Women, Ale and Company in Early Modern London Tim Reinke-Williams

Women, ale and company in early modern London Tim Reinke-Williams

Introduction now widely accepted by social historians that although women were not excluded This article explores attitudes to female from early modern alehouses their visits ale- and beer-drinkers and the nature of were regulated by certain social conven- social interactions between women and tions. Wives visited with husbands whilst men in public houses from the late six- travelling, girls accompanied young men teenth to the early eighteenth century. they were courting if other couples were Beginning with an overview of the current present, and women of all ages attended historiography, the article provides an betrothals, christenings and churchings. indication of the numbers of public hous- Such behaviour was not usually detri- es in the capital, describes some of the mental to women's honour, but those means by which women funded their who ventured into alehouses alone, or in drinking, discusses early modern judge- all-female groups, risked being accused ments of female drinkers in cheap print of drunkenness or whoredom, whilst and legal records, and examines the wives going to retrieve their husbands often sexualised power dynamics risked facing abuse from proprietors, between female and male drinkers, customers, or their husbands. Moralists including discussion of the ambiguities and magistrates believed alehouses surrounding such interactions. Although threatened patriarchal families by sepa- London contained a vast range of drink- rating children from parents, servants ing establishments selling a wide range from masters and husbands from wives. of forms of alcohol, the connotations of In practice alehouses often did function these locations and beverages varied con- as locations for brief sexual encounters: siderably, so attention focuses on women amateur prostitutes plied their trade, drinking ale and beer in those venues many brothels doubled as victualling where such drinks could be purchased. houses, and some maidservants and landladies provided sexual favours for male customers. During the pre-civil war Historiography of gender and the ale- years respectable women may have house been reluctant to visit alehouses, but by the later seventeenth century individual Following the pioneering work of Peter alehouses were increasing in size as well Clark over a quarter of a century ago it is as gaining more respectable landlords

88 Journal of the Brewery History Society and more prosperous clientele. These 'ambiguous territories', recreational changes, facilitated by economic improve- rather than domestic, and often disorder- ment and the decline of Puritanism, ly, places where wives of landlords, meant that whilst alehouses remained female proprietors, tapsters, domestic male-dominated spaces, many became servants and customers were suspected acceptable places for women to visit.1 and accused of sexual promiscuity.4 Keith Wrightson, also writing in the early Shannon McSheffrey has shown that in 1980s, suggested that between 1590 late fifteenth-century London drinking and 1660 rural alehouses were primarily houses were common and acceptable locations of sociability for men from the locations for courtship, announcing lower echelons of society, that middling engagements, and sealing marriage con- sorts and gentlemen customers were tracts, but that it was more problematic becoming rarer, and that servants and for women to enter such establishments young people were often present as ale- without male company.5 Referring to the houses offered opportunities for courtship later sixteenth and early seventeenth and recreation.2 centuries, Laura Gowing defined the alehouse as 'an occupational domestic Feminist scholarship has modified these space especially prone to economic and findings, but nonetheless has empha- social tensions'.6 Most recently Amanda sised that although their function as Flather suggested that many alehouses spaces for the provision of victuals meant were run out of private, profit-making that public houses resembled the domes- spaces that served primarily domestic tic household environment, the women purposes, with customers entertained in who worked in such venues and female parlours, halls and kitchens, and that as a customers who ventured in alone were at result of the ambiguous nature of such best uncomfortable and at worst subject environments women present therein to verbal and physical abuse. In her were often victims of drink-induced analysis of brewing in late medieval and male violence.7 The ambiguities of public early modern England Judith Bennett houses and the potential dangers faced argued that female brewsters became by women present in such establish- marginalised within the trade as it grew ments are illustrated by the case of more complex, industrial and profes- Christopher Bannister, who in 1700 kept sional with the shift from ale to beer a victualling house in East Smithfield. production, and that alewives were cul- Since Christopher was also officer of the turally ambivalent figures, depicted Marshalsea Court and kept a gunlock offering their customers pleasure and maker's shop, he left the daily business refreshment, yet simultaneously subjected of selling ale to his wife Mary and his to derogatory misogynist accusations.3 daughter Anne, who deposed that her Barbara Hanawalt described late father 'never concerns himself with the medieval London public houses as drinking trade in his house and never

Brewery History Number 135 89 draws any drink for any persons'. The simultaneously bolstered and under- role of Mary and Anne in running the mined patriarchy.11 The work of many victualling house was only recorded feminist scholars as well as those work- because of a brawl that occurred on the ing on masculinity and youth culture premises, which were being used by a therefore suggests that although women prostitute and her client.8 were not absent from alehouses, their status was more peripheral than that of Despite the difficulties in deciding how to men, and that most of the women to be characterise the space of public houses found in such venues were employees or there is broad agreement that alehouse accompanied by men. culture was becoming increasingly dominated by young unmarried men during Recently Bernard Capp has modified the late sixteenth and early seventeenth these findings in a number of ways. Capp centuries. Paul Griffiths emphasised how shows that not only did male youths alehouses offered opportunities for male frequent such establishments but that youths to forge alliances, construct iden- public houses offered married men tities and indulge in behaviour that often escape from domestic drudgery, although ran counter to patriarchal values.9 spousal conflicts were liable to ensue if Jessica Warner suggested that the social husbands consumed excessive quanti- and economic upheavals of the sixteenth ties of alcohol (or lavished time and and seventeenth centuries encouraged money on other women in such establish- hostility to excessive alcohol consump- ments, including attractive female staff). tion, particularly by women. Male con- In London women and men visited ale- sumption of alcohol increased, but was houses alone or in single- or mixed-sex undertaken mainly in public houses, groups, and invited each other to such whilst households became imagined as establishments for drink and flirtation havens of sobriety guarded by virtuous since many had private rooms that wives, in contrast to the drunken disorder facilitated such activities, although such of male-dominated alehouses.10 From a invitations could be mere excuses to rob literary perspective Patricia Fumerton an unsuspecting party. Some female has argued that depictions of alehouses customers drank to excess and were dis- in broadside ballads celebrated them as orderly, immoral and dishonest, but other offering a welcoming homely environ- respectable women abided by unwritten ment for male vagrants and a liberating rules and ate, drank, lodged and attend- space which freed poor husbands from ed weddings and dances at alehouses domestic politics, while Alexandra without jeopardising their reputations.12 Shepard, following the work of Griffiths, Building on these findings what follows has interpreted drinking rituals as key to examines in greater depth the nature of the construction of age-related fraternal women's social interactions in those bonds of male comradeship which venues which sold ale and beer. The

