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On 29th May 1660,
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King Charles II returned from exile to reclaim his throne.
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Everyone thought the Stuart dynasty had lost power for ever.
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His father, Charles I,
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had been publicly executed only ten years previously
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and England was firmly in the grip of Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth,
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but now the monarchy was back in business.
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The Restoration was a turning point in British history.
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It marked the end of the medieval and the beginning of the modern age.
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It affected the life of every single person in the country.
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In this series,
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I'm looking at the lives of women in the late 17th century.
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This is a really exciting time to be a woman.
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For centuries, they've been lurking about in the footnotes of history,
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but now they come to prominence.
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Some of them have such modern attitudes and ambitions
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and we see them coming up against a world
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that was still pretty male and misogynistic.
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Over three programmes, I'm exploring their lives
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at the lavish and liberated royal court,
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out in public at work and play,
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and now at home as wives and mothers.
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You might have thought that Britain was swinging in the 1960s,
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but it was the 1660s that really shook things up.
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In 1662,
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only two years after Charles II's dramatic restoration to the throne,
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a new form of fun arrived in London from the continent...
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You did what?
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..the country's first ever Punch and Judy show.
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You take that, that, that.
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Like so much of what we know about Restoration England,
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our picture of the first Punch and Judy show
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comes from the diary of Samuel Pepys.
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350 years later, nasty old Punch is still bashing up poor old Judy
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here at Covent Garden, but behind the pretty spectacle,
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there's a dark story here about 17th-century women
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and their experience of childbirth,
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and infant mortality, and domestic violence,
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and their whole relationship
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with their husbands.
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In this programme, I'm looking at the lives of 17th-century Judys,
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ordinary women, living at home.
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What do their lives tell us
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about these extraordinary years following the return of the King?
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To get right inside 17th-century women's domestic lives,
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I'm going to start off by looking at something pretty fundamental -
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their marriages.
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In the 17th century, every girl was expected to get married.
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A woman was defined throughout her life by her marital status,
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as either an unmarried maid, a wife or widow.
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But during this turbulent century, how you actually got married
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became a religious and political battlefield.
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The terrain was constantly changing.
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Do you think that as we go through the 17th century,
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we can see its religious turmoil reflected
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in the different types of marriages that people are having?
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Oh, absolutely.
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The whole history of the regulation of marriage in the 17th century
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is a very good reflection of what's going on
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politically and ideologically.
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At a time when the state really needed to SEE people getting married
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in order to know that they were married,
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they wanted marriage to be public.
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In 1604, James I had laid down the rules
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for the traditional church wedding we still recognise today.
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Banns had to be read, rings were part of the ritual,
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but most importantly, his ceremony had to be carried out in church
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by a Church Of England priest
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But after the Civil War,
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when Cromwell and his Puritans were in charge,
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things were very different - THEY made adultery punishable by death.
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Surprisingly though, the hyper-religious Puritans
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took weddings outside the Church and favoured civil marriage.
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When the Puritans come up with this new concept of civil marriage,
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they have just executed the King, they've chopped his head off.
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Are these two things connected? I'm guessing that they are.
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Yes, I mean civil marriage is very political.
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It's part of that whole rejection, not only of the King,
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but also of hierarchy, of the Church of England.
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So what did you actually have to do
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to get this sort of minimalist marriage
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that the Puritans had in the Commonwealth period?
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You went before a Justice of the Peace,
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exchanged vows in front of him.
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- So no rings or anything like that?
- No rings, no.
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You were meant to join hands, but there's provision
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in the legislation for that to be dispensed with, if you have no hands.
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And presumably if you've lost them fighting in the Civil War.
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Presumably, yes.
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And just when everyone had got used to that,
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Charles came back and it all changed again.
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What happens at the Restoration is really a sharpening up
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of what it means to be Anglican
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as distinct from any other denomination,
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so it becomes very clear in this period that the only person
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who can celebrate a marriage is an ordained Anglican clergyman.
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After the Restoration, women knew exactly where and how
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they were supposed to get married -
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in an Anglican church by an Anglican priest.
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And it was also made very clear who was in charge
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once they'd got married.
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If women were in any doubt about their position within marriage,
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they would be reminded at church
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through the regular reading of homilies,
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like this one on matrimony.
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This one says that women are the "weaker vessel."
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It says here,
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"You must obey your husband and cease from commanding him.
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"Avoid all things that might offend him. Apply yourself to his will."
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If you don't do this, everything'll go horribly wrong
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and the whole world will be turned upside down.
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In the 17th century, being second-class citizens
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was just the price women had to pay for respectability.
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Another painful fact about their marriage
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was the huge sum of money their fathers had to cough up,
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not just for the wedding, but also for the dowry.
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The 17th century saw the beginning of the lonely hearts ads,
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but don't expect tales of dreamy romance here,
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they get right down to business.
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Here we've got a gentleman who's got 30 years of age.
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He would willingly match himself to some good young gentlewoman,
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but there's no love of country walks or the cinema here at all.
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He says he has a very good estate
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and she has to have a fortune of about £3,000.
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Then we've got a young man about 25 years of age.
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He is in a very good trade,
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but I don't think he's got a very good sense of humour.
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It says here he's a sober man.
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He would willingly embrace a suitable match,
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but remember this, ladies, he's got £1,000 and you should have the same.
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A dowry could be vast.
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Mary Evelyn was a girl from a family reasonably well off, but not rich.
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When she decided to get hitched, her father, John Evelyn the diarist,
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had to fork out a whopping £350,000 in today's money.
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Mind you, he did get off relatively lightly.
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When Catherine Of Braganza married Charles II,
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her dad had to hand over both Bombay and Tangier.
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And the dowry wasn't the only thing the bride had to worry about.
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With a monopoly on marriage, church and state had realised
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that they could also make money from the transaction.
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To get married officially and properly
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could be really quite prohibitively expensive.
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As well as coughing up the dowry for the bride,
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you needed to buy entertainment for the guests and, from 1694,
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there was a new tax on marriage too.
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The government introduced stamp duty on every single ceremony,
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but there were sneaky ways of getting out of paying this.
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If you could avoid getting married in church, you could avoid the tax -
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about £600 in today's money.
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Don't involve your family and you could avoid the dowry too.
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In the late 17th century, London became the centre
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of a new cheap and easy black-market wedding industry.
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Fleet Street takes its name from one of the lost rivers of London,
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the Fleet, which ran down there behind me.
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By the Restoration, it was quite an insalubrious part of town,
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full of inns and brothels and the infamous Fleet Prison.
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By the later 17th century,
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it was also home to about 40 small businesses.
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They were known as the marriage houses.
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They didn't have anything to do with the local church,
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in fact, they were pubs.
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The inns and pubs of Fleet Street, even the Fleet Prison itself,
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became venues for a shady phenomenon - the Fleet marriage.
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Officially recognised, but only borderline legal.
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In church, you had to get married between eight and twelve,
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but the marriage houses were always open for business,
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they simply changed the clocks.
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You needed a priest, but the prison had plenty of defrocked debtors
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who wouldn't ask too many questions.
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In the year 1700,
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Fleet weddings made up a third of all London marriages.
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So here we are in our little chapel,
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that's essentially the room over the pub, but none the worse for it.
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What would have been going on in here then?
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Well, we might actually have a marriage conducted in this room.
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With a proper priest?
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Well, with somebody who lives within the liberties of the Fleet,
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which meant he'd have been here because he'd been incarcerated for debt.
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- Oh dear, a dodgy priest is what you're saying.
- A dodgy priest.
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And then they would have given you a marriage licence,
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something that looked like this.
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A certificate that looked like this, where you had your name on it
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and the date, but of course it could be backdated
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if you wanted to legitimise a birth, for example.
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You could have anybody as a witness sign it.
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You could even pull in witnesses at a later date as well.
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And you get a proper certificate like this. It's a little later.
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Says GR for George, but it looks official, doesn't it,
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with the royal coat of arms?
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But then you look at it and it says, "At the Hand and Pen".
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So this certificates says, we got marriage at the pub.
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Yes, it does.
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- This is a proper one, isn't it, used in a church?
- Yes.
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And we know this because it's got the stamp here,
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they have paid their duty on it.
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- That's the thing that is missing from here.
- That is missing.
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However, you could, if you were so inclined,
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bring your own stamped sheet of paper.
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Were these cheap and dirty marriages good for women, do you think?
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In some cases they were, in a sense that
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if you wanted to legitimise the birth of a child, it was great.
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You could have something backdated.
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The family might not have to pay a large dowry.
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Certainly you didn't have to jump through all the hoops
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that were necessary in actually getting married.
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These dubious wedding venues gave the less well-off
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a chance of respectability without the cost,
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but they also opened up the opportunities for abuse.
