourages the Hostess to trade in her tapestries for some newer pictures, is involved
in a commodities exchange. Commodities are alienable (distinguished from the
person who owns them and transferable to others)
189
and hence poor items to base
one’s reputation on. Like the woman in the ballad at the start of this chapter, Mistress
Quickly believes she is in a gift exchange, with her goods going to the man who will
marry her in gratitude for her generosity.
Gift exchange is about bonds and obligations. As we saw in the earlier
discussion of rings, when a woman takes the intiative to give a gift it can open up
anxiety about uneven power relations, especially when that gift is a ring, an indication
of sexual openness. However, Falstaff is participating in a commodity exchange, not a

188
Sebeck is drawing heavily here from Mauss’ The Gift and from Gayle Rubin, both of whom were
influential in my own thinking about rings and giving. For more on these ideas, also see Ann Rosalind Jones and
Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2000) 8-9+. The discussion of Marx and the difference between fetishism of a commodity and an object is
pertinent to this discussion, where Mistress Quickly values the objects, but Falstaff is looking at them as
commodities, where they have a value in the marketplace.

189
Sebeck, "Good Turns and the Art of Merchandizing: Conceptualizing Exchange in Early Modern
England."
153

gift exchange, and does not feel any anxiety over uneven power relations because the
commodity has value and his desire is only for profit, not for a network of relations
and social obligation which a gift would entail. Falstaff sees the goods as mere items
of profit to be pawned or sold for his benefit, as long as his verbal skill can keep the
good Hostess on the hook in her belief that he will marry her and give her the status
she longs for so much.
Mistress Quickly, of course, is not just a character in Prince Hal’s plays. Like
Falstaff, she appears in one other Shakespearean play, The Merry Wives of Windsor.
This play has more in common with city comedies than with a history play; Mistress
Quickly is clearly a different character, a nurse and housekeeper for a french doctor
rather than a hostess at a tavern, sharing merely her name, her difficulty in managing
her language, and time on stage with Falstaff. While Falstaff remains similar to his
earlier portrayl and has some of the same followers, this Mistress Quickly plays a very
different role. What is interesting, however, is that in both this play and the earlier
ones, she is interested in relationships which are based more on money than emotion.
However, in the Henriad the money aspect broke down the relationship while in this
play, Mistress Quickly manipulates relationships for money. Also, the power of the
neighborhood and reputation remains all important in all of these plays.
This Mistress Quickly gets money for managing her standing with Anne, a
relationship that we don’t even see as particularly strong since she indicates to the
audience that Fenton doesn’t stand a chance of winning the girl when clearly he does.
154

Natasha Korda, in discussing the Merry Wives of Windsor sets Mistress Quickly of the
Henriad in direct opposition to the title characters of Mistress Ford and Mistress Page:
In her role as a supervisor of household property, the Mistress Quickly
of the Henriad bears some resemblance to the merry wives. Yet in her
status as a London tavern-keeper, her economic activity during
coverture would have been protected by a special custom or privilege
of the City known as the feme sole merchant, according to which a
feme covert or married woman who ‘exerciseth a Trade wherein her
Husband doth not intermeddle . . . shall have all advantages’ of a feme
sole or single woman.
190

Korda suggests that Nell Quickly is subject to ridicule because her economic activity
is more “openly subversive” than the merry wives for “she represents the epitome of
the insufficiently vigilant and hence unwittingly lascivious wife” because she is too
public—running a public house, pursuing a public case against Falstaff, and
apparently having a physical relationship with the knight.
191
However, I would argue
that both the Hostess and the merry wives are vigilant, in Korda’s terms, in that all of
them attempt to manage and catalog their household stuff.
192
What Mistress Quickly
fails to do is take that gaze to supervise herself. She, instead, uses her gaze to catalog
the goods and marshal them as evidence, failing to note that as she gives these goods
as gifts she is robbing herself of her support as respectable and still failing to gain the
relationship she seeks (also desired for its status and help in managing respectability).

190
Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England 109.

191
Ibid.

192
It is interesting to compare the stated need for women to manage household goods and the rhetoric in
accounting books where merchants are urged to account for money in similar ways. Surveillance and vigilance, as
a moral good, in dealing with objects of financial value (and connected to status/credit) are treated similarly. See
Ceri Sullivan, The Rhetoric of Credit: Merchants in Early Modern Writing (London: Associated University
Presses, 2002) esp. Chapters 1 and 2.
155

The merry wives, however, as Korda rightfully points out, use their gaze to
supervise themselves, to interrogate their relationship with Falstaff and question
whether they have been too open. They then marshal their goods (the laundry basket,
dirty clothes, and other household goods) in an attempt to punish Falstaff privately
(not using the courts as Mistress Quickly did).
193
Only after they have proved to
themselves and their husbands that they are completely in control of their households
and themselves is Falstaff publicly humiliated, something else they supervise.
194

As in the Henriad, Falstaff sees his pursuit of women as the pursuit of
commodities. He decides to woo Mistress Page and Mistress Ford purely for money.
He is broke and he believes that they will help: “the report goes she has all the rule of
her husband’s purse” (Merry Wives I.iii.52.53). Falstaff calls what he is doing thrift
and views their seduction as necessary financial arrangements, no different than
having his followers work for him or the innkeeper to save money.
What is telling is that the husband, Master Ford, views the supposed adultery
very similarly, connecting it with theft of goods.
195
Ford gathers his neighbors
together for a search of his home, to prove that he is being made a cuckold. Like in
the Henriad, communal surveillance is key. The weight of the community lies heavily
on Ford’s view of his credit, and he both fears their look and encourages it to prove
that he is right about his status. Korda argues that it is about the maintenance of
household goods and where they might be hidden and how well managed they might

193
Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England 76-77.

194
Ibid., 84-96.

195
Ibid., 86.
156

be. Hence Ford looks in even the smallest places in the house where goods might be
hidden and also worries about holes in clothes and linen as a metaphor for adultery—
demonstrating the connection to household goods/status/adultery.
196
The wives’
private shaming of Falstaff allows them to demonstrate their household management
skills to their husbands, to prove that they do not need supervision or outside
surveillance.
197
Therefore, while Mistress Quickly of the Henriad shares their gaze of
cataloging commodities, the merry wives do so in a way that both controls their own
desires and their outward appearance/reputation, keeping their business private (in a
way which Mistress Quickly does not manage) and, therefore, their management is
more successful.
Mistress Quickly of the Merry Wives, paradoxically, has more control than her
namesake over her reputation and is more successful in the end as well. While the
character in the Henriad listed her commodities, this Mistress Quickly lists her roles
and occupations. She is mentioned as a nurse, cook, laundry, washer and wringer
(I.ii.1-5). When she describes her roles we learn they are a lot to occupy one person:
Quickly: For I keep his house; and I wash, wring, brew, bake, scour,
dress meat and drink, make the beds, and do all myself.
Simon: ‘Tis a great charge to come under one body’s hand.
Quickly: Are you avis’d o’ that? You shall find it a great charge; and
to be up early and down late. (I.iv.95-102)

Her main role in the play is to be a go-between; she delivers messages to Falstaff and
promises various suitors that she can help them win the hand of her friend and young
heiress, Ann Page (accepting money in exchanged for the promised help which she

196
Ibid., 90-1.

197
Ibid., 96.
157

never really intends to give). While she still causes anxiety and is a laughingstock (she
still has verbal excesses that are tellingly brought up when she misinterprets a child
learning Latin—a sign of high status) (IV.i), in the end her behavior is not punished
even though she has been acting as a Bawd without any prostitute to sell (by taking
money for Anne). In the climatic scene of the play, Mistress Quickly acts as the Fairy
Queen (figured as a good housekeeper) to torment Falstaff in the forest, as part of his
public shaming ritual.
198

Mistress Quickly of the Henriad spends her goods on an attempt to get a
husband, forsaking her duty as domestic overseer. Her second husband’s injunctions
to manage the property, which he now sees as his, and his anxiety over her status as a
bawd or prostitute are similar to the connection between household stuff and adultery
in Merry Wives. The spending of moveables and the spending of one’s body (being
too open and free with sex) are equated. Mistress Quickly catalogs her household
goods verbally but does not use her gaze to the extent that the merry wives did,
leaving her vulnerable.
Like the woman in the ballad, Mistress Quickly of the Henriad believes that
there is an equitable trade to be had (in the form of a gift exchange): goods and sex for
marriage to a good husband. Both women are disappointed, losing the items they gave
and not gaining the thing they sought. Both lose status in their community, becoming
the laughingstock of their neighborhood. Being too open (like a ring), too free, is
costly. Neither the distressed damosel of the ballad nor Mistress Nell Quickly
manages to have the self-regulating gaze of the merry wives, although at least the

198
Ibid., 108.
158

Merry Wives incarnation of Mistress Quickly has figured how to manage her verbal
skills to get money from others, including that most verbal of tricksters, Falstaff, and
in the end is the Fairy Queen, a sign of power whose presence onstage allows the
successful marriage of her young friend Anne to Fenton.
159

Chapter 4
“As fine as the players”:
City Comedies and Women in Performance, Women in Retail

The Wise Woman of Hogsdon, opens with Luce, the goldsmith’s daughter,
telling the journeyman in her father’s shop:
I doe not love to sit thus publicly:
And yet upon the traffic of our Wares,
Our provident Eyes and presence must still wait.
Doe you attend the shop, I’ll ply my work.
I see my father is not jealous of me,
That trusts me to the open view of all.
The reason is, he knows my thoughts are chaste,
And my care such, as that it needs the awe
Of no strict Overseer. (I.ii.4-12)
199

The above passage reveals a tension about the necessity for women to sell wares in a
retail environment and the need to protect women’s chastity which is explored in this
chapter. The difficulty of being in public and under other people’s eyes—much as the
wares must be under hers, and she would need to be under her father’s eyes were she
not chaste in thoughts and “care”—causes the tension, which was expressed in many
sources beyond this play. Many of the city comedies show a link between women in
public spaces, especially retail environs, and the possibility of sexual behavior.
The idea that women were more open to flirtation (or more) in a retail setting
was common in the time. Regulations against women sellers, while ostensibly about
protecting other more established (male) businesses or consumers often became

199
Thomas Heywood, "The Wise Woman of Hogsdon (1604, 1638)," in Thomas Heywood, ed. Arthur
Wilson Verity (London: Vitzetelly & Co, 1888).
160

discussions of the morals of the women or the disorder which they were believed to
cause. Street selling, which although mostly legal, was frequently connected in the
minds of the authorities with regrating (a type of reselling believed to be harmful to
the poor) and lawlessness, and was particularly identified with women, since these
types of work often went to those on the margins, financially or socially. The mayor
of London, for instance, in 1590 issued an order against “an exceeding great number
of lewd and wicked women called fishwives, which swarm about in all parts of this
city liberties and suburbs . . . and . . . greatly enhance prices . . [and] be of such vile
behaviour and condition as if not fit any longer to be suffered.”
200
According to Laura
Gowing, the officers of the wards were asked to search out such women, selling fish or
fruit, and most wards found one or two, but reported that there were up to forty-two in
some other wards;
201
the officers were then instructed to allow only 160 such sellers,
and all of them to be wives and widows of freemen, “of honest fame and behaviour
and every of them to be of the age of thirty years at least.”
202
The age of the seller was
an issue because no one wanted to stop older people from having a way to make ends
meet, but younger people, supposedly, had more opportunities (both for other ways to
make money and for causing mischief, since prostitutes were more likely to be
younger). It is also interesting that each warden found only a few troubling sellers in
his area but reported that there were larger numbers in areas out of his jurisdiction,
indicating that the fear of these types of sellers might have been greater than their

200
Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London (Oxford:
Oxford UP, 1996) 142.

201
Ibid.

202
Ibid., 142.
161

actual presence, since each person believed more would be found in the neighboring
area.
Markets were pressed for space so mobile sellers were frequently the target of
regulations. Herbwives, for instance, were forbidden to continue their common
practice “to sit and stand in Cheapside,” an area that was plagued with overcrowded
marketplaces,
203
while the fishmongers had an ordinance regulating the sale of fish
that specified, among other things, that “no fishmonger of the craft shall suffer his
wife, or servant, to stand in the market to sell fish, unless in his absence.”
204
The man
who owned the shop was supposed to solicit the customers, and although the guild
knew that he often had others, including his wife, work, they wanted to reduce this to
when the male seller had to be absent on business. However, in practice, this rule
seemed to be broken more than honored, since complaints against wives, daughters,
and apprentices working in shops and soliciting customers continued to appear in
guild regulations.
205

One issue, of course, is the wandering nature of some women’s work; because
mobile sellers are those already on the fringes of the market–frequently poor people
trying to make a living–many were women, either trying to supplement their
husbands’ incomes or maidens or widows who had to support themselves. The

203
Ibid.

204
William Herbert, The History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London, 1834, Vol 2 (New
York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968) 35.

205
William Herbert, The History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London, 1834, Vol 1 (New
York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968), Herbert, The History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London, 1834,
Vol 2.
162

Figure 1: Moorfield with woman accosted by man carrying sword. North section of
Copperplate Map of London.

163

Figure 2: Moorfields with kneeling figure accosting laundress. Detail from Agas Map
of London.
164

regulations, intended to make it easier for the larger and more profitable dealers, hurt
women who were frequently below these better off and more permanent sellers in
status. If masterless men were a danger because of their lawless wandering, their
equivalent in the anxiety they produce was the wandering woman seller. This is
because it looked too much like prostitution and when it was not that, it could still be
dangerous because the women could be attacked or accosted. Even the maps of early
modern London show women laying laundry in the fields outside of town being
sought after by men whose only purpose in the field (by their clothing and position)
seems to be talking with the women. Two maps show a figure, wearing clothing
which indicate that he is a courtier, apparently attempting to seduce a laundress who is
holding out her hands in a position which may be one of denial.
206
Jean Howard
points out that in The Fair Maid of the Exchange the women who are doing their work
are attacked and almost raped, something real women also faced in their work in
marketplaces; apparently their mere presence in retail spaces led to the idea that they
might be available. “Among the presumed vendibles are the shopgirl themselves. . . .
The pawn [in the Exchange] is represented . . . as a place that sexualizes the women
who work there and makes them seem potentially vendible.”
207
The line between
shopgirl or street vendor and prostitute (or at least sexually available woman) seems to
be a thin one for early modern London.

206
See the Agas and Copperplate maps (sections in Figure 1 and Figure 2). The A to Z of Elizabethan
London, (London: London Topographical Society, No. 122, 1979) 10, 30.

207
Jean Howard, Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy, 1598-1642 (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvannia, 2007) 61. Howard also lists real incidents of attacks and concerns about attacks in the Exchange
and other retail environments.
165

The idea that the street seller was sexualized is easily seen when one looks at
“There is a garden in her face” by Thomas Campion which eroticizes the street seller’s
cry of “Cherry Ripe” with “There cherries grow which none may buy /Till 'Cherry-
ripe' themselves do cry.”
208
The blazon, with it typical poetic violence of chopping a
woman’s face into component bits of flower and fruit, here also turns her body into a
commodity; her lips will sell themselves to the right person in time. This imagery,
also used by Robert Herrick in his poem “Cherry-Ripe” (“CHERRY-RIPE, ripe, ripe, I
cry, /Full and fair ones; come and buy”), plays on the image of the street seller of ripe
cherries and make the woman’s mouth, the cherry, a seller of kisses (and implied
sexual activity).
209
The street sellers of fruit and other products were often thought of
as only one step away from selling themselves.
The close connection between regrating (reselling items purchased in bulk
from a larger dealer) and women explains why Adam Smith in 1776 in the Wealth of
Nations, writing when regrating was going off the books and becoming legal,
compared the fear of such practices “to the popular terrors and suspicions of
witchcraft.”
210
Although Smith does not discuss the gender of either the retailers or
the witches who were most subject to persecution, it is interesting that the majority of
both parties were women, frequently the older or poorer women on the outskirts of the
community or the economy. Attempts to stop witchcraft, like regrating, most

208
Thomas Campion, "Cherry-Ripe," in The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250-1900, ed. Arthur
Quiller-Couch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1919).

209
Robert Herrick, "Cherry-Ripe," in English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray, ed. Charles W. Eliot
(New York: P.F. Collier & Son).

210
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Vol Iv (New York: Penguin, 1991) 113.
166

frequently targeted women, particularly poor women who had no one who could help
them. Regrating was denounced under the concept that it drove up prices and, thus,
hurt the poor. In practice, the attempt to regulate regraters was probably to protect
larger merchants from losing business to street sellers.
211
Women, the most common
regraters, suffered from the attempts to restrict their trade and from the suspicion
which their business attracted.
The complaints against women in retail environments often seem to take on the
concern that Luce expressed in Wise Woman: being out in the open under the gaze of
others. Working in a shop or going to the market left women vulnerable to
accusations of promiscuity.
212
In Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair, Quarlous suggests
Winwife go after Widow Purecraft now because she is at Ursula’s pig booth since
“she that will venture herself into the Fair and a pig-box will admit any assault, be
assured of that” (III.ii.146-7).
213
Somehow the selling or buying of commodities
seems to be linked to the idea that the women in these positions are more available as
well.
In this chapter I argue that there was a link seen between selling and buying
commodities and selling oneself, and this attitude is linked to performance in ways
that help explain both changing attitudes towards women working in retail and to the

211
Herbert, The History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London, 1834, Vol 1, Herbert, The
History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London, 1834, Vol 2.

212
For more on this, see Jean Howard, "Sex and Social Conflict: The Erotics of the Roaring Girl," in
Erotic Politics: Desire on the Renaissance Stage, ed. Susan Zimmerman (New York: Routledge, 1992), Howard,
Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy, 1598-1642, Ruth Mazo Karras, Common Women: Prostitution
and Sexuality in Medieval England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

213
Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, ed. Carroll Storrs Alden (New York: Henry Holt and Company,
1904).
167

all-male stage. Women are connected to the theater through their work in the trades
which surrounded public performances (pawning being one example), through their
own attendance of plays, and, most importantly, in the ways that their presence in
retail environments sparked similar concerns to the players (over clothing, sexual
enticements, and class).
In discussing the Wise Woman of Hogsdon, Bartholomew Fair and the Roaring
Girl, I argue that women in a retail environment were vulnerable due to connections
between sex and commerce. I then show the parallels between the markets where
women worked and the theater, looking at how the plays examined these connections,
particularly the concerns about players and women in the market. Looking at
sumptuary concerns in the three plays, I briefly discuss class status, prostitution, and
pawning and how these are also connected to the theater. Finally, I examine how
women as sexual commodities affects the way trade is presented, particularly women
at work. Theodore Leinwand says that the city comedies “by thus focusing on the
sexual and monetary economies at the foundations of all city roles, . . . [allow their]
audience a glimpse of their own prejudices and assumptions”
214
I argue that city
comedies focus on how all sexual economies are monetary economies, and monetary
economies are compromised by the sexual.

214
Theodore B. Leinwand, The City Staged: Jacobean Comedy, 1603-1613 (Madison, WI: The
University of Wisconsin Press, 1986) 51.
168

“I envy no man my delicates”: Women and Commodities
In Wise Woman, Luce’s concern over her time in the shop seems justified,
since all the “customers” who arrive are more interested in attaining her than any of
the goods ostensibly on sale. When Boyster comes into shop (to woo her), she
answers his greeting and asks “want you aught, I pray, in which our trade may furnish
you?” and replies affirmatively, she asks Joseph to show him their products but
Boyster says, “’Tis here that I would buy” (I.ii.17). The indication is that he is buying
from her (or, really, he is attempting to buy her heart, since a common staging note has
him point to her chest on this line). Luce’s reply of “What do you mean sir? speak,
what is’t you lack?” (I.ii.14-15, 18-19) indicates her resistance to collapsing marriage
into commerce; however, she is the only one in the play who has this problem. Since
the play will put her in circulation between several males, she is essentially goods on
sale, just looking for a good and binding sales contract, whether she recognizes it at
first or not. In the end, she does not even realize to whom she has been sold, being
married to a man in a mask (who is not the man she believes she is marrying).
The bride switching and two Luces in Wise Woman of Hosgdon exemplify the
circulation of commodified females. Young Chartley is a man who is more interested
in the chase than in maintaining a relationship. He has already abandoned one young
woman (called Second Luce in the stage directions
215
), and begins the play trying to
win Luce, the goldsmith’s daughter. Having won the right to marry her, he then finds
Gratiana attractive. The titlular character of the Wise Woman, partly to help some

215
While Luce as a name probably represents clarity and light in intention, it is interesting to note its
similarity with “loose.”
169

characters and partly to avenge herself against a slight done to her by Young Chartley,
arranges a pair of marriages, where she marries two couples in disguise (switching
whom they believe they are marrying in such a way that rights a number of wrongs
which Chartley has done). For a while though, Luce and the other characters do not
know whom they have married. Boyster, who has married Luce (while she thought
she was marrying Young Chartley), worries that the Wise Woman has fooled him
since he did not see his bride’s face. He fears he may have been tricked into marrying
a prostitute:
If my grannam should make me a younger brother now, and, instead of
Luce, pop me off with some broken commodity, I were finely served:
most sure I am to be in for better and worse; but with whom, Heaven
and my granname knows (III.ii.7-11)

Boyster is concerned that he has damaged goods in his sales contract. Although he is
committed to whomever it is, he notes that the Wise Woman may have made him a
“younger brother,” threatening his dynastic and financial identity (as younger brothers
do not inherit title or money). When Second Luce comes in wearing his bride’s
clothes, she pretends that she is his bride. He asks in horror, “but what cracked ware
are you, foorsooth?” (III.ii) He is horrified when she explains that she belongs to the
Wise Woman, whom he knows runs a bawdy house at times. Later, he is relieved to
find he married the woman he wanted; Luce, who wanted to marry Young Chartley
and had rejected Boyster when he wooed her in her father’s shop, is made to feel that
she is lucky, when Young Chartley is shown to be a bad deal because of his constant
trading of objects of desire.
170

Young Chartley lies about his father’s health and inheritance, promises
marriage to Second Luce but then abandons her, does the same to Luce the
Goldsmith’s daughter, and then tries to seduce Gratiana. He does all of this by using
jewelry and other goods to impress the women (and their fathers who must agree to
the marriage). When he first sees Gratiana and considers abandoning Luce, Young
Chartley says,
Ay, marry sire, a man may have some credit by such a wife as this. I
could like this marriage well, if a man might change away his wife, still
as he is a-weary of her, and cope her away like a bad commodity; if
every new moon a man might have a new wife, that’s every year a
dozen. But this “Till death us do part” is tedious. I will go a-wooing to
her, I will; but how shall I do for jewels and tokens? Luce hath mine in
custody, money and all. Tush, I’ll juggle them from her well enough.
(III.ii)

Young Chartley tricks Luce into returning his gifts in order to use them to seduce
another woman. He envisions a world where conspicuous consumption has run amok,
affecting marriage so that a man may marry a dozen times a year. The wife does him
credit, having purchased her with jewels and tokens, and when he is weary of her and
finds another who will do him more credit, he can exchange her. The Wise Woman,
through her bride-switching trick, eventually puts things right with Young Chartley
married to the first one he promised, he is returned to the keeping of his father, and all
the characters recognize his faults (causing him to apologize and reform). However,
the play’s use of bride switching and mistaken identities (plus having two women
named Luce) does not contradict Young Chartley’s views that women are essentially
interchangeable commodities, open to whomever can finally win their sales contract.
171

Trish Thomas Henley is one of many critics who argues that the prostitute is an
allegory for the market,
216
but in early modern London, all women are, for they were
seen as all potentially open for exchange. Women, like the marketplace, were a site of
carnival:
The marketplace, like the grotesque body, escapes the confinement of
the clearly delineated boundaries of fairs and literal marketplaces,
spilling into London proper and beyond. . . . The nostalgia for the past
economic system causes the fantasy of a stable market, enclosed like
the male body. As an ever-increasing number of goods poured into
London, the list of movable goods grew and these objects became
commodified and abstracted from their material value. As these goods
became available to more and more consumers and began to filter down
to the merchant classes, their “social” significance became unstable.
Movable commodities began to signify wealth, rather than rank, and
consumers, especially those in the city, increasingly exchanged the
items as currency.
217

As has already been shown, it was not just the goods which were losing their clear
significance, but women too were seen as exchanged and unstable, and they were a
threat to male identity.
218
Joan Thirsk notes that quantities of goods in the late
sixteenth century “promoted a growth of a consumer society.”
219
Even the lower
classes were affected as they earned extra money producing commodities and
participated in the consumer culture. An increase in cottage industries made products
available to a wider range of people. Martha Howell speculates that this shift to a
capitalist economy was “the most fundamental development that motored all

216
Trish Thomas Henley, "Dealers in Hole-Sale: Representations of Prostitution on the Elizabethan and
Jacobean Stage" (Florida State University, 2007).

217
Ibid., 130.

218
I have already discussed the circulation of rings (connected to male identity and female genitalia) and
the anxiety their trade creates in Chapter 3.

219
Joan Thirsk, The Development of a Consumer Society in Early Modern England, Economic Policy and
Projects (London: Clarendon Press, 1978) 107.
172

sociocultural change in the period, the growth of the market and its tendency to render
all wealth movable, and, thus, abstract.”
220

In Dekker's pamphlet The Belman of London (1608), he claims, “the
companion of a Theefe is commonly a whore ...for what the theefe gets
the str[u]mpet spends ...she leaves no stratagem unpracticed to bring
him to confusion.” “The whore,” Dekker writes, is “the commoditie.”
Thus, he emphasizes both the whore's commodification as an exchange
object and her threat to male wealth and reputation through her
spending.
221

Since women are shown as a threat to male wealth and credit through their spending
(both financial and sexual), all women are treated like whores in the plays.
Ursula in Bartholomew Fair is, of course, a prostitute and bawd. She is
consistently called a pig (compared to her wares) and the “Mother of pigs,” just as
Joan Trash is said to be selling her daughters (her gingerbread wares). In both ways,
the female retailer is both the commodity and a pimp to the commodity. The men
aren’t described that way.
It is not just the questionably virtuous women like Ursula who are shown as a
marketable good. Win, for instance, is made a commodity. Littlewit fails his wife
Win, leaving her open to seduction from others. He encourages others to kiss her; for
instance, he wants Winwife to kiss her, saying he will be her father and “There’s no
harm in him” (B. Fair I.ii.11) and “I envy no man my delicates, sir” (B. Fair I.ii.13)–
which makes her a commodity of good food. Then when Quarlous comes in, he is to
kiss her and when Win cries out in protest, Littlewit chides her, saying they are

220
Martha C. Howell, "The Language of Property in Early Modern Europe," in The Culture of Capital:
Property, Cities, and Knowledge in Early Modern England, ed. Henry S. Turner (New York and London:
Routledge, 2002), 19.

221
Henley, "Dealers in Hole-Sale: Representations of Prostitution on the Elizabethan and Jacobean
Stage" 134.
173

friends. This encourages Quarlous to kiss her again. (B. Fair I.iii.39-50) As Henley
has argued,
the man buys social signifiers so that he can attract a wife. . . . the
exhibition of the wife plays upon cultural anxiety over cuckoldry. Like
the prostitute, the wife rides in the coach as a spectacular display. The
use of the wife as display makes her an object. She is a commodity that
her husband purchased, and like the prostitute, the wife's display also
serves to sell her to the man with whom she will cuckold the husband.
222

Littlewit is displaying his wife to promote his status, but this increases her
attractiveness to other men, putting her in danger of seduction, as she becomes a
commodity in circulation. Once she reaches the marketplace, she is truly ready to be
sold. There she is described as a horse, with Knockem looking at each of her parts as
in an equine blazon (IV.v). Her husband has placed her in the public, in her fine cap,
to display his wealth, but as Henley points out: “If the wife and coach are not ridden
out to be displayed, then neither the wife nor the coach can gain the man the cultural
credit that this display might earn him. The wife is commodified like a prostitute.”
223

The woman must be under display, being shown like a person on stage for the theater,
in order to increase the man’s credit. However, the credit/reputation is at stake even as
the credit/financial status on display is promoted. There seems to be a conflict
between social climbing and the ability to maintain a reputation as “honest.” Perhaps
the woman's desire for social climbing and clothes, which seems to lead to sexual
openness, is really a critique of the unsustainability of reputation while climbing the
social ladder.

222
Ibid., 120.

223
Ibid.
174

The danger to a woman’s reputation, when seen as open to sexual advances
(due to her status as seller), is clear in the opening of The Roaring Girl, Mary
Fizallard, daughter to Sir Guy. She is treated poorly when she is believed to be a
sempster with “a case for bands” and goes to the door for Sebastian (the son of Sir
Alexander Wengrave and her love). Neatfoot, the servingman, answers it with plate
and glass in hand from clearing the table; She is disguised as a street seller and is
described in the stage directions as dressed as a sempster and carrying a basket.
Hence both she and Neatfoot have clear markings of employment, even though only
one of them is really working.
Neatfoot speaks in a heavy, overly courteous tone to the supposed sempster,
making much of her modesty, and playing the overly pretentious servant at the same
time as providing innuendo to one he clearly feels is likely to be seeking sexual selling
as much as sewing. He asks if “is it into his [Sebastian’s] ears, sweet damsel, emblem
of fragility, you desire to have a message transported” (I.i.1-4)
224
and when she
protests “a private word or two, sir; nothing else” the servingman replies that he will
watch when our young master is erected, that is to say, up, and deliver
him to this your most white hand . . .If you please to venture your
modesty in the hall amongst a curl-pated company of rude serving-men,
and take such as they can set before you, you shall be most seriously
and ingeniously welcome. . . . Or will you vouchsafe to kiss the lip of a
cup of rich orleans in the buttery amongst our waiting-women? (I.i.17-
21, 23-4)

The first offer about erections and white hands are obviously sexual innuendos, but he
seems to also gauge her “modesty” as being very little if he believes she will go to

224
Thomas Middleton, "The Roaring Girl," in The Works of Thomas Middleton, ed. A. H. Bullen
(Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, 1885).
175

“rude” serving men and take what they will “set before you” and even the offer to visit
the women of the house involves a kiss. Her role as door-to-door saleswoman has
opened her up to sexual suggestions which Neatfoot would likely never have given to
Mary in her role as upper-class lady.
Her disguise works so well that when her fiancé does arrive, Sebastian does
not recognize Mary at first; “A sempster to speak with me, sayest thou? . . . With me,
sweetheart? What is’t?. . . Bands? You’re mistaken, sweetheart, I bespake none:
When, where, I prithee? What bands? Let me see them” (I.i.38, 41, 55-56). He speaks
familiarly with her, and although he suspects some ulterior motive, he still agrees to
see her privately. When Mary reveals her real identity, it comes as a great shock: “Ha!
Life of my life, Sir Guy Fitzallard’s daughter? What has transformed my love to this
strange shape? . . . . yet this so strange disguise Holds me with fear and wonder”(
I.i.60-3, 67-8). It is hard not to wonder about what causes such great consternation at
her disguise other than the fact that such a retail position puts her chastity and modesty
in question. There has been long been a connection between “the oldest profession” of
prostitution and other forms of women’s work. The very fact that prostitution is seen
as women’s first form of work and using the term “working women” invokes the idea
of prostitutes in a way that men would never face, indicates that retail and prostitution
are heavily linked, all the way down to our society.
225

225
Note also, while “working woman” and prostitute are equal, what are we to make of queen and quean
(sometimes spelled identically in the early modern time and just starting to be pronounced alike)? As the OED
indicates, a “quean” was originally from the Old English word for female serf and the Germanic word for wife.
However, it soon gained a perjorative sense of prostitute or whore, and by the sixteenth century, this was the only
meaning that remained. While the word for “Queen” comes from different word origins, it is easy to see that the
pronunciation would make these seem equivalent. Also, according to the OED, in the sixteenth century the idea of
176

As Trish Thomas Henley indicates, in her Dealers in Hole-Sale:
Representations of Prostitution on the Elizabethan and Jacobean Stage, prostitution
was as much about selling as it was about sex. She examines a number of definitions
of prostitution and finds that openness and selling are emphasized before sex.
Edmund Coote defines “prostitute” in The English School-Master (1597) as “set open
for uncleanness.” Robert Cawdrey's A Table Alphabeticall (1604), adds to this phrase
“to set foorth to sale.”
226
Cawdrey clearly emphasizes the economic exchange between
the prostitute and her customer, though this definition does not explicitly reference the
gender of the seller or sex as product; it is not clear who is selling what, but the “moral
dimension of the sale” is certain.
227
Gender is added to the definition in later books.
John Bullokar's An English Expositor (1616) defines the verb, “to prostitute” as “set to
open sale: to offer to every man for money” and Henry Cockeram's English
Dictionary (1623) lists “prostitute” as “to set to open sale, to offer ones bodie to every
man for money.”
228
Although there were male prostitutes, the literature of the time
mostly ignored this issue, making women take the burden of being the unclean and
open thing for sale. “While certainly all of the definitions include the idea that the
bodies are open, common, and indiscriminately offered, they are also bodies involved

a effeminate male as a “queen” surfaced. Since this figure is also seen as threatening to male identity, as both the
royal Queen and the whore quean were, it is interesting to note the connections.