90 Journal of the Brewery History Society analysis is indebted to recent work by The interconnections between these Phil Withington, who suggests that sources thus means that to varying greater attention needs to be paid to the degrees they all reflect the experiences 'interpersonal dynamics of drinking' and and perceptions of everyday life in the 'the practices, rituals and attitudes sur- metropolis and therefore constitute valid rounding the consumption and meaning forms of evidence.14 of drink', arguing that early modern understandings of sociability included the notion of being in or keeping 'company', Obtaining ale in early modern London either habitually or irregularly, and assert- ing that 'the dynamics of co-presence' The number of women in alehouses was deserve greater exploration.13 significant. No gender breakdown of attendance exists for the capital, but in These arguments are based on analysis Essex women accounted for 40% of of diverse primary sources. Material up to individuals recorded as being in ale- the 1640s is drawn from ecclesiastical houses between 1580 and 1640, 38.8% court records and the Bridewell court- of whom were working as alewives or books and from the 1670s from Old servants, and 36.2% of who were social- Bailey sessions papers. Pamphlets and ising. Of those socialising 28.6% were ballads from across the century provide from the middling sort, whilst the rest additional evidence. None of this offers were mostly labourers' wives, poor wid- direct unproblematic access to past ows and servants.15 Even if women in events and the connections between early modern London did not choose to printed material and manuscript legal spend time drinking on the premises they evidence are complex. As commercial were unlikely to have been able to avoid products seeking to appeal to a large entering an alehouse since ale, beer and audience plays and cheap print, including food were frequently purchased from the Old Bailey proceedings, were suf- public houses and cook-shops, often on fused with hyperbolic sensationalism, credit, rather than being brewed or baked sentimentality and titillation, or rhetoric domestically.16 In addition some visits which promoted civic grandeur and effi- were unplanned, for example when ale- cient public justice. Although based on houses were used as places of shelter narratives recounted in court events were during bad weather. On Boxing Day 1661 distorted or omitted, but astute readers Sir William Penn came for dinner at the were aware of this and drew their own house of Samuel and Elizabeth Pepys opinions about the events depicted. with his son and daughter, and the couple Indeed the stories witnesses told in court took them by coach to Moorfields to walk, were shaped not only by legal protocols but because of bad weather they went and their own experiences, but in many to an alehouse and consumed cakes and cases also by such published accounts. ale whilst being entertained by a wassail-

Brewery History Number 135 91 ing woman and girl. In June 1664 Samuel in their district to four. Such attempts had and Elizabeth sought shelter 'in a little limited, if any success, as in 1636 it was alehouse' after leaving a playhouse until claimed that alehouses 'abounded'. By they could get a coach home.17 1641 as many as one in six houses was a drinking establishment in poor extra- Although it is impossible to calculate mural wards such as Farringdon Without exactly how many public houses operat- and Portsoken, and between one in 30 ed in the capital they were copious in and one in 40 in wealthier central areas number. The census taken in 1577 did such as Aldgate and Cornhill. In 1711 not include the City, but recorded 720 ale- Gregory King calculated that for every houses and 132 inns in Middlesex, twelve Londoners there was an estab- equating to one alehouse for every 76 lishment from which alcohol could be people. By 1610 it was claimed that one purchased.18 By the 1730s London had in four houses in the London suburbs around 200 inns and an estimated 6,000 was an alehouse, and in 1612 the inhab- alehouses, figures which may be gross itants of Bishopsgate denounced 'the underestimates.19 great number of unlicensed victuallers' and 'daily increase' of alehouses. In 1614 Poor women used various means to fund further complaints were made about the their drinking, one of the most popular 'excessive' number of alehouses, and in being to sell other consumer commodi- 1620 it was recorded that there were ties. On 5th July 1623 Abraham Thomas nearly 100 taverns between Charing of St. Sepulchres parish deposed that Cross and Temple Bar. From February he had known Marie Lewis since the pre- that year the Court of Aldermen also vious Michelmas, and that 'from yt tyme allowed chandlers to sell ale and beer, … untill Christmas last past … [had] lyved whilst in July 1622 the Privy Council nere unto her in Chicke Lane'. Marie reported that tobacco sellers were using owed between 16 and 20 shillings 'for their premises as tippling houses. In bread beare and ale' to 'Stamford and his 1626 the city marshals were ordered to wife' who kept a victualling house and crack down, but complaints resurfaced 'was reported and taken to be a verie in 1629. In 1630 26 alehouses were poore woman and little or nothing worth' licensed in Wapping and a similar num- who maintained herself 'by selling of ber suppressed, whilst in March 1631 tobacco' which she sought 'oute out of Surrey JPs recorded 228 alehouses in dores by the ounce and half ounce her Southwark and Kentish Street, and 551 in meanes being then such as she co[u]ld Westminster. Two years later 15 ale- purchase noe more besides'.20 Decades houses were reported in Covent Garden, later Alice Fowler, a poor widow from five in Russell Street, and 37 in Wapping, King's Street in Shadwell, funded her whilst the Privy Council ordered drinking by selling biscuits in bawdy Westminster J.P.s to reduce the number houses 'where she generally got drunk'.