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The marriage houses were perfect for bigamists,
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and some women were even dragged here and married,
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against their will.
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Mrs Anne Leigh was worth £200 a year
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and she was decoyed away from her friends in Buckinghamshire
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and married at the Fleet Chapel against her consent.
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- Oh, wow.
- Yes.
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- She's been used barbarously.
- Yes, poor woman.
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- So barbarously that she now lies speechless.
- I know.
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She couldn't speak after this horrific experience
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- she went through.
- Yes.
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It must have been very traumatic, you can imagine.
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Oh, poor Mrs Anne Leigh.
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With women physically being held to ransom in pubs,
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or financially held to ransom for a dowry,
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they were like commodities in a commercial transaction.
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This wasn't unnoticed by contemporary commentators.
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As the fictional heroine, Moll Flanders, says,
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"The market is against our sex just now.
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"Nothing but money recommends a woman."
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The writer, Daniel Defoe,
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described marriage as being like the Smithfield bargain.
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By this he meant that women were bought and sold
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like the cows at the famous Smithfield meat market in London.
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For women, the contract was binding, there was no escape
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if they didn't like their husbands.
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Divorce was practically unheard of,
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it involved a special Act of Parliament.
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For men though, there was a way out
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if they weren't getting on with their wives.
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In 1692, we hear that Mr Whitehouse of Tipton sells his wife
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to Mr Bracegirdle.
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And you've got to imagine fairs with women walking up and down,
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wearing sandwich boards saying, "This woman is on the market."
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Wife sales were completely illegal and fairly uncommon,
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but the idea of marriage as a marketplace was totally accepted.
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Love seemed to count for little and, from a young age,
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women were treated rather like livestock.
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Even if you were a maid, in other words a single woman,
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you were still in a sense defined by your marital status,
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00:14:09,200 --> 00:14:11,640
it's just that you weren't married yet.
250
00:14:11,640 --> 00:14:13,680
Marriage would be your destiny.
251
00:14:13,680 --> 00:14:17,200
And you get the idea that these baby girls in the 17th century
252
00:14:17,200 --> 00:14:20,080
are born and bred and reared and trained
253
00:14:20,080 --> 00:14:22,920
all for the purpose of reaching the marriage market.
254
00:14:24,240 --> 00:14:27,240
By the end of the 17th century though,
255
00:14:27,240 --> 00:14:30,560
something previously unheard of was beginning to happen -
256
00:14:30,560 --> 00:14:34,080
thousands and thousands of women weren't getting married.
257
00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:36,280
By about the 1690s you're getting towns
258
00:14:36,280 --> 00:14:40,680
where over half of the population are single women.
259
00:14:40,680 --> 00:14:43,920
Where are all these extra single women coming from?
260
00:14:43,920 --> 00:14:46,360
It may be something to do with the Civil War.
261
00:14:46,360 --> 00:14:48,400
It had one of the greatest casualty rates
262
00:14:48,400 --> 00:14:51,320
until you get to the First World War in England,
263
00:14:51,320 --> 00:14:54,360
and so there are just fewer men available.
264
00:14:54,360 --> 00:14:57,640
The Civil War had decimated the male population,
265
00:14:57,640 --> 00:15:02,400
and had thrown the county into turmoil that lasted decades.
266
00:15:02,400 --> 00:15:04,680
When times are hard, fewer people can marry
267
00:15:04,680 --> 00:15:07,520
because you need the economic wherewithal to set up
268
00:15:07,520 --> 00:15:10,360
a household and to be able to support a family thereafter.
269
00:15:10,360 --> 00:15:13,760
So that's when you start to get the term spinster being used,
270
00:15:13,760 --> 00:15:17,720
rather than an occupational term, a woman who spins for a living,
271
00:15:17,720 --> 00:15:20,200
but being attached to a woman who isn't married,
272
00:15:20,200 --> 00:15:22,600
and also the term, the old maid.
273
00:15:22,600 --> 00:15:25,480
'With so many spinsters on the scene,
274
00:15:25,480 --> 00:15:30,040
'the old maid became a stock character in comedy and songs.'
275
00:15:30,040 --> 00:15:33,680
Got a ballad here which is titled the Old Maid Mad for a Husband.
276
00:15:33,680 --> 00:15:37,400
'The Old Maid Mad for a Husband is a touching ballad
277
00:15:37,400 --> 00:15:39,760
'about a wealthy old spinster.
278
00:15:39,760 --> 00:15:42,800
'When the story starts, she's on the lookout for a husband.
279
00:15:42,800 --> 00:15:46,880
'"A man," she says, "is better than money to me."'
280
00:15:46,880 --> 00:15:48,920
A young shoemaker comes to her
281
00:15:48,920 --> 00:15:52,320
when he hears that she's on the lookout for a husband.
282
00:15:52,320 --> 00:15:55,120
She tempts him into bed but, a few days later,
283
00:15:55,120 --> 00:15:58,440
he starts to tell other people about this and her kindness.
284
00:15:58,440 --> 00:16:02,000
No, he's blabbed! Look, look, look, so in the end she neglects him
285
00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:03,720
because he kissed and told.
286
00:16:03,720 --> 00:16:06,880
She rejects him, so at that point she's stopped the refrain,
287
00:16:06,880 --> 00:16:10,080
- "A husband is better than money to me."
- She's stopped saying that?
288
00:16:10,080 --> 00:16:13,880
- Yes, and she moved to, "Because like a rascal he did kiss and tell."
- Aah!
289
00:16:13,880 --> 00:16:17,880
But there's a happy ending to it, because she then finds
290
00:16:17,880 --> 00:16:21,280
a young stonecutter who does just what she wants.
291
00:16:21,280 --> 00:16:24,560
He becomes her lover. She shares some of her gold with him.
292
00:16:24,560 --> 00:16:28,480
But interestingly with this man, she doesn't seem to marry him,
293
00:16:28,480 --> 00:16:32,040
so she manages to retain her economic independence.
294
00:16:32,040 --> 00:16:35,600
My goodness, she is Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City, isn't she?
295
00:16:35,600 --> 00:16:38,640
- She's dumping men, she's using men.
- Yes.
- Picking and choosing.
296
00:16:38,640 --> 00:16:41,680
She's manipulating the men to suit her own ends.
297
00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:44,200
When I read "Old Maid Mad for a Husband", I laughed.
298
00:16:44,200 --> 00:16:46,960
I thought, "Ha, ha, ha!" It's like a mother-in-law joke.
299
00:16:46,960 --> 00:16:50,720
There's something a bit misogynistic about that, I now realise.
300
00:16:50,720 --> 00:16:54,160
Cos actually, she's a bit of role model, isn't she, for single women?
301
00:16:54,160 --> 00:16:57,560
I think there's a questioning of marriage as a status.
302
00:16:57,560 --> 00:17:00,680
- Well good on you, mad old maid.
- Exactly.
303
00:17:02,360 --> 00:17:05,760
OK, these are just the words of a silly song, but they're part
304
00:17:05,760 --> 00:17:07,880
of a much bigger phenomenon.
305
00:17:07,880 --> 00:17:11,520
Women were beginning to question the accepted order of things.
306
00:17:13,960 --> 00:17:17,520
Perhaps they shouldn't get married at any cost.
307
00:17:17,520 --> 00:17:20,800
Perhaps they shouldn't just put up and shut up.
308
00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:25,880
And for a woman to express these ideas was amazingly radical.
309
00:17:25,880 --> 00:17:29,840
Not long before, a woman could suffer the most brutal
310
00:17:29,840 --> 00:17:32,920
of punishments for simply speaking out of turn,
311
00:17:32,920 --> 00:17:36,360
with the notorious scold's bridle.
312
00:17:36,360 --> 00:17:39,760
A scold's bridle is a ferocious...
313
00:17:39,760 --> 00:17:42,440
- Ooh, a nasty thing!
- ..looking instrument...
314
00:17:42,440 --> 00:17:45,400
- Oh, isn't that horrific?
- ..which was fastened onto the head.
315
00:17:45,400 --> 00:17:49,880
So is this put on to somebody who scolds her husband?
316
00:17:49,880 --> 00:17:54,520
No, scolding was supposed to be sustained verbal harassment.
317
00:17:54,520 --> 00:17:56,600
Who's to say where that line is?
318
00:17:56,600 --> 00:17:59,520
You could just be a really outgoing, opinionated person.
319
00:17:59,520 --> 00:18:01,400
That's absolutely right.
320
00:18:01,400 --> 00:18:04,000
This is just such a striking illustration
321
00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:06,560
- of women being silenced, isn't it?
- It is indeed.
322
00:18:07,560 --> 00:18:10,720
I'm opinionated and you're going to silence me.