226
Henley, "Dealers in Hole-Sale: Representations of Prostitution on the Elizabethan and Jacobean
Stage" 18.

227
Ibid.

228
Ibid.
177

in an exchange, an exchange which is characterized as ‘unclean.’”
229
This view of
exchange colored all retail transactions for women.
Prostitutes stood in for the merchant and all of those who put themselves on
sale for social climbing. It was about the woman being put in circulation, and the most
common reason for this circulation was a desire, not for sex, but for commodities.
“Early modern prostitutes were deviant because they had insatiable appetites–for
jewels, status, money.”
230
The prostitute’s body was unclean because of disease but
also because of desire for goods. In the same way, women in the retail space were
open to the gaze, potentially open to exchange, and desirous of material goods; they
were essentially prostitutes. It was not about money but about sex, precisely because
all sex was seen as economically motivated. The city comedies show that marriage,
adultery, and prostitution are all financial transactions, implicating all sexual relations
with economics and all economics with sexual transactions.
I have already indicated how merely going to the fair opens women up to
advances by men. In Bartholomew Fair, the fair booth becomes a place where women
are translated into prostitutes. “Because the booth is the central locus of desire in the
fair, it serves prevailing cultural requirements in transforming the women from
subjects to objects.”
231
As Gail Kern Paster famously argues in “Leaky Vessels: The

229
Ibid.

230
Ibid., 17.

231
Gail Kern Paster, The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern
England (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1993) 37.

178

Incontinent Women of City Comedy, ”
232
needing to use a chamber pot, both Win
Littlewit and Mistress Overdo are left open to becoming prostitutes: “Unlawful access
to otherwise inaccessible women is made possible by the odd but crucial mediation of
the chamber pot: it discloses their vulnerability, announces an occasion of physical
and social permeability, hints at the outermost horizon of their desires.”
233
It is those
desires, whether to use a chamber pot or to buy things at the fair, that ultimately are
used against them. Booths at a fair are already about translating desire—making an
object into a commodity which is desired. The entire purpose of a market is, after all,
to make things which are in the booth seem desirable to a buyer.
Since social standing was often indicated by acquisition (conspicuous
consumption of moveables, from household goods to clothing), as Natasha Korda has
so persuasively argued,
234
anything that takes away from these items would be a
threat: “Representations of the female body as a leaking vessel display that body as
beyond the control of the female subject, and thus as threatening the acquisitive goals
of the family and its maintenance of status and power.”
235
Paster argues that women
in the higher classes, and those who wished to emulate them, had greater restrictions
on their body. This includes restrictions on clothing, being outside the household, and

232
Gail Kern Paster, "Leaky Vessels: The Incontinent Women of City Comedy," Renaissance Drama 18
(1987), Paster, The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England.

233
Paster, The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England 39.
More amusingly, Paster notes, “The chamber pot has become a bawd” (p. 37). Paster also points to the similarities
of the term “jordan” for chamber pot and the character Jordan Knockem who seeks to turn them to prostitution.

234
Natasha Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2002).

235
Paster, The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England 25.
179

seeking privacy for peeing, which she calls a “litmus test for rank.”
236
Win and
Mistress Overdo are both very proud of their clothing, their rank, and their status.
Win, in particular, is shown desiring social symbols, such as a carriage or finer
clothing (B. Fair IV.v) and it is those things which tempt her to follow Knockem’s
suggestions that she dress as a prostitute. Her desire for the fair, her clothing, and her
need to pee, all leave her vulnerable; “a woman who leaves her house is a woman who
talks is a woman who drinks is a woman who leaks” —one transgression stands in for
the other.
237
Left to their own devices in a tempting marketplace, the women are soon
out of control; “the threat of female independence has been renegotiated as an issue of
female self-control in a form—leaky form—obviously related to talkativeness but far
more shameful.”
238
Their lack of control is specifically related to commodities, a
desire for the marketplace and the goods it holds in it.
One might expect to see the prostitute as a symbol of the proto-capitalist
economy and a critique of it,
239
but really all women in these plays are symbols of the
economy and equated with prostitution. Whether as commodities to be purchased,
like marriageable young women to be sought (such as Bartholomew Fair’s Grace or
the Wise Woman of Hogsdon’s Luce or The Roaring Girl’s Mary) or wives (to be
turned into prostitutes in Bartholomew Fair, or, as we shall see, seduced by courtier
lovers in The Roaring Girl) or prostitutes, all women are for sale and in exchange.

236
Ibid., 29.

237
Ibid., 46.

238
Ibid., 47.

239
This is a point explicitly made in the Dutch Courtesan and implied elsewhere.
180

Marriage, prostitution, adultery, women selling goods—all are equivalent symbols of
commerce.

“The world’s a theater, the earth a stage”: The Theater of Retail
Bartholomew Fair and Roaring Girl both set up shops on stage, and they are
not the only plays to do so; city comedies abound with references and representations
of the London marketplace. The language of contracts and credit also are prevalent.
The induction to Bartholomew Fair has a Scrivener describing a contract between the
author and the audience. This contract is ratified by the exchange of money for the
right to see the play; it is a more stringent and legally dense contract than the epilogue
of Henry V and seeks to limit the rights of the customer to complain based on the
amount paid. The play does not leave this metatheatrical world for it places the
market as a type of theater. In the play, the fair booths become a theater, where
money is exchanged and a different type of performance is done. Throughout the
play, cries of “What do ye lack?” and lists of products for sale are shouted out or sung
between sections of dialogue. The sellers in the marketplace are attracting buyers for
their products, and in the play this is staged, both for authenticity of the experience of
the fair, but also, I argue, as part of a metatheatrical comment by Jonson, on the
connection between the fair and theater. In this mercantile world, women are on stage.
The fact that women were open to the gaze in the retail environ, as already
discussed, caused discomfort with some authorities. Women were seen as an
enticement to buy, and were sometimes regulated against for this very reason. Much
181

as technology booths at computer fairs in our age use attractive young women to
entice people to examine the merchandise (i.e., “booth babes”), or a game show may
have an attractive group of women show off the prizes (e.g., “Barker’s Beauties” or
the briefcase models of Deal or No Deal), early modern London markets apparently
had young women using their sexual attractiveness as a lure to customers (or at least
that was the fear). Jean Howard in Theater of a City indicates that
positioning attractive women at the front of shops to draw in customers
is a practice commented on in many plays . . . and in many sites besides
the Royal Exchange, suggesting that beautiful female shopworkers
could widely be perceived as vendible commodities like ruffs and
ribbons. While women played an active part in market life throughout
the city, and often without negative comment, the potential was always
at hand to equate their bodies with their goods.
240

I argue that concerns about the theater are similar to concerns about women in shops:
that their bodies, like the bodies of the actors, generate desire, break class boundaries,
and sell themselves while pretending to sell something else. Plays like Bartholomew
Fair and The Roaring Girl then stage women in shops in a way which interrogates the
tensions that both theater and women in retail bring about, to question concerns about
the theater. It may also explain the lack of women in public theater performance,
although they were acting in pageants and other venues, because the concerns about
public performance in the theater in combination with the threats already seen by
women in public settings may have been too much, an overdetermination of anxiety.
In The Roaring Girl, Laxton decides to pursue Mistress Galliport in her shop:
The first hour that your wife was in my eye,
Myself with other gentlemen sitting by
In your shop tasting smoke, and speech being used . . . (IV.ii.304-6)

240
Howard, Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy, 1598-1642 63.
182

She is on stage and under several men’s gaze, while they sit by and all of them talk.
Here gaze and speech are the promoters of adultery; her status as a city wife in a shop
sets her up as a target which cannot be resisted. Laxton says that the main reason he
pursued her is that she said that most women who were accused of being unfaithful
were slandered and that she would remain true to her husband. Laxton found this a
challenge, especially because of her social role:
That men who’ve fairest wives are most abused
And hardly scaped the horn, your wife maintained
That only such spots in city dames were stained
Justly but by men’s slanders; for her own part,
She vowed that you had so much of her heart,
No man, by all his wit, by any wile
Never so finespun, should yourself beguile
Of what in her was yours. . . . .
I scorned one woman thus should brave all men
And, which more vexed me, a she-citizen;
Therefore I laid siege to her; out she held . . . (IV.ii.307-14, 318-20)

Her status as a city wife, while proclaiming her honesty, is enough to cause a man to
pursue her. The scene is described as several men sitting in the shop with the woman
standing by, working and chatting with the men. They gaze on her and when she
speaks up against some slanders they have been saying, it only serves to entice them to
try her virtue. The more a woman protests of her honor, apparently, the more it is in
doubt and should be tested.
There is no actual adultery in this play, apparently, but it is viewed as such
purely because of monetary exchanges. Although it is indicated several times in the
play that Laxton has never had physical relations with Mistress Gallipot (he is using
her to get money and tobacco, while pretending that he will have an affair with her),
183

the end result of infidelity is judged the same. Laxton tells Master Gallipot, that at
first she resisted him completely, and then, when he gave up pursuing her, she offered
to give him “welcome honestly” and gave him money. However, earlier in the play
during asides to the audience Laxton indicated that Mistress Gallipot believed they
would have sexual encounters which he was putting off because he was using this just
as an excuse to get her husband’s money through her and use it on other women.
While her desire is expressed, it is never realized; she mostly gets the heartache of an
affair without any of the guilty pleasures.
The intent to have an affair is not even expressed to the husband, only the
exchange of money, and he still considers his wife a whore. Although the only
exchange has been money, Master Gallipot tells his wife, after uncovering all of the
events, “Wife, brag no more / Of holding out; who most brags is most whore”
(IV.ii.343-4). As is often the case in this time period, modesty of speech equals
modest/chaste behavior. Laxton tells the husband:
I neither have nor had a base intent
To wrong your bed. What’s done, is merriment;
Your gold I pay back with this interest. (IV.ii.333-335)

The exchange becomes a contract between the men. The husband’s money flowed to
Laxton, through the wife, and now Laxton repays the money with interest, saying that,
essentially, no harm has been done. This bonds the men with Gallipot stating:
Then, sir, I am beholden—not to you, wife—
But, Master Laxton, to your want of doing
Ill, which it seems you have not. (IV.ii.338-40)

184

The wife has apparently done ill, but the man who tried to seduce her and used her to
get her husband’s money has not done ill, merely because he did not actually sleep
with her and returned the money. The men join in solidarity while the wife is left out.
In The Roaring Girl, the shop stalls are the scenes of adultery, even if only in a
monetary sense; the stalls are a way for the wives who run the shop to flirt and attempt
to seduce numerous men who come by (often passing their husbands’ money to these
men instead of the product they should rightfully be purchasing—turning on its head
the normal exchange of cash). For instance, Laxton receives money from Mistress
Gallipot disguised as the tobacco he claims to be buying (but for which he did not
pay). In Bartholomew Fair, the fair stalls contain prostitution and gluttony—where
Ursula the pig-woman provides pigs for eating and whores for playing; even Joan
Trash’s selling of Gingerbread is figured as a bawd selling her daughters at the Fair.
Either way, while tobacco, pig, or other commodities are ostensibly for sale, the sale
of the women within the shop becomes the main concern of the play.
The idea of women being open sexually, whether they are married, single, or
paid for the sexual exchange are blurred together. Everything is prostitution in the
marketplace where social climbing, marriage, and even applying justice are seen as
equally corrupt ways of selling oneself. If in the Dutch Courtesan the prostitute is the
best merchant,
241
in all of the city comedies, all people are prostitutes, but women
especially carry the heavy burden of metaphorically revealing the corruption of a
proto-capitalist world. Sexual activity and monetary exchange are metonymically

241
"Her [the prostitute’s] shop has the best ware; for where these [merchants] sell but cloth, satins, and
jewels, she sells divine virtues as virginity, modesty, and such rare gems, and those not like a petty chapman, by
retail, but like a great merchant, by wholesale (Dutch Courtesan; I.ii.35-7).
185

linked—but it is an exchange where women are not in an equal position of the
contract, but are more objects of exchange or otherwise of lesser power, because the
sexual danger which society feared. As Karen Newman states, “Marriage sermons,
conduct books, popular forms such as plays, ballads, and jest books—in short, the
discourses that managed and produced femininity in the late sixteenth and early
seventeenth centuries—all conflate the sexual and the economic when representing
feminine desire.”
242

Women’s desires at the time were specifically considered to relate to
consuming. Because the marketplaces had recently opened up to a large number of
trade goods, never had their society more to buy. Women were the main shoppers for
the household, in addition to being a large number of the retailers.
243
Women’s
desires for consumables (and the trouble this could cause) are common concerns in the
literature of the time.
Women also attended the theater, an issue of some concern to critics. In 1579,
Stephen Gosson, addressing “the Gentlewomen Citizens of London,” wrote, “The best
counsel that I can give you [women], is to keepe home, and shun all occasion of ill

242
Karen Newman, "City Talk: Women and Commodification: Epicoene (1609)," in Staging the
Renaissance: Reinterpretations of Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama, ed. David Scott Kastan and Peter Stallybrass
(New York, NY Routledge, 1991), 184.

243
For more on commodities, see Jean-Christophe Agnew, "Coming up for Air: Consumer Culture in
Historical Perspective," in Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. John Brewer and Roy Porter (London ; New
York: Routledge, 1994), Joyce Appleby, "Consumption in Early Modern Thought," in Consumption and the World
of Goods, ed. John Brewer and Roy Porter (London ; New York: Routledge, 1994), Jan de Vries, "Between
Purchasing Power and the World of Goods: Understanding the Household Economy in Early Modern Europe," in
Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. John Brewer and Roy Porter (London ; New York: Routledge, 1994),
Grant McCracken, "Culture and Consumption: A Theoretical Account of the Structure and Movement of the
Cultural Meaning of Consumer Goods," The Journal of Consumer Research 13, no. 1 (1986), Sara Pennell,
"Consumption and Consumerism in Early Modern England," The Historical Journal 42, no. 2 (1999). Peter Burke,
"Res Et Verba: Conspicuous Consumption in the Early Modern World," in Consumption and the World of Goods,
ed. John Brewer and Roy Porter (London ; New York: Routledge, 1994). and also Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic
Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England.
186

speech.”
244
Gosson’s concern is addressed to maintaining women’s purity and
reputation, for at the theater she was subject to men who “vieweth you.” Jean E.
Howard explains Gosson’s concerns, stating that to him, “the female playgoer is
symbolically whored by the gaze of many men.”
245

The danger is not only that women will be stained by becoming “spectacles,”
objects of (lustful) male gazes, nor that women in theaters threaten the distinction
between good wife (who should remain at home) and whore (objects of common
“currency”), but that these women become themselves spectators, those who look.
246

Those who look are also consuming, the very fear that followed women—where they
are leaky, inconstant, and consuming bodies who fill the stage (portrayed by men), to
be consumed by real women (who may also be as porous and consuming). The theater
was a site of contamination to the critics, to be avoided for its material (which could
seduce you to perform similarly), its acting (with attractive males in female clothing),
and its crowd behavior (actual seduction during the seductive act of acting).
Philip Stubbes, in The Anatomie of Abuses (1583) complains of the theater:
Do they not induce whoredom and uncleanness? Nay, are they not
rather plain devourers of maidenly virginity and chastity? For proof
whereof but mark the flocking and running to Theaters and Curtains,
daily and hourly, night and day, time and tide, to see plays and
interludes, where such wanton gestures, such bawdy speeches, such
laughing and leering, such kissing and bussing, such clipping and

244
qtd. in Jean Howard, The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England (London and New
York: Routledge, 1994) 77.

245
Ibid.

246
Ibid., 79-81.
187

culling, such winking and glancing of wanton eyes, and the like is
used.
247

Likewise, in The Schoole of Abuse Gosson writes that women who “lack customers all
the week… flock to theaters, and there keep a general market of bawdry.”
248
Here the
lack of trade causes a different sort of trade to erupt—one of theater and prostitution.
Even those defending the theater may fall into this trap of seeing women as a
sexual object threatened by theatricality. Thomas Heywood in his “Apology for
Actors” (1612) writes:
The world’s a theater, the earth a stage,
Which God and nature doth with actors fill:
Kings have their entrance in due equipage,
And some their parts play well, and others ill.
The best no better are (in this theater),
Where every humour’s fitted in his kind; . . . .
All men have parts, and each acts his own.
She a chaste lady acteth all her life;
A wanton courtesan another plays;
This covets marriage love, that nuptial strife;
Both in continual action spend their days:…
He that denies then theaters should be,
He may as well deny a world to me.
249

In this defense of theater, Heywood equates all roles in life as acting. While theater
was often attacked for being counterfeit and fake, this apology equates all social roles
as acting. If all roles, whether King, citizen, or soldier, are acted parts, and if the lady
is only acting chaste, it would be impossible to tell who someone really is. If life is

247
qtd. in Frank Whigham, "Flattering Courtly Desire," in The Theatrical City: Culture, Theatre, and
Politics in London, 1576-1649, ed. David L. Smith, Richard Strier, and David Bevington (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1995), 147.

248
Stephen Gosson, "The School of Abuse," in The English Renaissance: An Anthology of Sources and
Documents, ed. Kate Aughterson (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), 286.

249
Thomas Heywood, An Apology for Actors, 1612 (Replica of 1841 edition by the Shakespeare Society,
London: Elibron Classics, 2001).
188

just a role, viewed from outside, then the world is not truly legible because of
playacting. This “Apology” mentions women pretending to be virtuous, while the
men in the poem are referred to by their occupations or social status, so that the
women are purely in relation to their sexual status, indicating a certain focus on
identity.
Interestingly, in the theater, the critics complained of the sexual allurement of
the female characters, who were in reality young men. In the retail space, the most
common people seen attracting a customer’s attention with “what do ye lack?” are
either the young boys—apprentices and journeymen—or the women of the household.
Women were not allowed on the stage, and even boys on the stage caused fear of
sexual attractiveness. The concerns with women in shops come from the feeling that
they are on stage. “If households were coming to resemble playhouses through their
staging of status-objects, housewives, who staged or displayed such objects within the
home, were also coming to resemble players”
250
So too did women who staged
objects for sale in the marketplace. In retail spaces, there were arguments against using
women and apprentices to lure in customers with “what do ye lack?” with accusations
that sexual attractiveness was being used to sell wares. In the same way, anti-
theatrical tracts complained of the sexual allure of young boys in women’s clothes.
Women in theatrical retail are a danger because of their sexual allurement.
More dangers which retail and theater held in common were consumerism and
class status, a concern that stuck to women the most. “The ability of a person who is
lower on the social ladder to consume and display the same commodities as those

250
Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England 211.
189

above caused great anxiety for those concerned with keeping the ranks distinctive.”
251

The 1573 Merchant Taylor's court books complain that “at our common playes and
such lyke exercises which be commonly exposed to be seane for money ev'ry lewed
persone thinketh him selfe (for his penny) worthy of the chief and most commodious
place.”
252
The London markets, as shown in Jonson’s plays like Bartholomew Fair in
addition to numerous other city comedies by other playwrights, were a place where
commodities were bought and sold, and were a dangerous place where even people
and values were for sale. Common players, plays and women—all are items which
were losing their use-value and becoming commodities, something to be sold and
available to all who can scrape together the money. As Kathleen McLuskie points out,
“In the world of commodity production hierarchy is both harder to impose and more
forcibly insisted upon, for the problem was not merely that everyone could consume
commodities . . . [but] that the status which particular commodities conferred was
available to all.”
253

Both prostitutes and players were relying on their bodies for their trade. Both
played roles to attract customers. “Like the boy actors who counterfeited the
prostitutes on the stage, the actual prostitutes earned money by counterfeiting
desire.”
254
Both were paid money for a commodity that cannot be held or taken home,

251
Henley, "Dealers in Hole-Sale: Representations of Prostitution on the Elizabethan and Jacobean Stage"
107.

252
qtd. in Kathleen E. McLuskie, "The Poets' Royal Exchange: Patronage and Commerce in Early
Modern Drama," in Patronage, Politics, and Literary Traditions in England, 1558-1658, ed. Cedric Clive Brown
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1993), 127.

253
Ibid., 128.

254
Henley 142.
190

making it essentially ephemeral, an experience rather than an item. Since fees for
prostitutes varied and there were many different rates for theater performances, “the
product they sold—themselves—had no ‘natural’ or stable value.”
255
All women are
like players, but prostitutes are also the best players in the city comedies, best able to
adapt to her customers, most adept at manipulation, and most likely to be conning
others with a show of respectability built on clothing, props, and acting ability.
Other similarities between the standing of women and players include that
women were both part of the guilds and yet not truly members as they could not be in
the administrative roles or higher ranks of the guild and were often taken in by a guild
for another trade. For instance, the Stationers guild registered women and their
apprentices for clothing and pin trades, possibly because their husbands were
Stationers.
256
In the same way, players were both part of the guilds and still not. They
were liveried members of a nobleman’s household and yet not really part of his
household. They used the apprentice system through guilds but there was no acting
guild so those players who were bricklayers and other trades technically were bringing
up actors as trainees in those guilds.
257
The players’ status as both guild members and
members of a nobleman’s household (and yet not truly either of these) were a cause of
great anxiety. While both roles were meant to solve other anxieties (over masterless
men or how to control apprentices), they also left the players in a strange class that

255
ibid.

256
Robin Myers, The Stationer's Company Archive: An Account of the Records 1554-1984 (London: St.
Paul's Bibliographies, 1990).

257
Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 175-6. See also Stephen Orgel, Impersonations: The Performance
of Gender in Shakespeare’s England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
191

was not quite like typical citizens of London. Like the players, women were in a
strange no-man’s land of a worker who has some standing with a guild (potentially)
but the inability to move up its ladder of success. Defined mostly by their married
state (what household they belong to), they moved between two standards much like
the players.
Like women, the theater faced criticism and Ben Jonson has an interesting take
on such criticism in Bartholomew Fair. The play envisions a world where everything
is for sale, including people and their reputations. In this world of commerce, it
becomes impossible to tell who is who, with disguises and changes in status so
common that a character may be mistaken as someone else several times in the play.
Most notoriously, several citizens’ wives are mistaken for prostitutes when they attend
a puppet show. It is also during this puppet show that Zeal-of-the-Land Busy, the
puritan hypocrite, breaks up the little theater and tells the puppet that he “hast no
calling” (V.v).
The first complaint against the little fake actor (whom Busy treats as a real
actor) is that his occupation is not legitimate because of no “calling.” However, the
puppet answers he is called Dionysius. It is surely a strange thing to say to a puppet,
but it is clear that one’s “calling” or occupation was a defining factor in people’s lives.
Even in the play, the business that the characters engage in become a defining
characteristic of them, and Laura Gowing, among other critics, has shown that women
would frequently self-identify according to business in court cases, showing that they
192

had a strong work identity.
258
The puppet counters that he is called by his name,
which argues for an identity not by occupation but through other means. Busy insists
on occupational definition saying, “I mean no vocation, idol, no present lawful
calling” (V.v).
This is the first argument Busy makes for why the puppet show must end—it is
immoral because of a lack of work identity. When the puppet asks if Busy has a lawful
calling, Busy says his is one of the spirit and the puppet says his is “idol.” Busy says
that his occupation may be as an idol, but it is profane. The puppet asks about a
number of professions that include bringing joy or entertainment or fashion to the
people and asks if they are lawful callings (being also profane by Busy’s definition), to
which Busy says he does not believe that entertaining fields are lawful (V.v).
Busy is consistently shown to denounce occupational fields where joy is
brought to the world (for instance, he was a baker until he realized that his food was
used in celebrations), a common complaint against Puritan zeal;
259
however, he is
easily able to justify his enjoyment of a pig or fair, if he can pretend to be going there
to denounce it. In the end, Busy says puppets are worse than merely workers who
bring joy or fashion to the world, because “you are an abomination, for the male
among you putteth on the apparel of the female, and the female of the male” (V.v).
The puppet says this is a lie and “your stale old argument against the players, but it

258
Laura Gowing, "Women, Status and the Popular Culture of Dishonour," Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society 6 (1996).

259
Patrick Collinson, "Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair: The Theatre Constructs Puritanism," in The
Theatrical City: Culture, Theatre, and Politics in London, 1576-1649, ed. David L. Smith, Richard Strier, and
David Bevington (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Collinson argues that Jonson essentially
fashioned a type of Puritanism on the stage which may have preceded the “real” thing.
193

will not hold against the puppets, for we have neither male nor female amongst us.
And that thou may’st see, if thou wilt, like a malicious purblind zeal as thou art!”

(
V.v.100-112) The puppet then lifts its “clothes” to show the hand beneath it—both
uncovering the ridiculousness of a man who argues with another man’s hand, and the
creation of gender.
Busy’s complaint about theater is mocked on several counts. Busy’s complaint
includes the woman putting on man’s clothes; however, since only a few traveling
troupes from the continent had women players in London (and they were seen only a
few times and, apparently, did not impress crowds),
260
for the most part the “female”
who is putting on the clothes of a male in a play is actually a male. The creation of
gender in this case is as false and arbitrary as assigning gender to a hand which is
wearing a female skirt.
There were many metatheatrical references to the male gender of female
characters in Elizabethan and Jacobean theater, in addition to the constant references
to it in anti-theatrical tracts, so the audience certainly knew the gender of the body
behind the female clothing or male clothing on a supposed female.
261
However, as
Trish Thomas Henley points out,

260
Pamela Allen Brown and Peter Parolin, Women Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male
Stage (London: Ashgate, 2005).

261
For more, see Orgel, Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare’s England, Stephen
Orgel, "Insolent Women and Manlike Apparel," Textual Practice 9, no. 1 (1995). Ursula K. Heise, "Transvestism
and the Stage Controversy in Spain and England, 1580-1680," Theatre Journal 44, no. 3 (1992), Phyllis Rackin,
"Androgyny, Mimesis, and the Marriage of the Boy Heroine on the English Renaissance Stage," PMLA 102, no. 1
(1987), William Ringler, "The First Phase of the Elizabethan Attack on the Stage, 1558-1579," The Huntington
Library Quarterly 5, no. 4 (1942), Tracey Sedinger, "'If Sight and Shape Be True': The Epistemology of
Crossdressing on the London Stage," Shakespeare Quarterly 48, no. 1 (1997), Michael Shapiro, Gender in Play on
the Shakespearean Stage (University of Michigan Press, 1994), Peter Stallybrass, "Transvestitism and the ‘Body
beneath’: Speculating on the Boy Actor," in Desire on the Renaissance Stage (1992).
194

What difference the boy's body made in the spectators’ interpretations
of performance has been hotly debated. Any theoretical speculation
about the boy's enactment of gender must first determine how the boy's
body itself signified and then answer how the addition of fetishes of
female gender affected the body's ability to signify “woman.”
262

The fact that it is not a woman up there certainly would allow the “woman” to hold
more metaphorical freight; allowing them to represent social problems or explorations
of gender. “Though the early modern theater, unlike the drag show, does not exist in
order to demonstrate the cultural construction of gender, it certainly, as many critics
have argued, destabilizes early modern constructions of gender and enacts a
polymorphous eroticism.”
263
In the same way, the puppet show works on early
modern constructions of gender and shows that puritans’ arguments against theater on
the basis of work identity and gender were hollow. As transvestite figures of the
stage, the male actor playing a woman stood in for the image of woman, in a way that
a woman on stage could not do, and so took on the figure of metaphor for the ills of
society, particularly the rampant concerns with commercialism.
While women did not work on the public stage for a little while longer, that
does not mean that they were not performing or involved in the theater. “The ‘wench
that cries the kitchin stuff’ and ‘sings her note so merry’ belongs to the same nexus of
performative commerce as the ‘players on the Banckeside’ who ‘sing [their] rimes’;

262
Henley, "Dealers in Hole-Sale: Representations of Prostitution on the Elizabethan and Jacobean
Stage" 10. For more on cross-dressed boy actor, desire, and sexual differentation, see: Will Fisher’s Materializing
Gender in Early Modern English Literature and Culture (2006); Jean E. Howard's “Crossdressing, the Theater, and
Gender Struggle in Early Modern England” in the Shakespeare Quarterly 39:4 (1998), pp. 418-40; Stephen Orgel’s
Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare’s England (1996); Michael Shapiro’s Gender in Play
on the Shakesperean Stage (1994); Peter Stallybrass’s “Transvestitism and the ‘body beneath’: Speculating on the
boy actor” in Desire on the Renaissance Stage (1992) @64-83; Laura Levine's Men in Women’s Clothing: Anti-
theatricality and Effeminization, 1579-1642 (1994).