92 Journal of the Brewery History Society Not all women worked to pay for drink. as a jest amongst men, and therefore so One pamphleteer bemoaned that his many doe practice it.23 wife was 'away to the alehouse' as soon as she woke, her drinking funded by his One of the main reasons that women money and by her pawning 'Gown, who drank to excess were condemned Petticoat, Smock and all'.21 was because of their vulnerability to men's sexual advances when intoxicated, and the associated risk of unwanted Attitudes to women drinking in pregnancy. Pasquils Jests described alehouses Mother Bunch selling strong ale in Cornhill near the Exchange, detailing Lynn Martin has argued that how her best customers were initially Dutch men, but that once 'report of her two different images of women emerged that Ale had spread it selfe all England over' were dependent on the quantity of alcohol more young men and maids came to consumed: the good image of the woman her alehouse than to 'either Pymlico, or who drank a little and the bad image of the … Totnam-Court'. Many of the maids woman who drank too much and as a became pregnant and blamed their state consequence gained a reputation for on Mother Bunch's ale.24 More generally unbridled sexuality. women who drank heavily were deemed to be immoral. Pamphleteers and play- A drinking as well as a sexual double wrights even suggested that prostitutes standard existed in pre-modern Europe, and whores were the bi-products of and brewing and that ale and loose women had similar effects on the male body. the two were linked because of widespread One satirist claimed that the supposedly beliefs that 'a sober woman was chaste whilst disreputable women who frequented the a drunk woman was promiscuous.22 Royal Exchange emerged from the froth 'tunn'd up in the musty vessel of some Contemporaries made similar observa- gouty hostess', whilst the proverb tions. The Jacobean pamphleteer Ester Sowernam noted that it was considered as the hop well boiled will make a man not stand upon his legs so the harlot in time will an hatefull thing … to see a woman over- leave a man no legs to stand upon come with drinke, when as in men it is noted a signe of good fellowship', claiming that 'for was recited on stage and set down in one woman which doth make a custome of print.25 drunkenesse, you shall finde an hundred men: it is abhorred in women, and therefore Not all printed texts depicted female they avoyd it: it is laughed at and made but drinkers in a negative light. Pamela Allen

Brewery History Number 135 93 Brown notes that the pamphlets of Ale' and described another from Kingston Samuel Rowlands depict a 'candid social who was 'a bosse/that lou'd to tosse/ realism' in which gossiping women buy the ale pot round'. 'Few was there found/ drinks for each other, and suggests that Could with her drinke,/But they would 'in 1600 women could gather in London winke,/And fall asleepe' remarked the to drink ale made by another woman, at author, explaining how the latter would an alehouse she owned and ran, hear a 'call for more' even after her drinking female ballad seller pitch a song com- companions had collapsed into drunken plaining about drunken husbands and stupor. The author describes rowing the impotent lovers' and 'combine sociability fishwives to Kingston where they went with neighbourhood duties'.26 The likeli- 'straight to the signe of the Beare' and hood of finding many such venues, even enjoyed ale 'of great strength and in the capital, was probably slim, but force'.28 The tone of the pamphlet is Brown is correct to emphasise that many comic, and the women are praised for depictions of women drinking in alehous- being able to consume larger quantities es were celebratory and emphasised of alcohol than their fellow drinkers in their empowerment. One ballad told of a much the same way that men would have 'lusty, couragious and stout' woman from been. Five Merry wives of Lambeth which Wales who as soon as she arrived in told of Sarah, Sue, Mary, Nan and Nell, London headed to The Sign of the who 'lov'd good Wine, good Ale, and eke Crown, 'called for a pitcher of Ale of the good chear'. Disliking 'Dullige water' the best', and 'drank a good health to the women went to the Bell in Camberwell King of England'. Having consumed half where they drank sack, 'wine to make of her ale in one swig, the tapster refilled their heart full glad,/and liquor of the the jug repeatedly each time her back was best'. One of the women was married turned. The Welsh woman continued to to a carpenter and Quaker, which the drink until she began to 'stagger and reel' balladeer claimed led her to 'use a and vowed never to return to her home- Gardiner, sometimes as her partaker'. In land since in London she had 'tasted Rich his drunkenness the gardener took a ring liquor good store/the like in all Wales her from the carpenter's wife, which later he had ne'er drank before'.27 Whilst the gave to his own wife. Being suspicious depiction of the Welsh woman is not com- the gardener's wife went to see the car- pletely complementary she is mocked penter, who recognised the ring as because of her nationality and naivety belonging to his wife. 'If this your wives rather than her gender, whilst her loyalty to ring be/for certain I will slit her nose/for the monarch and praise for English ale are she hath wronged me', the gardener's depicted in a positive fashion. wife threatened. 'My husband hath full twenty pound/upon her vainly spent:/with Westward for Smelts told of a fishwife feasting of her whorish chops/in mirth from Standon the Green who 'lou'd good and merryment'. Despite these threats of

94 Journal of the Brewery History Society violence the balladeer concluded by natory depositions. Women who were claiming that news of these events pro- known or suspected to frequent alehous- voked laughter and 'great mirth' amongst es on a regular basis were criticized and the neighbours.29 In a similar vein to abused, both by other women and by Taylor's pamphlet the independence and men, as lazy, drunken and immoral, carousing of the 'merry wives' is intended especially if they did so either on the as a source of amusement. Connections Sabbath or late at night. When one of her are drawn between women drinking and neighbours challenged Alice Collet for sexual promiscuity, but it is the men who washing on a Sunday, Alice replied that 'it are the objects of mockery and condem- was better to do so than to go from ale- nation: the Quaker for being cuckolded house to alehouse', suggesting only idle and the gardener for being foolish women who drank heavily visited such enough to allow his wife to discover his places.31 John Stocke told how he had adultery, as well as for misusing house- heard it reported credibly that Mary hold resources by spending money on Lymet entertaining his lover. did frequent the company of one Baker and These printed depictions of women in did use to goe with him from alehouse to alehouses support the assertions of alehouse in very unseemly fashion at Barbara Hanawalt with regard to unsu[i]table hour.32 medieval popular poems; namely that they conveyed mixed messages to Who women drank with also mattered. women about being in such venues. Catherine Barnaby claimed that Grace Some warned them to stay away Dickenson was a drunken quean who because of the presence of pimps and 'goest a drinking from house to house the frequent violence perpetrated by everyday' and kept company 'with none young men, but others celebrated the but peddlers and roagues and theeves', camaraderie of collective female drink- whilst Sara Lee referred to Elizabeth ing.30 Whilst connections are often drawn Wyatt as 'a great frequenter of taverns between women's drunkenness and and alehouses' and claimed to have sexual promiscuity, others celebrate seen her overcome with drink several women's intoxication or ability to drink times between 1633 and 1635. About heavily, and make no reference to their Christmas 1634 Elizabeth had become potential vulnerability when drunk. so drunk at The Red Cross alehouse in Christ Church parish that 'she was By contrast legal records, perhaps unsur- unable to goe stedfastly but reeled and prisingly, primarily reveal hostility to staggered up and downe the streetes as female drinkers, although the emphasis she went home', and Elizabeth Selby on sexual promiscuity found in cheap claimed that the market women would print was not always explicit in condem- call out to each other that someone