323
00:18:13,520 --> 00:18:17,240
- Oh, right.
- That goes on there.
324
00:18:17,240 --> 00:18:19,800
And I guess my nose goes in there...
325
00:18:21,440 --> 00:18:23,840
..and that in my mouth.
326
00:18:23,840 --> 00:18:26,920
- Oh!
- Yes, indeed.
327
00:18:26,920 --> 00:18:29,080
MUFFLED SPEECH
328
00:18:29,080 --> 00:18:32,840
There's a contemporary description of the punishment of a woman
329
00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:36,480
called Anne Biddlestone being punished in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
330
00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:39,440
It says that the tongue of iron pushed into her mouth,
331
00:18:39,440 --> 00:18:41,440
caused blood to flow out.
332
00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:47,960
Please take it off.
333
00:18:47,960 --> 00:18:51,480
Oh, that's horrible, horrible, horrible.
334
00:18:51,480 --> 00:18:53,400
Eugh!
335
00:18:56,360 --> 00:18:59,320
It could be highly dangerous for a woman to speak out
336
00:18:59,320 --> 00:19:01,040
in the 17th century.
337
00:19:02,120 --> 00:19:07,440
Men did not want their status challenged, but extraordinarily,
338
00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:12,000
in the Restoration that's exactly what some women were doing.
339
00:19:12,000 --> 00:19:14,960
What's more, they were getting away with it,
340
00:19:14,960 --> 00:19:19,200
and even winning over some of the most unlikely individuals.
341
00:19:20,800 --> 00:19:24,160
This is Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire,
342
00:19:24,160 --> 00:19:28,800
the family seat of William Cavendish, Duke Of Newcastle.
343
00:19:28,800 --> 00:19:31,960
'Originally, he'd been an archetypal 17th-century man
344
00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:35,280
'with archetypal views on women, love and marriage,
345
00:19:35,280 --> 00:19:39,320
'and he was very explicit in the ways he expressed them.'
346
00:19:41,360 --> 00:19:45,000
This crazy little castle was completed by William Cavendish
347
00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:48,320
when he was still married to his first wife, Elizabeth.
348
00:19:48,320 --> 00:19:52,200
He wasn't particularly faithful to her, and this place has been
349
00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:55,600
decorated as a kind of monument to his love for women.
350
00:19:55,600 --> 00:19:59,800
Lots of his different female relationships are expressed here.
351
00:19:59,800 --> 00:20:05,120
This room, for example, is all about virtue and it stands for his wife.
352
00:20:05,120 --> 00:20:09,360
We've got here Christianity. We've got the symbols of the passion.
353
00:20:09,360 --> 00:20:12,520
It's all about being good and doing your duty.
354
00:20:18,040 --> 00:20:21,720
But this second little closet off the bed chamber is the flip side
355
00:20:21,720 --> 00:20:24,520
to the first, the theme in here is pleasure.
356
00:20:24,520 --> 00:20:27,320
There's no more Christianity, here we've got the gods
357
00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:32,720
and goddesses of Mount Olympus, basically having an orgy together.
358
00:20:32,720 --> 00:20:35,880
And William wasn't alone amongst early 17th-century aristocrats
359
00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:40,200
in thinking it was OK to have a wife for duty and mistresses for pleasure.
360
00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:44,160
His first marriage to Elizabeth had all been about the merger
361
00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:47,240
of two great estates and the production of children.
362
00:20:47,240 --> 00:20:50,480
But when we get to the 1660s and his second marriage, it's a new
363
00:20:50,480 --> 00:20:54,120
and much more modern form of relationship.
364
00:20:54,120 --> 00:20:57,720
Following Elizabeth's death, William's conventional views
365
00:20:57,720 --> 00:21:02,120
were transformed when he met the incredible Margaret Cavendish,
366
00:21:02,120 --> 00:21:05,480
the 17th-century's most outspoken feminist thinker.
367
00:21:05,480 --> 00:21:09,320
Margaret convinced him that marriage was a partnership of equals
368
00:21:09,320 --> 00:21:14,040
based on love and mutual respect, and their new-style relationship
369
00:21:14,040 --> 00:21:18,480
made them the John and Yoko of the Restoration age.
370
00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:25,280
So this is Margaret Cavendish's own handwriting
371
00:21:25,280 --> 00:21:28,480
and she's writing him a love letter during her courtship, isn't she?
372
00:21:28,480 --> 00:21:31,440
That's right, she was in Paris in 1645.
373
00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:34,800
He sent her 70 love poems in a space of just four months,
374
00:21:34,800 --> 00:21:37,480
so that's several a week, and this is one of her letters.
375
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:40,200
Read out a bit, cos there's some good, romantic stuff here.
376
00:21:40,200 --> 00:21:41,880
Absolutely, it really is.
377
00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:45,800
"And yet, my lord, I must tell you I am not easily drawn
378
00:21:45,800 --> 00:21:51,240
"to be in love for I did never see any man but yourself
379
00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:54,960
- "that I could have married."
- Ah, he's the only man for her.
380
00:21:54,960 --> 00:21:58,240
Absolutely. It really was a meeting of souls, I think.
381
00:21:58,240 --> 00:22:00,200
They weren't forced into it by families?
382
00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:02,240
No, there was no brokering, no dowry,
383
00:22:02,240 --> 00:22:04,200
so that bargaining was left out of it.
384
00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:06,080
In that sense it was a modern courtship,
385
00:22:06,080 --> 00:22:08,040
because it was just between the two parties,
386
00:22:08,040 --> 00:22:11,040
and then they had to square it with everyone else afterwards.
387
00:22:11,040 --> 00:22:15,480
With a marriage based on romance and respect rather than money,
388
00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:19,120
Margaret and William had defied convention.
389
00:22:19,120 --> 00:22:23,600
But even more unusually, Margaret had published her views on marriage.
390
00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:26,160
"For the most part," wrote Margaret,
391
00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:29,080
"maids desire husbands upon any condition,
392
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:32,200
"but I am not of their minds for I think a bad husband
393
00:22:32,200 --> 00:22:34,680
"is far worse than no husband."
394
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:39,480
And amazingly, William encouraged her to keep on writing.
395
00:22:39,480 --> 00:22:43,800
In her plays she often explored young women trying to choose
396
00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:45,920
who to marry, or even whether to marry.
397
00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:48,120
And there's some fiction and plays by her
398
00:22:48,120 --> 00:22:49,880
where she imagines women not marrying
399
00:22:49,880 --> 00:22:51,440
and going on to become heroic women
400
00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:53,240
who are generals in command of armies,
401
00:22:53,240 --> 00:22:57,560
or wise hermits advising people on how to live their lives.
402
00:22:58,960 --> 00:23:02,360
Margaret's plays were quite shocking to people of the time.
403
00:23:02,360 --> 00:23:05,360
Pepys called her a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman.
404
00:23:05,360 --> 00:23:09,040
He says of William that he was an ass to suffer her to write what she did.
405
00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:12,520
So it wasn't just Margaret who got the stick, it was William as well.
406
00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:15,280
These two become very prominent in society
407
00:23:15,280 --> 00:23:19,320
- and their marriage becomes a sort of role model, doesn't it?
- Absolutely.
408
00:23:19,320 --> 00:23:22,040
And people pursued her round London trying to study her
409
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:24,080
and her relationship with William.
410
00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:26,360
She became a real celebrity,
411
00:23:26,360 --> 00:23:28,440
and this whole idea of a woman
412
00:23:28,440 --> 00:23:31,160
as an equal and someone that a man could share things with,
413
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:33,840
that's sort of what she and William
414
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:35,920
were being a real subject of interest for.
415
00:23:35,920 --> 00:23:39,880
This makes her an archetypical woman of the Restoration, doesn't it?
416
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:42,800
In a sense, but in a sense a lot of women were frightened of her.
417
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:44,400
I mean it may be the fascination...
418
00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:46,800
Yes, the Restoration women are frightening,
419
00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:49,720
- they're getting out of their box.
- That's true, yes.
420
00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:52,720
I mean women like Mary Evelyn, married to John Evelyn,
421
00:23:52,720 --> 00:23:54,760
- I mean she was appalled...
- Thumbs down.
422
00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:57,480
..and she thought Margaret must really be distracted,
423
00:23:57,480 --> 00:24:01,560
must be mad to be carrying on this way that no sane woman would.
424
00:24:02,880 --> 00:24:05,480
Now Margaret's detractor, Mary Evelyn,
425
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:07,840
was the wife of the diarist John Evelyn,
426
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:10,080
who'd had to stump up that huge dowry.
427
00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:16,760
'They're buried together in their private chapel in Surrey.'