263
Ibid.
195

both depend upon a tactical mix of publicity, performance, and flexible commerce to
earn a living.”
264
As Natasha Korda has shown, women were also intimately involved
in the production of the theater, even if they were not allowed to act in many public
performances. While women were out in the market and even taking part in a wide
variety of performances for guilds, church, court, and even shaming rituals and
informal street dances, and also worked in a vast network of ad hoc work around the
theater, English women players were not in public playhouses until the Restoration.
265

The question remains, why were English women not performers in the public theater?
There have been numerous attempts to answer this intriguing question. Some point
out that there were logistical reasons. Michael Shapiro, for instance, argues that
women were kept off stage less due to anxiety about women but because it protected
male employment, there was a system of training men that was already in place, there
was a lack of actresses who were already prepared to work, and there were issues of
touring with women (regarding housing, etc).
266

Women actors began to appear in 1660, and at the same time theater became
more naturalistic and realistic. Proscenium arches, side wings and a greater use of

264
Natasha Korda, "The Case of Moll Frith: Women's Work and the 'All-Male Stage'," in Women Players
in England, 1500-1660, ed. Pamela Allen Brown and Peter Parolin (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), 82.

265
“The long dominant image of the Elizabethan theater as an ‘all male stage’ has begun to crumble
under the weight of evidence suggesting women’s active participation in a broad range of performance and
production practices.” Natasha Korda, "Women's Informal Commerce and the 'All-Male' Stage," in The Impact of
Feminism in English Renaissance Studies, ed. Dympna Callaghan (Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan,
2007), 9. Also see, Korda, "The Case of Moll Frith: Women's Work and the 'All-Male Stage'.", Brown and Parolin,
Women Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male Stage , Lisa Jardine, "Boy Actors, Female Roles, and
Elizabethan Eroticism," in Staging the Renaissance: Reinterpretations of Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama, ed.
David Scott Kastan and Peter Stallybrass (New York: Routledge, 1991).

266
Michael Shapiro, "The Introduction of Actresses in England: Delay or Defensiveness?," in Enacting
Gender on the English Renaissance Stage, ed. Viviana Comensoli and Anne Russell (Urbana and Chicago:
University of Illinois Press, 1999), 182-3.
196

scenery and props all added to this increased realism, in addition to having women
play the women’s roles. Henley argues that
though some of the actresses have access to a certain kind of power
through the performance of their sexual reputations, their reputations as
prostitutes foreclose the analogous indictment of social institutions
found in the late Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. Where the boy’s
body had allowed playwrights to use the sexual ideology of whoredom
and the character of the whore to denounce the numerous ways in
which men and women prostitute themselves and each other for social
and monetary gain, the female body delimits the analogous use of
female sexual ideology. The actress’s body represents whoredom.
267

Certainly women who acted in Restoration theater often had a bad reputation,
268

although I believe Henley may overstate their prostitute status. Still, they caused a
great deal of anxiety about their sexual powers. Their roles were used to attract men
(just as women use their charms to attract men to buy wares at a fair).
269
Women who
were on stage were seen as potential prostitutes, regardless of their actual status off
stage.
270
There is something about being open to the gaze, dressing as a different
social class, and pretending to be someone they were not that seemed particularly bad
when women did it (since the men, while censured, were never looked at with the
same moral derision). Male players’ sexual status was not questioned by the roles they
played, just like their mental status was not questioned when they played a madman.
However, if an “honest” woman were to play a whore, would not her status off stage

267
Henley 150; for more on women actors vs. the transvestite theater, see Brown and Parolin, Women
Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male Stage.

268
Shapiro, "The Introduction of Actresses in England: Delay or Defensiveness?," 179.

269
Ibid.

270
It took a long time before acting was a respectable profession, especially for women, and even today it
is not uncommon to focus on the personal lives and romances of actresses–particularly young attractive actresses or
popular culture figures–and look at their personal lives and be fascinated with their parties, boyfriends, etc.
197

be questioned by her on-stage role? In Restoration theater, it was not uncommon for
women whose sexual reputation off-stage was perceived as questionable to be booed
off the stage when playing roles of chaste women.
271
Perhaps actresses, like female
retailers, had difficulties because of the close connection between consumerism, sex,
and the ability to maintain credit/reputation.
Modern films like Victor/Victoria and Tootsie played a role in our society in
titillating the audience through a greater focus on gender and the body parts which are
disguised (but also completely in the open for an audience that knows what parts
“really” are under the costume).
272
Those roles also were about the difficulties of
finding work in the gender roles already established. So too did the early modern boy
actor, dressing as a woman (who often then was dressed as a boy) stand in for larger
issues, while bringing greater attention to the gender issues involved than a mere
woman in the role could do.
273
In fact, since today we have a theater that allows

271
Shapiro, "The Introduction of Actresses in England: Delay or Defensiveness?"

272
For more on the excitement generated by “knowing” the body beneath, see Brown and Parolin,
Women Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male Stage , Korda, "The Case of Moll Frith: Women's
Work and the 'All-Male Stage'.", Rackin, "Androgyny, Mimesis, and the Marriage of the Boy Heroine on the
English Renaissance Stage.", Sedinger, "'If Sight and Shape Be True': The Epistemology of Crossdressing on the
London Stage.", Shapiro, Gender in Play on the Shakespearean Stage, Shapiro, "The Introduction of Actresses in
England: Delay or Defensiveness?.", Peter Stallybrass, "Worn Worlds: Clothes and Identity on the Renaissance
Stage," in Subject and Object in Renaissance Culture, ed. Margreta de Grazia, Maureen Quilligan, and Peter
Stallybrass (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the
Materials of Memory. Heise, "Transvestism and the Stage Controversy in Spain and England, 1580-1680.",
Winfried Schleiner, "Male Cross-Dressing and Transvestism in Renaissance Romances," Sixteenth Century Journal
19, no. 4 (1988), Stallybrass, "Transvestitism and the ‘Body beneath’: Speculating on the Boy Actor."

273
Perhaps it should be no surprise that while early modern audiences apparently could find Moll wildly
appealing as a woman dressing as a man in the play The Roaring Girl, and even find the real-life Moll fascinating
enough to have her on stage to tell her tale and have multiple fictional accounts of her life, she is also a threatening
figure. For more on Moll, see William R. Dynes, "The Trickster-Figure in Jacobean City Comedy," Studies in
English Literature, 1500-1900 33, no. 2 (1993), Korda, "The Case of Moll Frith: Women's Work and the 'All-Male
Stage'.", Susan Krantz, "The Sexual Identities of Moll Cutpurse in Dekker and Middleton's the Roaring Girl and in
London," Renaissance and Reformation XIX, no. 1 (1995), Frederick O. Waage, "Meg and Moll: Two Renaissance
London Heroines," Journal of Popular Culture 20, no. 1 (1986). Strangely, actors on stage were men pretending to
be women who sometimes pretended to be men (like many heroines in Elizabethan and Jacobean plays). This
198

women to act, the intensity of the transvestitism had to double the gender complexity,
by having a woman who acts as a woman pretending to be a man dressing as a
woman, or an actor playing a man who dresses as a woman who acts as a woman. In
early modern London, the boy plays a woman who may dress as a boy, but seldom as
a boy who must dress as a woman. Stephen Orgel and others argue that both male
crossdressing as women and women on stage were seen as female spectacle “which
threatens to sap the virility of male spectators”
274
If this is true, than both the real
woman and the young man pretending to be a woman are a danger. However,
something about real women on stage continued to be an issue into the Restoration,
making women on the English public stage too much of a threat, whether to the male
actors’ livelihoods or to the audience or to the virtue of the women themselves, to
allow them to act (or to act and still appear as “honest”).
275

“This cap does convince!”: Sumptuary Laws, Pawning, and the Theater
Two other parallels between women and the theater exist and both of them are
related to clothing. As Ann Rosaline Jones and Peter Stallybrass point out,

sexual allurement is intriguing. While both queans (whores) and queens (effeminate males) were somewhat
alluring in this culture, both were seen as dangerous. Their power to attract, however, remained and may explain
why crossdressing, such as in the modern examples just given, have such cultural power. It is also possible that the
role of crossdressing, allurement, and accusations of being effeminate in early modern theater may explain the
persistent perception in our time that actors are often gay.

274
Shapiro, "The Introduction of Actresses in England: Delay or Defensiveness?" 182.

275
I am not saying I have solved the reason why women did not act on the public stage, but I am
suggesting that the parallels between concerns about women in retail environs and the players may have made
women twice as threatening on the stage. Also, with men performing as women, the “woman” onstage can be a
criticism of societal roles by being seen as “fictional,” allowing the playwrights the ability to comment on issues,
like the status of theater in society. This is similar to the discussion of science fiction where shows like Star Trek
are said to be able to comment more freely on our society by being so obviously somewhere else. When
Restoration plays moved to more realism, perhaps this need to have “fictional” women disappeared or was solved
in some other manner.
199

“Commercial theater was crucially shaped by the market in clothes. . . . the theater was
a new and spectacular development of the clothing trade.”
276
As I have already
argued, the plays allowed people both to be seen and to see (for money) regardless of
class. So too did the marketplace allow people to buy items reserved previously for
higher classes, making it harder to determine class identity through appearance.
Sumptuary laws, defining what clothing could be worn, made it easier to read class
through peoples’ appearances, but they clearly were not obeyed, or else it would not
be a recurring issue for authorities and the plays. Women were seen as major players
in this problem because of a common belief that avarice and social climbing was a
womanly trait; “the connection of sexuality, greed, and commerce permeates the view
of gender relations.”
277
A desire for clothing can lead to sexual promiscuity (or
prostitution), as with Bartholomew Fair where the women dress in prostitutes’
clothing and are not recognized by their husbands. In the same way, actors were
wearing clothing above their means, sometimes directly passed to them through
patronage or acquired through pawning (a common occupation for women), so that
they were not legible as their social class either.
As I have discussed in Chapter 2, clothing made the man in early modern
London. In the city comedies, it is not uncommon for women and prodigal courtiers
to be seen with excessive desire for and consumption of clothing. “If sartorial excess
and rapid changes in status mark the prodigal, they also mark the actor.”
278
The status

276
Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory 176.

277
Karras, Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England 95.

278
Howard, Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy, 1598-1642 112.
200

seeking figures of young noblemen, as we shall see in Eastward Ho in the next
chapter, were endlessly explored. “The theater thus elaborates an alternative to the
forms of economic credit and reputation that in many contexts defined privileged
forms of masculine identity”
279
In the plays, as in Deloney’s texts, clothing changed
men, for instance, showing how people can recoup their fortunes through
performance, but for a woman a clothing change was threatening to the man’s
financial standing and to her own sexual honesty.
Clothing fashions are not just about changing styles but about making
people.
280
For the early modern period, Stallybrass and Jones argue that we must
undo our social categories , in which subjects are prior to objects,
wearers to what is worn. We need to understand the animatedness of
clothes, their ability to ‘pick up’ subjects, to mold and shape them both
physically and socially, to constitute subjects through their power as
material memories.
281

Phillip Stubbes in his Anatomy of Abuses attacks extravagant clothing “because it is a
superfluity that has the power to constitute an essence. The physical presence of
clothes makes them, in his view, more dangerous (more inward, one might say) than
the inward workings of corruption.”
282
Clothing has a power to show status but also to
make that person a certain status, as in the clothing of investiture, livery, or clergy.
283

Players wore clothing that had little to do with their place in society, perhaps
wearing castoff clothing of nobility. This was sometimes obtained through pawning,

279
Ibid.

280
Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory 1-2.

281
Ibid., 2.

282
Ibid., 3.

283
Ibid., Ch. 1.
201

an occupation which was dominated by women but also was heavily connected to the
theater, Philip Henslowe being only the most famous player to be involved in pawning
of clothing and other commodities.
284
Moll Frith’s clothing (both in the play The
Roaring Girl and the real woman) “points not only to the sexualized and gendered
codes within which her clothing might have been read in the period, but to the volatile
networks of informal commerce through which such attire made its way onto the
public stage, and to the important role that women played within this world of sartorial
work.”
285

Pawning of clothes then is not only another parallel between women and the
theater but a clue to the tension behind sumptuary concerns. The sumptuary laws were
partly passed to insist on clothing as having a use-value rather than being a commodity
with purely an exchange value. Rather than being available to anyone who can afford
them, they are given a symbolic value to allow viewers to read social standing. “The
value of clothes, then, pointed in antithetical directions: on the one hand, they
materialized social status and indebtedness; on the other, they were circulated as
commodities.”
286
Pawning high class clothes to the theater and others opens them up
to being merely of commercial value. Like clothing, women are also forming male
identity and yet circulating as commodities.
287
This may explain the

284
Ibid, Korda, "The Case of Moll Frith: Women's Work and the 'All-Male Stage'.", Korda, "Women's
Informal Commerce and the 'All-Male' Stage.", Peter Stallybrass, "Properties in Clothes: The Materials of the
Renaissance Theatre " in Staged Properties in Early Modern English Drama, ed. Jonathan Gil Harris and Natasha
Korda (Cambridge: Cambridge, 2006).

285
Korda, "The Case of Moll Frith: Women's Work and the 'All-Male Stage'," 84.

286
Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory 11.

287
For more on this, see Chapter 3 of this project.
202

overdetermination in anxiety over clothes for women—clothing makes the man and
yet can be divorced from that meaning while women also make the man and yet can
be circulated among men.
Either way, women and the ownership of high-status apparel are of major
concern in city comedies and are often connected to prostitution. Ruth Mazzo Karras
points out that there were statutes that allowed authorities to arrest women believed to
be prostitutes if they were wearing clothes above their station. Since the arresting
authority was then given the confiscated clothing as a reward, the statute basically
ensured that it would be vigorously upheld.
288
Women who were “commonly
reputed” as a whore, whether they were a paid prostitute or not, would have the statute
applied to them as well. “The problem that the sumptuary laws actually addressed was
that of women out of place, pretending to be what they were not.”
289
Much like a
player, the woman is endangering class boundaries with a body which is sexually
attractive but socially dangerous.
I have already argued that putting on clothes of another social class was one
commonality between women and the theater. Certainly the literature of the time,
especially the city comedies, are filled with instances where women desire clothing of
the upper classes or are mistaken for others because of changes in clothing. Marjorie
Garber’s work on cross-dressing notes that the term “sumptuary” is related to
“consumption;” the laws were designed in part to regulate commerce and to support
local industries, as well as to prevent—or at least to hold to a minimum—what today

288
Karras, Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England 23.

289
Ibid., 21-3.
203

would be known as “conspicuous consumption,” the flaunting of wealth by those
whose class or other social designation made such display seem transgressive.
However, these concerns were also connected to the theater in several ways.
Littlewit in Bartholomew Fair is obsessed with his wife’s clothing, spending
his first scene in rapture over his wife’s new hat.
Now you look finely indeed, Win! This cap does convince! You’d not
ha’ worn it, Win, nor ha’ had it velvet, but a rough country beaver with
a copper band, like the cony skin woman of Budge Row? Sweet Win,
let me kiss it! And her fine high shoes, like the Spanish Lady! Good
Win, go a little; I would fain see thee pace, pretty Win! By this fine
cap, I could never leave kissing on’t. (B. Fair I.i.20-28)

It is important that the cap “convince” because it is not the aesthetic qualities which
really excite Littlewit;
290
it is the social standing the hat implies. Win would have
worn a hat similar to the lower status woman of Budge Row, if it were not for her
husband. Since her husband is also the man who pushes her to be friendly with other
men, even when she feels it would be unseemly, and later insists she will be safe in the
company of strange men in Ursula’s tent (which leads to her seduction by clothing, to
be discussed momentarily), her husband’s obsession with her cap and heels as symbols
of class are another sign of his poor judgment. By forcing his wife into situations
where she does not belong, he opens her up sexually. He puts her in danger of
becoming someone she is not, in the end humiliating him when she is revealed at what
was supposed to be his great triumph—the puppet show.
This changing of her identity, which she will later undergo when she dresses
like a prostitute and goes to her husband’s puppet show unrecognized, is

290
While “convince” can be “overpower, or look stunning,” it is more about convincing others that she is
of a higher status.
204

foreshadowed by Littlewit’s exclamation: “other men have wives as fine as the
players, and as well dressed” (B. Fair I.i.43-5). The players are finely dressed, but not
in clothing that belongs to them. They frequently dressed above their station in order
to act. For a woman to do this, however, is to open her up to desire. Desire for fine
clothing is a common seduction practice in the literature of the day, as with Win,
Littlewit’s wife, at the end of the play.
Knockem, at the instigation of Ursula, tries to convince Win to fill in for their
lack of prostitutes. He starts on the tack that it is a pity that Win “lead[s] a dull honest
woman’s life, that might live the life of a lady” (B. Fair IV.v.20-30). The men argue
that an honest woman’s life is equivalent to the life of a “bond-woman” and that they
can make her a “free-woman, and a lady” (B. Fair IV.v.33-35). They compare her
current life to one of the lower classes (as compared to her actual status as a citizen’s
wife) and compare the life of the prostitute to what she is (“free”—as in wife of a
merchant who is “free” of the guilds) and the higher status of lady. As was shown
earlier, theater was a threat because it cut through distinctions between classes,
making everyone who paid able to get the same things. So, too, clothing (which was
beginning to represent wealth rather than a sign of status—since people were supposed
to only wear what was assigned to their class but most were wearing whatever they
could afford) blurred the lines between classes.
The men connect this blurring of status with social symbols of wearing good
clothing, riding in a coach, eating and drinking, and “see de players, be in love vit ‘em
. . . and cost dee nothing” (B. Fair IV.v). Win and Mistress Overdo are supposed to
205

find the idea of living like ladies on another person’s money attractive, and Win does.
She goes to the puppet show dressed like a prostitute, exclaiming all the while how
wonderful it is that such things can happen and that so many men find her attractive.
Littlewit, who had been so happy to have his wife dress above her station and was
pressing his mother-in-law into marriage with a wealthy man in the hopes that she
“might hood it and chain it with Mistress Overdo,” (B. Fair I.ii.24-5) now finds that
his reputation is damaged when his wife is found to be acting like a prostitute in his
theater. His attempts to use his wife and her clothing to support his status are shown
to backfire when a desire for that very status by his wife leaves her open to other men,
thus destroying his status.

“‘Tis no sin for a man to labor in his vocation”: Sex and Retail
When Falstaff protests to the Prince that it is not a sin for “a man to labor in his
vocation,” it is partially ironic since Falstaff is defending thievery and lying (1H4
I.ii.108-9). However, to some extent, he speaks the truth. Men’s occupations seldom
came under the sort of criticism that working women in literature face. Just two major
examples are the Wise-Woman of Hogsdon, the title character of her play, and Ursula,
the female Falstaff of Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair.
In the Wise Woman of Hosgdon, Second Luce pretends to be a young man
named Jack and apprentices herself to the Wise-Woman. There she discovers the
secrets of the woman’s trade. She learns that the Wise-Woman is a bawd and a
midwife to women who are secretly pregnant. Men come and pretend to get their
fortunes read and then they pick a girl from a picture and they are provided with bed
206

and bedfellow. Women who are pregnant come and are delivered, the babies are
christened and then “sent abroad”–left on people’s doorsteps and never inquired after
again. Second Luce is horrified.
Most strange, that woman’s brain should apprehend
Such lawless, indirect and horrid means
For covetous gain! How many unknown trades
Women and men are free of, which they never had charter for! (III.i)

These are clearly illegal and immoral ways to make a living, especially abandoning
the children on doorsteps, but Second Luce does not question the woman’s claim that
she is working a trade. The Wise-Woman stands in for all of those people who work
trades that they are “free of” without truly being under guild charter. In this way,
people are working like guild members but without the official seal, and the difference
seems minor. The reason for it is covetous gain, a fault often noted of women.
The Wise-Woman brags about the ways she has made a living.
Let me see how many trades have I to live by: first, I am a wise-
woman, and a fortune-teller, and under that I deal in physic and fore-
speaking, in palmistry, and recovering of things lost; next, I undertake
to cure mad folks; then I keep gentlewoman lodgers, to furnish such
chambers as I let out by the night; then I am provided for bringing
young wenches to bed; and, for a need, you see I can play the
matchmaker.
She that is but one, and professeth so many,
May well be termed a wise-woman, if there be any. (Wise Woman III.i)

Second Luce had already exclaimed in wonderment that “This is no trade, but a
mystery” when discovering all of the little tricks the Wise-Woman uses to convince
people that she can read minds. Since mystery was also the term for a trade which is
taught to others in a guild, it is a pun on how it is a trade, but also a mysterious trick.
Now the Wise-Woman herself brings her trade into punning question. She lists a
207

number of occupations which she lives by (literally, how she makes money) and these
include a number of tasks which are to be expected of someone called “the wise-
woman”: finding lost objects and reading fortunes. She is also a midwife, but with the
pun “bringing young wenches to bed” she may be making a second reference to being
a midwife, or a second reference to her other profession—bawd (which is spoken
about almost as if she runs a boarding house: “keep gentlewoman lodgers, to furnish
such chambers as I let out by the night”). She makes these occupations overlap and be
so vague that they seem to circle around each other. In the end, she calls doubt on her
very title, saying that because of all of these occupations, she must be a “a wise-
woman, if there be any.” She qualifies it to indicate her doubt that any such person
can even exist. She is truly a fake, acting her role with her mystery trades.
In a similar way, Ursula of Bartholomew Fair, has a profession which is
condemned by many who see her, and even her own body seems to rebel against it.
Ursula’s first words indicate a work identity which is directly connected to Hell:
“Fie upon’t! Who would wear out their youth and prime thus in roasting of pigs that
had any cooler vocation?” (B. Fair II.ii.43-44). The heat of Ursula’s work is
continually connected to the flames of Hell, while she is generally compared to her
product, the roasted pig, making her the soul which roasts in Hell. Ursula is a bawd
whose booth is the center of the Fair’s activity in the play. It stands for economic
circulation and corruption, a carnivalesque area of sweating bodies, mistaken
identities, beatings, prostitutes, and commerce. All of the characters must step into her
booth on the way to be put in economic circulation as they strive to sell and buy their
208

reputations. Her own profession is one that she cheats at. She lectures the tapster,
Mooncalf, about cheating customers by telling him to foam the drink, take away
glasses before empty, and get drunk so he can mismeasure more easily and without
shame (B. Fair II.ii. 90-112).
291
She is not punished in the play, except for a burn to
the leg early on in the action, but neither is she accepted into the fold at the end when
peace is established between the other characters. She remains on the outside, a figure
of sex and retail which is frightening, disgusting, and yet somehow unavoidable.
The women in the plays, such as The Roaring Girl and Bartholomew Fair,
have their work sexualized while their affairs or prostitutions (i.e., their sexuality) is
made mercantile. For example, in The Roaring Girl the sales booths are scenes of
sexuality, but their “affairs” are all about trading their husband’s money to their
“lovers” who use it for other purchases while never giving actual sex. In Bartholomew
Fair, the heiress, Grace, is a commodity who is eventually bought two or three times
over.
292
As I argued in the last chapter, in the Henriad, Mistress Quickly’s tavern is
tainted with the reputation of prostitution but her “affair” with Falstaff is really about
him conning her out of money, her marriage to Pistol seems more caught up in his
interest in her money and business, and her personal and business life becomes tied up
with prostitution. All of the women circulate for money and are implicated in a sexual
economy.

291
Ursula adulterates her ale and tobacco; “That (male) identity and (female) adultery in Bartholomew
Fair is represented metaphorically—via commercial adulteration—can be seen in its connection with tobacco and
syphilis, in the polluted ‘progeny’ of Joan Trash’s gingerbread children, and particularly in the way the play links
Ursla [sic], the chief adulteress, with Original Sin.” Douglas Bruster, Drama and the Market in the Age of
Shakespeare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) 95.

292
Her guardian has bought the rights to her, several suitors vie over her (mostly for money, it seems)
and then the man who wins her hand must pay the loser for the paper which will give him the right to her.
209

It is possible that women (not just prostitutes) are a focus for the metaphorical
discussion of proto-capitalism and the anxiety about retail/identity/consumerism for
several reasons. First of all, during economic downturns, women were often seen as
an economic threat to working men. Guild restrictions often sought to help the male
workers over their female counterparts. Women did participate in the guilds, but they
had weaker and less stable work identities. As a group, women were not gathering or
identifying themselves in work environments in the same way that men were, at least
not in England. During this time there were also changing attitudes towards class (and
women stereotypically took more blame for social climbing). While the ability to
show signs of a higher class through wealth increased, so too did a change in the way
work and the higher class structure was viewed. In Elizabethan England, nobles were
focused on their working identities, but developing in the Jacobean time was the idea
that leisure time was part of the upper class. In order to show their new-found status,
merchants believed that not working was key—and their wives were generally the first
to become idle when wealth was established.
293

In addition, there was already a well-established argument that women were
weaker, polluted, and more easily corrupted than men, making them seem as easy
targets for the dangers of the marketplace. In this marketplace, they were both the
biggest consumers and the lowest, but most populous, rung of the market ladder. Even
those women who did not work still were seen as in circulation because their place in
marriage both brings (dowry, widow status, etc) and takes (they are in charge of
spending for household) money (so they are objects of exchange). Also, as

293
Paster, The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England.
210

childbearers, they determined the lineage and distribution of their husband’s status and
money, making infidelity an economic matter as much as a sexual one.
Since in the plays they were not represented by themselves, the apprentice
boys were able to “stand in” for them, to make it women-as-idea being shown, rather
than real women (allowing for greater play in concepts). If “all the world’s a stage,”
they were actors who could not portray themselves for fear of contaminating others.
Their place in the gaze is fraught with difficulties, everywhere they go in the market.
“The female body also functions as a site of displacement, where male anxieties about
their own bodies' permeability, their own unstable subjectivity, can be rehearsed.”
294

Men's identity/credit was seen as undermined by the trading of the commodity of
women/sex (that which should not be traded, but is–which they have no control over,
and yet seem to strive for control).
It is possible that there were no women actors in early modern London for the
same reason there were no female guilds in England at the time. Both working and
acting were seen as dangerously sexual, leaving women open to the gaze. In countries
like Germany, France, and Italy, where women were on the stage, there were also
female guilds.
295
This is not because there were more women working in various
occupations there than in England, for all historical accounts seem to indicate that
women were just as independent and able to work in England as elsewhere. However,

294
Henley, "Dealers in Hole-Sale: Representations of Prostitution on the Elizabethan and Jacobean
Stage" 21.

295
Merry E. Weisner, "Spinsters and Seamstresses: Women in Cloth and Clothing Production," in
Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe, ed. Margaret W.
Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan, and Nancy J. Vickers (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press,
1986), Merry E. Weisner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, New Approaches to European History
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), Merry E. Weisner, Working Women in Renaissance Germany
(New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1986).
211

their work identity does seem threatened in England. The changing and expanding
marketplace brought concerns over rampant commercialism and consumerism and
women were at the center of this concern.
212

Chapter 5
“O, the policy of women and tradesmen”:
The Economics of Prostitution and Marriage in the City

Ben Jonson’s posthumous book, Underwood (1640), contains an elegy (LX:
“Let me be what I am”) which examines how most poets of the period are fascinated
with clothing.
296
“There is not worn that lace, purl, knot, or pin, / But is the poet's
matter; and he must, / When he is furious, love, although not lust” (lines 16-18).
Jonson’s poet
297
writes in a “furious” manner, indicating a strong passion, not
motivated by a muse but by the more dangerous Furies, who whip men on to revenge
or madness. Frequently said to be born out of night, the Furies were generally spirits
of vengeance who sometimes drove their victims to madness. This ominous
inspiration is an early clue to the poet’s distaste for clothing obsessions as substitutes
for identity.
Jonson states that he would write about love as well, but jealous husbands and
fathers stand in the way. He writes to them, saying that they need not be jealous
because he has had twenty years of being close enough to women to know “[w]hether
their faces were their own or no” and to have handled their dresses and their bodies
(lines 11-12). He is not so taken with clothing that if a horse is dressed in fine fabric
he must “horse / Her presently” or leap upon someone’s wife because she is dressed

296
Ben Jonson, "Elegy Lx [Let Me Be What I Am]," in The Works of Ben Jonson (Boston: Sampson and
Co, 1853).

297
Since the poem warns us that readers try to place autobiographical intent in poetry, believing that the
poet must be in love if he writes of love (when Jonson insists this is not necessarily true), one must be careful not to
presume that the poet who speaks here is identical to the poet who writes the elegy.
213

finely (lines 29-46). Then, in vivid detail, he exposes the sexual fetishizing of
women’s clothing, describing where a tailor’s wife puts on the customer’s new gown
and has sex with her husband before the gown is sent home, and where the footman:
did make most solemn love
To every petticoat he brush'd, and glove
He did lay up; and would adore the shoe
Or slipper was left off, and kiss it too;
Court every hanging gown, and after that
Lift up some one, and do — I'll tell not what.