Brewery History Number 135 95 should grab hold of Wyatt so she did not especially at night, was problematic; collapse in the street. Wyatt was seen in women were subject to condemnation for taverns and victualling houses in the gadding of any sort, but if a woman was company of Abraham Brand, a husband staggering and reeling through the dark- and father, and Judith Simnell deposed ened metropolitan streets, barely able to that they had been 'com[m]on fre- keep on her feet and unable to remember quenters of each other's company these her own name, concerns and vilification three years', staying out drinking until heightened. It should be noted too that midnight or one o'clock in the morning.33 drinking in an alehouse at unlawful hours Elizabeth Wyatt was not the only intoxi- and staggering through the streets in a cated woman to be found wandering drunken fashion were offences which the city streets. Between 1618 and 1642 men could be prosecuted for as well. one in twelve women brought into Bridewell for nightwalking was either Many of the women described in the found in an alehouse or drunk, and aforementioned cases appear to have between 1559 and 1657 forty-five women chosen to go to alehouses to seek were brought in accused of drunken- entertainment and perhaps deliberately ness.34 Elizabeth Hench was drunk 'in to get drunk, but in other cases the idle company' and when interrogated motives of women who went to alehous- claimed to be 'the Lady Cliffords daugh- es were more ambiguous. In December ter', whilst Margaret Orlin, brought in for 1662 Samuel Pepys was shocked to dis- nightwalking, was 'soe drunke she could cover that one of his ex-maidservants, not tell her name'.35 Sarah, had become 'a great drunkard', and six months later discovered that she These cases bring together three issues had been 'taught to drink' and 'gets out of regarding the consumption of alcohol doors two or three times a day without and frequenting of alehouses by women: leave to the alehouse', behaviour that led firstly, when a woman could go to an ale- her to fall out with her new mistress. house; clearly not on a Sunday when her Sarah claimed she ventured forth 'to attentions should have been focused on warm herself', but her mistress did not religious observance, or at the very least believe her and turned her out of doors. respectable domestic duties, rather than 'And so she is gone like an idle slut', on idle recreation and drinking. Secondly, Samuel remarked.36 The reference to who one went to the alehouse with; Sarah being 'taught to drink', suggests 'peddlers, rogues and thieves' were un- that she drank with other people in ale- acceptable company to be keeping, and houses, and that perhaps she had fallen going to an alehouse alone with either a into bad company, whilst exiting the single or a married man who was not her house 'without leave' made her behaviour husband could get a woman into trouble. subject to greater condemnation. Sarah's Thirdly, moving between establishments, defence, that she went to the alehouse to

96 Journal of the Brewery History Society keep warm could well have been true; and offered her the can to pledge him in drinking before a communal fire in return. Eleanor refused and said that she December was no doubt preferable to would call for her own can of beer to offer sitting alone in the sort of cold upper a pledge, and that chamber where most servants lodged. Alcohol often provided the sole refuge if she had in mind a drink she had a penny in and comfort from the harshness of daily her purse to call for a pot of beere as well as life for many early modern people and, they and did call for her pott and that being considering the drudgery of their work drunk she would have been gone and vulnerability to physical and sexual abuse, it would be unsurprising to find at which point the owner's wife inter- many female servants using it as 'an vened, asking Eleanor to stay and drink essential narcotic that anaesthetised with Holloway. Eleanor pointed out that [them] … against the strains of everyday there was no drink, so Holloway sent for life'.37 two more cans. Eleanor took one and told both Hallewill's wife and Holloway that Not all women were censured for drinking she would drink to him, 'but not to flatter in alehouses. Shortly before Midsummer's with him or curry favour with him'. After Day in 1633 John Hall went with one Mr the pair drank together John Hall report- Holloway to The George, a victualling ed that they appeared to be good friends, house in St. Sepulchres parish in but Peter Hallewill was unsure if they had Smithfield, where Eleanor Meade was parted on such amicable terms.38 talking to the wife of the owner, Peter Hallewill, about 'fallings out' between her Although there is no reference to Eleanor and Holloway. As Hall and Holloway sat going to the victualling house with any down in a low room next to the street and companions, female or male, the fact that began drinking, Eleanor came over and she knew the owner and his wife meant sat at a little table opposite them. She she was probably assured of a friendly spoke with Holloway about various mat- welcome, which would seem to confirm ters over which they had fallen out, the assertion of Amanda Flather that specifically a derogatory comment by some women visited alewives as friends Eleanor which she denied making, sug- or neighbours rather than as paying gesting that Hall's wife was not worthy to guests.39 Eleanor appears to have wipe her floors. The pair laid a wager of regarded her male drinking companions six shillings each concerning such words as equals, laying wagers with them, as had allegedly passed between them pledging them and boasting that she and John Hall requested that Eleanor sit was as able to buy her own alcohol as down to drink with them so that she and they were, the latter an action that was Holloway should be friends. Holloway associated with male honour and 'right took a can of beer and drank to Eleanor living'.40 Her behaviour suggests that