428
00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:20,560
While we learn a lot about the 17th century from John's diaries,
429
00:24:20,560 --> 00:24:24,680
'Mary's writings are equally fascinating because she endorses
430
00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:28,240
'the rather more conventional view on women and marriage.'
431
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:31,520
This is the tomb of John Evelyn's wife, Mary,
432
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:36,240
and she's described here as "The best daughter, wife, and mother."
433
00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:38,520
That's how she's recorded for posterity,
434
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:40,520
but it wasn't always that way.
435
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:42,880
She married him very young, at the age of 14,
436
00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:45,640
and she was worried about giving up her studies.
437
00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:48,480
Once she was married though, she quickly gave up
438
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:52,680
her intellectual aspirations and she settles into this role of wife.
439
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:58,080
As she says herself here, "Women were not born to read.
440
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:02,960
"All time borrowed from family duties is misspent,"
441
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:07,280
and she esteems herself, "Capable of very little".
442
00:25:10,040 --> 00:25:13,280
Mary and Margaret's polar opposite views on married life
443
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:15,600
kicked off a very modern debate.
444
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:18,200
'People don't realise it began in the Restoration -
445
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:23,240
'what should a women demand from her marriage, her husband and home?
446
00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:28,440
'And with an increasingly literate middle rank in Restoration society,
447
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:31,720
'more and more women were jumping into the debate.'
448
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:37,720
'This is a typical rural 17th-century house of a middling family.'
449
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:40,280
And here's a main living area.
450
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:43,520
- This is all very shabby chic, isn't it?
- Isn't it lovely?
451
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:48,000
'It's interesting because, unlike the average family home in the past,
452
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:51,440
'it's not just one open space but it's divided up into rooms,
453
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:53,960
'each with a specific purpose.'
454
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:57,600
- Now, in here there would have been people sleeping.
- Bedroom one?
455
00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:01,400
'The new style of house brought with it new responsibilities
456
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:06,360
'and for women, running it became a formidable and important job.
457
00:26:06,360 --> 00:26:10,000
This was the age of the professional housewife.
458
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:13,280
Elaine, this is quite a reasonably substantial property, isn't it?
459
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:15,600
- Yes.
- What sort of people would have lived here?
460
00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:18,560
Well, as it happens, we know exactly who lived here.
461
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:21,920
There was a man called Nicholas Austen, who was a yeoman,
462
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:27,000
- lived here in the Restoration period with his wife, Susannah.
- Susannah.
463
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:29,360
And six children.
464
00:26:29,360 --> 00:26:31,960
Six! Daughter, daughter, son, son, daughter, son.
465
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:33,440
That's quite a household.
466
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:35,760
And that wouldn't have been the whole household,
467
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:39,160
because there would have been one or two live-in servants as well.
468
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:40,880
It's quite a responsibility.
469
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:44,280
Absolutely, really she's running a small business.
470
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:48,200
This is not just being a housewife in a 1950s style.
471
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:53,160
'A Restoration housewife like Susannah obviously didn't
472
00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:56,720
'have any electric gadgets, but what she now had was published
473
00:26:56,720 --> 00:26:58,440
'household advice books.'
474
00:26:59,520 --> 00:27:02,160
You think that Susannah, at this level in society,
475
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:04,440
the yeoman level, would have been able to read?
476
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:06,120
In those days,
477
00:27:06,120 --> 00:27:09,080
though most people wouldn't have had any reason to learn to write,
478
00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:13,040
people could read, people needed to read their Bible for themselves.
479
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:16,440
So yes, I think she would very likely have been able to read.
480
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:20,520
'The books Susannah would have wanted were the bestsellers by
481
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:24,160
'the 17th-century's own domestic goddess, Hannah Woolley.'
482
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:27,800
- Here we've got roast salmon.
- Deer, baked.
483
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:30,840
Quaking pudding! Do you think that wobbled?
484
00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:34,240
- Egg mince pie.
- Marinated carp.
485
00:27:34,240 --> 00:27:38,200
- Mushrooms, fried.
- You don't need a recipe to fry mushrooms!
486
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:42,040
And who was Hannah Woolley?
487
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:44,600
What we know of Hannah Woolley is that she was married
488
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:46,200
to a schoolmaster.
489
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:49,840
He ran the school and she looked after the children,
490
00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:52,640
and it was in the last months of his life that she turned
491
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:54,960
her hand to writing cookery books.
492
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:59,360
Hannah was one of the first women to earn a living from writing.
493
00:27:59,360 --> 00:28:03,680
Between 1661 and 1672, housewives across the country
494
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:08,080
'lapped up Hannah's first four books and when the fifth,
495
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:10,480
'called the Gentlewoman's Companion,
496
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:14,360
'was published in 1674, it was an overnight success.
497
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:19,880
'But surprisingly, considering that Hannah had become the
498
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:22,800
'housewives' heroine, the tone of some of the advice in it
499
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:25,440
'wasn't particularly female-friendly.'
500
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:27,080
I'm not so keen on this.
501
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:29,840
"The wife ought to be subject to the husband in all things."
502
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:31,760
You've got to keep the house in good order,
503
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:34,160
you've got to have dinner ready when he comes home.
504
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:38,120
And you've got to make the food nice or else he'll go off to the tavern,
505
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:40,680
"Which many are compelled to do
506
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:44,000
"because of the daily dissatisfactions they find at home."
507
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:45,640
And that's quite shocking.
508
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:48,560
- Yeah, it's a bit of a letdown, I have to say.
- Yes.
509
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:53,200
But there's a reason for the rather sexist tone.
510
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:56,400
The book isn't by Hannah Woolley at all, it's written by a man.
511
00:28:56,400 --> 00:28:59,000
- It's an impostor!
- An impostor.
512
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:01,040
That's just typical, isn't it?
513
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:04,520
He's putting male propaganda into the mouth of Hannah Woolley.
514
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:06,480
That's exactly what he's doing.
515
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:09,480
The Restoration housewife was becoming
516
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:11,240
a powerful force in the home,
517
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:14,240
and some men thought she should be kept in check.
518
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:17,520
With no laws against plagiarism,
519
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:20,120
what better ways to convey the message of,
520
00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:22,080
"Know your place, ladies",
521
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:25,560
'than to put it into the mouth of every woman's idol, Hannah.'
522
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:29,560
The views about how a woman should behave
523
00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:34,000
in no way resemble what Hannah Woolley says in her own book.
524
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:36,600
I'm shocked on her behalf.
525
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:39,600
What she could do, and what she did do,
526
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:43,040
was to bring out another book of her own, where she says,
527
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:46,200
"How dare they take my name to write that nonsense!"
528
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:48,320
- I love it! Hannah Woolley is great!
- Yes.
529
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:55,840
'During the Restoration, a woman's responsibility for running the house
530
00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:59,520
'spanned across every social divide.'
531
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:02,600
Hannah believed that it was every woman's duty
532
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:04,720
to be an efficient housewife...
533
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:10,480
..although some houses were clearly a little bigger than others.
534
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:16,160
'This is Ham House in Surrey.
535
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:22,840
'The diarist John Evelyn described it as one of the best houses
536
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:25,800
'he'd ever seen.
537
00:30:25,800 --> 00:30:30,280
'The wife of this house was a truly impressive Restoration woman,
538
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:32,320
'Elizabeth Dysart.'
539
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:40,760
This is Elizabeth, one of the 17th century's most formidable women.
540
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:42,480
She was a real survivor.
541
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:46,200
She survived two husbands, giving birth to 11 children.
542
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:49,760
She survived the Civil War and the Commonwealth and the Restoration.
543
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:52,800
She's said to have been the secret lover of Oliver Cromwell.
544
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:54,440
At the same time,
545
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:57,880
she was secretly sending money to the exiled King Charles II.
546
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:01,440
After the Restoration, she became best friends with his wife,
547
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:04,920
Catherine of Braganza, the Queen, and she was tough as old boots.
548
00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:08,840
Elizabeth didn't just look after Ham House,
549
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:10,880
she gave it a complete makeover.
550
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:17,720
- So all of these rooms were added by Elizabeth.
- Absolutely.
551
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:20,480
After she married Lauderdale in 1672,
552
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:25,160
they filled in between these two turrets and she created this suite.
553
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:28,000
When you say SHE did these things, isn't that quite unusual?
554
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:31,120
Well it is unusual, but then it was her own family home,
555
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:32,760
she grew up here.
556
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:34,840
- Yeah.
- And she was a very strong character.
557
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:37,040
People said that she determined everything
558
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:39,360
- and had a great sense of detail.
- Yeah.
559
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:41,960
And here at Ham she does seem really to have done everything.
560
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:44,400
There may have been other cases where the women had done
561
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:47,000
a lot to a house, but the man always got the credit anyway.