(lines 53-58)

The jealous husbands and fathers are shown peering through a hole to watch this
scene, turning the poem into a voyeuristic fantasy
298
where the footman fetishizing
these clothes and doing “I’ll tell not what” does it in “prose” but, Jonson says, if the
footman were able to write, he too would turn it into poetry for others (lines 62-65).
Jonson adds that there are many poets who do turn this interest in clothing into
poetry, expounding on the glories of London women and going into raptures over:
O what strange
Variety of silks were on the Exchange!
Or in Moor-fields, this other night, sings one!
Another answers, 'las! those silks are none,
In smiling l' envoy, as he would deride
Any comparison had with his Cheapside;
And vouches both the pageant and the day,
When not the shops, but windows do display
The stuffs, the velvets, plushes, fringes, lace,
And all the original riots of the place. (lines 71-80)

At this point, women seem to vanish from the description. With each example Jonson
has increasingly removed the women from the clothes, so that these poets are only

298
While the poet quickly and frequently mentions that the interest in clothing in his poetry is not lustful,
the poem’s tone rapidly turns semi-pornographic. For a poem which focuses on the power of clothing to inspire
sexual lust, the insistence of Jonson that the poet writes with love, but not lust, appears almost facetious.
214

discussing the silks and laces as if they hang over London on their own, in a chaotic
pageant of disembodied clothing.
The commodities of London represent the women which are the presumed
focus of the poets’ attention. Jonson derides this poetic trend with:
Let the poor fools enjoy their follies, love
A goat in velvet; or some block could move
Under that cover, an old midwife's hat!
Or a close-stool so cased; or any fat
Bawd, in a velvet scabbard!
I envy
None of their pleasures; (lines 82-87)

The clothing once again has something in it, but the fineries are filled with an animal,
a block, a bedpan, and a madam of a brothel. Jonson implies that the other poets will
rhapsodize about any object so long as the clothing is fine. Earlier in the poem Jonson
protested that he might as well fall in love with a chair that was dressed well, in
addition to that horse (lines 47-48).
So far most of his wrath has fallen upon the poets who praise clothing and
seem to be sexually interested in this form of beauty, a role he both admits to and
denies for himself. The ending, however, moves back to the jealous husbands and
fathers who worry over poets writing about their women and yet who seem to watch
“o’erjoyed” when the footman makes love to every passing glove or gown. Jonson
wonders why they are jealous of their wives’ and daughters’ clothing “[m]ore than of
either's manners, wit, or face!” (lines 87-89). The only woman with any agency in the
poem is the tailor’s wife who uses her husband’s interest in clothes to seduce him.
Otherwise, the women become objects, animals, or completely invisible, covered in
215

their riches which fascinate the men. In a typical Jonsonian move, the objects which
stand in for women become increasingly distasteful and filthy, such as a close-stool
and a goat. Perhaps tellingly, the lowest point of that list is, apparently, a bawd.
Jonson is here satirizing the equating of clothing with identity. Sumptuary
laws had already equated types of clothing with class, so that presumably one had only
to look at fabric, cut and style to know where the wearer fit into society. However,
since the sumptuary laws were more honored in the breaking than in the following,
such easily read identity was not true. In fact, merchants’ daughters and wives had
never had access to so many commodities and their obsession with dress is well-
documented in the literature of the time. This poem is heavily class-based,
commodities-filled, and almost pornographic in lurid tone but avoiding all flesh
through the use of clothing. It is a critique of identity as clothing. Jonson seems to
tell us that it is all hollow—just like the women are not in the clothing, so identity has
been defined by clothing, but it just isn’t so. Similarly, the poet’s identity is unknown,
even as the reader insists on reading biographical detail into the poem.
299
Jonson
derides a world where all is empty and identity is a sexually fetishized exterior where
each class longs for the exterior of a higher class, and merchants are so proud of their
women’s exteriors that they no longer care for other standards.
Jonson is suggesting that clothing stands in for, and literally is the substance
of, the individual and he is critical of this desire for clothing and how identity,
materialism and social climbing are combined for the middling sort. Consumer desire

299
Jonson begins the poem stating that he could be old, cold, fat, or anything else, but “No “poet's verses
yet did ever move, / Whose readers did not think he was in love” (lines 3-4). He seems mildly amused by the idea
that he cannot write decent poetry without someone reading biographical intent into the poem.
216

leads to dangerously empty identities and, apparently, a desire for the body. This
dwelling on the body and on clothing points out the hollowness of identity, found only
by what it represents.
Like Jonson’s elegy, the city comedies have a strong focus on clothing and
other commodities and the money that is exchanged for them; these items are also
explicitly linked with sexuality. As Janelle Day Jenstad writes, “The themes of
‘money and sex, and their frequent interaction’ have been seen as the identifying
features of city comedy since Citizen Comedy in the Age of Shakespeare (1973).”
300

In the previous chapter, I examined several plays which are frequently classified by
modern critics as city comedies and argued that the ways in which they equated
sexuality and economics were connected to how the authors saw the theatricality of
retail shops. In this chapter, I will take that one step further and look at three plays
which were both in conversation and competition with each other to see how they use
the link between sex and economics to explore issues of identity within the pressures
of an urban environment, with differing results.
City comedies show a bustling city of London interested in the activities of the
merchant class. These plays typically deal with prostitution, debt, civic identity,
money, status, and cuckoldry. It is the connections among these topics that are the
subject of this chapter. The play Westward Ho (1604) by Dekker and Webster was
answered by Jonson, Chapman, and Marston a year later in Eastward Ho, and this was

300
Janelle Day Jenstad, "'The City Cannot Hold You': Social Conversion in the Goldsmith's Shop,"
Early Modern Literary Studies 8, no. 2 (2002).
217

quickly followed by Dekker and Webster’s Northward Ho late in 1605.
301
These three
city comedies involve mistaken identities, disguises, cons and adultery, accompanied
by moves to another part of the city, in order to show how identity is played out—both
in terms of credit (financial and moral) and class.
Katharine Eisaman Maus, in her intriguing Inwardness and Theater in the
English Renaissance, argues that theater offers a mechanism for articulating
inwardness;
302
this concept of subjectivity is in opposition to many other critics, such
as Ann Jones and Peter Stallybrass who believe that our identity is materially
constituted (by means of clothing or other commodities). As I argued in the last
chapter, clothing in early modern London could literally make the man (or make the
woman a prostitute). In the three plays discussed in this chapter, I argue that identity
is seen as materially constituted, but that whether this is a positive for society seems to
be in doubt.
The city comedies are about women and fidelity but they are also about class
conflict, where courtiers attempt to seduce merchants’ wives and the merchants
attempt to get revenge against them. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese has argued for the
“centrality of the gender system in the elaboration of the social, economic and political

301
Thomas Dekker and John Webster, "Westward Ho," in The Works of John Webster, ed. Rev.
Alexander Dyce (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1877). Ben Jonson, John Marston, and George Chapman,
"Eastward Ho," in The Works of John Marston, ed. A. H. Bullen (London: John C. Nimmo, 1887). Thomas Dekker
and John Webster, "Northward Ho," in The Works of John Webster, ed. Rev. Alexander Dyce (London: George
Routledge and Sons, 1877).

302
Katharine Eisaman Maus, Inwardness and Theater in the English Renaissance (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1995).

218

relations of capitalist society.”
303
Women become the figure where class conflict is
centered. Adultery and prostitution are the vocabulary upon which class structure is
discussed. “The anxiety about sexuality betrayed concern with binding individuals to
a changing social and symbolic order.”
304
Foucault argued that society pretends to be
sexually repressive, but the time spent on discussing sex shows how central it is to the
culture. “The pervasive sexual discourse to which Foucault has called attention
measured the importance attached to the gender system as the custodian of repudiated
notions of hierarchy and dependency, and measured the perceived necessity of
individuals to internalize universal gender identities that would anchor social
order.”
305
The position of women in these plays is as circulated sexual objects,
whether as prostitutes (selling their identities more than sex) or wives (circulating
between husband and lovers, or those who claim them as lovers falsely). In either
case, they serve to reestablish a class order and social identity between the men
involved in the transaction; “the control of women helped to obscure the gulf between
classes. The standardization of the gender system mightily strengthened the myth of
individual mobility.”
306
The men in the play are seeking to establish their own
identities through a struggle over control of women’s sexuality. They do this through
a move across the city to the suburbs, where they have the freedom of establishing

303
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, "Historiography: Gender, Class and Power: Some Theoretical
Considerations," The History Teacher 15, no. 2 (1982): 272.

304
Ibid., 270.

305
Ibid.

306
Ibid.
219

themselves through a selection of witnesses (surrounded by strangers, the characters
travel in a group whose members are reestablished in relation to themselves).
Jean-Christophe Agnew has called this time period a “crisis of representation”
where “traditional social signs and symbols had metamorphosed into detached and
manipulable commodities.”
307
William Dynes, in examining the trickster figure in
city comedies, argues that con games are common plots because of this crisis, where
the trickster threatens and then heals relationships between people through subversive
energy (which is then either brought back into the community or expelled from it).
However, I argue that all of the male characters (and many of the female ones,
especially the prostitutes) work to con others in the plays. They concentrate their
energies around the control of women’s sexuality. In the two plays by Dekker and
Webster, the identities are external, placed by the community, sometimes to the
detriment of some characters. In Eastward Ho, however, the identity is internally
consistent with the exterior and transformative (making others become better in
society). All three plays are concerned about how identity is a commodity, as Agnew
posited, but the conclusions are not as calm or happy as Dynes implies. The
community which is established by external identities is arbitrary and leaves people
vulnerable. Even in Eastward Ho, which is generally more optimistic, the play leaves
doubt about identity with the labeling of the usurer’s wife, branded as unfaithful when
she is no more guilty than any other woman in the play and with the metatheatrical

307
William R. Dynes, "The Trickster-Figure in Jacobean City Comedy," Studies in English Literature,
1500-1900 33, no. 2 (1993).
220

comment at the end which might indicate that that the transformation is just role
playing.
Agnew and others have pointed to the contemporary proliferation of
popular handbooks on behavior, deportment, and the like as indicative
of a growing sense that the true self had no intrinsic reality, that the
shifting series of civic guises actually constituted all that was knowable
about personality. This ‘protean man’ undermined the medieval
perception of the individual as a divinely created and perpetual self, a
fixed locus in a preordained network of social obligations and
responsibilities.
308

This struggle for identity and how to define it is played out across the city and
representations of women in a retail environment.
As Jean Howard points out in The Stage and Social Struggle, women who
went to see plays were both spectacles and spectators—objects of male gaze and
subjects who could look back.
309
In economic terms, the early modern woman was
both consumed and consumer. In the plays, they are portrayed as rabid consumers
who are also consumed. The consuming desire of women is portrayed as a "natural"
womanly trait that also threatens male wealth and social status. Karen Newman’s
argument is that commodification was inscribed as feminine.
310
Consuming clothing
is particularly dangerous because clothing was a material object showing gender and
class status; this is the reason for intense sumptuary concerns—determining that which
is appropriate to one’s rank and “degree”—for both Elizabethan and Jacobean

308
Ibid., 370-71.

309
Jean Howard, The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England (London and New York:
Routledge, 1994).

310
Karen Newman, "City Talk: Women and Commodification: Epicoene (1609)," in Staging the
Renaissance: Reinterpretations of Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama, ed. David Scott Kastan and Peter Stallybrass
(New York, NY Routledge, 1991).
221

London. Marjorie Garber’s study on cross-dressing in the Renaissance notes that “the
term ‘sumptuary’ is related to ‘consumption.’”
311
The laws were partly to support local
trade against foreign goods in addition to restricting “‘conspicuous consumption’ the
flaunting of wealth by those whose class or other social designation made such display
seem transgressive.”
312
Women’s desire for grand clothing in the plays is a threat to
identity, in addition to being a prime cause for infidelity in the plays. Of course,
infidelity is a threat to male identity as well, so women as desiring consumers are
really a double threat.
In the previous chapter I explored the connections between desire, sexuality
and commodities and how sexuality and economics are conflated in this culture.
However, it bears repeating that the city comedies are rife with this imagery and that
they are “city comedies” partly because of their close connection with London. The
plays usually defined as city comedies are set in London, not just in a vague sense, but
with a great deal of specificity for place. This is important because of the nature of the
city at the time, already quite large and rapidly expanding with new residents, and also
full of new commodities as trade expanded. These three plays, particularly, explore
how identity is worked out through a movement across the city, allowing a character’s
interaction with the meanings applied to spaces to interplay with people’s lived
interpretations of these spaces.

311
Marjorie Garber, Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety (New York: Routledge, 1992)
21.

312
Ibid.
222

First, this chapter explores how in Westward Ho, jealousy and credit are the
themes, as the playwrights examine how all identity is merely a social role, a hollow
exterior to be played with and manipulated. In the second section, on Eastward Ho, I
argue that the playwrights, in answer to the previous play, see interior identity and
exterior identity as the same (we are who we seem to be) and that some people’s
virtues can transform our otherwise faulty society. This more positive view of
identity, although there are some questions or doubts left at the end, was answered by
Northward Ho the next year. In Northward Ho, we again see a society where cons
and jealousy prevail; people are merely a role which they play and this leaves them
completely at the mercy of others whose social status may allow them more freedom
and power. Finally, I look at the role of London in all three plays and show how
women’s sexuality and the control of it becomes the key to reading the map of London
and merchant identities. All three plots move across the city to an outlying area, where
identities are “proven” and reestablished, allowing a return to the center of the city.

“The bane of chastity” and the “commodity of beauty”: Westward Ho

Westward Ho, like so many of the city comedies, centers on jealousy.
313
There
are three major threads to the plot, all of which involve jealousy and credit. Indeed,
the city comedies are filled with references to “credit,” and not the strictly financial
term that we generally associate today, but the idea of reputation. First, as I shall

313
For more on jealousy, see “Horns of Dilemma: Jealousy, Gender, and Spectatorship in English
Renaissance Drama” by Katharine Eisaman Maus ELH, Vol. 54, No. 3. (Autumn, 1987), pp. 561-583. She argues
that jealousy was explored so often by playwrights “not only because it is a psychologically and socially interesting
phenomenon, but because the dynamic of sexual jealousy provides a complex analogy to theatrical performance
and response in a culture that tends to conceive of theatrical experiences in erotic terms, and of certain sexual
impulses as highly theatrical in character” (p. 563).
223

suggest, Birdlime is concerned that others call her a bawd because the reputation that
goes with the term will harm her ability to do business, whether she is trying to do
business as a midwife or as a bawd. Second, I shall discuss how the three wives do not
have an affair in Brainford mostly because they fear what the three gallants will tell
other people; they must protect their reputations, and thereby, their husband’s
reputations. Third, and finally I analyze how the husbands fear cuckoldry because of
how it will affect their reputation as seen by others, particularly customers; Justiniano
humiliates the earl publicly to ensure sure that his wife’s chastity is known. In the
end, as I shall reveal, the play demonstrates the hollowness of identity, which is really
the surface opinion of others, established through witnesses and accessories, and not
the person’s true inner self, values or motivation. Each character’s character, or
interior worth, is not important; even the truth of faithfulness, chastity or other values
is not worth what a communal evaluation of one’s appearance is worth.
In Westward Ho who a person truly is does not matter, but merely what society
has judged that person to be. The first example of this, and perhaps one of the most
interesting, is Mistress Birdlime because she fights vocally against an identity which
is, in the end, applied to her. At the beginning of the play, she and her assistant arrive
at Merchant Justiniano’s house in order to seduce Justiniano’s wife for an earl who is
smitten with her. Birdlime comes under the guise of selling makeup. Her assistant is
told to pretend that he is there about “his wives foule Linnen” and that he is to say
Birdlime is deaf and keeps “a hat-house in Gunpowder Ally (neere crouched Fryers)”

(I.i). The audience is a privileged spectator, in that, by seeing her instructions to her
224

servant, we immediately know that she is lying, something that the characters in the
play cannot know with the same certainty as the audience; her identity is set up as not
a seller of makeup from Gunpowder Alley, at least to the audience. The question is
what her real identity truly is.
The first use of the term “bawd” in the play is in the opening lines and spoken
by Birdlime. She says that her assistant, Taylour, is a “kinde of bawd” (I.i.9). His
status as a bawd is because he is bringing a dress to Mistress Justiniano from the Earl,
and if she accepts it and wears it, it will indicate that she is willing to have an affair
with their Master. While Birdlime does refer to her behavior as “knavery” (I.i), she
does not characterize herself as a bawd anywhere in the play and objects strenuously
when people use the term to her face.
All of the men in the play call Mistress Birdlime a bawd. The Merchant
Justiniano, upon seeing Birdlime, immediately calls her a bawd, much to her dismay,
something that will later lead her to seek vengeance against him (I.i). Indeed,
Justiniano and the other men of the play frequently call her a bawd, including her own
assistant Taylour who comments on her performance with Mistress Justiniano by
saying she is an “admirable bawd” (I.i). Even Justiniano’s apprentice, on opening the
door at the start of the play, suspiciously says that she “smells of the bawd” (I.i). The
men in the play have little question of her status, perhaps because they have used her
services in that capacity.
However, Mistress Birdlime herself claims several different roles. First, she
takes on a false role as a seller of complexions, in order to seduce Justiniano’s wife,
225

but she does so as a servant of the Earl, whom she calls “my good old Lord and
Master” (I.i). Here she positions herself as a servant and member of his household.
Mistress Birdlime tells Justiniano that she is both an “honest woman” and a “poor
Gentlewoman” who fell in love with an unthrifty Captain and lives now by selling
makeup (I.i). Although the last part—about selling makeup—is almost certainly
untrue, it is unclear what to make of the first claims. The men of Westward Ho seem
fairly certain of Birdlime’s identity as a bawd, but the women believe differently. She
is described by them as a “very honest woman and a midwife” (II.ii). These titles she
accepts and she even refuses to stay for a drink with the excuse that she is going to
help a woman in labor. It is only after the wives are told of her status as a bawd that
they reject her.
Earlier in the play Birdlime was unhappy about Merchant Justiniano calling
her a bawd and said that she would get back at him if given the chance to show him
there is “a difference between a bawd and an honest gentlewoman” (I.ii). She gets
back at him in two ways. First, she brings the diamond earrings to Mistress Claire
Tenterhook so that she will not get in trouble with her husband. Secondly, she warns
the three women that their husbands are being brought into Brainford by Justiniano
just to prove that they have cuckolded their husbands that night. This warning allows
them to ensure that their virtue is on display in such a way that they cannot be accused
of doing anything wrong. However, in the end, it seems the main difference between a
bawd and an honest gentlewoman is the community’s belief in either label.
226

When Birdlime arrives in Brainford she can’t get near the women to warn them
until she can get past the drunken Sir Gozlin Glow-worme who keeps asking, “doe not
I know you” (V.i). Birdlime is given multiple identities by Sir Glow-worme in a short
amount of time.
314
First, he thinks she is kin to Meg of Westminster, a famous young
woman known as Long Meg, because she is very tall. He then calls her Mary Ambree,
who was a captain in a battle to liberate a city from the Spanish, and a “female
yeoman-a the gard” (V.i). Both Meg and Mary would be very unfeminine role
models, well known for behaving like men. Sir Gozling also suggests she is a
midwife and/or a bawd, with the joke that both bring women to bed (V.i). Then
follows the obvious reference to Pandora, the famous bawd of classical literature and a
more obscure reference to Magera, who is a soldier turned to stone (V.i). At the end,
Gozling returns to the idea of a bawd and implies that his family has been paying her
money for her prostitutes for years—a charge she denies vehemently (V.i). She says
she will not be nicknamed and called names by this man and that she is beholden to
neither him nor any other men for her finances (V.i).
In this one scene she is given six possible identities, most of which she
rejects—most strenuously the idea of the bawd, which she connects with being

314
In Westward Ho, Mistress Birdlime is not the only one with a slippage in her identity. In addition, the
three merchant wives and Mistress Justiniano have an interesting identity crisis. The wives are referred to by other
characters mostly using their husband’s last names. However, what they are called in the stage directions and
speech identifiers varies. Mistress Justiniano is called Moll by her husband, but when Mistress Tenterhook is first
introduced she is also called Moll and her speech identifiers also call her this. However, later Mistress Tenterhook
is named Clare, and Mistress Justiniano, having been impersonated by her husband and faking her own death,
becomes an almost mute character standing in the corner in a mask. Mistress Justiniano started the play as a strong,
well-spoken young woman—but now she seems unnamed again. There are also the disguises of Justiniano, who
appears as a collier, a writing teacher named Parenthesis, and as his own wife. The disguise of Parenthesis does not
stick well with him in the first scene where the speech identifiers and stage directions refer to him as Justiniano, but
later when he has already admitted his real identity, he is still dressed as the teacher and is identified by his
assumed name in the stage directions and speech tags. When he is dressed as his wife, he is apparently so agitated
that he refers to himself inappropriately—saying that horns grow on his own forehead and then remembering that
since he is playing his wife, he must say the horns grow on her husband’s forehead.
227

beholden to men for money. She says she “scorns to be beholden by any Gloworm for
my furres” and denies the financial ties to his family, ignoring the sexual end of the
relationship. In an earlier scene with Luce the audience has already seen how
prostitution is apparently more about the money and goods one can wring from male
callers than about sex, and, so too, does Birdlime define it, with her denial centering
on the payment rather than any act. In the end, others label her identity as one who
arranges the sale of sex for money—the identity with which she will be placed at the
end of the play—regardless of her desires.
In fact, while there is no question that Luce and Birdlime are conning men
through promises of love and sex, there is some doubt to whether any actual
prostitution has taken place in the play. Luce certainly denies it to her wooers, and
Mistress Birdlime admits to trying to con the men out of money but while “both I and
the yong woman had an eye to the mayne chance, and tho they brought more about
‘hem than capten Candishis voyage came to, they should not, nor could not (unless I
had bin a naughty woman) have entred the straytes” (V.ii). While the male adventurer
is seen as bringing treasure he will not have the opportunity to explore new territory
(have sex with Luce) unless Mistress Birdlime is a naughty woman, which is really the
question. This can be read as a denial of sexual wrongdoing, unless it is ironic and she
really is a “naughty woman.” Her identity, even from her own mouth, is suspect and
conditional.
Whatever the full truth is does not matter, however, since her reputation is
given by the community. Tenterhook declares that her word is not to be trusted
228

because “that bawd has bin dambd 500 times” and Justiniano replies that “to be dambd
once is enough, for one of her coate” (V.ii). Her reputation as a bawd is literally like a
coat, one placed upon her outside, condemning her. Birdlime protests that he is fitting
her with a coat “upon my scirts” which he describes as “an ancient Coat, one of the
sevean deadly sinnes, put thy coat first to making” and urges that she go to “the place
of sixe-penny Sinfulness of the suburbs” (V.ii). When she denies his desire to have
her go to the suburbs and says that there are people like him in the City, he answers
that she has tricks “to keepe a vaulting house under the Lawes nose” (V.ii). Despite
Birdlime’s protest that he does “the Lawes nose wrong to bely mee so,” he continues
by saying that she lies about the women who board with her. This last accusation is
apparently enough to convince the wives, who previously had called her honest and
taken her help; Judith calls for her to be burnt as a witch “out of our company” and the
others debate whether she should be driven out of Brainford or left there while they
return to London. Birdlime, however, denies their ability to control her fate, saying
she should never have helped the women and returns to London in a separate boat.
The morality of the play unites all married people, and the young gallants are
chastised but accepted since it was all “but a merriment”; the drunken knight is
rescued, but the accused bawd is rejected. She is a threat to the society being brought
together at the end, mostly because she is seen as unidentifiable (able to claim a honest
reputation for herself and the women who lodge with her and to fool the authorities),
hence the need to label her publicly and condemn her. However, they cannot truly
banish her, since she simply returns to the center of London before them. The best
229

they can do is put her in a different boat and break up the feeling of female community
which had prevailed earlier.
Although Birdlime helps the women con the men in the play, at the conclusion,
she is the only person not reconciled and accepted back into civil society. The women
she has helped abandon her, and her reputation as a bawd is secured. This may have
something to do with her position in the play, which is partly revealed by her name.
“Birdlime” was a substance used to catch small birds—and Mistress Justiniano, when
she seems to acquiesce to the Earl is "the poor sinful creature [who] pants like a
pigeon under the hands of a Hawke” (I.ii). Therefore, at first, we are to believe that
Birdlime’s role is to trap young women like Mistress Justiniano. She also serves as a
go-between for Claire Tenterhook and Monopoly and seems to serve as a bawd to a
young woman named Luce who lives in her house. Later, when she helps the wives to
know of their husbands’ arrival in Brainford, Master Justiniano exclaims that the
husbands are the small birds (V.ii). A bawd is dangerous because it is a role that
makes explicit the connection between sex and retail; a bawd also is seen as conning
men—robbing them of money and, thus, part of their identity. The ability to identify a
bawd and give her just one identity, then, is the ability to contain her power—to make
the connection between sex and retail less threatening.
Throughout the play, women, sex, and trade are conflated. For instance,
Master Justiniano replies to his wife’s pleas that she has always resisted the Earl by
saying,
Aye, provoking resistance, tis as if you come to buy wares in the City,
bid money for, your Mercer or Goldsmith sayes, truly I cannot take it,
230

lets his customer passe his stall, next, nay perhaps two or three, but if
he finde he is not prone to returne of himself, he calls him back and
back and takes his money. so you my dear wife—O, the policy of
women and tradesmen: theyll bite at anything. (I.i)

He envisions her as a merchant who is trying to strike a good bargain, but here the
sale is her body. He effectively makes her a hard-bargaining prostitute even as she
proclaims her innocence. Of course, that also makes the Mercer or the Goldsmith very
similar to a prostitute. In addition to connecting women and sex with selling, women
are explicitly linked with the consumables on the market. There are constant
references to various goods; many of which had only recently become widely
available in England. In Westward Ho there is an odd moment when city dames are
likened to consumables like shellfish. Mistress Honeysuckle, knowing that her friend
Mistress Tenterhook is interested in Monopoly, tries to anger her by saying that he
“loves Citty dames only for their victuals” and that she has heard that he has a trick to
keep seafood fresh and, therefore, she suspects he worked in a nobleman’s kitchen
once, and it is said that he also only loves a wench who is stale. The freshness of the
woman and the seafood are both of interest to this gentleman—one for staying fresh
and the other for being as “stale as a Country Ostes, an Exchange Sempster, and a
Court Laundresse” (I.ii). The insult to Mistress Tenterhook is twofold: her lover may
be a kitchen servant and he only likes cheap women who are common.
“Stale” was a common term for a cheap prostitute, and as such, is popular in
the city comedies. In Westward Ho there are frequent references to women being
“stale;” in addition to the exchange just mentioned, women are described “as stale as
wenches that travail every second tide between Gravesend and Billingsgate” (I.i). In
231

both cases, women pursuing other occupations, whether as sempsters or in the second
reference apparent fishmongers, are labeled as “stale” because of their profession’s
reputation for possibly participating in prostitution—certainly these professions left
women vulnerable to these accusations since they were frequent targets of legal
crackdowns against working women.
It is clear that “stale” also had several other meanings at the time which the
authors played with for effect. They use it as a comparison to “fresh,” in that the
woman is no longer fresh, like fruit. This equates women with a commodity that must
be fresh to be good, much like when Birdlime urges Mistress Justiniano to sell before
the commodity is faded (I.i). When Mistress Birdlime tries to convince Mistress
Justiniano to commit adultery, she urges her based on her shelf life as a commodity.
Not surprisingly for a woman often described as a bawd, Mistress Birdlime sees using
her body and trading financial comfort for sex as a natural occupation. If she has
beauty, then it is something to be sold, especially if a husband is no longer buying it.
In this, Mistress Birdlime seems to equate marriage with prostitution, where a woman
uses her beauty and sex to win comfort, whether this is from a husband or some other
person. She argues that a woman is like a play or any other good to be marketed to the
people:
A woman when there be roses in her cheeks, cherries on her lips, sivet
in her breath, Ivory on her teeth, lillies in her hand, and lickorish in her
heart, why shes like a play. If new, very good company, very good
company, but if stale, like old Jeronimo: go by, go by. Therefore, as I
said before, strike. Besides: you must thinke that the commodity of
beauty was not made to lie dead upon any young womans hands if your
husband have given up his cloake, let another take measure of you in
his Jerkin. (I.ii)
232

This “commodity of beauty” is also a perishable good, like fruit, or even like a play. It
is good when new and fresh, but useless later. She urges a carpe diem philosophy
where the commodity of beauty must be quickly sold and used, before it becomes stale
and dies. Refusing to sell her beauty is like being a financial burden upon others, by
refusing the only work she can get. In refusing to sell, she endangers her product,
decreasing it in value. When Mistress Justiniano rejects the idea of selling herself,
even to her husband, and says she will have no men, Birdlime replies:
None at al? what do you make there then? why are you a burden to the
worlds conscience and an eyesore to wel given me, I dare pawne my
gown and all the beds in my house, and all the gettings in Michaelmas
terme next to a Tavern token, that thou shalt never be an innocent. (I.ii)

One woman, Birdlime, would give up her goods on a bet that another will not resist
temptation and will use her body as a commodity for men. The concept of staleness
indicates the necessity to sell and sell quickly, before the goods lose value.
“Stale” also meant a decoy-bird to lure in other birds to the hunter, so much
like Birdlime is figured as an aid to hunting, so women, generally, in the plays are
accused of bringing down others by their sexual looseness. Because of the hunting
term, “stale” was also used in terms of a con where a person is bait to entrap another,
for instance, a decoy used by thieves, so that “stale” women could be seen to be a trap
or snare, as part of a con. Since prostitutes are clearly seen as a great trap for
money,
315
as Luce is portrayed in Westward Ho (and like others in numerous city
comedies) as are all women to some extent in these plays, this use of the term also

315
See when Luce demands she be allowed to have many clients who are willing to pay for her various
commodities, including clothing and rent (IV.i).
233

makes sense. These tales are partly about commerce and partly about con games, and
both are tied to sexuality. Since merchants are often shown as conning others, the
difference between commerce and con games is fairly small.
The turning point of the play takes place in Brainford when the three merchant
wives are in an inn to have affairs with some courtiers, but end up locked in one
bedroom together to protect their reputations, even before they learn their husbands
are coming to expose them. Jean Howard says that the men “self destruct as wooers”
and that the women redefine what the freedom of Brainford will mean for them—
moving away from adultery to fun and food and, eventually, bonding as women in the
bedroom, locked against the men.
316
The catalyst for this shift, I argue, is the tale
Clare insists the entire group must hear, about how the Knight Fabian Scarecrowe,
whose knighthood was bought by her husband at her insistence, insulted women to her
face and how she set him straight. She says he visited them often and asked for 200
pounds “about a commodity which I am to deale in, and what was that commodity but
his knighthood” (V.i). Although the knight seems to have paid back the money after
gaining his title, when he comes to dinner at their house he insults Claire Tenterhook
while he is drunk. She asks him:
what pretty Gentlewoman will you raise up now to stal her your Lady?
but he like a foul-mouthed man, swore zounds Ile stal never a punke in
England. A Lady, theres two many already: O fie Sir Fabian (quoth I)
will you cal her that shall bee your wife such an odious name! and then
he sets out a throat and swore agen (like a stinking breath'd knight as he
was) that women were like horses. . . . They'd break over any hedge to
change their pasture, tho it were worse. (V.i)

316
Jean Howard, "Women, Foreigners, and the Regulation of Urban Space in Westward Ho," in Material
London, Ca 1600 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2000), 161.
234

The knight says he will never “stal” a “punke” for there are too many already,
although it is unclear if he means there are too many ladies or too many prostitutes
who have become ladies. Either way, he implies that all women are punks, since he
believes that women are unable to resist seeing if the grass is greener on the other side
of the fence, and, therefore, cannot be faithful. When he uses “stal,” this can refer to
rank or standing, but also to agree to pay through installments, or to put a horse in a
stable or for a horse to halt suddenly (note that he compares women to horses). All
uses of this term were current at the time and put an interesting spin on his thoughts.
He will not raise a gentlewoman to the rank of lady; he will never pay money in
installments to a punk; he will never put the punk (also thought of as a horse) in a
stable or make her halt suddenly.
317

These equine images are interesting because of the meaning that he gives to
women and horses, but also because of the horse imagery throughout the plays.
318

Horses were seen as signs of passion at the time,
319
and appear frequently in Westward
Ho and other plays. Note that in Jonson’s elegy, as discussed earlier, he refers to a
horse being dressed in a gown and inspiring such desire that someone might “horse
her presently” (lines 47-48)

(the sexual nature of riding being clear here). So too, in
Westward Ho, the wives wonder if they have put the saddle on the right horse when
they agree to be faithful in Brainford, and when their husbands knock on the door of

317
Note also, of course, “stal” and how close it is to “stale.”

318
Just one example is in Northward Ho, where Kate is compared to a horse and when she protests this,
she is told it is “no disparagment; for a woman to have a high forehead: a quick eare, a full eye, a wide nostrell, a
sleeke skin, a straight back, a round hip, and so forth is most comely.”