Brewery History Number 135 97 some women who drank in early modern at Bartholomew Fair with Peter Luellin public houses were able to hold their own 'where we had a dirty slut or two come up and be accepted as near equals by male that were whores'.44 On 7th July 1686 drinkers, and that at least in the capital Sarah Deane of St. Dunstan's in the some women drank in all-female groups West and an unnamed companion with no sense of anxiety or embarrass- approached William Pool at about eight ment. In 1632 Martha Scarle and Jane o'clock in the evening as he was drinking Kibble were discovered by the watch in an alehouse in Whitefriars and sat drinking in an alehouse 'at unseasonable with him a while, during which time houres', and in 1633 Joan Holt and Elsie Sarah stole a linen bag from his pocket Child were overheard chatting in an ale- containing £4 15 shillings and ran away house about their plans to swindle men whilst William paid for the drinks.45 by accusing them of sexual incontinen- cy.41 These women were breaking the 'The sexual symbolism of alcohol made it boundaries of respectable behaviour by an ideal gift from those who sought to drinking late at night and plotting acts of gain another's affections', but what it extortion, but not all women who drank meant to buy alcohol for and to drink with together in alehouses did so in such a member of the opposite sex was open problematic circumstances. In 1708 a to contestation.46 In January 1676 a waterman's wife and two spinsters hired porter was prosecuted for burglary by a a boat for the day to go from the Tower to woman who claimed that he had broken Chelsea, where they dined, and called at into her house. In his defence witnesses several alehouses on the return journey, told the court that the porter 'was very arriving home at nine in the evening.42 familiar' with the woman 'and that same Night did continue with her from Five at Night till Seven in the Morning' during Interactions between women and men which time he pawned his silver ticket for in alehouses five shillings, sent for sixpence worth of ale 'and call'd in a Black-Pudding man to Turning to the issue of how women give her a Treat'. Although their relation- interacted with their fellow patrons it is ship had clearly soured the fact that the evident that many disreputable women couple had spent time drinking in each were unafraid to intrude into the company other's company suggested in the minds of men in London alehouses. In February of witnesses that they had shared a 1579 eight women were presented at degree of intimacy and familiarity. Bridewell for spending all day at The Bear Similarly when Francis Leatherwood was in Wood Street, eating, drinking and accused of bigamy with the widow Ann keeping company with the men who Combs in 1717 he denied the charge but came into the alehouse.43 In August 1661 confessed to buying her four pipes of Samuel Pepys entered 'a pitiful alehouse' tobacco and two full pots of beer, the

98 Journal of the Brewery History Society implication being that when a woman and meeting places for lovers. Henry man drank together they engaged in Goodcole described how Elizabeth behaviour which denoted a certain Evans, born in Shropshire of good par- degree of familiarity.47 ents and well-educated, was sent to London where some friends found her Whilst some women downplayed the work in service. Elizabeth became levels of intimacy implied by drinking acquainted with a young man 'who with men, others took them at face value tempted her into folly', and the couple and were harshly exploited. Francis frequented 'playhouses, taverns, inns, Longepee took Elizabeth Knolls, an alehouses, the open streets, and the orange seller of St. Dunstan's, to a public fields', before he left her 'out of all credit, house and treated her to beer, cider and friends, money, apparrell, and service'.49 brandy. The pair stayed out all night and The narrative Goodcole presented was a Francis was said to be 'very sweet upon' familiar tale because it told of a woman Elizabeth, 'courting her, telling her he was betrayed, but also because of the places a single Man, importuning her to go home where Elizabeth and her suitor spent time with him and be his Housekeeper'. in company with each other. Elizabeth Elizabeth was flattered by 'his Importunity may have been coerced or agreed pas- and fair Offers' and one day Francis sent sively to visit alehouses, but other for a coach to take her to Coverlays women deliberately selected such ven- Fields near his house, where he gave her ues for romantic and sexual assignations. money to go into the Sugar Loaf ale- Dorothy Skelton conducted her affair with house, telling her to stay there until his Charles Brookes in various alehouses servant came to call her home. Elizabeth and was condemned by her neighbours arrived at Francis' house where she 'was for doing so.50 Thomas Franck deposed well receiv'd, and kindly admitted into his that his father, a Justice of the Peace also Chamber'. Francis sent for cider and named Thomas, was having an affair with brandy, and showed Elizabeth his cup- the wife of Mr Smyth, a Guildhall attorney. board of plate. Thomas, his father and Mrs Smyth went to see a house near Brainford that was While she was pleasing herself with the for sale and afterwards went to an ale- thoughts of what she was brought to be house called the Sign of the Pie where mistress of [, Francis's wife] to her great Mrs Smyth 'took up certayn chambers for surprize, came in, and made such a noise in her lodgings' and requested that her Ears, that she not sustaining the storm Thomas's father lodged in the adjoining any longer, got away as soon as she could.48 room. Thomas thought the room 'to[o] meane for his father to lye in beinge a Such encounters were random and carriers chamber', became suspicious opportunistic, but public houses also and that night saw Mrs Smyth leave her offered lodgings for eloping couples and own chamber and enter his father's room,

Brewery History Number 135 99 where he heard the couple talking in bed 1577 Barbara Ride was accosted on her together before Thomas's father 'had way to an alehouse in St. Katherine thuse of her bodie twice'. Edie Bradley, Colemans Street by John Shawe, a bar- servant of Thomas Gilderson, deposed ber, who gave her sixpence and desired that she had gone to an alehouse by 'to have unlawfully thuse of her body' to Tower Hill with her mistress and one which Barbara responded by reminding Thomas Kidde, who did 'resort often to Shawe that 'he had a wife of his owne'. In her mistress', and that after they had July 1578 Robert Whitley, a shoemaker been drinking 'a good while' in an upper from St Martin's, propositioned the wife of room her mistress sent Edie away so that Titus Maronees for sex whilst drinking in she could be alone with Kidde.51 an alehouse, and in February 1579 Henry Alehouses offered a degree of secrecy Venables, a porter, was taken with Margett for those wishing to conduct extra-marital Marten in an alehouse 'offeringe lewd affairs. In November 1664 Samuel Pepys usage to her'.53 In June 1599 Robert Wells visited 'a little blind alehouse' in had the use of the body of a woman called Moorfields with the wife of William Elysabeth whose 'surname he knoweth Bagwell, where he 'did caress her and not' whilst visiting a brewer's house in eat and drank'. Less than a month later, Chick Lane which sold ale and beer.54 In he took Mrs Bagwell all these cases the sobriety of the men involved might be doubted, although in to an alehouse, and there I made much of the first example Shawe may have her; and then away thence and to another, approached Ride not because he was and endeavoured to caress her. drunk, but because he believed a woman heading to a public house on her own to Such encounters were part of a casual be of low morals, whilst the final example affair which facilitated the advancement of illicit sex may well have been consen- of William within the navy. Five years sual. Nonetheless regardless of whether later Pepys went to 'a little blind alehouse or not the women involved were pleased within the walls' with Deb Willet. Here the or outraged such cases reveal that men circumstances were very different: Deb felt it acceptable to make spontaneous had been dismissed from the Pepys sexual advances to women in venues household after Elizabeth had caught the where ale and beer were available. young woman with her husband, and resorting to an alehouse was an attempt Sometimes such advances went much to keep the meeting secret.52 further than drunken lechery. Suzan More deposed that in the week before Easter As noted above many sexual interactions 1607 Thomas Creed, a married man, had between women and men in alehouses made frequent requests for her to drink were more opportunistic than these, and with him, claiming that she resembled his often were by no means consensual. In first wife and that he 'must needs love'