562
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:49,040
How do you know Elizabeth did it herself?
563
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:50,720
She put her mark everywhere.
564
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:53,600
We can get some idea of this from this wonderful silver
565
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:57,760
hearth furniture which she had made in the 1670s,
566
00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:00,120
and here on the bellows you have her own crest.
567
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:02,920
It just says Elizabeth Lauderdale.
568
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:05,440
- That's fabulously self-important, isn't it?
- Very.
569
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,560
- To sign your own bellows.
- Absolutely. And also on the grate.
570
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:10,920
Oh look, there she is again.
571
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:13,560
And she's there with her husband, she's let him in now.
572
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:16,240
And also she put her name over here on the floor.
573
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:18,320
- Oh wow! There it is, underfoot.
- A cypher.
574
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:22,440
And you see here the E for Elizabeth, a loop in the middle.
575
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:24,760
So when the Queen came, she would have been in no doubt
576
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:28,000
- about who was in charge of this place.
- Absolutely.
577
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:30,640
One look at the household accounts and the depth of detail
578
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:34,160
that Elizabeth mastered makes it quite clear
579
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:37,240
exactly who was in charge.
580
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:40,960
- Look, someone's bought a pig.
- Yes.
- And two carps.
581
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:42,760
- Yes.
- And a pound of butter.
- Butter.
582
00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:44,840
- And what?
- And some mustard.
- Mustard!
583
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:48,080
- Then you see Elizabeth has signed it off.
- Yes, she's checked it!
584
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:50,400
Yes, and she checked so many of them.
585
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:53,960
And then over here, these are more supplies really for doing up
586
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:56,080
the house and things, such as dishes.
587
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:58,160
Or here, one case to hold a flagon.
588
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:00,680
- A flagon. Got a basin and a ewer.
- And a ewer.
589
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:04,200
And then down here, she signed it off, "Pay in full £6."
590
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:06,760
Basically she's authorised the signature.
591
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:09,480
And that's 1673, that's exactly when she's doing
592
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:11,640
all these wonderful apartments.
593
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:16,560
And then she personally had to manage the staff.
594
00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:18,680
The chaplain, the page, the butler.
595
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:22,760
The coachman, the cook. The footman, the other footman, the groom.
596
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:24,440
Groom, the groom.
597
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:28,760
She is like the chief executive of a huge organisation, isn't she?
598
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:30,760
Mmm, definitely, definitely.
599
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:33,760
Do you think that the Restoration period caused any change
600
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:36,320
in the way women were doing their household duties?
601
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:39,240
I think it comes from what happened just before the Civil War,
602
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:41,600
because the men were away so much.
603
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:45,480
Elizabeth's father was away a lot, and her first husband, Sir Lionel,
604
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:48,000
and a lot of the time she was here, running the house
605
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:50,720
and so I think the women did get increasingly strong.
606
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:54,000
So when Elizabeth came to her second marriage and she just about
607
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:57,040
- allowed her husband to have his name on the stuff...
- Yes.
608
00:33:57,040 --> 00:33:59,680
..in the house, she had this taste for power already.
609
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:01,520
Oh, I think so, definitely.
610
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:05,560
By the Restoration, the perfect housewife was expected to have
611
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:08,800
a phenomenal range of skills.
612
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:11,360
She'd even had to become the family doctor,
613
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:14,040
caring for the health and welfare of her children,
614
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:16,560
household and community.
615
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:19,440
Even Elizabeth, with her army of servants,
616
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:21,880
was expected to get her own hands dirty
617
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:24,280
and distil her own medicines,
618
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:26,160
and some of her recipes
619
00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:27,680
still work today.
620
00:34:27,680 --> 00:34:31,200
And this is the recipe that she has, which would be quite typical
621
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:32,760
of the day, and these would be
622
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:34,520
commonly found garden plants.
623
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:37,120
- That's rosemary, what's that good for?
- Circulation.
624
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:39,080
- What about that?
- Mint is good for digestion.
625
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:41,200
What's sage good for, as well as sausages?
626
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:43,800
Sage actually is very good for the digestive system.
627
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:45,480
It's very antimicrobial.
628
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:49,440
- It's probably why these plants were added to foods then.
- Really?
629
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:51,960
Cos they're actually antiseptics.
630
00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:53,960
Oh. Here we go.
631
00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:55,560
Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh!
632
00:34:55,560 --> 00:34:58,520
- Now, does the brandy go in next?
- Yeah.
633
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:02,080
Oh yeah, look at that.
634
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:05,840
- Cover it.
- Oh, you've made me a mojito!
635
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:08,960
Oh, oh! Golly, very strong one.
636
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:15,400
And we're going to cover this.
637
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:18,040
And that's going to come to the boil,
638
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:20,440
it's going to turn into steam, the steam's going to
639
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:23,880
travel along this tube, the cold water is going to condense the steam
640
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:27,280
- and then out of this little tap come the magical cordial.
- Yep.
641
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:30,400
Going to make me 20 years younger in 20 minutes' time.
642
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:34,680
What other recipes did Elizabeth Dysart have in her book?
643
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:36,080
Pills for piles.
644
00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:39,240
Pills for piles? Where did you take that pill?
645
00:35:39,240 --> 00:35:42,280
- Up the fundament.
- Oh golly, what was in it?
646
00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:44,440
Oil of poplar and burnt cork.
647
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:48,960
- As a herbalist, does that work?
- Well, actually it would do!
- No!
648
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:53,000
The bark of trees have a lot of tannins in them
649
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:56,760
which are astringent, and basically would astringe the piles.
650
00:35:56,760 --> 00:36:00,080
It's actually working. The magic potion is coming out.
651
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:02,680
I can't wait to taste it.
652
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:04,560
Right, I'm going to taste it.
653
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:14,600
Ah, that is the elixir of life. Thank you, Elizabeth Dysart.
654
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:16,160
Oh, dear.
655
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:18,840
I can see why they thought that this would cure all ills.
656
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:20,280
Mmm.
657
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:23,320
Whatever's wrong with you, a shot of this will make you feel better.
658
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:29,880
Healing the sick was the top domestic duty for a Restoration woman.
659
00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:34,680
But she had to tread carefully.
660
00:36:37,080 --> 00:36:39,080
To the 17th-century mind,
661
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:42,440
making up potions was perilously close to witchcraft.
662
00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:49,800
In the years leading up to the Restoration, being labelled
663
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:51,800
as a witch was a real danger.
664
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:56,200
During the Civil War, the country had just witnessed
665
00:36:56,200 --> 00:36:58,360
the largest witch hunt ever.
666
00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:03,240
Between 1645 and '47 over 250 women
667
00:37:03,240 --> 00:37:06,280
were investigated in East Anglia alone.
668
00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:12,240
Martin, what if an innocent, law-abiding, 17th-century woman
669
00:37:12,240 --> 00:37:16,520
like myself was accused of witchcraft, what would happen to me?
670
00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:20,680
Well it's like any other major felony, you would be tried
671
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:23,960
at the assizes and, if you were found guilty, you could be hanged.
672
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:30,760
And what sort of evidence would they need to do that?
673
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:35,000
Perhaps searching your body for witch's marks.
674
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:37,120
Oh dear, I've got a mole on my leg just here.
675
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:38,960
That's not good news at all.
676
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:44,560
Some of the other tests were just as gruesome and possibly
677
00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:46,560
as deadly as the hanging itself.
678
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:50,800
Ducking in the water from a great height,
679
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:53,640
or the rather horrendous swimming of the witch.
680
00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:58,600
Thumb attached to your right foot.
681
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:03,440
So you're going to throw me in the river like this?
682
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:06,320
- Yeah, rope round your middle.
- And around the middle too?
683
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:09,440
Well I'm a goner, cos if I float I'm a witch and I will be hanged,
684
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:13,000
and if I sink I won't be a witch, but I'll be drowned.
685
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:15,760
If you sink, we hope we'll pull you out before you drown,
686
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:19,720
but if you float that doesn't mean you're convicted,
687
00:38:19,720 --> 00:38:23,400
it means you're likely to be a witch, so you'll be sent for trial.
688
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:26,280
During the East Anglian witch hunt,
689
00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:28,760
over 100 women were hanged for witchcraft.
690
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:34,680
And although witch prosecutions continued through into the 1700s,
691
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:38,240
the 17th century would see the end of the killings.
692
00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:43,240
The last conviction of a witch is in 1712,
693
00:38:43,240 --> 00:38:47,240
- the case of Jane Wenham in Hertfordshire.
- What happens to her?
694
00:38:47,240 --> 00:38:50,120
She was reprieved. The judge was very sceptical.
695
00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:53,320
This was a case where there was evidence that she could fly
696
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:57,320
and the judge said that there's no law against flying.