319
Elisabeth Porges Watson, "(Un)Bridled Passion: Chivalric Metaphor and Practice in Sidney's
Astrophil and Stella," in Spenser (1967).
235

their locked bedroom they call them colts affected by murrain (or diseased young
horses) (V.i). The husbands feel as if their withers are being “wrung” when they find
out their wives are with other men (V.i).
Thus in telling the story, the playwrights have the women see how they may be
defined by others: as horses who are trying greener pastures, and like horses and
passion, no longer in control of their desires. The wives may realize that by having an
affair with Monopoly and the others, they are threatening to break over a hedge to
change their pastures, even though this new pasture is, indeed, worse. As far as we
can tell, their husbands were fairly loving and gave them quite a lot, such as
encouraging them in learning to write, listening to them on matters of money, not
arguing about them going shopping, and many other incidents. Meanwhile, the
gallants get drunk, smoke, argue, want to play cards and have loud music, and
generally seem to suggest things which are now disagreeable to the women. They
would hardly want to prove Sir Fabian correct about women.
The final reason why Claire may decide against her long-planned affair with
Monopoly is his reaction to her story about Sir Fabian.
320
She tells him that the knight
is drunk and insults her. When he does so, she replied, “I did incite my husband to
lend you so much money upon your bare worde, and do you backbite my friends and
me to our faces!”

(V.i) She suggests that he should bear himself like a knight and be

320
The story starts off an argument over the difference between “created” and “dubbed”—pointing to the
importance of the story as an issue of true identity versus created/exterior identity. Sir Fabian bought his
commodity of a knighthood with money from a merchant. The argument about the wording is important because it
focuses on the commodity of knighthood. What is at stake is whether knights are made or just recognized and
named as such. “Dubbed” means to confer a title or to adorn and trim but it also meant at the time ‘To place good
wares in the upper part of a basket and inferior beneath,” a trick used by some unscrupulous merchants. Sir
Fabian’s bought identity, then, is not a natural identity and may be covering up flaws with a fancy exterior.
236

more “deformable amongst women”(V.i). The knight repents his words once he is
sober, so we are told, and Claire takes pride in her story. When she is finished with
her tale, Monopoly says that the moral of her story is to show “what wine and women
can do, the one makes a man not to have a word to throw at a Dogge, the other makes
a man to eat his owne words, tho they were never so filthy”(V.i). It is shortly after this
that the women decide against giving the gallants what they want. Why? The best
explanation is what the story of the knight and Monopoly’s reaction to it tells us.
This story which Claire Tenterhook tells is designed for two reasons: to expose
the economic aspects of identity creation and its connection to women’s reputations,
particularly the sexual component, which is all that ever seems to matter. The knight
is made who he is through the merchant’s money and then insults women’s reputations
through sexual slurs. Monopoly’s reaction to this story shows Claire his unsuitability
as a suitor. The knight’s story shows us that you should not insult women, as a whole,
in front of a woman who has helped you and given you money (as, in fact, Claire has
given to Monopoly). Monopoly’s reaction shows us that he does not consider what
Sir Fabian said to be insulting and that he believes women cause problems for men.
Coupled with the gallants’ smoking and drinking, Claire and the others have now had
their eyes opened to the gallants. They see that these pastures are not greener and that,
while having some food and fun is one thing, going any farther by having an affair is
another. Besides, the men will clearly brag about it, they say, and their reputations
will be ruined. Therefore, they arrange to lock themselves in a bedroom together and
protect their good names. This is important for the ability of this play to be a comedy.
237

The women must decide against the gallants on their own so that their reunion with
their husbands is a complete triumph for reestablishing monogamy (at least on the part
of the wives, but possibly the men also since the bawd is revealed to their wives).
Once both sides wish to be reunited, they can be brought together in their new
“proven” relationship where their reputations are affirmed by the community.
In Westward Ho there is a great concern over bankruptcy and financial
maintenance—one’s standing in the community is based on it. When Mistress
Justiniano tells her husband that she is planning to go to the seducing Earl, she says, “I
have not counsel in your voyage, neither shall you have any in mine” (I.i). She says
her husband forces her to accept the Earl’s seduction and “let not the world condemne
me, if I seeke for mine owne maintenance” (I.i). Her reasoning seems to be that he has
handled his finances without her help, so she will not take him into account when
making her own decisions. Also, she is just looking after herself, financially, and does
not deserve condemnation for that. Most tellingly, however, is that the audience sees
her repelling Mistress Birdlime and saying that she has repeatedly turned down such
offers, and she only accepts after her husband comes in and announces that he knows
she is cheating on him. She despairs of his jealousy, and gives in to Mistress
Birdlime’s entreaties. Jealousy, then, is the key, even while her husband thinks he has
a different explanation for her behavior–poverty.
Male identity is so tied to economics and their standing as citizens (read,
important and powerful merchants) that a major threat to this identity is seen as
bankruptcy. As Joseph P. Ward has observed, financial ruin and bankruptcy was a
238

common threat at the time.
321
Someone being thrown into prison for debts would have
been a common occurrence. As Master Justiniano puts it, when he announces he is
bankrupt: he has “done as some citizens at thirty and most heirs at three and twenty–
made all away” (I.i). His wife laments that this is because of “[y]our prodigality, your
diceing, your riding abroad, your comforting your self with Noblemen, your building a
summer house, hath undone us. what would you have me do?” (I.i). Indeed, the
interesting thing about Westward Ho is that this threat to male financial security and
identity is perceived as a major threat to a wife’s fidelity. Over and over, the play
questions whether an attractive woman who is poor could ever be chaste. Master
Justiniano calls poverty the
bane of Chastity, Poison of beauty, Broker of Mayden-heades, I see
when Force, nor wit can scale the hold, Wealth must. Shele never be
won that defies golde but lives there such a creature: O tis rare to find a
woman chast, thats poore and faire. (I.i)

Women’s faithfulness is even directly compared to men’s credit (financially) when it
is said, “It is no more in fashion for them to keep promises than for men to pay their
debts” (I.i).
Despite the Merchant Justiniano’s insistence that poverty and chastity do not
mix, the play insists otherwise. Despite Justiniano’s fake poverty, his wife, in the end,
rejects the easy life of a mistress to the Earl. She does so in financial terms, equating
her marriage as a debt which cannot be repaid. His financial debt to others was so
great that she felt compelled to leave him, but now her love is a debt so large that a
kingdom cannot answer it. She urges the earl to “take this gilding off, which is your

321
Joseph P. Ward, Metropolitan Communities: Trade Guilds, Identity, and Change in Early Modern
London (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1997).
239

own and henceforth cease to throw out golden hookes to choake mine honor: tho my
husbands poore, I'le rather beg for him then be your Whore.” He has tried to use
clothing and other objects of wealth to entice her, and it seemed to work temporarily,
as she did, indeed, put on the dress he sent. However, now, she says she will only love
the Earl if he can “cleare me of a debt thats due but to one man, I'll pay my heart to
thee.”
The plot answers Justiniano’s claim that poor women cannot be chaste. His
wife, believing she has no financial recourse, is momentarily tempted but, in the end,
refuses wealth, and the luxurious trappings that go with it, to remain true to him. This
allows her husband to come back into the plot and reestablish his reputation, both
financially and in terms of his marriage—both of which are discussed monetarily. He
does this through a public humiliation of the Earl, a disavowal from the Earl that
Mistress Justiniano was unchaste, and then a public humiliation of the witnesses to
this disavowal to show them how close they also have come to having their wives be
dishonest (raising Justiniano in their eyes and procuring him jewelry from the now
broken Earl). Master Justiniano, with the reluctant and mostly silent help of his now
humiliated but vindicated wife, proves he is better than all of the others—with no
financial debt, a wife who was sought by an Earl and given gifts without losing her
faithfulness, and surrounded by men who were almost cuckolded. Each of these items
he manipulates to be verified by the community around him. He is like a playwright
who sets up scenes and manipulates the characters around him in order to raise himself
to a higher status.
240

I have already said that jealousy is a major issue in the play, and the deciding
factor for Mistress Justiniano to say yes to the Earl. Jealousy, of course, is a fear that
what one owns may not really be one’s own. Natasha Korda states, “Jealousy was
conceived in the early modern period as an affliction arising from the institution of
private property; it was predicated on a model of subjectivity grounded in the
prerogatives of the possessive individual, while at the same time laying bare this
model’s attendant anxieties of dispossession.”
322
Much like women were supposed to
spend enough to maintain the household’s status and yet balance this was thriftiness,
to ensure that the finances are not compromised, so too is a policy of moderation in
jealousy recommended in this play.
The play seems to argue for a middle way of dealing with both finances and
matrimony. Justiniano is too jealous of his wife and does not allow her any say in her
financial future. This drives his otherwise faithful and loving wife towards another
man. The three merchants are totally unsuspecting of their wives, allowing a
scheming schoolmaster into their houses (remaining totally ignorant of the innuendos
about pens and penises which fly around them), encouraging long outings, and
indulging their wives in everything—while running around with other women
themselves, of course. At the same time, they take their wives’ advice on financial
matters, such as pursuing a debt—even when the women use this to their advantage to
get their suitors money. Their wives, who are not seen as very loving towards their
husbands, go off to have fun with other men. They even pervert the wifely duties of

322
Natasha Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2002) 114.
241

maintaining the household and family to their advantage for adultery, using the excuse
of a sick child, in one case, to leave town. The play seems to indicate that both
Justiniano and the merchants need to move to a middle ground where they are neither
too jealous nor too lax and where their wives have some say in matters, but not too
much.
When Justiniano first announces that he is indeed wealthy and not bankrupt, he
also finds he may have been mistaken about his wife. He had previously been very
jealous of her, so much so that he watched her in her sleep to see if she spoke,
questioned her relentlessly about lovers which it doesn’t appear she actually had, and
otherwise behaved as the most jealous Italian one can imagine in a play. Now she
claims once again she is innocent and he will test her. The interesting line is that
jealousy “makes many cuckoldes, many fooles, and many banquerouts.” Money and
virtue (sexual chastity in the wife) are both things that men are defined by, should take
honor in, but should not be too careful with monitoring. The city comedies frequently
suggest that jealousy pushes spouses into cheating, rather than preventing it (as the
jealous spouse supposes).
323
Justiniano’s obsessive belief in his wife’s infidelity is
equated with him being Italian and he is reunited with is wife only when he admits
that he was wrong in his judgment of her. To the jealous spouse, nothing is as bad as
infidelity; as Justiniano proclaims over his “dead” wife: “Homes feard, plague worse,
than sticking on the head.”

323
Compare this to the other two plays: in Eastward Ho, Winifred agrees to leave her husband because of
her husband’s jealousy; in Northward Ho, Mayberry’s wife is counseled by Bellamont not to be jealous for it ruins
many marriages and Mayberry himself gets jealous and is seen as almost mad with it, until he is calmed down and
it is proved a false accusation.
242

On other hand, the other husbands are too gullible, for when Justiniano first
brings word that their wives are in Brainford with other men, the husbands cannot
believe it:
Wafer: By my troth, good wenches, they little dreame where we are
now.
Justiniano: You little dreame what gallants are with them.
Tenterhook: Gallants with them, I'd laugh at that.
Justiniano: Foure Gallants by this light, Master Monopoly is one of
them.
Tenterhook: Monopoly? Ide laught at that in faith.

Once they do believe their wives are in Brainford with other men, they are furious.
For the merchants, they fear that cuckoldry will bring shame to them and interfere
with their ability to do business. They will be unable to sell things in their stalls if
others know of their wives’ infidelity. The horns which denote a cuckold are so
apparent to all that it will push at their cap and make them embarrassed in public.
They plan to storm the town and take their wives back by force but are stopped by the
realization that this will make their horns more apparent to others by publishing their
shame abroad. Instead, they approach quietly, in the hopes of hiding the horrors of
adultery, even though they still feel the horns will poke out for others to see, they hope
that no one will notice and they can take their hats off without fear: “where you may
aske any man what he lacks with your cap off, and none shall perceive whether the
brims wring you.” It is not a matter of whether they are cuckolded, but whether others
can perceive it in a financial/occupational situation.
243

Male identity is tied to business and money, but is also linked specifically with
the fidelity of the wife. Master Justiniano loses his wife when he loses the money, and
when his money returns, so does his wife.
I would not play the knave, though I be taken for a Banquerout, but
indeed as in other things, so in that, the worlde is much deceived in me,
for I have yet three thousand pounds in the hands of a sufficient friend,
and all my debts discharged. I have received here a letter from my
wife,. . . wherein she most repentantly intreateth my return, with
protestation to give me assured trial of her honesty, I cannot tell what to
thinke of it, but I will put it to the test. There is a great strife betweene
beautie, and Chastity, and that which pleaseth many is never free from
temptation: as for jealousie, it makes many cuckoldes, many fooles and
many banquerouts: it may have abused me and not my wifes honesty:
I'le try it.

For Justiniano, his wife and money return as one. The merchants in the same play fear
that they will be unable to face customers if they are cuckolds, so that their business
will suffer as their marriage does. Money, status, identity, and a wife’s chastity
become one and the same—lose one and you are likely to lose them all.
In a play where identity and jealousy clash, the audience and the main
character, who acts as a playwright, have the truest idea of identity and truth, more
than any of the other characters do. From the first moment when the audience know
that Mistress Birdlime is posing as a seller of complexions, to following the scheming
Master Justiniano (as he poses as a collier, the scholar Parenthesis, and his own wife),
the audience knows, to some extent, the truth about how far various characters have
gone in terms of finances and sex. However, it is the community of characters, the
merchants of the play, who decide what identity each person will end up with in the
end. The communal authority of identity places the name of bawd on Mistress
244

Birdlime, faithful wife on Mistress Justiniano, playful mischief on the courtiers, and
honored merchant on Justiniano himself, an identity which he had not held at the
beginning, when the other merchants laughed at his financial problems and he railed
against his wife’s fidelity, with no proof. The audience knows how close the various
wives came to having affairs and that the merchants are being conned when they are
led to believe that absolutely nothing happened, but only the audience and Justiniano
are in a position to know this. In the end, the characterization of what happened that is
given by Justiniano is the position that will be taken by the community. It no longer
matters whether Birdlime is a bawd, merely that she has had the coat of bawd thrust
upon her and the label will stick.

“Reward of a thrifty course”: Eastward Ho

A year after Westward Ho took the stage, Jonson, Chapman, and Marston
brought out Eastward Ho at the Blackfriars Theatre. In addition to the similar name
and the fact that it too is a story of merchants who move across the city to establish
their identities, it can also be seen as an answer to the first play, not only in terms of
wanting the same commercial success but as an answer to the main argument of the
play.
324
As I have just argued, Westward Ho indicates that it is not the interior worth
of a person which matters but, rather, how the community labels and values the
person. This play, however, argues the opposite. The audience is shown how two

324
The prologue makes a direct comparison to the earlier play and says they do it not out of envy,
imitation, or a desire to do better, but rather “that eastward westwards still exceeds —Honor the sun's fair rising,
not his setting.” Dedicating the play to the City, the authors swear that the title is not arbitrary but suits the play.
We shall discuss the movement across the city in the three plays in the last section of this chapter. Even the idea of
eastward being the sunrise shows an idea of hope and transformation and their sense that the other play celebrates
the sun’s passing, a dark world of exterior-driven identities.

245

characters with strong moral values have a transformative effect on those around them.
The interior worth of a person, indeed, seems to be synonymous with the exterior and
is the source of exterior valuation and status—for that person and, possibly, for others.
Community reputation is the affirmation of inward values. Once again, this argument
plays out both across London and across women, whose desires and status as
commodities define men’s identity.
While most of the characters in Dekker and Webster’s play are morally
questionable people in a world where greed and lechery are rampant, Eastward Ho is a
morality tale with a strict lesson. Most of the characters are proud, arrogant, and
greedy are eventually brought low and made to repent and reform, accepting the
wisdom of Touchstone, Golding and Mildred, the latter two being held up as virtuous
examples of thrift—financially and emotionally. Touchstone even becomes less
extreme in his judgment and forgives the other people because of Golding. The play
ends with a sense that a morally corrupt world may be improved through the changes
wrought upon the main characters through the goodness of Golding and Mildred—a
marriage of thrifty equals.
Eastward Ho posits a difference between a natural gentleman and an artificial
gentleman. Touchstone has two apprentices, both younger sons of the nobility.
However, while one is wild and a spendthrift, the other is made more noble by
behavior. Golding, the good apprentice, is given Touchstone’s daughter Mildred in
marriage as a reward for his good behavior—and Touchstone holds him up as an
example of a truer gentleman than his eldest daughter’s husband. Quicksilver, on the
246

other hand, chooses to behave wildly and is eventually humiliated with being
imprisoned with Touchstone’s other son-in-law, Sir Petronel Flash
325
(who is also
shown to be unworthy—with excesses in behavior and spending which make him a
figure of contempt in Touchstone’s eyes, and presumably the audiences’ eyes as well,
with Touchstone standing in for a playwright-figure, manipulating events and judging
characters, much like Justiniano in the last play). However, every character is exactly
what he seems. Most of the characters give their motivations to the audience,
announcing with loud tones the desire for luxuries, punks, or status. The very few
times someone tricks another it is to help curb that person’s excesses, as when Golding
lies to get Touchstone to come to the jail to forgive Quicksilver. With these
characters, there names and their behaviors tell you their interiors and all judgments
given to them (except, perhaps at the end, are completely deserved).
The play argues against excesses, both financial and emotional; the two are
seen as particularly tied together with desire for commodities and desire for sex
conflated. We have already seen how in Westward Ho the spending of money on
Luce and Birdlime, in addition to the excesses to be found in Brainford with the wives,
is equated with sexual looseness. Spending money outside the household, not to
acquire and maintain wealth and status, is the same as spending sexuality. Passion and
haste in Eastward Ho and the other city comedies equate to appetite and this

325
The names of the two scheming spendthrifts are an indication of their nature (as most names are in
this play). Sir Petronel Flash is named after a large gun and the “flash” it makes when fired. Quicksilver, of
course, is named after the silvery element once used in thermometers. Both men, then, are dangerous and showy.
You might say they are all flash, no substance—the embodiment of exterior-based values (believing, as they do,
that all that matters is money, rank and the exterior trappings of it, like clothing).
247

corresponds to ambition. An appetite for luxury goods and an appetite for sex go hand
in hand.
Since one of the wifely duties is to maintain the household through thrift and
economy, the constant hunger and desire for consumables in the plays would be seen
as a typical female failing that is designed to ruin a man’s wealth and status.
Household manuals instructed that the duty of the husband is to bring in the wealth
and the duty of the wife is to maintain it so that the union may be successful.
326

However, as the city comedies consistently portray, women were seen as given to
desire—for clothing, food, and sex. Gertrude, Touchstone’s older daughter, is a prime
example of this stereotype. She is determined to be a lady, accepting a proposal from
Sir Petronel Flash and rejecting other men who were interested because only Sir Flash
had the status she desired. She conflates identity with clothing in discussing her
desires for marriage:
I tell you I cannot endure it; I must be a lady. Do you wear your quoif
with a London licket, your stammel petticoat with two guards, the
buffin gown with the tuft-taffety cape and the velvet lace. I must be a
lady, and I will be a lady. I like some humors of the city dames well: to
eat cherries only at an angel a pound, good; to dye rich scarlet black,
pretty; to line a grogram gown clean thorough with velvet, tolerable;
their pure linen, their smocks of three pounds a smock, are to be borne
withal. But your mincing niceries, taffeta pipkins, durance petticoats,

326
Kate Aughterson, Renaissance Woman: A Sourcebook: Constructions of Femininity in England
(London; New York: Routledge, 1995), Pamela Allen Brown, Better a Shrew Than a Sheep: Women, Drama, and
the Culture of Jest in Early Modern England (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003), Bernard Capp,
"The Double Standard Revisited: Plebian Women and Male Sexual Reputation in Early Modern England," Past
and Present 162 (1999), Jane Donawerth and Adele F. Seeff, Crossing Boundaries : Attending to Early Modern
Women (London: University of Maryland at College Park. Center for Renaissance and Baroque Studies, Associated
University Presses, 2000), Alice Friedman, "Inside/Out: Women, Domesticity, and the Pleasures of the City," in
Material London, Ca 1600 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2000), Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers:
Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996), Laura Gowing, "Women, Status and
the Popular Culture of Dishonour," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6 (1996), Suzanne Hull, Chaste,
Silent and Obedient: English Books for Women, 1475-1640 (San Marino: Huntington Library, 1982).
248

and silver bodkins — God's my life, as I shall be a lady, I cannot
endure it! — Is he come yet? (I.ii)

Gertrude’s desire for status is so strong that it has become an obsession. She equates
both her status as a “city dame” and as a “lady” with clothing and food habits. The
specificity with which she names the fashions for clothing is interesting because it
probably would have resonated with her audience—it is likely she was naming styles
worn by women in the audience, much to their amusement. Gertrude cares nothing for
the true qualities of her husband, whether he is kind or smart or anything interior, but
only for what she believes his status will bring her—the external trappings of success.
The only other consideration she has is for sex. Gertrude is very anxious that
she get to bed soon with her new husband, so much so that she does not want to have
dinner in another home because it will delay the time to bed:
Gertrude: Come, knight, pray thee let's make a short supper, and to bed
presently.
Security: Nay, good madam, this night I have a short supper at home
waits on his Worship's acceptation.
Gertrude: By my faith, but he shall not go, sir; I shall swoon an he sup
from me.
Petronel: Pray thee, forbear; shall he lose his provision?
Gertrude: Ay, by'r Lady, sir, rather than I lose my longing. Come in, I
say; as I am a lady, you shall not go.
Quicksilver: [aside] I told him what a burr he had gotten. (II.ii)
Security: If you will not sup from your knight, madam, let me entreat
your Ladyship to sup at my house with him.
Gertrude: No, by my faith, sir; then we cannot be abed soon enough
after supper.

Gertrude refuses to lose her “longing;” to her, to be a lady is to satisfy every desire—
whether that is for clothes or for bedding her new husband.
249

Gertrude, of course, is not the only character who is excessive. Quicksilver
and Sir Petronel Flash are both excessive in their desires for money and the trappings
of status, and they use Security the usurer to get their desires, whether it be money or
women. However, although Quicksilver runs riotous, getting drunk, dressing richly,
keeping his mistress, Sindefy, at Security’s house, and causing trouble, and Sir
Petronel Flash can think only of conning his new wife out of her inheritance so he can
escape to Virginia with Security’s wife, it is the desires of Gertrude that are horrifying
to them:
Quick. You have the sow by the right ear, sir. I warrant there was never
child long'd more to ride a cockhorse or wear his new coat than she
longs to ride in her new coach. She would long for everything when
she was a maid, and now she will run mad for 'em. I lay my life, she
will have every year four children; and what charge and change of
humor you must endure while she is with child, and how she will tie
you to your tackling till she be with child, a dog would not endure.
Nay, there is no turnspit dog bound to his wheel more servilely than
you shall be to her wheel; for, as that dog can never climb the top of
his wheel but when the top comes under him, so shall you never
climb the top of her contentment but when she is under you.
Pet. 'Slight, how thou terrifiest me!
Quick. Nay, hark you, sir; what nurses, what midwives, what fools,
what physicians, what cunning women must be sought for (fearing
sometimes she is bewitch'd, sometimes in a consumption), to tell her
tales, to talk bawdy to her, to make her laugh, to give her glisters, to
let her blood under the tongue and betwixt the toes; how she will
revile and kiss you, spit in your face, and lick it off again; how she
will vaunt you are her creature; she made you of nothing; how she
could have had thousand-mark jointures; she could have been made
a lady by a Scotch knight, and never ha' married him; she could have
had panadas in her bed every morning; how she set you up, and how
she will pull you down — you'll never be able to stand of your legs
to endure it. (II.ii)

Gertrude’s desire for a carriage is directly connected to her sexual status. She longed
for everything when still an unmarried virgin, but now her desire is linked with the
250

idea of pregnancy. The idea of pregnant women’s strange desires is conflated with
consumer desire, which Gertrude is already strong in, so that she becomes this
monstrous thing who tortures her husband, making him father her babies and provide
her with her desires, not just for sex but for carriages and other goods. Petronel is a
turnspit dog, tied to one spot and turning the wheels of Gertrude’s desire. Fulfilling
the sexual obligations of marriage becomes a labor, not of love but torture, something
to be escaped from at all cost. Gertrude is pictured as surrounded by women tending
her, as Petronel becomes a small kitchen dog. As Wendy Wall points out,
“Quicksilver paints a portrait of female-female relationships based on a scene of
intertwined gossip, erotics, and medicine . . . . the dream of being tended materializes
in the form of a purgation (anally and arterially) enmeshed in the discursive pleasures
of titillating talk, gossip, and stories.”
327
Quicksilver is, of course, partially doing this
to frighten the knight in order to ensure his departure for the new world so the
inherited land Petronel is gaining from Gertrude will go to Security, but this
frightening picture of excess, with material goods, sex, talk, and leaking bodies is also
the embodiment of desire in the play.
Touchstone, upon hearing late in the play that Quicksilver is now in prison
gloats that:
Of sloth cometh pleasure, of pleasure cometh riot, of riot comes
whoring, of whoring comes spending, of spending comes want, of want
comes theft, of theft comes hanging; and there is my Quicksilver fix'd
(IV.ii)

327
Wendy Wall, Staging Domesticity: Household Work and English Identity in Early Modern Drama.
Cambridge UP, 2002: 175.
251

Sex, whether it be adultery or prostitution, is intimately connected to money. A
looseness with money leads to looseness with sex, and vice versa. Both, naturally,
lead to ruin, damaging a man’s credit, financially and morally. Sexual relations must
be normalized for credit to return: Petronel must give up his adultery with Winifred
and return to his wife (who, properly chastised, is less excessive) while Quicksilver
must marry Sindefy, whom he had treated like a prostitute (although she had been in
honorable service to a gentlewoman and was originally promised marriage when she
left to London with him). In order to shore up their financial positions, their marriages
must be secure and protected from excessive desires.
Sex is so bound to money in this play even the scheme to go to Virginia to
seek a fortune becomes termed as a sexual conquest.
Sea.: Come, boys, Virginia longs till we share the rest of her
maidenhead.
Spend.: Why, is she inhabited already with any English?
Sea.: A whole country of English is there, man, bred of those that were
left there in '79; they have married with the Indians, and make 'em
bring forth as beautiful faces as any we have in England; and
therefore the Indians are so in love with 'em that all the treasure they
have they lay at their feet. (III.iii)

The virgin country longs for the explorer. However, the virgin is already explored by
other Englishmen, who apparently have been plowing the natives to produce a crop of
beautiful young children. This sexual bounty of half-English children causes treasure
to pour at their feet from the grateful Indians. Both the country and the natives are
glad to be sexual conquests for the English. The jingoistic ideal of nation and its
conflation of sex with treasure embodies the merchant impulse of the play. Desires for
252

goods is the same as desire for sex. Women who desire are particularly threatening,
but any excessive desire can lead to ruin.
Anxieties and cultural fantasies play out in the city comedies, which appears
particularly within Eastward Ho. What the city comedies reveal is a deep concern
over the market economy and women. Desire, which is predominately a female trait
in the plays, is connected to excess. Women are seen as spending money and have an
excess longing for goods and shopping.
328
This line of women, money and excess is
theorized by Gail Kern Paster who argues that the image of woman as “excessive” is a
“culturally familiar discourse" whereby the “representation of a particular kind of
uncontrol” is seen as a "function of gender.”
329
While she was specifically speaking
of excess bodily fluids, something that is also seen in these plays, it is clear that
excesses in passion and spending is also tied to the feminine.
330
In this play, these
excesses, which are coded feminine in this culture, are linked to social climbing,
desires for luxury goods and clothing, and a desire for sex; all of these desires are
shown to be ruinous to the person and society. This excess, figured in many plays,
including this one, as a leaky female body, is sealed off by an enclosed female body,
Mildred.

328
In the works discussed in this project alone, Deloney has multiple incidences of wives who overspend
on clothing, to the distress of their husbands; Westward Ho has concern over excessive shopping by wives and their
use of shopping for adultery; in this play, Gertrude and Sindefy are both seduced by the idea of fancy clothes and
rich rewards; and in Bartholomew Fair, the wives dress as prostitutes because of a desire for clothing. The idea of
the desire for goods and its connection to sexual looseness was standard in writings of the time.

329
Gail Kern Paster, The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern
England (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1993) 25.

330
Probably the most blatant scene of this connection between leaking and desire for goods takes place in
The Chaste Maid in Cheapside in the baptism scene.
253

Thrift and chastity are conflated in Eastward Ho where Mildred and Golding’s
marriage is the union of thrift (where even their wedding feast is furnished by the
leftovers of the prodigal daughter and her noble—and financially insolvent—
husband). Touchstone prefers hard work, modesty, and moderation; he is repelled by
the excesses of his daughter Gertrude, her new husband Sir Flash, and his apprentice
Quicksilver. The play’s main lesson is thrift—economical and emotional. Spending
too much on luxuries is directly tied to a person’s virtue and that person’s success in
life. Golding, the good apprentice, marries Touchstone’s other daughter, Mildred, and
shows his good qualities by suggesting that the food leftover from Gertrude’s
extravagant wedding will be enough to serve for their wedding.

Touchstone described
Gertrude’s expensive wedding by saying:
I ne'er wak'd to such cost; I think we have stow'd more sorts of flesh in
our bellies than ever Noah's ark received; and, for wine, why my house
turns giddy with it, and more noise in it than at a conduit. Ay, me, even
beasts condemn our gluttony. Well, 'tis our city's fault, which, because
we commit seldom, we commit the more sinfully; we lose no time in
our sensuality, but we make amends for it. Oh, that we would do so in
virtue and religious negligences!

(II.i)

The feast is pictured as an excessive display provoking disgust even from beasts.
London is given the blame, with the whole city condemned for excessive sensuality.
Touchstone approves of recycling these extravagances and reusing them so thriftily for
the second wedding. As Richard Horwich has indicated, the reused wedding feast is
just one echo in this play of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
331
In Hamlet the funeral feast

331
Golding’s request for reusing the food echoes Hamlet closely: “Let me beseech you, no, sir; the
superfluity and cold meat left at their nuptials will, with bounty, furnish ours.” Horwich points out numerous other
echoes including Gertrude’s name and the use of a porter named Hamlet who is brought on stage merely to be
declared “mad.”
254

which the prince imagined was reused for the wedding celebration was a mockery of
thrift brought on by lustful haste. In Eastward Ho, the actual reuse of the foods is
virtuous thrift, from the only characters not to have lustful haste.
332

Thrift is equated with emotional restraint and a lack of status seeking, haste, or
desire for goods or sex. Golding and Mildred are consistently shown to be humble,
obedient to Touchstone (fulfilling familial duty), and, above all—thrifty. The use of
Gertrude’s feast for their own marriage celebration, the simple clothes Mildred wears
to her own wedding, and their spoken wishes to live life simply, all point to restraint;
they also restrain themselves from speaking emotionally, whether this be in wooing or
when challenged by Gertrude or other excessive people. When Mildred is questioned
about the desirability of marrying Golding, who although a younger son of a nobleman
has been her father’s apprentice and has little to offer in standing or money, the image
of clothing is used to explain the suitability of the marriage. Marriage between two
people separated by class is described as clothing made from two materials which
don’t go together.
Gold. But is it possible that you, seeing your sister preferr'd to the bed
of a knight, should contain your affections in the arms of a prentice?
Mil. I had rather make up the garment of my affections in some of the
same piece than, like a Fool, wear gowns of two colors, or mix
sackcloth with satin.
Gold. And do the costly garments, the title and fame of a lady, the
fashion, observation, and reverence proper to such preferment, no
more inflame you than such convenience as my poor means and
industry can offer to your virtues?
Mil. I have observ'd that the bridle given to those violent flatteries of
fortune is seldom recover'd; they bear one headlong in desire from
one novelty to another; and where those ranging appetites reign,

332
Richard Horwich, “Hamlet and Eastward Ho.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 11, No.
2, Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama. (Spring, 1971), pp. 223-233.
255

there is ever more passion than reason: no stay, and so no happiness.
These hasty advancements are not natural. Nature hath given us legs
to go to our objects; not wings to fly to them.

