“It may be thought strange and unbeseeming to our sex to show ourselves by way of petition to this Honourable Assembly. But the matter being rightly considered of ... it will be found a duty commanded and required. (1) Because Christ hath purchased us at as dear a rate as he hath done men, and therefore requireth like obedience for the same mercy as men. (2) Because in the free enjoying of Christ in His own laws, and a flourishing estate of the Church and Commonwealth consisteth the happiness of women as well as of men. (3) Because women are sharers in the common calamities that accompany both Church and Commonwealth, when oppression is exercised over the Church or Kingdom wherein they live; and unlimited power given to the prelates to exercise authority over the consciences of women as well as men: witness Newgate and Smithfield, and other places of persecution, wherein women, as well as men, have felt the smart of their fury,” etc. “The petition was presented by Mrs. Anne Stagg, a gentlewoman and brewer’s wife, and many others with her of like rank and quality. Mr. Pym came to the Common’s door, addressed the women and told them that their petition had been thankfully accepted and would be carefully considered.” Coke’s papers had been seized by the King at his death in 1634, but on the 12th May, 1641, the House of Commons ordered Coke’s heir to print them, and thus his views on this point were perpetuated. On the 13th February, 1620, Coke had committed the House to extraordinary doctrine in another relation to women. Among Mr. Lovell’s witnesses was a lady, Mrs. Newdigate, “the House calling to have them called in. Sir Edward Coke out of St. Barnard said, A woman ought not to speak in the congregation. Examination hereof committed to a committee” (_Commons Journal_). It is strange that Sir Edward Coke should have gone so far afield as St. Barnard when St. Paul might have come in as conveniently. Had he read the gospels as carefully as he had read St. Barnard, he would have seen that one of the first two preachers of Christ was Anna the prophetess, who spake of Him in the temple to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem (Luke ii. 36), and that it was through women that Christ sent the first message to the Apostles and Disciples, that became the watchword of early Christianity, “Christ is arisen” (Matthew xxviii., Luke xxiv., John xx.). Coke’s precedent on this point was reversed in his own century. On the 17th November, 1666, “Some debate arising whether Mrs. Bodville, mother of Mrs. Roberts, should be admitted as witness, the matter being debated in the House, the question being put whether Mrs. Bodville be admitted, it was resolved in the affirmative, and Mrs. Bodville, with several other witnesses was examined” (_Commons Journal_).