697
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:02,840
If the judges and the establishment are getting more sceptical
698
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:04,440
about witches that's one thing,
699
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:06,560
but do you think people round here
700
00:39:06,560 --> 00:39:09,520
actually went on believing that they existed?
701
00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:12,040
Yeah, I think this is an important issue.
702
00:39:12,040 --> 00:39:15,000
By the end of the 17th century there's a gap
703
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:19,240
between what the elites think, particularly the legal elite,
704
00:39:19,240 --> 00:39:21,240
and ordinary people.
705
00:39:21,240 --> 00:39:24,120
And ordinary people are often scandalised in fact
706
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:29,360
that the courts, the judges, aren't prosecuting and hanging witches.
707
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:35,080
The 17th century grew increasingly enlightened as it went on...
708
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:40,000
'..but for many, ancient fears did still linger.
709
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:46,480
'This is Kew Palace.
710
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:49,880
'it was built in the 1630s on the outskirts of London.
711
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:53,560
'In recent years its curators have revealed that
712
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:57,640
'even in a grand house like this, superstition was still rife.
713
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:05,960
'The evidence lies in the servants' quarters up in the rafters.'
714
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:09,120
Goodness, pretty spooky and crumbly up here, isn't it?
715
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:10,720
It's the best part about it.
716
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:14,160
So what went on in these attics?
717
00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:16,520
- Well, I think the servants lived up here.
- Yeah.
718
00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:18,720
And perhaps they used it for storage as well.
719
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:22,440
Are these secret symbols to keep witches away?
720
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:24,560
Yeah, supposedly a witch mark.
721
00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:26,880
And if you look at it, you can see a circle
722
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:30,000
with possibly rays of the sun coming down from it.
723
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:34,760
Perhaps it's the sun, but one theory is that the M might
724
00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:38,280
stand for the Virgin Mary, possibly the initial M.
725
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:40,440
So we've got the sun to keep the witches away
726
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:42,560
because they come at night,
727
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:45,480
and we've got the M because the Virgin Mary might protect you?
728
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:49,000
Yeah, it's a mixture of folk magic and Christianity, I think.
729
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:51,880
This one is up on the rafters, why is that?
730
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:54,040
Where we find them is normally in places
731
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:57,080
where a witch could come in,
732
00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:59,880
so vulnerable places like windows, doors,
733
00:40:59,880 --> 00:41:01,400
staircases, fireplaces.
734
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:04,400
And here, although we're standing on floorboards now,
735
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:07,520
this was where the 1630s staircase came up through the building.
736
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:10,960
And through here I can show you one which is next to a window.
737
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:13,680
Now if you look at this one here.
738
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:16,720
- Oh, there it is, look at that!
- That's the same as the one out there,
739
00:41:16,720 --> 00:41:19,520
but it's not an M it's reversed, it's upside down.
740
00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:21,640
- It's upside down.
- Or perhaps double V.
741
00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:24,200
- Oh, two letter Vs together like that.
- That's right.
742
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:26,920
Some people think it might stand for virgin of virgins,
743
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:30,200
so again it's a possible plea to the Virgin Mary.
744
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:34,520
It could be. Or maybe the servants who slept here were virgins.
745
00:41:37,240 --> 00:41:40,640
What other evidence do we see of superstitious behaviour?
746
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:41,800
There's quite a bit.
747
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:45,320
You also get things hidden away in buildings - witch bottles,
748
00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:48,880
urine bottles, shoes hidden in the rafters of roofs.
749
00:41:48,880 --> 00:41:51,360
Do you hide an old shoe cos it's lucky?
750
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:53,800
I think you're trying to invest luck,
751
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:57,080
or whatever you want to call it, in some inanimate object.
752
00:41:57,080 --> 00:42:00,440
The other possibility is that you're trying to deflect evil,
753
00:42:00,440 --> 00:42:02,760
so something that will fool an evil spirit.
754
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:05,680
Now do you think that in the 17th century
755
00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:07,960
we start to see this sort of thing tailing off?
756
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:11,280
Ironically, although the earlier period is said to be the more
757
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:14,440
superstitious one, the number of shoes which have been discovered,
758
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:17,400
and of course shoes are great because you can date them in the style
759
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:21,120
of the fashion, actually rises at the end of the 17th century.
760
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:24,280
So between 1690 and about 1710,
761
00:42:24,280 --> 00:42:26,720
there are almost 100 pairs of shoes known
762
00:42:26,720 --> 00:42:29,360
from different houses around the country.
763
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:32,480
That's really interesting to think that witchcraft superstition
764
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:35,400
is just as powerful at the end of the 17th century as it seems
765
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:38,600
- to have been at the beginning.
- It seems to be.
766
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:43,800
'It's more than likely that the people who were scratching marks,
767
00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:47,160
'or hiding shoes, came from the lower and less literate classes,
768
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:52,520
'and for them the world remained a scary place.'
769
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:59,000
But for rising numbers of better off and better educated women,
770
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:01,640
books were now demystifying the world.
771
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:08,480
'Hannah Woolley's works, for example,
772
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:12,680
'reveal a fascinatingly modern approach to women's issues,
773
00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:14,320
'in particular to sex.'
774
00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:18,480
This one's How To Cure The Green Sickness,
775
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:23,200
and green sickness is essentially sexual frustration in young girls.
776
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:27,680
It says here that laziness and love are the common causes.
777
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:31,120
It can also be brought on if they are eating too much oatmeal,
778
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:35,080
or chalk, or cinders from the fireplace,
779
00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:36,920
but you can cure it, not only by work,
780
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:40,240
but by this rather delicious drink.
781
00:43:40,240 --> 00:43:44,960
You get a quart of fine claret wine, a pound of currants,
782
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:48,200
a handful of the tops of rosemary.
783
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:51,400
Then you take three spoonfuls every morning and evening.
784
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:54,960
That's not very nice.
785
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:57,280
But then you eat some of the currants as well and,
786
00:43:57,280 --> 00:44:00,240
because they've been soaked in the winey herby stuff,
787
00:44:00,240 --> 00:44:02,840
they're quite tasty. Mmm.
788
00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:06,880
Now, the idea that young girls should be suppressed
789
00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:09,840
and their desires brought in check may not surprise you,
790
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:12,480
but I do think it's really intriguing that these young girls
791
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:16,280
are expected to have such a high sex drive in the first place.
792
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:21,560
It wasn't just the existence of women's sexual desire
793
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:25,640
that was acknowledged, but also their need for sexual pleasure.
794
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:32,400
Sarah, I think lots of people will have the idea that female
795
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:35,360
sexual pleasure was only invented in the 1960s,
796
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:38,720
- but this is utterly wrong, isn't it?
- It certainly is.
797
00:44:38,720 --> 00:44:41,560
It was all there in the 17th century and the 16th century.
798
00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:44,960
Women were thought to be completely sexually voracious and we find
799
00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:49,000
it there in ballads and chat books, like this ballad Nine Times a Night.
800
00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:53,720
- It doesn't exhaust a woman, but the poor man can't keep up.
- Oh!
801
00:44:53,720 --> 00:44:58,000
I love the way it ends, "Nine times a night is too much for a man,
802
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:02,320
"I can't do it myself," he says, "but my sister can."
803
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:04,040
She certainly can.
804
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:06,840
She can do it as often as she needs to, for her own pleasure.
805
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:10,400
Now if, in the 17th century, female sexuality was important,
806
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:12,840
I'm having problems imagining the Puritans
807
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:14,440
being terribly keen on this.
808
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:17,080
Well, they weren't keen on having sexual pleasure
809
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:21,240
outside of marriage, but within marriage it was hugely important.
810
00:45:21,240 --> 00:45:23,880
Stopped a man straying, stopped adultery,
811
00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:26,320
so it was key to a couple having a loving marriage.
812
00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:28,560
The Puritans are pretty unkeen,
813
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:31,840
- aren't they, on extramarital relationships?
- Absolutely.
814
00:45:31,840 --> 00:45:34,160
In 1650 they brought in the Adultery Act
815
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:38,200
that made adultery and fornication capital crimes,
816
00:45:38,200 --> 00:45:42,600
so you could be executed for having sex outside marriage.
817
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:44,680
So the Puritans are promoting married sex,
818
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:46,240
but then we get the Restoration.
819
00:45:46,240 --> 00:45:48,000
It is a more permissive age, isn't it?
820
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:52,640
Well, I don't think there's any major shift in knowledge particularly,
821
00:45:52,640 --> 00:45:55,440
but there's a burgeoning print culture.
822
00:45:55,440 --> 00:45:59,280
And you have books like Aristotle's Master Piece, for example,
823
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:01,960
that women who were literate may well have had.