Mildred views herself as cheap sackcloth and not fit to be sewn to satin. The social
climbing of her sister is viewed as being like a Fool and mixing unlike things together.
Worse, it is pictured as a wild horse given the bit; desire (often associated with the
horse) gallops off with people, running down a path to ruin. Desire leads to a search
for novelties (it seems unclear whether this is purely one for goods, buying the latest
fad, or could also include adultery, where the newest lover is the latest novelty) and so
to unhappiness. Spending is linked to sexual desire and haste, all of which are to be
carefully reined in so that passion cannot rule the person and take over one’s reason.
The play shows a strong disapproval of any social reaching from the merchant
class to nobility. The knight who marries Gertrude is shown as ill matched. Golding,
although a younger son of a nobleman, is a proper match. The knight’s marriage to
Gertrude, in the end, is brought back into acceptance when he is made to repent his
behavior and Gertrude is humbled by her brush with poverty and humiliation. The
only well-matched marriage is of Golding and Mildred: approved of by her father,
sanctioned by the craft (he can continue in Touchstone’s craft and get advancement in
his field—very quickly, as it turns out), and apparently made for love, in addition to
any social advantage
I have argued already that this play sees Golding and Mildred as antidotes to
the excesses of society, as portrayed by Quicksilver, Sir Petronel Flash, Gertrude, and
Security. However, these are not the only characters to undergo a transformation.
256

Touchstone, the playwright figure at the start of the action, sets in motion a series of
incidents which he thinks will prove that the modest union of his younger daughter
will fare better than the status-seeking marriage of his eldest daughter. He seems in
charge of the action and not prone to the excesses he seeks to correct. This, however,
changes when his good opinion of Golding is confirmed by his son-in-law’s quick
promotion within the ranks of the guild. Having been made a Master, he is made an
Alderman’s deputy.
Now, my dear and happy son, let me kiss thy new Worship, and a little
boast mine own happiness in thee. — What a fortune was it (or rather
my judgment, indeed) for me first to see that in his disposition which a
whole city so conspires to second! Ta'en into the livery of his company
the first day of his freedom! Now, not a week married, chosen
Commoner and alderman's deputy in a day! Note but the reward of a
thrifty course. The wonder of his time! Well, I will honor Master
Alderman for this act, as becomes me, and shall think the better of the
Common Council's wisdom and worship, while I live, for thus meeting,
or but coming after me, in the opinion of his desert. Forward, my
sufficient son! and, as this is the first, so esteem it the least step to that
high and prime honor that expects thee. IV.ii

Touchstone begins to need correction when he starts to rejoice in Golding’s new status
and says that he intends to see him made mayor; “I hope to see thee one o' the
monuments of our city, and reckon'd among her worthies” (IV.ii). He goes on to list
the fame and glory which he sees coming to Golding, making him more famous in
history than Whittington and his cat (IV.ii). Touchstone is not greedy for himself, but
he does desire fame and fortune for his son-in-law, partially because it validates his
views. He states that such quick promotion shows good fortune, but quickly corrects
this to say it shows his good judgment. He even states he will honor the council for
257

“coming after me” in recognizing Golding’s worth. Everything relates to proving how
right he is.
When Touchstone’s plans come to fruition, he begins spouting aphorisms in a
mean way, to lord it over the people who wronged him. He had previously had been
fond of proverbs about thrift, but now he uses them in a “I told you so” sort of way:
Wife, "no man loves his fetters, be they made of gold." I list not "ha'
my head fast'ned under my child's girdle;" "as she has brew'd, so let her
drink," a' God's name. She "went witless to wedding," now she may "go
wisely a-begging." It's but honeymoon yet with her Ladyship; she has
coach horses, apparel, jewels yet left; she needs care for no friends, nor
take knowledge of father, mother, brother, sister, or anybody. When
those are pawn'd or spent, perhaps we shall return into the list of her
acquaintance. IV.ii

He is excessive in his tone because he refuses to take pity on anyone, even his
daughter, and practically crows at their downfall. Golding tries to moderate his tone
and asks him to take pity on the men who have been thrown in prison, but Touchstone
refuses. Golding, then, takes over the role of playwright, setting new schemes in
motion; he knows that he can soften Touchstone’s heart if he can get him to the prison,
so he arranges for his own arrest so that his father-in-law will come to his aid and,
thus, see the other prisoners, who have repented and are setting their newfound
humility and moderation on stage for all the other prisoners to see. They are the true
definition of “model prisoner” not just because their behavior is ideal, but because
they “model” their transformation publicly so that others can be inspired.
Quicksilver’s song (“which Touchstone describes as “ravishing” him) shows the
lesson to be learned:

258

This is the last, and the "Farewell."
Farewell, Cheapside; farewell, sweet trade
Of goldsmiths all, that never shall fade;
Farewell, dear fellow prentices all,
And be you warned by my fall:
Shun usurers, bawds, and dice, and drabs;
Avoid them as you would French scabs.
Seek not to go beyond your tether,
But cut your thongs unto your leather;
So shall you thrive by little and little,
Scape Tyburn, Counters, and the Spital. (V.v)

Seeking money and prostitutes will lead to prison, and it is far better to live in
moderation, “little and little” than go seeking grand adventure (like a trip to Virginia)
or partying in the City (as Quicksilver had previously done).
The play ends by reconciling the characters and bringing the community back
together. The storm (figured as sent by God) shipwrecks them at Cuckold’s Haven
and then causes Quicksilver, Petronel and Security to be sent to jail. All three repent
and are publicly accepted back by Touchstone, who himself has been transformed into
a less excessive judge. One character who is not publicly cleared, although it is odd
that she is not, is Security’s wife, Winifred. She starts to run away with Petronel Flash
but when the boat overturns she realizes that this was a disaster. Her life is saved but
her reputation ruined. She tries to protect her reputation and says her life is hardly
worth saving if her reputation is not. With the help of another, she manages to change
clothes and convince her husband that she never left the house until just that second,
when she came looking for him. Security believes her, for awhile, and is much
relieved.

However, once he is in prison he is told that Winifred lied and that he is a
cuckold. In the end, her husband accepts her even if he is cuckolded—because he is
259

assured that it won’t hurt his reputation, since as a usurer he really cannot get much
worse.
Sec. I say anything, sir, what you'll ha' me say. Would I were no
cuckold!
Win. Cuckold, husband? Why, I think this wearing of yellow has
infected you.
Touch. Why, Master Security, that should rather be a comfort to you
than a corrosive. If you be a cuckold, it's an argument you have a
beautiful woman to your wife; then you shall be much made of; you
shall have store of friends, never want money; you shall be eas'd of
much o' your wedlock pain; others will take it for you. Besides, you
being a usurer, and likely to go to hell, the devils will never torment
you: they'll take you for one o' their own race. Again, if you be a
cuckold, and know it not, you are an innocent; if you know it and
endure it, a true martyr.
Sec. I am resolv'd, sir. Come hither, Winny. (V.v)
Winifred has done no more than Clare and the other merchants’ wives did in
Westward Ho and their husbands were made to feel they were faithful, in the end.
Winifred also changes her mind about adultery, but gets labeled with it anyway,
apparently because she was not cleared publicly enough and her husband is a usurer
and must be comically punished for this. While she protests that “this wearing of
yellow has infected you” in disbelief that he once again believes himself to be a
cuckold, the others stand by and find it funny. In fact, as with Quicksilver’s
evaluation of married life with Gertrude to be an onerous labor of a kitchen dog, again
the idea of marital sex becomes a labor; a cuckold should be glad to be relieved of the
duty. Of all the characters, Security is the least repentant (only worried about his
status as cuckold and whether he can be forgiven if he sings his apology—unlike the
others who sing without knowing they will be forgiven) and the most humiliated in the
end, presumably because a usurer is a hated profession. It is one disquieting note in
260

the happy ending, since for Winifred and her husband Security, communal reputation
trumps truth.
Winifred’s reputation as unfaithful shows a problem with the play’s main
argument. Throughout the play, the authors promote the idea of interior worth being
worth more than reputation. However, in the end, we see that reputation does matter.
Winifred is labeled unfairly. The evaluation of the community is still important in the
world of the play. The praise of others verifies identity—putting the validation on
what is already there. Touchstone is thrilled when Golding is quickly promoted within
the guild, as it is an affirmation of his own judgment of his new son. It establishes
both of their identities as successful. However, sometimes the community label does
not fit the deed, and so Winifred is given the status of unfaithful in order to punish her
husband. The need for public affirmation of identity plays out in both comedies, and
in Northward Ho, as I shall discuss. In Westward Ho, Justiniano must publicly show
his wife’s fidelity and the merchants’ wives infidelity. Northward Ho’s Mayberry and
Bellamont, as I shall reveal, seek to revenge themselves on gentlemen by having them
publicly announce their wrongdoing and have it be shown that their own wives are
less than sexually honorable. However, in this play’s case, this act is usually a
validation of an interior worth,
333
rather than a manipulated scene of vengeance to
establish an identity with the community.
What is similar is that in each case reputation demands an audience; in a nice
move, the audience who acknowledges Quicksilver and the knight’s leaving of prison

333
Although this seems to break down in Winifred’s case where it hardly seems that her communal
reputation is fitting punishment for any interior worth. The other characters, however, gain according to their
merits.
261

is, in fact, the play’s audience brought into the world of the play to be part of the city
looking out on the characters.

Stay, sir, I perceive the multitude are gather'd together to view our
coming out at the Counter. See, if the streets and the fronts of the
houses be not stuck with people, and the windows fill'd with ladies, as
on the solemn day of the pageant! —
Oh, may you find in this our pageant here,
The same contentment which you came to seek;
And, as that show but draws you once a year,
May this attract you hither once a week. V.v
The play audience represents the city; the characters’ release from prison is figured as
the Lord Mayor’s pageant. The pageant, an annual celebration of the power of the top
guilds which in its route helped establish the city’s boundaries and history, is
connected to the playhouse. The playwrights of Touchstone and Golding have
reestablished a new world within their play where thrift (of emotion and money) rules.
This then encompasses the audience watching, making them part of the community
called on to validate this redemption of values. Connected to commerce and the city,
figuring the ending as both a mini-Lord Mayor’s pageant and a commercial play, the
epilogue asks that the audience see the “contentment” which they find in both the
annual pageant and this play a lesson which will bring them back to the theatre. The
lesson of the exiting from the Counter is supposed to give the audience a contentment
which will go out through the city like the pageant toured it annually, bringing them
back for more lessons in the future.
Whether Quicksilver and Flash are honest in their repentance or have simply
learned to take on an acceptable role has been much discussed by critics. I do agree
that the metatheatrical ending of the audience watching their exit from the jail may
262

indicate that they have become good players who can take on an exterior different
from their interior. However, I argue, while their miraculous transformation may be
difficult for modern audiences to accept, early modern audiences were already familiar
with and accepting of tales of religious transformations that are just as abrupt. Since
identity is, in the end, constituted by materiality, their change of clothes,
circumstances, and roles while externally based does not have to be separate from any
interior identity. Jean Howard in The Theater of a City argues that Quicksilver has
simply shown his ability to perform. He does not need to be sincere, but simply be
good at parodying the humility which is needed to convince others of his change in
credit.
334
The emergence from the Counter merges with the actor on the stage. While
Howard sees his role as performativity only, I argue that a contemporary audience
might have seen his conversion as convincing. They already had religious conversions
as a model. Howard points out the idea that the Counter is seen as a school for
gallants, and here three characters clearly are schooled, two more than the other.
335

The one least repentant is also the most punished, being led to believe he is a cuckold,
the worse hit to his credit. The other two are rewarded for their ability to be outwardly
good, and presumed inwardly good due to the influence of others. While this is
troubled by the possibility that it is all performance, as is evidenced by the combining
of their exit with the Lord Mayor’s pageant, I believe the play is arguing for a
presumption that the interior can transform society. We should accept people for who

334
Jean Howard, Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy, 1598-1642 (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvannia, 2007) 109.

335
Ibid.
263

they appear to be. The playwrights are flattening the difference between inside and
outside.
While only Eastward Ho seems to point towards the possibility of redemption,
all three plays have the same anxieties. They show a connection between commerce
and rampant sexuality. Prostitution and adultery abound, as does desire for goods,
particularly clothing and other trappings of the nobility. Only those who can be
brought into modest and thrifty living, with only some small jealousy to protect the
marriage (and be in quiet partnership with a faithful spouse), can hope to succeed
financially and socially. Extremes of jealousy, pride, and desire lead to extremes in
spending and all of these lead to ruin. While most of the characters in Dekker and
Webster’s two plays are tainted with these traits, Eastward Ho posits the existence of
two hardworking and modest people who are linked together in an appropriate
marriage (not reaching too high in station) who are examples of what is good in
society. Jonson and his collaborators want identity to be found by end of their play.
Golding, through the touch of Touchstone, is found to be gold, an identity that is solid
and able to be a monument in the city. Golding’s worth is clear to all, as is shown by
his meteoric rise in the guild system. He is matched with a woman whose faithfulness
is unquestioned and unquestionable, and whose thrift in money is matched by her
thrift in emotions and her thrift in sex. She is chaste and the hole of identity is patched
in the play.
What all three plays discussed in this chapter reveal is a deep anxiety about
women’s place in a world of commerce, where people like Golding and Mildred are
264

few. In Dekker and Webster’s plays, the hole of chastity that is the emptiness and
falsehood of identity is never resolved. Jonson and his collaborators present a
morality play; they also recognize the gap, but they try to posit a filler for it in the
form of Golding and Mildred. Either way, trade is based upon reputation which is as
hollow and unproveable as chastity. Hence, women come to represent the hole which
is at the center of their economy—how we trade on that which cannot be traded.

“We are not current till we pass from one man to another”: Northward Ho

The third play in the sequence is Dekker and Webster’s answer, Northward Ho
performed by the Children of Pauls in 1605. In this play, the ideas of jealousy and
reputation as all determining (much more important than any idea of true identity—an
interior evaluation) are brought forth even more powerfully. Everyone in the play
seeks to con other people, until in the end the poet, who stands in as a playwright
figure, pulls all of the cons together to one-up everyone else and reestablish a
communal identity for each character. This issue of the con takes center stage over
issues of identity, suggesting that since identity is about roles, that there is something
inherently false about who we are—it is all a game or con played amongst the men.
However, there is danger in this con for two reasons: it has a negative impact on
women (because their identity is tied to sexuality and easier to slander) and it leaves
everyone vulnerable to someone with more social status or more believable con to ruin
one forever. While the same issues of jealousy and exterior communal identity remain
from Westward Ho, the authors seem concerned about the dangerous inherent in a
society based on reputation and social roles.
265

The con games begin with that most powerful of female images of openness
and circulation—the ring.
336
Two men try to convince Master Mayberry that his wife
has slept with both of them. The proof that they offer is Mistress Mayberry’s wedding
ring. Greenshield pretends that he has been arguing with Featherstone because he
was given the ring by a woman, and then, having lost the ring in the woman’s bed,
Featherstone “found this ring the same morning on her pillowe, and sham’d not in my
sight to weare it” (I.i.106-9). In other words, they both claim they have slept with her,
in one day. The wedding ring becomes the symbol of anxiety—the indication that
Mistress Mayberry is too open, so that any man can thrust into her. It is a violation of
trust and of their marriage, of course, since it is perfect proof to Mayberry that their
story is true. The ring is an identifiable item and would normally not be away from the
wife, unless the story is true. Mayberry immediately accepts the men’s story as true
and starts a jealous rant which his friend Bellamont the poet counsels against.
337

Mayberry raves about his status as a cuckold and even when he tries to make
light of it, the strain on his ability to function is clear: “to know a mans wife is a

336
In chapter three I have already discussed how rings signal both male identity and female chastity (and
the constant threat to chastity of a woman’s openness to be thrust into), in addition to the issues of power
relationships with the gift of a ring (which was usually figured as from male to female, with dire circumstances
befalling a change in this structure). Mayberry’s feelings of betrayal may resemble Lear’s “I gave you all” in that
the gift of the ring is a sign of his power over her and she has given it to another.

337
Later in the play, Mistress Mayberry is jealous of her husband, fearing that he is having an affair with
Kate (when he is really using her to take his revenge on Greenshield). Bellamont counsels against her jealousy, but
for different reasons than he told her husband. Bellamont told Mayberry not to be jealous because it probably was
not true and it was making him look like a fool in front of others. Bellamont tells Mistress Mayberry “Fie, fie, he
doth that like a serer, that will use a man with all kindness, that he may be carelesse of paying his mony, upon his
day, and after-wards take the extremities of the forfature; your jealousie is Idel: say this were true; it lies in the
bosome of a sweete wife to draw her husband from any loose imperfection, for wenching, for Jealosie, from
couituousnes from crabbedness, with is the old man common disease, by her politicke yealding.” There is a double
standard at work here. Men should not act too jealous because it makes them look like fools and it might not be
true. Women should not act too jealous; it does not matter if it is true because it is a wifely duty to act sweet and
coax him out of bad behavior—whether that is poor spending habits or wenching. Wives will drive their husbands
away by being jealous.
266

whore, is to be resolvd of it, and to be resolved of it, is to make no question of it, and
when a case is out of question; what was I saying?” (I.i.160-3). The problem with this
rant is, although we have no indication that Mayberry had reason before to doubt his
wife’s fidelity, it seems doubt was there. The discovery of this evidence “is to be
resolved of it” as if there was a question which is now answered. If her status as a
whore was in doubt but is now proved, there was no clear way to remove doubt other
than to prove she is a whore. Proving innocence is impossible, since it is difficult to
prove a negative—that his wife does not cheat on him.
When Mayberry returns home, his jealousy causes him to attack his apprentice
at the door, accusing him of being a bawd. The apprentice’s answer is to indicate how
he is different from the stereotypical bawd.
338
He does not have smelly breath, does
not smell of garlic or aquavitae, does not get drunk on sack and sugar, and does
“sweare not God dam me, if I know where the party is, when tis a lye and I doe know”
(I.ii). Like Mistress Mayberry, his identity is defined by what he is not; he is not a
bawd because he does not fit some stereotypical traits, while she has been judged as
not a whore—until the ring was produced as evidence “proving” she is.
The apprentice continues his denial of being a bawd by indicating he was never
“carted (but in harvest), never whipt but at Schoole” (I.ii). In these two cases, he is
really saying he has been carted and whipped, but the meaning behind these actions
was different than it would be for a bawd. The difficulty of defining a bawd is here
illuminated, where the apprentice admits to two characteristics of a bawd but insists on

338
In Westward Ho Mistress Birdlime is given all of these characteristics, even as she insists she is not a
bawd.
267

their signifying something else. His last two denials are the most specific to being a
bawd; he denies having had “the Grincoms” and of selling one “Maidenhead ten
several times” (I.ii).
339
The first denial is a slang term for venereal disease while the
second denial is the actual act of being a bawd. All previous denials were about
superficial things which, while associated with being a bawd, could belong to
anyone’s description. Having stated the most specific denial of being a bawd, the
apprentice can only lamely plead, “I hope, Sir I am no Bawd then” (I.ii). Even he
seems uncertain of his status by the end of his denial. Proving one’s identity is
difficult—especially proving a negative.
Mayberry confronts his wife with the proof of the ring. She denies
Greenshield’s story and tells how he stole the ring from her after she denied his
requests for an affair many times. Her vehemence so moves her husband that he
believes her and swears to have his revenge against the two men who lied to him. He
has only her word, against two men, but “I take your word ya’re honest, which good
men, / Very good men will scarce do to their wives” (I.ii). In the end, Mayberry
admits the truth about knowing if one’s wife is faithful—it seldom is provable but
must come down to trust in her word. Her identity is not something that can be
proved, and “good men” seldom realize they need to take their wives’ word for their
status.

339
The apprentice specifies that the maidenhead is sold “first to an Englishman, then to a Welshman, then
to a Dutchman, then to a pockie Frenchman” so that there is some national pride. Only the Englishman gets the
true virgin and the resold prostitute goes down the line of reviled nationalities till she gets to the Englishman’s
greatest rival—the French (so associated with venereal disease that it was called the “French disease”).
268

Mayberry must seek revenge against the two men who slandered his wife, not
just because what they did was terrible, but because he must regain his status over
them, and stop them from spreading stories about his wife.
May: Why, wouldst thou have me suffer their tongues to run at large, in
Ordinaries and Cock-pits; though the Knaves doe lye, I tell you
Maister Bellamont, lyes that come from sterne lookes, and Sattin
outfides, and guilt Rapiers also, will be put up and goe for currant.
Bella: Right sir, tis a small sparke, gives fire to a beautifull woman’s
discredit.

The men’s status as courtiers lends credence to their story. Their clothing and rapiers
indicate they are gentlemen, and with that and a “stern look” to indicate their honesty,
they will be able to spread lies throughout London. Mayberry fears gossip spreading in
“Ordinaries and Cock-pits” so he sees their lie spread in the playhouses, essentially
making fun of the audience who with satin outfits and gilt rapiers might be discussing
a woman’s reputation that very day. Bellamont indicates that it takes very little to
discredit a woman. A beautiful woman, particularly, is suspect since she is thought
more likely to commit adultery.
340

Mistress Mayberry’s problem shows the dangers of having identity established
purely by community reputation. Two men tell lies about her faithfulness to her
husband which threatens her marriage and reputation, along with her husband’s sanity
and identity. For the Mayberrys it is dangerous, but Doll uses it to her advantage. She
is the ultimate con artist in the first half of the play, using her linguistic and clothing
knowledge to charm money and goods from multiple men. She knows that her

340
Justiniano and Birdlime both indicate in Westward Ho that beauty is a prime cause of women to
commit adultery since they will be faced with more temptation, and neither character believes that women are
likely to resist temptation for long.
269

reputation depends on whom people believe her to be; she also accepts the idea that
she is a commodity to be circulated among men. In fact, the circulation of herself is
part of her identity. “Silver is the Kings stampe, man Gods stampe, and a woman is
mans stampe, wee are not currant till wee passe from one man to another” (I.iii). She
is not only saying that man is made in God’s image and woman in man’s image, but
that like silver, she is to circulate among men as part of her identity. She is also
acknowledging the outside nature of identity. Her reputation/identity comes from the
outside, from men, and it is only her manipulation of this which allows her to make a
living. She, therefore, plans to set herself up near a tavern in town and spread the
story that she is a gentlewoman of wealth (using clothing, props, a fake father and
servants who also dress in roles) to con men out of money. She tells her confederates:
“The world’s a stage, and from such strange shapes we borrow: / To day we are
honest, and ranke knaves to morrow” (I.iii). Of all the characters, she is most aware of
the social roles people play and how easy it is to lose one’s reputation, the very basis
on which one lives.
Bellamont is unhappy to hear that his son, Phillip, is in debt and associating
with Doll:
Bel: Leave her company, or leave me, for shee’s a woman of an ill
name.
Phil: Her name is Dorothy sir, I hope that’s no il name…..
Bel: Doest meane to marry her? of what birth is shee? what are her
comings in, what does she live upon?
Phil: Rents sir, Rents, shee lives upon her Rents, and I can have her.

Bellamont recognizes the power of reputation, fearing that her ill name will damage
the family. Phillip, however, refuses to acknowledge the issue and willfully
270

misunderstands his father by replying that her name is Dorothy. In fact, Doll, as she is
commonly known in the play, insists on the name Dorothy to several men, in order to
appear more respectable. The name Doll is too common and associated with
prostitution.
341
Bellamont insists on knowing Doll’s standing as a gentlewoman—her
birth and money, and whether Phillip is planning on marrying her, but Phillip has none
of it, insisting merely that she lives upon her “Rents” and that he can have her. Of
course, a woman who can be had so easily is not of a good reputation and the idea of
living off of rents is vague—either he implies that she is wealthy enough to rent out
land (unlikely) or that she rents herself out (an idea not designed to answer his father).
Phillip refuses to worry about reputation throughout the play, seemingly enjoying
conning his father and in the end is only denied Doll through his father’s manipulation
of her greed.
Doll is the ultimate merchant, selling a false idea of herself to others. She is
seen as successful in her ability to dress the part and to con men into believing her
status as a gentlewoman. More importantly, she is a merchant with a skill for
languages. She is able to translate for Hans, the Dutchman, who is almost
unintelligible (the other characters certainly do not seem to understand him), discusses
Welsh with her Welsh suitor, and uses her knowledge of languages to her advantage.
She describes her wooers by their occupation and nationality, and each one wants to
have sex with her in language related to their work:
I have a Clothiers Factor or two; a Grocer that would faine Pepper me,
a Welsh Captaine that laies hard seege, a Dutch Marchant that would

341
compare to Doll in Henry IV, part 2, for instance.
271

spend al that he’s able to make ith’ lowe countries, but to take measure
of my Holland sheets when I lye in ‘em.

Once again, sex and economics are intertwined with identity. Doll knows that people
are just playing roles of social identity, and most men are identified primarily by
nationality and occupation and women by sexual chasteness and money. She uses the
men’s view of her to squeeze money from them. In one short scene she is lent fifty
pounds and is given sugar, a coach, and horses.
Doll’s manipulation of social roles is brought to light when she allows
emotions to come before business. It is only when she tells the truth that she suffers.
She falls in love with Bellamont and tells him the truth about herself; however, since
Bellamont has no interest in her (knowing, as he does, her status as a punk) he betrays
her to the men she has been conning. This puts her in jeopardy since they want their
money and goods back. He then uses her desperation and her interest in him to trick
her into marrying Featherstone. The Welsh captain, one of her suitors, is particularly
vocal in his condemnation of her, saying that she has “committed more than
manslaughters, for shee has committed her selfe” and picturing her as a monstrous
feaster who eats men and strips them to the bones to throw them away for a fresh feast
(V.iii). He also tells the new husband “your wife is a Tilt-boate, any man or woman
may goe in her for money” (V.iii). The captain describes her crimes as worse than
murder because she has “committed her selfe,” which implies that her identity is the
nature of the crime.
The image of the boat, open to all who pay money, shows how it is the taking
of money rather than sex which is at stake here. The captain specifies both genders in
272

the boat and since we have had no indication of lesbian sexual longing on Doll’s part,
it is not that she is giving sex for money to men and women, but merely that she is
selling herself, her identity or social role, to anyone who will take the con. Her
openness is about her selling herself, not as a prostitute, but in her ability to sell her
image and get others to interact with her as if she really were the person she portrays.
Her crime is in being good at manipulating social roles—and this leaves her as open as
a boat. The mere nature of selling implies a sexual component.
Doll’s marriage to Featherstone is portrayed as punishment which he deserves
and a way to offer restitution to her wooers (since the new husband sells his land to
pay for her debts). It reunites the men, allowing Mayberry, Bellamont, and
Greenshield to feel superior to him (and thus have their revenge for the wrongs he has
done). It also allows the conned men to regain their possessions, and stops Doll from
being able to join Bellamont’s family through Phillip. Featherstone accepts his
position in this new community when Doll promises to be faithful to him: “Never I
protest, I will bee as true to thee, as Ware and Wades-mill are one to another.” This
comes from the proverb that Ware and Wades-mill are “worth all of London.” Wades-
mill was a small town just north of Ware, but the proverb also plays on the idea of
ware as a commodity. It is usually taken as ironic since the two small towns can never
have been greater than London, and at most, if you take it to refer to commodities,
then it shows the power of goods to be more important than the city. For Doll to
swear that she will be as true to Featherstone as these two towns are to one another
may be slightly ironic, since Wades-mill was not particularly connected to
273

commodities (ware) and would be not particularly connected to its neighboring town
(Ware) since they had different main duties, with Ware being a market town and
Wades-mill being a small milling town.
Before Doll was compared to a boat anyone could pay to enter, but her new
husband now describes her as a bow that has been shot in before (and, therefore,
broken in), and easier to use than a new one which is likely to warp. Her identity is as
a used commodity, stretched out by others, and the community identity which is
stamped on her is the one which sticks, for her husband sees this as proper payment
for his behavior, a just punishment of which he is determined to make the best.
Part of Mayberry’s revenge on Greenshield and Featherstone involves fooling
them into coming to Ware, believing that he is chasing down his wife who has run off
to have an affair. They ride in haste, thinking to catch up to her, but for no clear
reason, stop to visit Bedlam on the way. For the characters this stop seems to make
little sense, but the playwrights had a very clear purpose with this visit. While this
scene is usually viewed as a way to make fun of Bellamont the poet (sometimes
viewed as a dig at another playwright, Marston, who was coauthor on Eastward Ho),
there is actually a deeper meaning. The scene shows how easily status can be made
insecure and how hollow identity based on reputation truly is. Two major things
happen while they are in Bedlam. First, the men meet the inmates, particularly one
described as a bawd, and then, secondly, the other men decide to set up Bellamont
with a practical joke that gets him incarcerated with the madmen.
274

Bellamont is quite taken with the sight of the mad people in Bedlam,
examining them and taking pity on them. One such person whom he finds interesting
is the bawd. She tells her case:
The Doctor told me I was with child, how many Lords, Knights,
Gentlemen, Cittizens, and others promist me to be god-fathers to that
child: twas not Gods will: the prentises made a riot upon my glasse-
windowes the Shrove-Tuesday following and I miscarried. . . . I ha
cause to weepe: I trust Gentlewomen their diet sometimes a fortnight:
lend Gentlemen Holland shirts, and they sweat’em out at tennis: and no
restitution, and no restitution, but Ile take a new order, I will have but
six stewd prunes in a dish and some of mother Walls cakes: for my best
customers are Taylors.

