III. “The woeman verie poore and beggarlie, altogether unable to performe it in workmanshipp or otherwise.... Againe she is verie idle, a prattling gossipp, unfitt to undertake a matter of so great a charge, her husband a poore man being departed from her and comorant in Rochell these 11 yeres at least. She is verie untrustie and approoved to have engaged mens clothes which in times past have been putt to her for pressinge. Verie insufficient to answer of herself men’s goodes and unable to procure anie good Caution to render the owners there goodes againe, havinge not so much as a howse to putt her head in, insomuch as (marvellinge under what coullour she doth seeke to attaine to a matter of such weight) we ... should hold them worsse than madd that would hazzard or comitt there goodes into her handes. And to conclude she is generallie held amongest us an unfitt woeman to dwell in a well governed Commonwealth.”[193] Footnote 193: Lansdowne, 161, fo. 127, 2nd July, 1599. An incident showing the wife as virtual manager of her husband’s business is described in a letter from Thomas Cocks of Crowle to Sir Robert Berkely, Kt., in 1633. He writes complaining of a certain Careless who obtained a licence to sell ale “because he was a surgeon and had many patients come to him for help, and found it a great inconvenience for them to go to remote places for their diet and drink, and in that respect obtained a licence with a limitation to sell ale to none but his patients ... but now of late especially he far exceeds his bounds.... A poor fellow who professed himself an extraordinary carder and spinner ... was of late set a work by my wife to card and spin coarse wool for blankets and when he had gotten some money for his work to Careless he goes.” Having got drunk there and coming back in the early hours of the morning he made such a noise in the churchyard “being near my chamber I woke my wife who called up all my men to go into the churchyard and see what the matter was.”[194] Footnote 194: Bund (J. W. W.), _Worcestershire Records_, Vol. I., p. 530. That Mrs. Cocks should engage and direct her husband’s workpeople would not be surprising to seventeenth century minds, for women did so naturally in family industry; but when capitalized, business tended to drift away beyond the wife’s sphere, and thus even then it was unusual to find women connected with the clothing trade, except as wage-earners. Of the processes involved in making cloth, weaving was generally done by men, while the spinning, which was equally essential to its production, was exclusively done by women and children. In earlier days weaving had certainly been to some extent a woman’s trade. “Webster” which is the feminine form of the old term “Webber” is used in old documents, and in these women are also specifically named as following this trade; thus on the Suffolk Poll-Tax Roll are entered the names of