824
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:06,560
'This Master Piece was the ultimate Restoration sex guide,
825
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:09,760
'a 17th-century Joy Of Sex.
826
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:17,280
'And no, it wasn't written by THE Aristotle, it's actually anonymous,
827
00:46:17,280 --> 00:46:19,880
'but some cunning publisher stole the Greek's name
828
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:22,560
'to boost sales and give it an air of respectability.'
829
00:46:24,160 --> 00:46:28,960
It's very technical. We've got here a description of the clitoris,
830
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:32,400
which, "Both in form and colour resembles the comb of a cock.
831
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:34,640
"It looks fresh and red."
832
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:38,000
SHE LAUGHS
833
00:46:39,480 --> 00:46:41,880
Sorry. Your face!
834
00:46:43,720 --> 00:46:47,160
- Well it's, it's, it's very, very...
- It's explicit.
835
00:46:47,160 --> 00:46:49,680
THEY LAUGH
836
00:46:49,680 --> 00:46:52,160
It's full of good and very practical information.
837
00:46:52,160 --> 00:46:54,120
It says here that the clitoris
838
00:46:54,120 --> 00:46:57,880
is the female equivalent of the man's "yard".
839
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:00,800
In the second half of the 17th century you get
840
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:04,160
a focus on the clitoris and on women's pleasure.
841
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:07,480
And also this is key, key, key thing, and to conceive.
842
00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:11,840
If you're not getting any pleasure, you're not going to conceive.
843
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:15,640
'This obsession with female sexual pleasure sounds incredibly modern,
844
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:18,720
'way ahead of its time, but in the 17th century
845
00:47:18,720 --> 00:47:22,040
'men actually cared about giving women satisfaction'
846
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:24,920
'because of a medical misunderstanding.
847
00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:29,160
'They believed that their wives had to have an orgasm to get pregnant.'
848
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:31,160
There was an idea that male and female bodies
849
00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:33,160
were essentially the same,
850
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:36,520
so a women has to have sexual pleasure in order to orgasm
851
00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:39,200
and release a seed to produce a baby,
852
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:41,840
so women's pleasure was hugely important.
853
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:46,320
'During the Restoration, married women were presumably
854
00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:47,920
'enjoying a lot of good sex,
855
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:49,840
'because getting them pregnant
856
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:53,520
'and producing a child was their husband's ultimate goal.'
857
00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:01,000
John Evelyn makes it pretty clear that marriage is for procreation.
858
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:03,760
He says that a wife is like an orchard,
859
00:48:03,760 --> 00:48:06,520
it's her job to produce fruit for her husband.
860
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:09,800
His wife, Mary, was pregnant eight times,
861
00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:13,120
a good part of her life, and each time it must have been traumatic,
862
00:48:13,120 --> 00:48:16,520
given the odds of the mother dying or the baby dying.
863
00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:20,320
In fact, half of her children did not make it to adulthood.
864
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:25,680
In the 17th century every family had to come to terms with
865
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:28,280
the dangers and difficulties of childbirth.
866
00:48:30,000 --> 00:48:33,840
The birth of children was surrounded by fear and superstition.
867
00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:38,080
There were qualified midwives on hand to help,
868
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:41,280
'but in an age still hovering between the medieval and the modern,
869
00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:44,360
'they were viewed with suspicion as well as respect.'
870
00:48:48,240 --> 00:48:52,680
You could spot a 17th-century midwife by her special red cloak,
871
00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:54,840
and these women had special freedoms.
872
00:48:54,840 --> 00:48:57,120
They could come and go, day and night,
873
00:48:57,120 --> 00:48:59,040
in and out of anybody's house.
874
00:48:59,040 --> 00:49:02,080
With this freedom though, came suspicion.
875
00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:04,880
They had to swear an oath to their local bishop
876
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:07,840
saying that they would be diligent and faithful.
877
00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:09,280
They would help every woman.
878
00:49:09,280 --> 00:49:13,400
They had access to human body parts, like the foetus, the placenta,
879
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:16,480
blood, and these could be used in spells,
880
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:20,800
and this is why they also had to swear not to exercise,
881
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:23,480
"Any manner of witchcraft, charme or sorcery."
882
00:49:27,560 --> 00:49:31,120
People were ambivalent about midwives because they had power
883
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:35,080
over a process that was still feared and misunderstood.
884
00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:38,880
Women's experience of childbirth hadn't changed for centuries.
885
00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:45,880
Well, let's assemble our 17th-century birthing chair, then.
886
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:48,160
- OK.
- And I put my legs up like that.
887
00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:50,960
We'll tie you down cos we don't want you trying to get away,
888
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:54,240
not after we've got you this far. Both legs up there, excellent.
889
00:49:54,240 --> 00:49:55,560
And it's simple, the midwife
890
00:49:55,560 --> 00:49:57,480
comes round to the front here,
891
00:49:57,480 --> 00:49:59,800
gets between your legs and receives the baby.
892
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:03,240
There shouldn't be any problem.
893
00:50:03,240 --> 00:50:06,080
Were there any major improvements for women in childbirth
894
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:07,680
throughout the 17th century?
895
00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:10,560
At the end of the 17th century we do start to see some shifts.
896
00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:13,920
One of them is we get a book written by a midwife for midwives.
897
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:16,640
This is the work of Jane Sharp.
898
00:50:16,640 --> 00:50:18,280
This is great. Look, look, look!
899
00:50:18,280 --> 00:50:19,560
She says to them,
900
00:50:19,560 --> 00:50:23,320
"To the celebrated midwives of Great Britain and Ireland. Sisters."
901
00:50:23,320 --> 00:50:24,920
She's a midwife, they're midwives.
902
00:50:24,920 --> 00:50:27,200
And it's signed from "Your affectionate friend
903
00:50:27,200 --> 00:50:30,000
- "and well wisher, Jane Sharp."
- It's wonderful.
904
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:33,400
And she's got in it various pictures which are really interesting.
905
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:38,120
So this edition has a frontispiece which shows the birthing chamber.
906
00:50:38,120 --> 00:50:41,560
And this lady is giving her alcoholic porridge to restore her.
907
00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:44,280
Yes, absolutely, you need that after that.
908
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:47,320
- And what's going on down here?
- Well, here's the whole family
909
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:50,520
and they seem to be going off to church for the baptism.
910
00:50:50,520 --> 00:50:52,320
That's part of the midwife's role.
911
00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:55,760
- It's interesting, they're pillars of the community.
- Absolutely.
912
00:50:55,760 --> 00:50:59,320
She's very much supporting organised religion and moral values.
913
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:01,880
Let's look at this other picture here.
914
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:03,720
Now is this pretty accurate,
915
00:51:03,720 --> 00:51:06,640
this information about the positions of the baby?
916
00:51:06,640 --> 00:51:09,000
Well, you can see for yourself that the babies are not
917
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:10,400
exactly nine months old.
918
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:12,320
He doesn't look like a baby really.
919
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:14,640
He's a toddler really, a toddler in the womb.
920
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:16,160
Look at his pectorals!
921
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:18,600
But this is giving you the basics of what position
922
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:22,520
could the child be in if it's not the normal head-first position.
923
00:51:22,520 --> 00:51:25,960
So you've got foot presentation, bottom presentation, hands,
924
00:51:25,960 --> 00:51:27,360
twins, all sorts of things.
925
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:29,880
I guess that if you could tell that you had twins though,
926
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:32,720
and one was upside down like that, this could really help you
927
00:51:32,720 --> 00:51:34,640
imagine what might be going on inside.
928
00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:37,880
Yes, and there is evidence that they were used like that.
929
00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:39,760
By setting out her stall in print,
930
00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:43,680
Jane Sharp introduced a scientific approach to midwifery,
931
00:51:43,680 --> 00:51:45,920
dispelling some of the myths and horrors
932
00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:48,360
that had previously surrounded childbirth.
933
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:53,640
But her book wasn't the only 17th-century breakthrough.
934
00:51:53,640 --> 00:51:57,880
Midwives had always had some rather gruesome tools at their disposal.
935
00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:02,160
'These ones were used to extract dead babies from the mother.'
936
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:08,680
But now came the arrival of a potentially lifesaving instrument.
937
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:11,400
This is the forceps and you have two separate blades.
938
00:52:11,400 --> 00:52:13,640
And what you do is you put one on top of the other.
939
00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:15,680
- Is that how you get them in?
- That's right.
940
00:52:15,680 --> 00:52:18,680
You go in like that and, once you're in the womb, you'll guide
941
00:52:18,680 --> 00:52:22,600
with your hand and then you open them up inside the womb and then...
942
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:26,360
- Oh, then you can grab his head.
- ..you can grab the head, exactly.