The woman claims a reputable status, with men of high renown offering to be
godfather to her child, but the apprentices cause her miscarriage. Her loss is
connected to a scene that would have been very familiar to the audience—apprentice
riots which were common in London. She also then is described as loaning money
and pawning clothes to the upper class, only to be unpaid. She then, apparently falls
into prostitution and to being a bawd. Her tale would not be an uncommon one, with a
fair number of women in London living in financial hardship. This woman is
apparently driven mad by her poverty and wanders the madhouse singing about selling
maidenheads multiple times. The viewing of criminals or the mad was common
entertainment at the time, including viewing beatings of bawds. The scene in the
madhouse probably was something that some in the audience had real experience with
275

in London.
342
The sad tale of the bawd would be a quick moral lesson in how easy it
is to fall from grace in society.
Bellamont is shown as unusually interested in these inmates. As a poet, he
apparently finds their cases of interest. This leads to a prank by the other men.
Greenshield and Featherstone convince Mayberry to tell the men in charge of Bedlam
that they have brought Bellamont there to be admitted. Since his behavior and interest
in the other inmates makes it easy for him to appear insane, he is immediately grabbed
and taken into custody. Mayberry has some doubts about this “jest” saying: “But how
will my noble Poet take it at my hands, to betray him thus,” and they all answer “Foh,
tis but a jest.” They relent quickly, much to Bellamont’s relief, and all of them can
continue on their way, but Bellamont’s humiliation leads to him needing to reestablish
himself as better than Greenshield and Featherstone by increasing the punishment that
Mayberry is arranging for them in Ware. The ease with which Mistress Mayberry’s
reputation could be ruined, the changeability of Doll, and the case of the madhouse all
show how fragile reputations can be. If one is dependent upon other people for one’s
identity, it is too easy to lose that identity if no one is there for protection.
Even though Mayberry and Bellamont accept Mistress Mayberry’s innocence,
it is not “proven” until Featherstone admits it was all a lie made up by Greenshield.
Featherstone: I am most hartely sorry for, and to thy bosome will
maintaine all I have said to be honest.
May: Victorie wife thou art quit by proclamation. . . .
Mis May: Speake sir, did you ever know me answere your wishes.
Green: You are honest, very virtuously honest.

342
For more on Bedlam and contemporary views of madhouses, see Ken Jackson, "Making Bethlem a
'Jest' and Conceding to Jonson in Westward Ho, Eastward Ho, and Northward Ho," in Separate Theaters: Bethlem
("Bedlam") Hospital and the Shakespearean Stage (Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2005).
276

Mis May: I will then no longer be a loose woman, I have at my
husbands pleasure tane upon me this habit of jealousie: Ime sorry for
you, vertue glories not in the spoyle but in the victory.

Mayberry humiliates the two men until Featherstone finally admits publicly that they
lied about his wife. Mayberry sees this as winning but Mistress Mayberry prompts
Greenshield until he too admits that she is “honest.” Only then does she declare
herself innocent. She saw herself as a “loose woman” until the community identity
was fixed to reflect reality. This reference is partially to the fact that Mistress
Mayberry is wearing her hair down, to show faked jealousy as part of her husband’s
plan, but it also reflects that she was seen as loose—even by herself—until they could
prove otherwise.
In Northward Ho, as in Westward Ho, identity is outward-based. People are as
others see them and reputation is everything. When Mayberry will not go after his
wife, Greenshield says “perswade him as you are a Gentleman, there will be ballads
made of him.” The idea of community shaming is a strong motivator, causing each
male character in the play to seek to up his own status by conning and shaming others.
The only protection a person has is having sufficient friends to vouch for that person,
protect that person from lies, and help seek vengeance to make the wrongdoer publicly
clear that person’s name. Without sufficient support, there are real consequences:
failed marriages, ruined businesses, and incarceration in a madhouse. When the other
men play a prank on Bellamont and declare him mad, all it takes is people who appear
honest and have money to get him locked up. If a friend doesn’t stand up for him, he
has no protection.
277

While Jonson and his coauthors implied that an honest and modest couple
(interior identity equaling their exterior identity) could cure the world, this play
answers that honesty isn’t enough. People must be thought to be honest by the world
and it is too easy for pranksters to take that away for their own petty gain and then the
victims will have nothing, even if they are innocent. The only recourse people have is
to prove, with witnesses, that other people were lying and they are honest.
Appearances are everything, not interior values. Jonson speaks for interior in both the
elegy on clothing and (with his coauthors) in Eastward Ho, but the other two plays
argue that we only have the outsides because even the most honest woman can be
ruined by some idiot who wants to speak against her.
Bellamont, the poet, is the tool where all the identities are made public. He
reveals Doll to the men, plays the prank on Greenshield, gets Featherstone and Doll
together, and reunites the Mayberrys. Although his identity is threatened by the lack
of patronage of Mayberry who lets him be taken into the madhouse before he makes it
right again, the poet is shown to be the most in tune with real identities. He is not
fooled by Doll and her manipulation of social identities. Bellamont, who stands in as
a playwright figure, setting the scenes by which the community is reunited for the end,
shows the way identities are made public and, therefore, real. Identity is playacting.
When Doll announces the often-quoted “world’s a stage,” she was reflecting a belief
which the play supports. Identity is about playacting; appearances are the stuff which
holds the world together. The vulnerabilities which this realization leaves us with,
however, are huge. The circulation of women and the inability to prove chastity,
278

which had become the defining feature of a woman’s identity, and by extension the
man’s identity, leaves a gap in the community’s ability to function. Woman is “man’s
stamp,” we are told, and the lesson that is specified is that women “are not current till
we pass from one man to another.” This metonymic link between sexual activity and
economic exchange, or more precisely, the conflation of economic and sexual
circulation, is the very cause of anxiety in the plays. However, while women are in
the image of men, as the metaphor implies, it is also seen that a man’s identity is
stamped by the woman’s infidelity. The passing of the coin between men lessens the
man. His business and identity suffers from this spending.
In Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Jacques famously declares “All the world’s a
stage / And all the men and women merely players” (II.vii.139-166). While he
includes women in his opening lines, the rest of the speech is specifically masculine.
He declares that “one man in his time plays many parts” and his life is divided into
seven acts: infant, school-boy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon, and then finally the
second childhood of old age. Two of these roles are specifically related to women, the
lover who ridiculously is captivated by a woman’s eyebrow, and the Pantaloon, who
although Jacques does not specify, as the comic old man was commonly seen to be a
cuckold. In between these two stages, the soldier cares for reputation and the justice
dispenses his judgments (the two most honorable stages of the man’s life and the least
related to the feminine). If women are also players with social roles, one must wonder
if they play many parts or just a few (perhaps oscillating between chaste woman and
whore). Shakespeare’s version is both masculine and seems to deny the ability of the
279

player to manipulate or change his station. Doll’s version is about seeming honest and
how roles may change with a wink of the eye; it allows for gender and it is more
theatrical than Shakespeare’s version which, while seeing life on a stage, sets up only
seven roles which march in lockstep across a man’s life. In Northward Ho, who
people are is uncertain, changeable, and while Doll seeks to control her roles, the fact
is, in the end, a person’s reputation will depend on the community accepting it,
something that for Doll will not last for long.
In Northward Ho, Mistress Mayberry is “proven” faithful to her husband while
two other women are “proven” otherwise, even when Featherstone speaks up and
defends both Mistress Mayberry and Greenshield’s wife Kate as “honest,” only one is
judged as innocent. The capriciousness of community reputation is of great concern in
the play, whether it leads to humiliation at the rumors of a wife’s fidelity or her past,
or the ability to lock anyone up in a madhouse on the say of some well-dressed
gentlemen. There are no characters whose virtuous behaviors transform the world
around them, like in Eastward Ho, but rather a group of men who seek to prove the
unprovable—their identity and their women’s sexual status.

London Ho! The City as Character
In all three plays, the city of London and its outskirts play a large role. The
titles refer to the movement across the city to a suburb where new identities are
established and old identities reconfirmed. The characters can then return to the center
of the city. Historians have long pointed out the growth of the city of London, its
280

bustling markets, its influx of new trade items, its flood of new residents who were
unfamiliar with the city, and the difficulties these things caused.
343
There have been
various arguments over how much control the governing bodies had over the City,
suburbs, and liberties. While it was common at the time to discuss the suburbs and
liberties as places of uncontrol (and certainly it seems that businesses were run with
less guild control outside the City than within
344
), the City itself also had issues with
lawlessness, unregulated businesses, and other forms of disorder. The city comedies
often reflect a sense that the city itself is a bustling market filled with con artists and
prostitutes, with few characters seen as virtuous or honest (in either a sexual or truthful
sense). I argue that in these three plays, the City is not only an important character, it
is also a reflection of character, or values, for the figures in the play. The City of

343
For more on London and its growth, see Jean-Christophe Agnew, "Coming up for Air: Consumer
Culture in Historical Perspective," in Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. John Brewer and Roy Porter
(London ; New York: Routledge, 1994), Joyce Appleby, "Consumption in Early Modern Thought," in
Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. John Brewer and Roy Porter (London ; New York: Routledge, 1994),
Jeremy Boulton, Neighbourhood and Society: A London Suburb in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005), Peter Burke, "Res Et Verba: Conspicuous Consumption in the Early Modern
World," in Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. John Brewer and Roy Porter (London ; New York:
Routledge, 1994), Peter Clark, Crisis and Order in English Towns, 1500-1700 (New York: Routledge, 1998), Jan
de Vries, "Between Purchasing Power and the World of Goods: Understanding the Household Economy in Early
Modern Europe," in Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. John Brewer and Roy Porter (London ; New York:
Routledge, 1994), Christopher R. Friedrichs, The Early Modern City, 1450-1750 (London and New York:
Longman, 1999), Vanessa Harding, "London, Change and Exchange," in The Culture of Capital: Property, Cities,
and Knowledge in Early Modern England, ed. Henry S. Turner (New York and London: Routledge, 2002),
Howard, Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy, 1598-1642, Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic Economies:
Gender and Property in Early Modern England, Joan Thirsk, The Development of a Consumer Society in Early
Modern England, Economic Policy and Projects (London: Clarendon Press, 1978), John Twyning, London
Dispossessed: Literature and Social Space in the Early Modern City (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998), Keith
Wrightson, Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 2000).

344
Good work has been done to argue that the lack of regulation and control in the suburbs has probably
been overstated. It is clear that the guilds did regulate and seek to gain control over many business practices
outside of the city limits. For more on this, see Clark, Crisis and Order in English Towns, 1500-1700. Lawrence
Manley, Literature and Culture in Early Modern London (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, New Ed
edition, 2005). Also the city contained areas of liberty, so the distinction between licentious suburb and chaste city
was probably not strictly accurate.
281

London was often described as a woman, either chaste or whorish;
345
in these three
plays both women and the city function as a playground across which identities are
sorted out and reestablished to form a new community which then returns to the center
of the city. When one looks at maps of early modern London one is struck by how
crowded the center of the city is. Interestingly, the maps do show people, but only at
the edges of town or the waterways. This is partly, of course, an incidence of
practicality—the mapmaker could not draw the detailed buildings and also fit in
people. However, this means that the most crowded areas of the city are represented
as strangely empty while the fields and waterways at the edges are bustling with
activity. This is similar to these three plays, where the characters must leave the
crowded center of the city in order to become formed as individuals. Like the figures
on the map, they too become distinct at the edges of the city and like the figures they
also interact with each other there (see Figure 1 and Figure 2 in Chapter 4).
346

The city comedies point to how important credit is to people’s ability to live
and do business in the city. One of the difficulties lies in how few people might know
one another, since the influx of residents was so great. Even the city itself was
unknown to the new residents, leading to the demand for books like John Stow’s

345
For more on this imagery, see Manley, Literature and Culture in Early Modern London, Lawrence
Manley, "Proverbs, Epigrams, and Urbanity in Renaissance London," English Literary Renaissance 15, no. 3
(1985).

346
The A to Z of Elizabethan London, (London: London Topographical Society, No. 122, 1979). The
Braun and Hogenburg map shows a grouping of four people in the foreground in front of London. There are two
men and two women and the couple in the center are reaching to hold hands. The Agas and Copperplate maps have
many small figures in the city, but, as I indicated, the mapmakers could only fit them in emptier areas, generally on
the outskirts of the city.

282

guide.
347
Stow recognized the need to explain the city, describing its different areas
and their history.
348
The popularity of this book shows the need of the residents to
understand the area where they were living.
349
Stow’s book, like the city comedies,
makes many references to specific areas within London and show a common view of
different sections, where certain streets or markets are given reputations from their
past. These meanings are applied to the spaces, building a spatial morality for the
readers of the books and the audience of the theatre, meanings which would interact
with their lived experiences with these places. As Andrew McRae summarizes:
As postmodern geographers and social theorists have demonstrated,
space demands analysis not merely as a neutral container but as itself a
product. Moreover, the production of space implies not only the drive
of economic power across the land, but an interrelated cultural
fashioning of meaning and consciousness. At a time of unsettling
change in London, characterized by rapid population growth, the
movement of commercial and industrial practices towards capitalist
structures, and devastating outbreaks of dearth and plague, cultural
products played a crucial role in shaping the spatiality of urban life.
350

The plays show how the lived interactions within the city built meanings onto
spaces.
351
The marketplaces, for instance, become scenes of retail, but also where
women sell themselves to the customers behind their husbands’ backs. Northward Ho

347
John Stow, A Survey of London Written in the Year 1598 (London: Sutton, 1999).

348
For more on Stow, see Lawrence Manley, "John Stow's Survey of London: Of Sites and Rites," in The
Theatrical City: Culture, Theatre, and Politics in London, 1576-1649, ed. David L. Smith, Richard Strier, and
David Bevington (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), Manley, Literature and Culture in Early
Modern London. Ian Archer, "John Stow's Survey of London: The Nostalgia of John Stow," in The Theatrical City:
Culture, Theatre, and Politics in London, 1576-1649, ed. David L. Smith, Richard Strier, and David Bevington
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), Susan Wells, "Jacobean City Comedy and the Ideology of the
City," ELH 48, no. 1 (1981).

349
Howard, Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy, 1598-1642. 5.

350
Andrew McRae, "'On the Famous Voyage’: Ben Jonson and Civic Space," Early Modern Literary
Studies Special Issue 3, no. 8 (1998).

351
Also, see Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London for
discussions of women’s use of spaces, including the liminal space of doorways in early modern London.
283

has Bellamont and Mayberry enter by discussing a market where women are cheating
on their husbands, a sign of the jealousy soon to come. Interestingly, when a
marketplace was represented visually, as in Eastcheap market from Hugh Alley’s
Caveat (1598), it is represented less by the shops and more by two things walking
through it: a group of animals for sale and two women (see Figure 3). The women are
wearing aprons and one carries a basket (commonly used for either shopping and
street selling). It is true that both women and animals could be found in a marketplace
such as Eastcheap, and, as Howard and Rackin indicate, the picture is proof that
women moved freely in public places;
352
however, one can also argue that the animals
and the women are shorthand for the market, a way to represent it quickly, because
both can be found for sale there.
As Jean Howard indicates in The Theater of a City, “The city . . . made illicit
opportunities multivalent. Moreover, the standard practice of having shops in the
front rooms of the same houses where the shopkeepers lived further confused and
imbricated the realms of commerce and of domestic life.”
353
It became more difficult
to read the city as it became more crowded and had so many new residents, but as the
plays and works like Stow’s guide came along, the texts defined the city just as the
city defined the texts. In the plays, like in the city, prostitution “follows men and

352
Jean Howard and Phyllis Rackin, Engendering a Nation: A Feminist Account of Shakespeare's
English Histories (London and New York: Routledge, 1997) 34. My thanks to Professor Bruce Smith for pointing
out this interesting image of an early modern marketplace.

353
Howard, Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy, 1598-1642 135.
284

Figure 3: Eastcheap Market from Hugh Alley’s Caveat (1598)

285

markets.”
354
Prostitution not only followed the markets, but, as I have shown, it stood
in for merchants, and for commodities, and for international trade or the cosmopolitan
nature of London. Prostitutes thrived and became seen to be like actors and
merchants. In the comedies they often marry gallants and become indistinguishable
from other women. The prostitutes, like the city, are illegible—we cannot read them
without help. In Bartholomew Fair and other plays, any woman can seem a prostitute
given the right location or clothing; we cannot tell who anyone is.
Both the city and social roles are formed through the performances. The
spatial morality of some areas became so well-known that a “chaste maid in
Cheapside” would seem a good joke, for it was viewed as implausible based on the
area’s reputation. Slander against women could use shorthand by referring to areas of
London; Laura Gowing points out that many women were accused of being whores
partly based on the areas where they lived or that they were the worst of a particular
street (known for women of ill-repute).
355
“The City at once interprets and constitutes
the comedy as the comedy represents and fashions the City.”
356

Space, in these discussions, is revealed as a site “through which social relations
are made manifest.”
357
As Henri Lefebrve’s works suggest, “we inscribe sites with

354
Ibid., 124.

355
Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London, Gowing, "Women,
Status and the Popular Culture of Dishonour."

356
Theodore B. Leinwand, The City Staged: Jacobean Comedy, 1603-1613 (Madison, WI: The
University of Wisconsin Press, 1986) 5.

357
Nancy Stieber, "Microhistory of the Modern City: Urban Space, Its Use and Representation," The
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 58, no. 3 (1999/2000): 388.
286

meaning.”
358
Lefebvre’s work theorizes “the social construction of space through
three main categories of analysis: spatial practice, representations of space by planners
and urbanists, and the representational space ‘as directly lived through its associated
images and symbols’. . . . manifestation in material form of social practices.”
359
The
city comedies show how both women and space are playgrounds of contested identity,
so it is no wonder that the city was gendered as feminine.
360
“Place, then, functions in
these dramas as the material arena within which urban social relations were regulated
and urban problems negotiated.”
361
The city and women are both unknowables who
must be controlled; “the ‘social map’ of patriarchy was translated into ‘ground rules’
of spatial behavior: in it, . . . ‘behaviour and space are mutually dependent.’”
362

As seen in the city comedies discussed in this chapter and the previous one,
shops are vulnerable sites because sex and retail are so closely connected. In
Bartholomew Fair, the mere appearance of a woman in the marketplace indicates her
availability for seduction. Bellamont in Northward Ho pictures the most common
stereotype:
here should you meet a Nor-folk yeoman ful-but; with his head able to
over-turne you; and his pretty wife that followed him, ready to excuse

358
Ibid.

359
Ibid.

360
Manley, Literature and Culture in Early Modern London.

361
Howard, Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy, 1598-1642. 3.

362
Gillian Rose, Feminism and Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1993) 17. Rose’s book is quite interesting. “Feminist time-geographers” are interested
in the public/private dichotomy for it looks at “constraints, to the larger structures of society [and] . . . women’s
everyday experience of spatial mobility” (p. 18). While it is interesting to look at the geography of the city and its
use over time (spatial practices), Rose’s interest in private/public as a basis for talking about women is ultimately
difficult for the early modern period where that dichotomy was still forming. Still, women’s place in the geography
of the city is an important field of study which is turning up fruitful paths of analysis.
287

the ignorant hardesse of her husbands forhead, in the goosemarkt
number of freshmen; stuck here and there, with graduate: live cloves
with great heads in gammon of bacon: here two gentlemen making a
marriage between their heires over a wool-pack; there a Ministers wife
that could speak false lattine very lispingly; here two in one corner of a
shop; Londoners selling their wares, and other Gentlemen courting
their wives; where they take up petticoates you should finde schollers
and townsmens wives croudling togither while their husbands were in
another market busie amongst the Oxen; twas like a cape for in other
Countries so many Punks do not follow an army. (I.i.42-56)

In this claustrophobic world of corners, women hold affairs just behind their
husbands’ backs and you can find other men hiding just under their skirts. Every
financial transaction is linked to a sexual one so that the two cannot be separated. A
woman does not actually have to have sex, just have money change hands, for her
reputation to be damaged. Being open to selling is enough to hurt one’s reputation.
The very location of the marketplace carried such moral connotations that a
virtuous woman like the daughter in Wise Woman of Hogsden, discussed in a previous
chapter, resents retail for the danger it puts to her reputation. As previously discussed,
Korda indicates how the “honest wife” is tied to spending.
363
Consumption of goods
is tied to the same list of leaking, talking, drinking, peeing and walking which Paster
so succinctly linked in her discussions of the dangers of female independence, or as
Korda states it:
The intemperate housewife’s ‘consumption’ is here implicitly linked,
through the figure of the enlarged circle, at once to the shrew’s big
mouth, to the wantonness or ‘want’ of female sexuality (‘circle’ being a
cant term for the female genitals), and to the threat of an unbridled,
unproductive expenditure that is cast at once in sexual and economic
terms.
364

363
Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England 30-31.

364
Ibid., 34.
288

Hence, the “integrity of the home” is threatened by female spending, consumption,
and sexuality.
365
Doll and other women who spend, seek luxury goods, or actively
attempt to manipulate their social status/reputation are most likely either already
prostitutes or become ones (like the wives in Bartholomew Fair). The more they seek
to manipulate status (and this is often connected to material goods), the more they are
seen as open to sex.
Jean Howard points out that in these plays the women frequently do not have
sex with the gallant who pursues her, as in The Roaring Girl, but “part of the titillation
provided by the genre is the ever-present possibility that they might.”
366
I argue that
the sex is not what is important, so much as the relationship which is created by an
exchange of money (her husband’s money to her would-be lover). In the end the
women are judged by their desire (for men, for clothing, for food, etc.—all desire is
consumerism) and for their giving money to their would-be lovers. The exchange still
takes place, by going to him, by giving him money, and only by covering up these
exchanges or through male bonding over the “no harm done” game of cheating can the
women maintain any sense of credit. In the end, the women’s sense of credit is a
small one that the audience knows is partly false (having seen the women plot to cheat
on their husbands and go with the gallants), and some don’t even get their reputation
cleared with their husbands but get labeled as an adulteress when they did no more
than other women who get to go free of that particularly damaging label (as Security’s

365
Ibid., 34-5. Compare the image of the circle here with my previous discussion of rings.

366
Howard, Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy, 1598-1642 129.
289

wife Win has happen in Eastward Ho). I argue that the handing off of money and the
symbols of their desire is shown to the audience, who then have superiority over the
husbands, knowing that these wives are in intent, at least, dishonest and that the
audience’s real titillation is not the possibility of sex but their superiority to the
husband who does not fully know what happened. Jealousy stems from having private
property and the fear of losing what belongs to one; a wife’s sexual fidelity is the one
commodity that women are most entrusted to keep and whose keeping their husbands
have the least control over. The keeping or losing of one’s fidelity is also hard to
prove, either way, opening up an anxiety over a commodity whose very nature is
unknowable.
Men’s identity is not implicated in selling, since it is not connected to sexuality
for them, but for women their credit is tied to their withholding of sexual favors,
something seen as almost impossible for a woman in a retail environment. As Juana
Green argues,
The repetition of the shop scene in city comedies where women
surrounded by goods risk becoming commodities themselves suggests
an actual cultural discomfort with real women working in spaces where
they are somehow ‘loosed’ from the ideological structure the culture
attempts to erect for their ‘safety,’ such as the domestic household
where parents, husbands, or masters and mistresses are supposed to
regulate desire.
367

The city comedies, however, show women who are always in the retail environment
because it is not separate from the household (as it was not for a number of women in
London) since the shop and home were joined for their family. All women, then, are

367
Juana Green, "The Sempster's Wares: Merchandising and Marrying in the Fair Maid of the
Exchange," Renaissance Quarterly 53, no. 4 (2000): 1094-5.
290

at risk, for if their family (father or husband) has a shop, they live and work in this
business, and if their family is not involved with retail, they will still be in the
marketplace constantly (since women were the main buyers for their families).
368
The
city comedies reflect the tensions of women’s status in the marketplace (which cannot
be totally separate from the household).
For Theodore Leinwand, city comedies are all about social roles—something
external to be put on.
369
Social roles took over identity and “replaced the self.”
370

Leinwand believes that the city comedies are all about gallants seeking citizen’s wives
and the citizens seeking revenge on gallants as part of a status-group rivalry. In
speaking about Westward Ho and Northward Ho, he says, “When a gallant captures
(or attempts to capture) a city wife, he adopts the surest method of undermining the
citizen’s social stability, and he strips the citizen of all but his gold.”
371
However, as I
have shown, really the gallant strips the citizen of his gold, through his wife. Sexual
relations are portrayed as economic, with the men of Westward Ho, for instance,
seeking money and goods from the citizen wives they “seduce” without having sexual

368
For more on women and their role as buyers in the marketplace, see Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic
Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England. Agnew, "Coming up for Air: Consumer Culture in
Historical Perspective", Appleby, "Consumption in Early Modern Thought.", Burke, "Res Et Verba: Conspicuous
Consumption in the Early Modern World", de Vries, "Between Purchasing Power and the World of Goods:
Understanding the Household Economy in Early Modern Europe", Grant McCracken, "Culture and Consumption:
A Theoretical Account of the Structure and Movement of the Cultural Meaning of Consumer Goods," The Journal
of Consumer Research 13, no. 1 (1986), and Sara Pennell, "Consumption and Consumerism in Early Modern
England," The Historical Journal 42, no. 2 (1999).

369
Leinwand, The City Staged: Jacobean Comedy, 1603-1613 10.

370
Ibid., 11.

371
Ibid., 51. Leinwand even dismisses from the discussion any city comedy which does not fit his
triangle of gallant, wife, and citizen.
291

relations with them. The market and sex and intertwined. In discussing Northward
Ho, Leinwand indicates:
But as we take delight in the action, we may begin to recognize that
gulling, or intrigue, is but a vain instance of self-assertion and the will
to mastery. Gulling and the guller are exposed as power play and
powermonger. City comedy illustrates both how foolish and how
dangerous gulling (and models of social interaction predicated on
gulling) can be. Such drama might challenge its audience’s
complacency by delineating the power relations that animate society’s
sense of self.
372

As I have argued, Northward Ho is definitely concerned with how easy gulling can be,
and how dangerous, as when Bellafront can be thrown in the madhouse so easily, for
instance, but in general, we are made to feel this is the way men interact and that it is a
triumph when Mayberry and Bellafront make sure the other men get their
comeuppance. These men, the gallants, deserve it and even see themselves as
deserving it, gracefully accepting their new roles (as husbands to whores, for
instance). They are righting the social wrong which was done to Mayberry and his
wife at the start. We are to see the world as power struggles and external roles which
must be validated and verified through showing mastery over others. There is a web
of external credit which must be seen to be believed. That is the lesson of Westward
Ho and Northward Ho. While Northward Ho sees this as a bit troubling, both plays
see the world that way. Eastward Ho tries to say that there are good people who can
operate differently, seeming to deny that there is a break between the external and the
internal (and arguing that the interior goodness can transform others). Eastward Ho
posits that people are exactly what they seem (good interiors showing a good exterior

372
Ibid., 53.
292

and they shall thrive and bring those around them to better behavior through their
example). The other plays seem to see only an exterior which matters, and that roles
are a game which may fool us, to our detriment.
Maus argues that there are “epistemological anxieties” which occurred in early
modern society due to a “difference between an unexpressed interior and a
theatricalized exterior.”
373
However, in these plays there is no sense of an interior
which is valued and separate from the exterior. Rather it is, I argue, about whether we
are merely social roles which we portray or whether there is a moral interior which
causes those exterior roles and will influence others. If we are only as we appear and
are judged, the authors of Westward Ho and Northward Ho do not seem concerned
about an interior which is not expressed. And the authors of Eastward Ho do not
seem to believe that the exterior does not matter, rather it seems to be a contest on
whether there is a sincerity which transforms others or we are a vulnerable network of
social relations to be manipulated. While Jonson’s elegy does imply that there is an
interior worth which the obsession with clothing is ignoring, it is still about manners
and mind rather than some sense of subjectivity. He also denies an interiority of
authorship whose poem reflects an interior. The inward still seems to be outwardly
formed. Unlike Maus, I do not believe that these plays reflect a sense of internal
versus external. There is no concern in Northward Ho, for instance, that the con

373
Maus, Inwardness and Theater in the English Renaissance 2.

293

games which occur are an alienation “of surface from depth, of appearance from truth”
or that there is a hidden interior which is privileged above the false exterior.
374

Instead of fearing or hating hypocrites, flatterers and others whose exterior is
different than the interior, which Maus suggested shows a sense of exterior versus
interior,
375
Westward Ho and Northward Ho suggest the world is an elaborate con
game where you must carefully manage your reputation to survive. In Eastward Ho,
there is no gap between who you are and who you say you are. Every character
announces to the audience, and frequently the other characters, his motivation and
feelings and they are absolutely true. Even the miraculous conversion is supposedly to
be taken at face value. Unlike in Westward Ho and Northward Ho where characters
often act opposite to how they actually feel in order to win over someone else,
Eastward Ho has honest characters, if not particularly good ones at all times. Unless
the audience brings their own skepticism to play, perhaps brought on by the theatrical
terms at the end of the conversion or the over the top characterizations bringing on
feelings of theatricality, each character can be taken at his/her word. The interior and
exterior are one and the same in that play. While these plays may participate in an
examination of the exterior and interior, they do not seem to participate in the urgent
concern about these issues which Maus investigates. This is not to imply that her
argument is brought into question, as it is both an interesting and fruitful investigation,
but that despite a subject matter of interior/exterior debate going on, it does not seem
to be concerned with the same issues she explores.

374
Ibid., 4.

375
Ibid., 6.
294

In Westward Ho and Northward Ho there is merely an exterior which one
manipulates to stay ahead of others in society. In Eastward Ho the exterior is the
mirror of an interior and, if the interior is good, it will transform others. The clothes
still make the man. It is just that Eastward Ho claims a sense of optimism and hope
(comparing itself to Westward Ho by pointing out that the sun rises in the East, and,
therefore, that their play is more hopeful) about the exterior role. What is interesting
is that women suffer from the social roles because the exterior on which they are
judged is not something than can be seen—sexual chastity/fidelity.
In Jonson’s elegy the women disappear, becoming hollow clothes, as open to a
man’s thrusting as a ring is to someone’s finger. They have no identity; they are
tradeable goods to be shared amongst the poets and the husbands and fathers. These
husbands and fathers, who are seen as merchant class (Jonson specifies that a city cap
is all the rage amongst the poets dwelling on clothing), jealously guard their women,
who are symbolized by their clothing, so much so that Jonson wonders why their
“case” (their outside enclosure, read this as body or clothing) becomes the focus, not
their minds or wit (lines 87-89).

This dwelling on the body and on clothing points out
the hollowness of identity, found only by what it represents. Sumptuary law was a
concern of the time because the type of clothing one wears indicates class status.
However, it was broken by everyone, especially women and theatre people, and
anxiety about both fills the literature of the time. Even in Westward Ho, women are
said to be plays—to be sold when new and fresh.

Mistress Doll proclaims that all the
295

world is a stage “from which strange shapes we borrow: / To day we are honest, and
ranke knaves to morrow.”