100 Journal of the Brewery History Society her. Suzan was less than enthusiastic, so es was because many were frequented Thomas requested permission from her by women who were willing to offer sexu- mistress, Anna Birke, who he 'desired … al favours, particularly to men with to go with them herself'. All three went to authority or wealth. In 1621 Dorothy The King's Head in Red Cross Street and Woodward informed the Bridewell gover- drank wine together, after which Thomas nors that Marshalman Peel had taken walked the two women home. Around her to an alehouse for food and drink, Midsummer that year Thomas and Suzan before going with her to a blind woman's went to The Sun tavern in Aldersgate house for sex, a routine that was so fre- Street where Thomas bought Suzan 'so quent that she could not remember how much wine as she was drunk and sick many times it had occurred.56 Depending withal'. He then took her to the alehouse on whether Peel provided Woodward of Widow Grimes by Picket Hatch and as with lavish hospitality or basic victuals Suzan lay in a chamber to sleep off her changes the complexion of her state- drinking had the use of her body. ment, but her claim that she was unable Following this incident, Thomas attempt- to remember how often this sequence of ed to entice Suzan 'sundry times' to go events had occurred reveals the repeti- with him to taverns. When she refused tive nature of events and suggests that Creed became angry and sent there was little emotional attachment between the pair. Another case involved tavern boys and sometimes the boys of … Ed Harris, Widow Grimes to come and stand over the way against her this deponent's mistress's a Gentleman well descended, well educated, house and shop and ask her this deponent to and of some considerable fortune' [and come to them. Catherine Nash,] 'who sometimes was at service, and other times loitered at her own Possibly on account of this pressure hands, taking evil courses past doubt to Suzan went to Widow Grimes' alehouse procure her necessities, having been divers with Thomas twice more, and on both times observed with People of lude occasions he had sex with her, leading to conversation … having in the end put herself Suzan becoming pregnant.55 In this case into considerable habit. the tavern offered Creede a location for polite sociability, or at least its pretence, On 25th July 1684 Ed and Catherine went whilst the more private less respectable to an alehouse on Church Street in environment of the alehouse of Widow Cheapside kept by a Mr Minor, called the Grimes provided the location for him to sign of the Pewter Platter, where they sat rape Suzan. together in private and drank 'divers Liquors' including brandy until late into Part of the reason that men felt it was the night, when 'being over-pow[e]red acceptable to accost women in alehous- with excessive drinking, and fired with

Brewery History Number 135 101 unlawful lust' they lodged in the ale- and 'Tucke and Frye consented to make house. The night did not end well for the said Walton drunk which they did Harris who 'began to complain that the accordingly'. The two bricklayers then brandy burnt his heart out', and soon sent Walton into an upper chamber with after he died.57 Nothing in the account Holland, telling her 'they would now get suggests that the pair had met previous- her a father for her child and willing her to ly, but no doubt Harris's rank, education cosen him of some money'. Susan went and wealth made him attractive to upstairs to Thomas, who 'offered to use Nash, a woman operating an economy her bodye and pulled up her clothes … of makeshifts. Such examples support but being drunk he could not affect his the assertions made by Faramerz purpose', so the pair returned downstairs. Dabhoiwala that distinctions between Thereafter all the men left to continue prostitution and other forms of casual sex drinking at the Sign of the Blue Anchor, were blurred under a general category of also in Hogge Lane.59 To some extent 'whoredom', especially in London and this account supports arguments which particularly if such couplings continued suggest that alehouses were male-domi- for a significant amount of time.58 nated micro-sites; the victualling house appears as a home-from-home for tran- However, another case reveals that sient labouring men, where women are transactions involving drink and sex were servants, sexual commodities, and not always simply about wealthy men sometimes both, an environment wherein praying on vulnerable women, or prosti- it was common practice to ask a woman tutes exploiting their clients' generosity. In to offer her body in exchange for six- September 1598 the bricklayers Peter pence. Yet the interactions between Frye, Tucke and John Frye were going through Tucke and Holland suggest the existence Hogge Lane at about ten or eleven of alliances across the gender divide. The o'clock in the morning on their way to flow of the narrative positions Thomas Walthamstow when they stopped at Walton as the principle victim, forced to Thomas Nevell's victualling house to eat drink heavily by male associates who cakes and drink ale, served by Nevell's work with Holland to exploit him, although wife and her servant Susan Holland. Frye his comical failure to 'affect his purpose' and Tucke remained in the house until foils their machinations. two o'clock in the morning, during which time both of them had sex with Holland, who charged them six pence each. Frye Conclusions also propositioned Nevell's wife to have the use of her body, offering her six This brief survey of women, ale and pence also. Another bricklayer, Thomas company in early modern London has Walton, then arrived with 'one Dick whom sought to provide some modifications to they call a Spaniard for that he is black', existing views on women and the culture