943
00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:28,240
Who invented these and when?
944
00:52:28,240 --> 00:52:31,000
These were invented by the Chamberlain family,
945
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:34,800
a French Huguenot family, probably 1630s, maybe as early as that.
946
00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:38,040
These are men, what are they doing getting involved in childbirth?
947
00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:40,440
They've realised this is a really lucrative area.
948
00:52:40,440 --> 00:52:43,240
If you know that there is a chance if your baby's stuck
949
00:52:43,240 --> 00:52:45,960
that the Chamberlains can help, you'll employ them,
950
00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:48,640
- you won't employ anybody else.
- Right.
951
00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:53,960
And they keep these a secret within their family for about 100 years,
952
00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:57,280
and when the secret comes out, when it's finally published
953
00:52:57,280 --> 00:53:00,040
after the death of one of the Chamberlains,
954
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:01,960
immediately other people go into this.
955
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:04,080
They can see this is a really important area.
956
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:07,440
- So the forceps are invented by men and used by men.
- That's right.
957
00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:10,000
They're used by men in difficult births
958
00:53:10,000 --> 00:53:12,080
that a midwife couldn't deal with.
959
00:53:12,080 --> 00:53:14,960
So that these ones are associated with the midwife
960
00:53:14,960 --> 00:53:18,800
and with the old ways, this is the new future of midwifery.
961
00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:20,680
Is it good or bad for women?
962
00:53:21,680 --> 00:53:23,480
I suppose it's good in the sense
963
00:53:23,480 --> 00:53:26,040
that they are going to save babies' lives.
964
00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:29,120
The trouble is that men are moving, in the Restoration period,
965
00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:33,200
from difficult births where nothing else will help,
966
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:38,120
to any birth, so women are getting gradually squeezed out
967
00:53:38,120 --> 00:53:40,720
of the normal childbirth, which is their role.
968
00:53:40,720 --> 00:53:43,880
To have a man in at the start of the process implies that giving birth
969
00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:46,360
is somehow wrong, it's not a normal thing to do,
970
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:48,920
it needs male medical intervention,
971
00:53:48,920 --> 00:53:50,960
even if it's going perfectly normally.
972
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:53,200
- We lose the birthing chair as well, don't we?
- We do.
973
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:55,200
This is all to do with gravity.
974
00:53:55,200 --> 00:53:58,000
It helps the woman, but once the doctor comes along he doesn't want
975
00:53:58,000 --> 00:53:59,600
to be squatting down on the floor.
976
00:53:59,600 --> 00:54:02,320
No, you can't use forceps if someone's in that situation.
977
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:05,040
So the women gets tilted backwards on her back
978
00:54:05,040 --> 00:54:08,040
and it's a less empowering position, isn't it?
979
00:54:08,040 --> 00:54:10,360
- Absolutely.
- You're completely at his mercy.
980
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:13,200
You are an object in a way that you weren't, there.
981
00:54:13,200 --> 00:54:15,360
- You were an active participant there.
- Yeah.
982
00:54:18,480 --> 00:54:21,680
By the end of the 17th century, male doctors were pushing
983
00:54:21,680 --> 00:54:24,520
the midwife out of her traditional role,
984
00:54:24,520 --> 00:54:30,240
but women and their babies had a greater chance of surviving childbirth,
985
00:54:30,240 --> 00:54:34,240
'and that must have been one of the greatest breakthroughs of the age.
986
00:54:36,440 --> 00:54:40,400
'For any family, a healthy child was cause for celebration.
987
00:54:40,400 --> 00:54:43,680
'For the Royal Family, it was essential
988
00:54:43,680 --> 00:54:46,440
'for the stability of their reign.'
989
00:54:49,960 --> 00:54:54,120
Charles II had 11 children by his mistresses,
990
00:54:54,120 --> 00:54:56,080
but his wife Catherine was barren.
991
00:54:56,080 --> 00:55:00,760
Ironically, Charles never produced a legitimate heir
992
00:55:00,760 --> 00:55:07,400
'and so, at his death in 1685, the Crown passed to his brother James...
993
00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:12,160
'..and childbirth became a red-hot political topic.'
994
00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:18,840
The Queen's pregnancy became a real problem in the reign
995
00:55:18,840 --> 00:55:22,880
of the unpopular, autocratic James II.
996
00:55:22,880 --> 00:55:25,920
His big problem was that he converted to Catholicism,
997
00:55:25,920 --> 00:55:30,680
and the one thing people feared was a return to a Roman Catholic regime.
998
00:55:33,760 --> 00:55:39,520
In 1687 his young, Italian, Catholic wife, Mary of Modena,
999
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:43,520
got pregnant, and this caused a huge panic.
1000
00:55:43,520 --> 00:55:45,840
With the unpopular Catholic king
1001
00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:50,600
about to get his own Catholic male heir, was Catholicism back for good?
1002
00:55:52,440 --> 00:55:56,160
Nine months later the King's enemies' worst fears were realised
1003
00:55:56,160 --> 00:56:00,680
when the palace announced that Mary had produced a legitimate male heir.
1004
00:56:01,680 --> 00:56:03,920
But had she really?
1005
00:56:03,920 --> 00:56:07,240
Not everyone believed that the child had survived,
1006
00:56:07,240 --> 00:56:10,280
'and the contested birth set off a media feeding frenzy
1007
00:56:10,280 --> 00:56:13,920
'that would make a modern journalist squirm with excitement.'
1008
00:56:13,920 --> 00:56:18,480
James II's Protestant enemies put it about that the Queen's baby
1009
00:56:18,480 --> 00:56:20,520
had died almost immediately,
1010
00:56:20,520 --> 00:56:23,360
that the true heir to the throne was dead,
1011
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:26,760
and that it had been replaced by an impostor baby,
1012
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:28,680
somebody else's baby smuggled in.
1013
00:56:30,040 --> 00:56:32,000
The rumours got quite elaborate.
1014
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:34,760
They said that the baby had travelled inside a warming pan
1015
00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:36,760
to get into the palace.
1016
00:56:36,760 --> 00:56:39,520
This is kind of like a big, metal hot water bottle.
1017
00:56:39,520 --> 00:56:43,040
You put hot coals in there and it warms up the sheets of your bed.
1018
00:56:44,280 --> 00:56:47,480
There were even maps printed to show the route along which
1019
00:56:47,480 --> 00:56:51,240
the baby is supposed to have been smuggled in to St James's Palace.
1020
00:56:51,240 --> 00:56:53,640
It came in through this little door here,
1021
00:56:53,640 --> 00:56:56,680
along through these rooms, along through here,
1022
00:56:56,680 --> 00:56:58,760
through these apartments,
1023
00:56:58,760 --> 00:57:02,480
round here and into the Queen's bed chamber here.
1024
00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:07,440
And these rumours did James II an awful lot of damage,
1025
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:09,640
even though it was a total load of old rubbish.
1026
00:57:09,640 --> 00:57:12,920
When the Queen gave birth there were 40 people present in the room
1027
00:57:12,920 --> 00:57:15,880
to act as witnesses specifically to stop
1028
00:57:15,880 --> 00:57:19,760
this kind of scandal-mongering anyway.
1029
00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:23,360
And secondly, how on earth do you fit a baby into a warming pan?
1030
00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:25,520
There just isn't room.
1031
00:57:31,200 --> 00:57:35,240
Nevertheless the incident had major consequences, contributing
1032
00:57:35,240 --> 00:57:38,840
directly to James' downfall and what became known
1033
00:57:38,840 --> 00:57:41,320
as the Glorious Revolution of 1688,
1034
00:57:41,320 --> 00:57:45,840
when William of Orange and his wife Mary ousted James from the throne.
1035
00:57:47,120 --> 00:57:50,840
By the end of the 17th century the country had now put aside
1036
00:57:50,840 --> 00:57:54,040
the medieval and was heading for the modern age.
1037
00:57:55,240 --> 00:57:58,800
Some things had indeed got better for ordinary women.
1038
00:57:58,800 --> 00:58:03,680
'There was increased literacy and the ending of brutal punishments
1039
00:58:03,680 --> 00:58:07,960
'for witchcraft, and there were new ideas about marriage
1040
00:58:07,960 --> 00:58:09,920
'and health and childbirth.
1041
00:58:12,040 --> 00:58:15,480
'In the next programme, I'm going to explore how the Restoration
1042
00:58:15,480 --> 00:58:18,560
'allowed some of the most extraordinary women of
1043
00:58:18,560 --> 00:58:24,440
'the 17th century to break the mould, as female pioneers in the theatre,
1044
00:58:24,440 --> 00:58:27,760
'in science and even on the battlefield.'
1045
00:58:40,760 --> 00:58:42,800
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
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