London in the Jacobite times, Volume IDoran, Dr. (John)
History
London in the Jacobite times, Volume I
Doran, Dr. (John)
London (England) -- History -- 18th century
After the demonstration of the 10th of June was over――in which, it
must be confessed, the Jacobites had the worst of it――the ‘Flying
Post’ thought it would not be amiss to ‘caution the Jacobites of both
sexes, not to appear any more in public with badges of sedition and
rebellion, lest they meet with severer treatment than hitherto.’ The
‘He-Jacobites’ that were ‘drubbed till they eat their rue … are advised
to take care lest the next dose be Hemp or Birch; and the She-Jacobites
ought to be wise, lest they meet with the same fate as some of their
sisters near Charing Cross, who, for insulting gentlemen that wore
orange ribbons, on May 28th, were committed to the care and management
of some of the worshipful Japanners of Shoes, who painted them, they
best know where, with the proper mark of the Beast.’
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE LADIES._]
Addison, in the ‘Freeholder,’ satirised them without mercy. He
ascribed to the Jacobite ladies a want of grace, resulting from
their country life; whereas the Whig ladies, daily in attendance at
Court, possessed a courtly air to which the Jacobite ladies could
never attain! The latter were as raw militia-men compared with the
accomplished soldier in all his glory. Addison accuses the Jacobite
ladies of having a tone of vulgarity and mendacity in the expression
of their disloyal prejudices. Before the ‘beautiful part of creation’
became antagonistic in politics, they were perfect as mistresses of
households, or as maidens worthy of becoming such. But in the present
disturbed times, he describes wives and maidens as mere ‘stateswomen.’
‘Several women of this turn are so earnest in contending for hereditary
right, that they wholly neglect the education of their own sons
and heirs; and are so taken up with their zeal for the Church that
they cannot find time to teach their children the Catechism,’ A
‘pretty bosom heaving with party rage’ is moved by wrong impulses.
‘We sometimes,’ writes Addison, ‘see a pair of stays ready to burst
with sedition; and hear the most masculine passions expressed in the
sweetest voices. I have lately been told of a country gentlewoman,
pretty much famed for this virility of behaviour in party disputes,
who, upon venting her notions very freely in a strange place, was
carried before an honest Justice of the peace. This prudent magistrate,
observing her to be a large black woman, and finding by her discourse
that she was no better than a rebel in her riding-hood, began to
suspect her for my Lord Nithsdale, till a stranger came to her rescue,
who assured him, with tears in his eyes, that he was her husband!’
[Sidenote: _LADIES’ ANTI-JACOBITE ASSOCIATIONS._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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