102 Journal of the Brewery History Society of drink and public houses in early modern ed suggests that women and men might Europe. Many women went to consid- collaborate to victimize individuals of erable efforts to obtain ale and beer, both sexes. Finally there appears to working or pawning goods to gain the have been a great deal of continuity over money to purchase such beverages, several centuries. The diversity of atti- obtaining them on credit or persuading tudes towards female drinkers in seven- husbands, suitors and male customers to teenth-century pamphlets and ballads is buy it for them. Attitudes to female similar to that found in medieval poetry, drinkers were more diverse in printed possibly because similar stories were texts than in depositions; whilst the former reused and adapted, whilst the presence sought to warn women of the dangers of of disreputable women in alehouses from drinking to excess, and associated the late sixteenth into the early eigh- women who drank heavily with sexual teenth century contradicts the arguments promiscuity they also celebrated female put forward by Peter Clark that ale- camaraderie. Those who gave evidence houses became increasingly attractive to before the church courts often con- respectable women after the Restoration. demned both women and men who spent significant time drinking in alehouses, but such rebukes evidently did not deter References numerous individuals from frequenting such establishments. Women who drank 1. Clark, P. (1983) The English Alehouse: A in alehouses did so because of the Social History 1200-1830. London: Longman, company - both female and male - they pp.131-32, 147-51, 225-27, 235-36. encountered there. Sometimes the ale- 2. Wrightson, K. (1981), 'Alehouses, Order house was a place of good fellowship and Reformation in Rural England, 1590- just as it was for men, and some women 1660' in Yeo, E. and Yeo, S. (eds) Popular felt they could hold their own with the Culture and Class Conflict 1590-1914: male customers. It was a place of com- Explorations in the History of Labour and fort, to escape a freezing household or Leisure. Brighton: Harvester Press, pp.7-10. shelter during bad weather, a place to 3. Bennett, J.M. (1996), Ale, Beer and resolve disagreements and a social site Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a that offered women opportunities to flirt Changing World, 1300-1600. Oxford: Oxford with men, although the shadow of rape University Press. For brewing in early modern and fears of unwanted pregnancy result- London see Luu, L.B. (2005) Immigrants and ing from illicit sex must always have been the Industries of London, 1500-1700. in the background of women's minds. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp.259-99. Most significantly the dynamics of gen- 4. Hanawalt, B.A. (1998) 'The Host, the Law der relations in alehouses cannot be and the Ambiguous Space of Medieval reduced to a simplistic male versus London Taverns' in her ‘Of Good and Ill female dichotomy. The evidence present- Repute’: Gender and Social Control in

Brewery History Number 135 103 Medieval England. Oxford: Oxford University Europe, 1300-1800. Basingstoke: Palgrave, Press, pp.104-23. For similar associations pp.110-130. with regard to provincial alehouses see 12. Capp, B. (2003) When Gossips Meet: McIntosh, M.K. (1998) Controlling Women, Family, and Neighbourhood in Early Misbehaviour in England, 1370-1600. Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Press, pp.83-84, 87-90, 331-32, 334-40; pp.77-78. Capp, B. (2007) 'Gender and the Culture of 5. McSheffrey, S. (2007) Marriage, Sex and the English Alehouse in Late Stuart England' Civic Culture in Late Medieval London. in Korhonen, A. and Lowe, K. (eds) The Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Press, pp.129-34. Trouble with Ribs: Women, Men and Gender 6. Gowing, L. (1996) Domestic Dangers: in Early Modern Europe. Helsinki: Helsinki Women, Words and Sex in Early Modern Collegium for Advanced Studies, pp.103-27. London. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 13. Withington, P. (2007) 'Company and p.212. sociability in early modern England', Social 7. Flather, A. (2007) Gender and Space in History, 32:3, 291-307. Early Modern England. Woodbridge: Boydell 14. Gowing, L. (1996) op. cit. pp.41-58, 232- and Brewer, pp.54, 110. 62; Griffiths, P. (2008) Lost Londons: Change, 8. Mendelson, S. and Crawford, P. (1998), Crime and Control in the Capital City, 1550- Women in Early Modern England, 1550-1720. 1660. Cambridge: Cambridge University Oxford: Oxford University Press, p.335. Press, pp.1-11; Shoemaker, R. (2008) 'The 9. Griffiths, P. (1996), Youth and Authority: Old Bailey Proceedings and the Formative Experiences in England 1560- Representation of Crime and Criminal Justice 1640. Oxford: Oxford University Press, in Eighteenth-Century London', Journal of pp.188-222. British Studies 47 (July), pp.559-80. 10. Warner, J. (1997) 'The sanctuary of 15. Flather, A. (2007) op. cit. pp.112-13, sobriety: the emergence of temperance as a 115, 118. feminine virtue in Tudor and Stuart England', 16. Carlin, M. (1998) 'Fast Food and Urban Addiction, 92:1, pp.97-111. Living Standards in Medieval England' in 11. Fumerton, P. (2002) 'Not Home: Carlin, M. and Rosenthal, J.T. (eds) Food and Alehouses, Ballads, and the Vagrant Eating in Medieval Europe. London: Husband in Early Modern England', The Hambledon Press, pp.27-51; Pennell, S. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern (2000) '"Great quantities of gooseberry pye Studies, 32:3, pp.493-518; Shepard, A. and baked clod of beef": victualling and (2003) Meanings of Manhood in Early eating out in early modern London' in Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Griffiths, P. and Jenner, M.S.R. (eds) Press, pp.100-06, pp.111-14; Shepard, A. Londinopolis: essays in the cultural and social (2005) '"Swil-bols and Tos-pots": Drink history of early modern London. Manchester: Culture and Male Bonding in England, Manchester University Press, p.232; Flather, c.1560-1640' in Gowing, L. Hunter, M. and A. (2007) op.cit. pp.60-61. For women Rubin, M. (eds) Love, Friendship and Faith in ordering ale and beer in victualling houses

104 Journal of the Brewery History Society see Old Bailey Papers (OBP), 29 April 1674, woman's answer is never to seek: Early t16740429-5; 28 August 1695, t16950828-6. Modern Jestbooks, 1526-1635. Aldershot: 17. Latham, R. and Matthews W. (eds) Ashgate, no modern pagination. (1976) The Diary of Samuel Pepys. London: 25. Anon, (1675) Ape-Gentle-woman, Or Bell, volume ii, 239; volume v, pp.165-66. The Character Of An Exchange-wench. 18. Ashton, R. (1983) 'Popular London, 2; Middleton, T. (1607) Michaelmas Entertainment and Social Control in Later Term. London, Induction, lines 18-20 in Elizabethan and Early Stuart London', London Taylor, M. (ed.) A Mad World, My Masters Journal, 9 (1983), pp.10-12; Clark, P. (1983) and Other Plays Oxford: Oxford University op. cit. pp.41-42, 44, 49; Merritt, J.F. (2005) Pres, 1998, p.69; Anon, (1656) Academy of The social world of early modern Pleasure. London, p.33. Westminster: Abbey, court and community 26. Brown, P.A. (2003) Better a Shrew than 1525-1640. Manchester: Manchester a Sheep: Women, Drama and the Culture of University Press, p.168; Griffiths, P. (2008) Jest in Early Modern England. London: op. cit. pp.38-39, 316. Cornell University Press, pp.63, 74, 81. 19. Chartres, J. (2002) 'The Eighteenth- 27. Anon, (1688-92) The Jolly Welsh- Century English Inn: ATransient "Golden Woman. Who drinking at the Sign of the Age"?' in Kümin, B. and Tlusty, B.A. (eds), Crown in London, found a Spring In her The World of the Tavern: Public Houses in Mugg, for joy of which hur sung the praise of Early Modern Europe. Aldershot: Ashgate, Old England, resolving never to return to pp.208-09. Wales again. London. 20. London, Guildhall Library (GL) MS 28. Taylor, J. (1620) Westward for Smelts. 9189/1, Consistory Court Deposition Book London, sigs. B3r, Ev, Fv reproduced in 1622-24, f. 93r. Munro, I. (2007) op. cit. no modern pagina- 21. Anon, (1685) Strange News from tion. The author is probably John Taylor. Shadwell, Being a True and Just Relation of 29. Anon, (1680) Five Merry wives of the Death of Alice Fowler. London, pp.1-2; Lambeth Or, The Carpenter Cornuted. Anon, (1654), The New Brawle, or London. 'Dullige' was a pun or misspelling of Turnmill-Street against Rosemary Lane. Dulwich. London, pp.3-4. 30. Hanawalt, B.A. (1998) op. cit. pp.109-10. 22. Martin, A.L. (2001) Alcohol, Sex, and 31. Gowing, L. (2000) '"The freedom of the Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern streets": women and social space, 1560- Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp.38, 134. 1640' in Griffiths, P. and Jenner, M.S.R. (eds) 23. Sowernam, E. (1617) Ester hath hang'd op. cit. p.140. Haman: Or An Answere to a lewd Pamphlet, 32. London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) entituled, The Arraignment of Women. DL/C/231, Consistory Court of London London, p.24. Deposition Book, 1627-1630, f. 126r. 24. Anon, (1635) Pasquils Iests: With The 33. GL MS 9057/1, Archdeaconry Court Merriments of Mother Bunch. London, sigs. Examination Book, 1632-38, ff. 174v, 69r, A2v-A3r reproduced in Munro, I. (2007) A 235r-230r (reverse foliation). This case is

Brewery History Number 135 105 discussed in Cressy, D. (2000) 'Another 45. OBP, 1 September 1686, t16860901-5. Midwife's Tale: Alcohol, Patriarchy and 46. Martin, A.L. (2001) op. cit. p.80; for an Childbirth in Early Modern London' in his example see Gowing, L. (1996) op. cit. Travesties and Transgressions in Tudor and pp.146-47. Stuart England. Oxford: Oxford University 47. OBP, 14 January 1676, t16760114-13; Press, pp.84-91. 27 February 1717, t17170227-1. 34. Griffiths, P. (1998) 'Meanings of 48. OBP, 1 May 1717, t17170501-7. Nightwalking in Early Modern England', The 49. Goodcole, H. (1635) Heavens Speedie Seventeenth Century, 13:2 (Autumn), p.221; Hue and Cry sent after Lust and Murther. Griffiths, P. (2008) op. cit. p.460. London, sig. Br. 35. GL MS 33011/7, Bridewell and Bethlem 50. Foyster, E. (1999) op. cit. p.113. Court of Governors' Minutes 1626-34, ff. 22v, 51. GL MS 33011/3, Bridewell and Bethlem 30r. Court of Governors' Minutes, 1576-79, ff. 42v- 36. Diary, iii, 288; iv, p.154. 43v, 315r. 37. Martin, A.L. (2001) op. cit. pp.3-4; 52. Diary, v, 322, 350; ix, p.521. Thomas, K. (1973) Religion and the Decline 53. GL MS 33011/3, ff. 225v, 331r, 373v. of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in 54. GL MS 33011/4, 1597-1604, f. 91r. Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century 55. LMA DL/C/218, Consistory Court of England. London: Penguin, p.22. London Deposition Book 1608, f. 138 cited in 38. GL MS 9057/1, ff. 29r-33v. Crawford, P. and Gowing, L. (eds) (2000) 39. Flather, A. (2007) op. cit. p.118. Women's Worlds in Seventeenth Century 40. Foyster, E. (1999), Manhood in Early England. London: Routledge, pp.142-44. The Modern England: Honour, Sex and Marriage. case is discussed from a different angle in London: Longman, p.120; Tlusty, B.A. (2001) Gowing, L. (1996) op. cit. pp.252-3. Bacchus and Civic Order: The Culture of 56. Griffiths, P. (2008) op. cit. p.174. Drink in Early Modern Germany. 57. Anon, (1684) Strange and Dreadful Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, News From Queens-street, London. London. p.1. 58. Dabhoiwala, F. (2000) 'The pattern of 41. Griffiths, P. (2008) op. cit. pp.420, 392. sexual immorality in seventeenth- and 42. Capp, B. (2003) op. cit. p.331. eighteenth-century London' in Griffiths, P. and 43. Griffiths, P. (1996) op. cit. p.209. Jenner, M.S.R. (eds), pp.86-106. 44. Diary, ii, p.166. 59. GL MS 33011/4, ff. 43v, 47r-v, 48v.

106 Journal of the Brewery History Society