If Eastward Ho sees that the wicked city can be redeemed through thrift,
modesty, and hard work, the two plays of Dekker and Webster do not seem to agree.
In both of these plays, it is unclear how just or effective any punishments were.
Birdlime may be verbally chastised at the end of Westward Ho and excluded from
returning to London in the same boat as the other characters, but they cannot keep her
out of the City. She belongs there as much as the others. In Northward Ho, it may be
punishment to Featherstone to marry Mistress Doll, but finally, this seems a reward to
her for all of her con work and he accepts it easily. The ballad, “A Caveat or Warning.
For all sortes of Men both young and olde, to avoid the Company of lewd and wicked
Woemen” (c.1620), agrees with the comedies that one of the main threats of
prostitutes is that they drain one’s money and reputation (both types of credit):
If you will follow whores,
they will devore you all:
your quoine, your states, your health, your friends,
Then turne you out of doore:
I Young men all by this my fall,
take heed trust not a whore.
376

One should not trust whores. However, what can be done in a city where every
merchant’s wife or young gentlewoman can be a whore? Whether it is the
impossibility of knowing the faithfulness of a wife or the past history of the
nobleman’s lady, the reputation of all people is built on a negative assertion which can

376
"A Caveat or Vvarning/ for All Sortes of Men Both Young and Olde, to Auoid the / Company of
Lewd and Wicked Woemen," in English Broadside Ballad Archive (University of California-Santa Barbara, c.
1620).
296

not be proved. The man’s reputation and trade rests on the word that the woman’s
main commodity has not been traded. It is a dangerous world where one cannot be
certain of anyone’s identity, for one’s “credit” is just as impossible to prove and trust
as a woman’s chastity.
In the previous chapters, I have already explored images of women in
circulation and issues of credit and reputation. Like a number of critics before me, I
have explored the ways in which the language of economics and sexuality are
combined, particularly arguing that the retail environment has close ties to a peculiar
theatricality which illuminates a sexual threat. The city comedies, as modern critics
call these urban plays of cuckoldry and economics, are filled with jealous husbands in
their shops, adulterous women, and the gallants who flirt with them and get their
money. The characters move across a mercantile city to an suburb (both because of its
connection to adultery and because no one knows the characters there), where new
identities are established before a return to the city. In the end these three plays
question one’s ability to know anyone’s identity and equate roles with the
unprovability of fidelity (even as the main characters attempt to prove it). Once again,
the female characters bear the burden of elucidating a tension in society over identity.
297

Conclusion
“Neither fish nor fowl”: Working Women and the Ties that Bind
This project has analyzed women and finance, issues that are condensed in a
1625 ballad called “The Cuckowes Comendation: / Or, the Cuckolds Credit: Being a
merry Maying Song in Praise of the Cuckow.”
377
This rather long ballad (in two
parts) tells of the singer’s appreciation for the beauty of the cuckoo’s song, telling of
its springtime arrival and how it heralds changes in nature and humankind, as both put
on their fine apparel to celebrate spring. However, the cuckoo is also known for
telling about cuckolds, so the song soon takes on a list of various men, by occupations,
and their feelings about the cuckoo and their wives’ infidelity (which is seen as
inevitable). Much is made in the ballad that this is a state shared by all men,
regardless of class, making the cuckold’s horns an equalizer, “though high or low they
be.”
The main reason for women’s infidelity is apparently money, for the proverb
given at the start of the list of cuckolds is for men to think on “what gold and
opportunity, / will make some women doe.” Examples of cuckolds reacting to the
bird’s song include: a lawyer, a merchant and mariner, a doctor, captains and “wedded
martialists,” citizens, knights and gentlemen, a tailor, a butcher, and a smith. Maidens
also react to the bird accusing “him for a blab.” The women are depicted as having
affairs because their husbands are away from home (giving them opportunity to seduce

377
"The Cuckowes Comendation: / or, the Cuckolds Credit: Being a Merry Maying Song in Praise of the
Cuckow," in English Broadside Ballad Archive (University of California-Santa Barbara, c. 1625). It is notable for
having the tune sung on the ballad archive site, allowing one to enjoy it much as its original listeners must have.
298

customers or servants); for example, the lawyer is in Westminster and a student comes
to his home “to have the free soliciting” of the wife. The merchant and mariner are
away on business “while they strange traffickes take in hand / to load their Ships with
wares” and their wives (referred to as a “pinnace”) are left at home and “some other
Burthen beares.”
378
The Citizens’ wives are attracted to apprentices and even when
the citizen keeps his house and “casteth up his Booke” to keep an eye on the
situation, they still “are doing what, goe looke.” The knights and gentlemen in letting
their wives have coaches “to whirle the streets about” with a coachman, usher, and a
page are letting their wives have affairs with these servants. The butcher, meanwhile,
seeks out animals to sell and his wife manages the shop to sell the meat to customers,
but while he is away
his Wife a friend may finde,
That of a Lambe may make a Ram
and use her very kinde.

In each case, the woman’s infidelity is figured in relation to the man’s occupation,
either through giving her opportunity or as a metaphor, as when the merchant’s wife is
imagined as a boat carrying her lover as the cargo.
While the cuckoo’s song levels the playing field among the men, the women
are separated from them. In each case, the woman is imagined with a lower class
lover (servants, students, customers) and as tricking the husband. The relationships
are economic in tone either because they are connected to the man’s work status or as

378
Since a pinnace is a boat which allows communication between ship and shore, its function is as a go-
between, making it an appropriate image for the wife who goes between men while her husband is managing his
shipping business.
299

part of an economic relationship (apprenticeships, customers, and servants) or as part
of the man’s display of status (as with the gentlemen’s coach which is to show his
wealth but gives the women the opportunity, “for wine and opportunity, / will make
some women loose”).
The same issues with women’s sexuality and male identity are found in the
theater of the time, as has been explored in this project. Theater and the marketplace,
as Jean-Christophe Agnew has so successfully argued and as this dissertation has
explored, are entwined.
379
According to Agnew, in World’s Apart: The Market and
the Theater in Anglo-American Thought, 1550-1750, the theater
furnished its urban audience with a laboratory and an idiom within
which these difficulties and contradictions [of the marketplace] could
be acted out; how in the course of these enactments, the deepened
resonance between commerciality and theatricality transformed the
ancient Stoic and Christian metaphor of the theatrum mundi from a
simple, otherworldly statement on human vanity into a complex,
secular commentary on the commodity world.
380

As I have already indicated in the last chapter, the theatrum mundi theme in
Shakespeare’s As You Like It is a particularly masculine model, as were the market
and the theater themselves. Structurally both were dominated by men, even while
women participated heavily in both. Doll of Northward Ho has a more feminine
model of the theatricality of the world, one that allows for women to change status
(“To day we are honest, and ranke knaves to morrow”); however, women’s roles are
ultimately limited in this theatrical world of the market when their credit is linked to

379
Jean-Christophe Agnew, World's Apart: The Market and the Theater in Anglo-American Thought,
1550-1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) xi.

380
Ibid., 12.
300

their sexual status. In the end Doll will be a flawed commodity, a common boat and a
bent bow, a joke to put a man in his place within a community.
While Agnew’s argument mostly considers male identity and men’s place in
the market, he does indicate that for women there were special considerations:
It was not just that the market was seen to draw women out of the
household and into the public sphere of petty commodity exchange.
Women had for centuries engaged in household marketing. It was
rather that this traffic of women now seemed to intersect with the traffic
in women. With the simultaneous growth in prostitution and in the
marriage markets of the seventeenth century, Elizabethans began to
look to the theater to represent a society thus opened to considerations
of price.
381

It is this traffic both in and of women that this project explores. If the plays explored
in this project frequently indicate that men and women are playing social roles in their
lives, women are frequently portrayed as being more able than men to manipulate their
status and clothing to influence others. So it is with Doll in Northward Ho or Birdlime
and Luce of Westward Ho, all of whom can fool others easily. Similarly, it is Simon
Eyre’s wife who knows her husband’s clothing can affect his ability to close a deal
above his station (as shown in both Deloney’s version and the well-known
Shoemaker’s Holiday).
It was commonplace, as we have seen, to show women as both more desirous
of riches and clothing, and more anxious to climb the social ladder; the city comedies
of early modern London are not the only texts to indicate a concern over women’s
desires for status and commodities, particularly with their control over household
finances and their role in the marketplace as major buyers. In fact, it is the

381
Ibid., 129.
301

acquisitiveness of prostitutes, such as Doll and Luce, which are more prominent than
any sexual desires or activities. We do not see them selling sex to their clients, but we
do see them manipulating men into giving them luxury goods and other items beyond
their financial means. Similarly, the married women of the plays are seduced by men
who give them clothing or offer them coaches and food, and any woman who passes
her husband’s money or goods to the hands of another man is judged as guilty of
adultery regardless of any sexual activity. The desire for goods and a control over
them is so strongly connected to sex that it stands in for the activity.
This link between sex and finance hinges on notions of credit. Indeed, credit,
“the social production of a marketable self—the habitus of the merchant—that uses
rhetorical techniques,”
382
was incredibly important to early modern society. For
women, this credit was almost entirely sexually-based. Even the Queen had to
establish herself as a virgin in order to do business. As Ceri Sullivan writes, “In short
this was a high-risk, low-information market structure, where trust and reputation were
put before economic individualism; there was an ethical market that used credit as one
of its regulatory procedures.”
383
Sullivan argues that the rhetoric found in merchant
manuals, often containing advice on credit and double entry accounting systems,
proves that for the sixteenth century the accounts are “there to secure a professional
persona, not control institutional credit, since not the system but the image of a person

382
Ceri Sullivan, The Rhetoric of Credit: Merchants in Early Modern Writing (London: Associated
University Presses, 2002) 11.

383
Ibid., 19.

302

is the locus of credit, and such ‘persons’ depend on professional fictions of closure.”
384

We might extend Sullivan’s link between credit and reputation into a reading of the
cuckoldry plot in relation to double entry bookkeeping. In the double entry accounting
system, a woman who gives sex out of marriage is reducing her value in the marriage.
In fact, female sexuality is a spending which hurts the household’s reputation in a way
that can not be easily recovered. The control and tracking of female sexuality and the
concern over female desire (both in terms of commodities and sexuality, the two being
never being far separated) then becomes the ultimate accounting.
Perhaps, as Sullivan has argued, “unease about the appropriation of signifiers
of wealth by merchants has been exaggerated by critics.”
385
However, the unease over
women’s value seems similar, with both money and women being commodities which
are both real, concrete, and yet difficult to verify and keep. While money at the time
was truly based on the metal it was made from (unlike our money today which has
been assigned a value which has little correlation to its actual metallic worth), coins
were notoriously tricky, with rampant cheating in coin value (scrapping off the metal
on the edges, for instance, to reduce its real value). The early modern market was
beginning to see coins based on a value that was “ascribed, not inherent.”
386
Also, the
“coin acts to establish and store social distinctions over time . . . Its ownership confers
honor beyond its purchasing power.”
387
Credit accrued to those with coins, but since

384
Ibid., 34.

385
Sullivan, The Rhetoric of Credit: Merchants in Early Modern Writing 134.

386
Ibid., 71.

387
Ibid., 72.
303

coins’ value could be changed with their condition, merchants kept careful records of
their coins, describing them in detail. “In credit, the personality was given an objective
value; here, an object takes on a personality.”
388

In the same way, women’s value as a commodity was determined by condition.
It was not uncommon to compare women to coins, and the ownership of an “light
angel” (as in the Dekker and Middleton’s Honest Whore, Part 1, Act II, scene i) would
naturally decrease one’s reputation. In fact, as shown in Bartholomew Fair, while the
men partly enhance their status by showing off their wives, this trading on their wives’
appearance also leaves the women vulnerable, as Win becomes when left at the Fair.
“Reputation can only be valued by exposing itself to such circulation, making itself
vulnerable at the same time as it acquires its acceptability.”
389

The angel coin (showing St. Michael slaying a dragon on one side and a ship
on the other side) was a solid gold coin which came to represent England as its most
familiar coin. The coin was almost as popular with counterfeiters (because of its
availability and its twenty-three carat nature) as with writers (for its name allowed for
many puns about women, even though the angel on the coin is male and represents
English shipping interests as much as the ship on the other side, for the archangel
Michael was frequently connected to St. George, the patron saint of England, and was
the guardian of Land’s End).
390
The angel was both a national symbol as well as one
significant for its religious purposes and its connection to royal identity—it was the

388
Ibid., 84.

389
Ibid., 134.

390
Donald C. Baker, "The 'Angel' of English Renaissance Literature," Studies in the Renaissance 6
(1959): 87.
304

coin most commonly given for the King’s touch for curing scrofula, seen as so
important to the King’s stability that Henry VII rushed the making of these coins to
the extent that he overstruck his symbol onto Richard III’s coins until new ones could
be made, rather than risk questions about his legitimacy that might arise from not
having his version of the coin in circulation.
391
In the time of Charles I, royal
supporters wore pierced angels as a common sign of their support, making 9 out of 10
surviving angels of that period today of the pierced and heavily damaged variety from
their use.
392

So, like the rings which were discussed in chapter three, women are connected
to a commodity which is valuable and heavily related to male identity, but whose
circulation calls into question their condition and, therefore, credit. In the introduction
to this project, I examined a ballad where a group of women met at a tavern to drink
sherry and disparage ale (the national drink of England). As with the angel, national
identity is at risk with women’s sexuality. Fashion at the time is frequently connected
to the interest in foreign clothing, food, and other commodities, with women’s taste in
“Dutch sloops” and other goods (as in The Roaring Girl) masking a dangerous desire.
Early modern society truly did believe that clothing made the man (or woman), as
Stallybrass and Jones so persuasively argued.
393
The failing English cloth market and

391
Ibid.

392
Ibid., 89. Ironically, Baker, in discussing the angel and its history, has passing mention to women and
allusions to the coin, yet in expressing his interest in its history and how footnotes to texts pay short shrift to its
symbolic importance, he says he hopes “that the textual annotator might spare a line or two to illuminate the angel
with the same eagerness and scholarship with which he expounds in a footnote the mysteries of the cuckold’s
horns” (p. 93). I, of course, argue that the significance of both the coin and the horns are frequently connected.

393
Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
305

the fashion for foreign goods among the major clients of the marketplace, women of
the middling sort, naturally increased an anxiety over identity, nationality, and
women’s desire.
Women are a symbol of a market where value is difficult to determine and
credit is reputation. Women in the market are either left vulnerable (as in the Fair
Maid of the Exchange or Bartholomew Fair) or are in danger of ganging up on men
and forming communities of gossips who defy men (as in Deloney’s works, Chaste
Maid of Cheapside, Westward Ho, the 1632 ballad in praise of Sherry and others).
Women’s role is acting in such a way as to not bring comment, and as Gowing
indicated, to take vigorous legal action against slander which might hurt their
reputations.
394
They must not only be pure, but seem pure, as in Northward Ho where
finding out his wife is faithful is not enough for Mayberry, who must prove her
faithfulness to everyone. Mistress Page of Merry Wives must worry that her behavior
was judged by Falstaff as being inviting and question herself.
395
The need for
accounting becomes self censoring.
We might say, then, following Craig Muldrew, credit is a product of a
simultaneously competitive and trusting community, a place at once suspicious of
women and dependent on them:
Contemporary definitions of the morality of the household and its
members, of order and disorder, of needs and luxury, of husbandry and
prodigality, licence and virtue, chastity and wantonness, all were

394
Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London (Oxford:
Oxford UP, 1996), Laura Gowing, "Women, Status and the Popular Culture of Dishonour," Transactions of the
Royal Historical Society 6 (1996).

395
Natasha Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2002).
306

concerned with the cultural formation of the household as an
economically reliable unit, whose motivations were both competitive
and communal at one and the same time.
396

In the communal and competitive market built on relationships, as in Muldrew’s
analysis, the women’s value in the market is something that helps tie people together
and can be torn apart. In the plays, the men frequently bond over their relationships
with women, as does Mayberry with the men who tried to slander his wife (once he
has won his competition with them in Northward Ho) or like the husbands in
Westward Ho and The Roaring Girl bonding with the men who tried to seduce their
wives. It is much like the men in the ballad of the cuckoo that began this conclusion;
no matter their occupational standing or class status, they are all united by their
cuckoldry. Like the networks of credit discussed in The Economy of Obligation, the
plays show men competing (gulling each other) and bonding in networks of trust and
credit, with women the most commonly traded item.
While I agree with Muldrew’s analysis, in seeking to explain the “currency of
reputation” and show how “its aim was outwards into the community, not inwards,”
397

I have also argued that, for women, credit is more inwardly driven, in that it is
connected with sexual chastity, something personal, intimate, and almost impossible to
prove. It is a negative assertion (“I do not have sex” or “I do not have sex outside of
my marriage”) which is much more inwardly based on belief. A man must believe it
to be true and the various plays’ attempts to “prove” a woman’s sexual fidelity are

396
Craig Muldrew, The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early
Modern England (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998) 150.

397
Ibid., 2.
307

often more about making the community believe it to be true than finding out any
actual truth about the woman, her motives or actions. As Muldrew indicates:
credit became a type of currency where a ‘propriety’ or property of the
self in terms of virtuous attributes, was circulated by word of mouth
through the community. . . . What mattered was not an internalized or
autonomous self, but the public perception of the self in relation to a
communicated set of both personal and household virtues.
398

The economy, then, comes to rely on the management of sexual desire, especially the
regulation of women’s expression of desire. While they are encouraged to desire
commodities as consumers, women are also blamed for any expression of desire as it
is seen to leave women open to other desires which can hurt the reputation of the
family, and hence business interests and male identity.
This vulnerability of women appears in their own position as commodity. As
Valerie Forman argues of The Roaring Girl, “a series of substitutions take place. . . .
[which] transforms one commodity into another, creating a series of interchangeable
equivalences out of not only objects, but desires and social relations themselves.”
399

Women are always part of these chains of commodity substitutions. In John Skelton’s
poem on Elynour with which I began this dissertation, a series of commodities are
traded, with each item becoming something else. In Skelton’s work, each item
becomes ale and is linked to the leaking women whose desire and community
threatens society. Forman argues The Roaring Girl seeks “to compensate for the
absence of legible material guarantees of value, legitimacy, or status” with “enhanced

398
Ibid., 156.

399
Valerie Forman, "Marked Angels: Counterfeits, Commodities, and the Roaring Girl," Renaissance
Quarterly 4, no. 2 (2001): 1533.
308

forms of realism and the fiction of the ‘individual’ in the title character.”
400

Interestingly, women came to act in the public theater at the same time an increase in
realism and theatrical conventions such as proscenium arches came into being.
Perhaps, as I argued earlier, the lack of women actors on stage can partly be traced to
the anxiety of identity and female sexuality which these discussions of commodities
sought to illuminate. The very fact that a prostitute is termed a “common woman”
while an actor is frequently named a “common player” may indicate the parallelisms
between their status.
This concern about the common woman, or the woman as common
commodity, reaches its apex in the cuckold plot. Here, as Douglas Bruster argues in
Drama and Market in the Age of Shakespeare, cuckoldry lies at the center of
economic plots because the careful laborer, the husband, is fooled by the opportunist,
with the two meanings of craft (occupation and guile) indicating the tensions between
the two.
401
He argues that there was a gendering of labor which made the plays show
merchants as effeminate, and that money and sex went hand in hand because
merchants were used to trading their commodities. “Cuckoldry acted as a kind of
metonymic double for the cash marketplace, a symbol that, like money, worked to
eradicate the distance and difference between the sexual and economic terms.”
402
It is
much like guild and work structure. While women were actively involved in many

400
Ibid., 1531.

401
Bruster, Drama and the Market in the Age of Shakespeare 51, Douglas Bruster, "The Horn of Plenty:
Cuckoldry and Capital in the Drama of the Age of Shakespeare," Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 30, no. 2
(1990).

402
Bruster, Drama and the Market in the Age of Shakespeare 59.
309

occupations and even in the guilds, the organizations were male dominated and
women were judged consistently by their sexual desire and needed to be controlled
and managed to protect male identity and wealth. Over this time there was increasing
concern about the morals of women workers and how to “protect” them, which
increasingly means keeping them inside the home (which as the work leaves the home
would have the effect to separate them from business matters).
Women in early modern literature thus serve as a canary in a coal mine, in that
the pressures on society were frequently explored through women’s status. Women
are subject to this scrutiny and metaphorical power of standing in for
marketplace/economic woes, as I have elaborated in this project’s chapters, for several
reasons. First, as I suggest in chapter one there was already a debate about the nature
of women which was rhetorically powerful and commonplace (the querelles des
femme).
403
Secondly, as I reveal in the analysis of the city comedies in chapter four,
women were stereotypically seen as having certain traits (such as avarice and
talkativeness) which were connected with concerns about social standing.
404
Also,
women’s status in the household meant they were both the largest group of consumers
and were frequently also involved with different aspects of many businesses.
405

403
Susan Dwyer Amussen and Adele F. Seeff, Attending to Early Modern Women, Center for
Renaissance and Baroque Studies (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1998), Kate Aughterson, Renaissance
Woman: A Sourcebook: Constructions of Femininity in England (London; New York: Routledge, 1995), Suzanne
Hull, Chaste, Silent and Obedient: English Books for Women, 1475-1640 (San Marino: Huntington Library, 1982),
Linda Woodbridge, Women and the English Renaissance: Literature and the Nature of Womankind, 1540-1620
(Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1984).

404
Amussen and Seeff, Attending to Early Modern Women, Bernard Capp, When Gossips Meet: Women,
Family, and Neighborhood in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), Hull, Chaste, Silent
and Obedient: English Books for Women, 1475-1640.

405
Jean-Christophe Agnew, "Coming up for Air: Consumer Culture in Historical Perspective," in
Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. John Brewer and Roy Porter (London ; New York: Routledge, 1994),
310

However, changes in economic status affected women more since they often were on
fringes of employment for many of the smaller fields.
406
With the lack of guilds for
women, they carried some of the same powerful threat factor as masterless men,
especially since they too might be lacking in a master, depending on their
profession.
407
As work left the household, women were being left out of more work
and changes in technology (beer/ale, doctors/midwives, types of looms, etc.) often
worked to force women to the fringes of a profession as professionalization and
technologization worked to put men at the top of fields that previously had been more
for women.
408
As I posited in chapter four, since the stage (before 1660) had women
played by men (making them already “not women”), they could carry the weight of
metaphor and allegory more easily and stand in for women rather than be expected to

Joyce Appleby, "Consumption in Early Modern Thought," in Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. John
Brewer and Roy Porter (London ; New York: Routledge, 1994), Jan de Vries, "Between Purchasing Power and the
World of Goods: Understanding the Household Economy in Early Modern Europe," in Consumption and the World
of Goods, ed. John Brewer and Roy Porter (London ; New York: Routledge, 1994), Korda, Shakespeare's Domestic
Economies: Gender and Property in Early Modern England, Lorna Weatherill, "A Possession of One's Own:
Women and Consumer Behavior in England, 1660-1740," The Journal of British Studies 25, no. 2 (1986).

406
Judith Bennett, "Women’s History: A Study in Change and Continuity," in Women’s Work: The
English Experience, 1650-1914, ed. Pamela Sharpe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), Harriet Bradley,
Men's Work, Women's Work (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), Susan Cahn, Industry of
Devotion: The Transformation of Women's Work in England, 1500-1660 (New York: Columbia University Press,
1987), Alice Clark, Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century (New York: Augustus M. Kelley,
Bookseller, 1919, 1969), Madeleine Pelner Cosman, Women at Work in Medieval Europe (New York: Facts on
File, 2000), P.J.P Goldberg, Women, Work and Life Cycle in a Medieval Economy: Women in York and Yorkshire,
C. 1300-1520 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), Martha C. Howell, Women, Production, and Patriarchy in Late
Medieval Cities (Chicago and London: The Unversity of Chicago Press, 1986), Maryanne Kowaleski, "Women's
Work in a Market Town: Exeter in the Late Fourteenth Century," in Women and Work in Preindustrial Europe, ed.
Barbara Hannawalt (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), Marjorie Keniston McIntosh, Working Women
in English Society, 1300-1620 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), F.W. Tickner, Women in English
Economic History (Westport, Connecticut: Hyperion Press, 1923, 1981).

407
William Herbert, The History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London, 1834, Vol 1 (New
York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968), William Herbert, The History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London,
1834, Vol 2 (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968).

408
Judith Bennett, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), Monica Green, "Women's Medical Practice and Health Care in Medieval
Europe," in Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages, ed. Judith M. Bennett, et al. (Chicago and London: The
University of Chicago Press, 1989).
311

be actual/realistic women.
409
Also, women were first to “not work” when social status
increased (as there was a change in the nature of what nobility “does”/”is”—moving to
the idea of the idle rich) which meant that having more money meant not working (and
woman would leave paid work first, generally). Additionally, as I stated in chapters
four and five, while there were male prostitutes, prostitution was almost always talked
about in literature as female (and prostitution was a common metaphor for the
marketplace, making women a natural metaphor for the marketplace as well).
410
This
is partly because women were seen as being in circulation (through marriage,
prostitution, and adultery) which made them good metaphors already but the equating
of all three of these was dangerous (especially as all three relationships are seen as
economically based).
While the long history of women’s work has been fruitfully explored since
Alice Clark’s text, Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century, was published
in 1919, it is not well known outside of academic circles. There has long been a
disconnect between what people “know” about women’s history and what has been
done by historians, economists, and literary critics. Women are not viewed as having
an important role in the economy of our past; many people stopped in the street today
would be surprised to hear that women ran businesses prior to the late 1880s. The idea
of women working in businesses (besides “traditional” working roles of laundry,

409
Trish Thomas Henley, "Dealers in Hole-Sale: Representations of Prostitution on the Elizabethan and
Jacobean Stage" (Florida State University, 2007).

410
Ibid., Ruth Mazo Karras, Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1996), Ruth Mazo Karras, "The Regulation of Brothels in Later Medieval England," in
Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages, ed. Judith M. Bennett, et al. (Chicago and London: The University of
Chicago Press, 1989), Ruth Mazo Karras, "Women's Labors: Reproduction and Sex Work in Medieval Europe,"
Journal of Women's History 15, no. 4 (2004).}
312

cooking, and clothing making and repair) in the middle ages or early modern time
periods is almost unknown outside of those who have actually made it their job to
study it. It is possible to receive a college education without the role of working
women in our past being brought to a student’s attention.
411

Virginia Woolf famously wrote that she had to kill the “Angel in the house” in
order to write. This “Angel” was the Victorian ideal of the perfect woman, the
domestic goddess whose purity and selflessness was to Woolf a shadow which came
between her and her ability to write. The “Angel” kept her from expressing herself,
urging her to charm and conciliate and deny that she had a mind of her own. Woolf
kills her but “she died hard. Her fictitious nature was of great assistance to her. It is
far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.”
412
Woolf felt it was the duty of the woman
writer to kill this “Angel” for the angel would “have plucked the heart out of my
writing.”
413

This “Angel” which must be killed came out of the same angel image of early
modern London, the angel coin whose conflation with women symbolized their sexual

411
Although purely anecdotal, my own experience illustrates this. I spent four years of undergraduate
work in the humanities without being introduced to the concept that women worked in any field outside of food,
infant care, household chores, and clothing production prior to Victorian times. Even then, I was led to believe it
was only for the poor who could not afford to avoid working. The concept of women running businesses or
working as silverdrawers, blacksmiths, printers, or other “non-traditional” roles prior to modern times would have
seemed impossible to me based on my education. I have also spent fourteen years teaching undergraduates in both
university and community college settings; my students almost uniformly believe that women began working
outside of the home mostly after Rosie the Riveter. When people ask me about my dissertation and I explain it is
about working women in the time of Shakespeare, the first question that is always asked is, were there very many
women who worked and do I have enough material to warrant a whole book. I am constantly met with
astonishment when I explain that women worked in many fields and even ran businesses in the middle ages and
renaissance. While women’s working history has been explored in academic settings, it has clearly not reached
enough to the general public, something which I believe needs to be addressed.

412
Virginia Woolf, "Professions for Women (1931)," in Killing the Angel in the House: Seven Essays
(London: Penguin, 1995).

413
Ibid.
313

circulation among men. In order to control this sexual circulation and regain control
over their identities and reputations, society sought to control women. The ability of
women to work in retail environments without sexual scandal became increasingly
difficult. As work moved outside of the home but women moved to stay more inside
them, and hence out of circulation, the circulating angel coin became the “Angel in the
house,” the domestic refuge from the marketplace, the pure and faithful wife of the
middle and upper class. This same “Angel” which troubled Virginia Woolf, and
which must be vanquished in order for her to write, came out of the anxiety regarding
the intertwining of sexuality, economics, and identity which I have explored in this
project. She is a fictitious angel, but one that has remained hard to kill, if the lack of
historical knowledge about women’s working roles is any indication.
Today’s women can still see the lingering effects of this “Angel” and of the
troubled relationship between women’s sexuality and commodities (whether it is the
use of sexy women to sell beer or cars or the debate over femininity and its place in
politics today). The fact that while much good work has gone on to recover women’s
working past and to show that the “Angel” of the nonworking woman is a relatively
new phenomenon, more a product of Victorian England and 1950s television than an
accurate reflection of our past, this ideal community of working men and stay-at-home
moms is still the most popular image of our past which is appealed to in modern
politics today. Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own said that women were “the
most discussed animal in the universe” and that if she were to be as long-lived as an
314

elephant and have as many eyes as a spider, she still could not read all of what men
have written about women, and yet find very little truth.
414

Although Alice Clark’s book on working women was available to Woolf, she
apparently did not know of it nor recognize what was the start of a long history of
recovering women’s voices, a movement which would use her lecture about needing a
room of one’s own as a rallying cry to find our mother’s gardens and learn from the
women of our past. This disconnect between women and their knowledge of their
working past has continued to today. Attempting to understand the ideology
surrounding women workers of early modern London, we can move closer to
understanding where we are today and perhaps find knowledge through literature
about the
mental world of a past culture. Literary texts convey, if not actual
events and social relations, at least the concerns and preoccupations of
the time. At the same time they are constitutive of their culture because
they establish the framework within which people think and write and
behave. The language of literary texts can be a ‘social agent’ as well as
a ‘social mirror.’
415

So too, hopefully, can the work of critics and teachers, who can analyze the past, learn
from it, and teach a new generation—becoming an agent for change.

414
Virginia Woolf, "A Room of One's Own (1929)," in A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas, ed.
Morag Shiach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

415
Karras, Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England 89.
315

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Abstract (if available)

Abstract Frequently in early modern London, as Elizabeth Fowler aptly put it, "the sexual is constituted in economic terms, and the economic is construed in sexual terms. " Reproduction, production, and consumption are linked in early modern ideology. This project builds on and extends the many historical studies about working women by turning to fictional representations as another site of evidence. In this project I focus on the male voices of popular literature (including John Skelton, Thomas Deloney, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Webster, and Thomas Dekker), when viewing women in artisan, retail and service situations, the most common forms of women' s urban work, in order to see how women 's identities are based on sexual reputations, which play out in association with issues of credit, the gaze, spectacle, theatricality, and movements across the city.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Keeline, Kimberlee Diane (author)

Core Title Marketing women: representations of working women in early modern London

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program English

Publication Date 07/21/2010

Defense Date 05/02/2008

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag early modern history,Gender Studies,OAI-PMH Harvest,Occupations,renaissance London,women and work

Place Name London (city or populated place)

Language English

Advisor Lemon, Rebecca (committee chair), Kemp, Anthony (committee member), Smith, Bruce R. (committee member), Wills, John E. (committee member)

Creator Email kim@keeline.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m1350

Unique identifier UC1419345

Identifier etd-Keeline-20080721 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-191988 (legacy record id),usctheses-m1350 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Keeline-20080721.pdf

Dmrecord 191988

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Keeline, Kimberlee Diane

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu