Category Archives: 17th century

1609: Curl your moustache for sneeze-free kissing

Simion Grahame (1570-1614) was a Scottish-born writer and courtier to James VI. Little is known about Grahame’s life. He was a good scholar who soldiered for a time, after which he traveled widely in Europe, possibly while in exile. In the early 1600s, Grahame returned to Scotland and turned his hand to writing, earning the patronage of James VI. He later moved to the Italian states and spent his final years as a Franciscan friar.

One of Grahame’s better known works was his 1609 Anatomie of Humors. Much of this manuscript dwells on human emotions, particularly melancholy or depression, something Grahame himself seemed familiar with. But it is also interspersed with advice about conduct, manners and how to forge and maintain good relationships with others.

In one chapter, Grahame urged gentlemen to keep their beards and moustaches clean, well trimmed and tightly curled:

“…A man is to be commended if he be [clean] in his linings, his hair well dressed, his beard well brushed and always his upper lip well curled… For if he chance to kiss a gentlewoman, some rebellious hairs may happen to startle in her nose and make her sneeze…”

Those who did not attend to their facial hair, wrote Grahame, were slobs, not fit to socialise with:

“[These] snotty nosed gentlemen, with their drooping moustaches covering their mouth and becoming a harbour for meldrops [mucus]… He will drink with anybody whatsoever, and after he hath washed his filthy beard in the cup… he will suck the hair so heartily with his under lip.”

Source: Simion Grahame, The Anatomie of Humors, Edinburgh, 1609. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1654: Four men hold masturbation contest on Long Island

In June 1654, four men from East Hampton on Long Island were hauled before town leaders, charged with staging a masturbation contest. Accused of public self-pleasuring were two married men, Daniel Fairfield and Fulke Davis, Fulke’s young son John Davis and another teenager, John Hand Jnr.

It is not known whether they were caught ‘in the act’ or informed upon after the event. The nature of their contest is also unrecorded, as is the winner, if there was one. Whatever the details, the incident caused considerable public outrage in staid East Hampton.

The punishments, however, were light – at least in comparison to what they might have been. Fulke Davis, as the oldest and supposedly wisest of the quartet, received the harshest penalty. John Hand Jnr. was not punished at all, perhaps on account of his age:

“After extended examination and serious debate and consultation with their Saybrook neighbours, the townsmen , not deeming the offence worthy of the loss of life or limb, determine that Fulke Davis shall be placed in the pillar and receive corporal punishment; and John Davis and Daniel Fairfield shall be publicly whipped, which was done and witnessed…”

According to genealogical records, Fulke Davis had a history of rubbing his neighbours up the wrong way. His name appears in at least three different legal and property disputes. In the 1660s Fulke and his wife were chased out of East Hampton, allegedly for “molesting men” and “practising witchcraft” respectively. Fulke died in Jamaica, New York, around 1687.

Source: Records of the town of East Hampton, Suffolk County, New York, vol.1, 1639-1680. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1661: London prostitute gets rich from novelty coin act

The site of Priss’ “Chuck Shop” even has its own blue plaque.

Priscilla ‘Priss’ Fotheringham was one of 17th century London’s more colourful prostitutes and brothel madams. Born in Scotland around 1615, the young Priss was reportedly a “cat-eyed gypsy, pleasing to the eye”. By her early 30s, however, Priss’ looks had faded, thanks to a bout of smallpox and years of swilling gin.

In 1652, Priss made the first of several court appearances when she was charged with running a house of ill repute, after being discovered:

“…sitting between two Dutchmen with her breasts naked to the waist and without stockings, drinking and singing in a very uncivil manner.”

She did a stint in Newgate for this and other offences but was back on the streets before 1656. Sometime around then she met her future husband, Edmund Fotheringham, himself the son of a bawd (his mother Anne ran a busy but seedy brothel on Cow Lane, Finsbury).

In the late 1650s, Priss took up residence in a tavern on the corner of Whitecross and Old Street. Now in her 40s, her youthful looks all but gone, Priss searched for another method of luring customers.

Her solution was a long-forgotten novelty act known as “chucking”. Supported by two male volunteers, Priss would balance on her head, stark naked with her legs akimbo, while patrons took turns inserting half-crown coins into her “commodity”. The act was described in The Wand’ring Whore, a 1661 guide to London’s prostitutes:

“Whereupon the sight thereof [of] French dollars, Spanish pistols, English half-crowns are plentifully poured in… as she was showing tricks upon her head with naked buttocks and spread legs in a round ring, like those at wrestling…”

According to legend, Priss Fotheringham’s “commodity” could fit 16 half-crowns, the princely sum of 40 shillings. Reports suggest that she performed this act several times daily, making it quite an earner. “Priss Fotheringham’s Chuck Shop” became one of the most popular haunts in London, making Priss enough cash to set up and staff her own brothel.

Fotheringham’s husband died in 1663 and Priss followed him five years later, both most likely from advanced syphilis.

Source: John Garfield (attrib.), The Wand’ring Whore, London, 1661. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1657: German woman jailed for not taking childbirth seriously

In 1657, an ecclesiastical court heard charges against Anna Maria Krauth, a married woman from Neckerhausen, near Frankfurt. Krauth had given birth to three stillborn babies in a row. According to several witnesses, including Krauth’s husband, her midwife and the local parson – these stillbirths were “her own doing”, brought about by her bad attitude.

According to their testimony, Krauth had told others that she “had no wish to bear [her husband’s] children” and “did swear, curse and speak of the Devil in her belly” while pregnant. Krauth was also heard to “wish herself dead, drowned in the Neckar [River] or hanged in the gallows at Stuttgart”. Also, when it came to childbirth, Krauth was apparently not enthusiastic enough and unwilling to follow instructions:

“She was without seriousness and did nought but bemoan of her condition…”

Krauth’s husband, an overweight man whose thighs “had the girth that a man usually was on his entire body”, testified that he had tried to “correct” her with beatings, apparently while she was pregnant. To nobody’s surprise, these beatings seemed to make her worse.

The court agreed that Krauth’s fate was her own doing. She was handed a fine and a 10-day stint in prison. Her fate after this is unknown.

Source: Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, a.209, b.1720, 1657. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1658: Cromwell’s body bursts, leading to fake funeral

The well-travelled head, purportedly that of Oliver Cromwell

Toward the end of his life, Oliver Cromwell – leader of the Roundheads and Lord Protector of the Commonwealth – was plagued by kidney or urinary tract infections. In the summer of 1658, he was also struck down by malaria and the death of his adult daughter. The ailing Cromwell was transported to Whitehall for medical treatment but died in considerable pain on September 3rd.

According to a contemporary account by English MP Thomas Burton, preparations for Cromwell’s funeral did not go well. The government planned a public viewing, a grandiose funeral and internment in Westminster Abbey. Given that all of this would take time to organise, they ordered that Cromwell’s corpse be immediately disembowelled and embalmed.

This preservation was carried out as instructed, however just three days after his death Cromwell’s corpse was already in a horrendous state:

“[The day after Cromwell’s death] his body… was washed and laid out; and being opened, was embalmed, and wrapped in a sere cloth… and put into an inner sheet of lead, inclosed in an elegant coffin of the choicest wood. Owing to the disease he died of… his body, though bound up and laid in the coffin, swelled and bursted, from whence came such filth [that] raised such a deadly and noisome stink…”

Another observer was George Bate, a physician present at Cromwell’s embalming. According to Bate, Cromwell’s corpse was wrapped tightly in four layers in cloth then buried in two coffins, one lead and one wood – yet despite this it still “purged and wrought through all”, or leaked from the outer coffin. Hence the decision was made to bury the putrid Protector, prematurely and privately:

“The corpse being quickly buried, by reason of the great stench thereof…”

Cromwell’s body was buried in Westminster Abbey several weeks before his funeral. In mid-October, Londoners were invited to view Cromwell’s ‘body’, though what they saw was an ornately-dressed wooden mannequin sporting a wax face. The funeral procession did not take place until November 23rd, eight weeks after Cromwell’s death. The coffin transported to Westminster Abbey was probably empty. Some £60,000 was spent on this elaborate charade.

Cromwell’s real body did not rest long. It was hauled out of the Abbey in January 1661 and later subjected to a posthumous execution and public humiliation. Cromwell’s head survived this mistreatment and was passed about by collectors for the next four centuries.

Source: Diary of Thomas Burton, v.2, 1657-58. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1633: Women actors are “notorious whores”, writes Prynne

A contemporary drawing of William Prynne, right, apparently being reacquainted with his severed ears

William Prynne (1600-1669) was an English lawyer and writer, famous for his provocative and controversial essays. One of the most Puritan of the Puritans, Prynne was not afraid to take aim at popular figures, culture or conventions.

One of Prynne’s earliest and best known works was Histriomastix, a 1633 attack on just about anything considered fun. Historiomastix strongly criticised parties, masquerade balls, country fairs, mixed dancing, feast days, wakes, sports, even hairstyles and colourful stained-glass windows.

Much of this particular text, however, is a condemnation of theatrical performances and those responsible for them. Plays, Prynne claims are “the chief delight of the Devil”, wanton and immoral displays of debauchery filled with:

“…amorous smiles and wanton gestures, those lascivious complements, those lewd adulterous kisses and embracements, those lustful dalliances, those impudent, immodest painterly passages… they are the very schools of bawdery, real whoredoms, incests, adulteries, etc.”

As to those who regularly attend the theatre, they are:

“…adulterers, adulteresses, whoremasters, whores, bawds, panders, ruffians, roarers, drunkards, prodigals, cheaters, idle, infamous, base, profane, and godless persons.”

Histriomastix was especially severe on actors and actresses. The ranks of male actors, Prynne claimed, were filled with “Sodomites” who spent their time writing love letters and “chasing the tails” of “players boys”. As for actors of the opposite gender, Prynne offered a simple but biting four-word assessment:

“Women actors, notorious whores.”

This anti-thespian tirade soon got William Prynne into trouble. One woman who quite enjoyed masked balls, mixed dancing and the occasional acting role was Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I.

The queen had appeared in a speaking role in a prominent play not long after the publication of Histriomastix, and she took Prynne’s slurs personally. In 1634, Prynne was hauled before the star chamber, charged with seditious libel against the queen and others, and found guilty. He was fined £5000, stripped of his academic degrees, given two days in the pillory and sentenced to have the tops of his ears clipped off with shears.

If that wasn’t enough, hundreds of copies of Histriomastix were rounded up and burned before Prynne’s eyes as he languished in the pillory.

Source: William Prynne, Histriomastix, London, 1633. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1630: Nicholas Wood, the Great Eater of Kent

Nicholas Wood (c.1585-1630) was an early 17th century glutton, famous for eating vast amounts of food in one sitting. His favourite food was apparently cow’s liver, though from all accounts he would eat just about anything.

Wood was born in Hollingbourne, Kent, sometime in the 1580s before moving to nearby Harrietsham. Very little is known about Wood, except that he was a farmer who owned his own land, that he was strongly built and he was not afraid of hard work. Exactly when Wood started his career as a voracious trencherman is unknown, though there are references to him ‘performing’ in the 1610s. Wood eventually died in poverty in 1630, having sold his estate to fund his travel and excessive eating.

The best known source about his exploits was published in the year of his death and titled The Great Eater of Kent, or Part of the Admirable Teeth and Stomach Exploits of Nicholas Wood. According to extracts from this source, repeated in 1678, Wood:

“…did eat a whole sheep, of 16 shillings price, and raw at that, at one meal. Another time he eat 30 dozen of pigeons. At Sir William Sedley’s he eat as much as would have sufficed 30 men. At the Lord Wottons in Kent, he eat at one meal four-score and four [84] rabbits… He made an end of a whole hog at once and after it swallowed three pecks of damsons.”

Wood and his followers encouraged wagers about what he could or could not eat. By all accounts, Wood lost very few of these, though he was beaten once by a certain John Dale, who boasted that he could fill Wood’s stomach for two shillings. Wood took the wager and Dale purchased 12 loaves of bread which he “sopped in a mighty ale”. This meal sent Wood to sleep and won Dale the bet.

Source: Cited in Nathaniel Wanley, The Wonders of the Little World, or a General History of Man, London, 1674. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1671: John Bold passes water in a Wigan well

John Bold was one of Wigan’s naughtier historical residents. According to the records of Wigan’s Court Leet, he appeared several times before local magistrates during the late 17th century. Bold was twice sued for assault, first by Robert Casson in 1669 and again by William Scott three years later. In 1670 Bold was bound over and ordered to behave appropriately, after residents testified that he had assaulted Peter Leigh and abused Richard Markland and his wife.

Bold was also accused of swearing ten times at the Mayor of Wigan. He appeared again in 1671, after four witnesses testified that:

“John Bold, gentleman, did in a very rude, foul and beastly manner abuse the stone well in the Wallgate by pissing in the same, to the great loss and detriment of the neighbourhood…”

Source: Leet Records, Wigan, rolls 32-34 (1669-72). Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1617: William Zane too free with his private member

In 1617, Somerset magistrates heard several charges against William Zane, a horse-breaker from the village of Long Sutton, near Somerton. Zane had committed a series of public indecencies involving women and young girls. The worst of these was the seduction of Ann West, with whom he had fornicated after promising marriage. He later collected a ten pound dowry from her parents.

According to testimony, their sexual affair was revealed when Zane arrived at the West home and:

“..called for Ann West, she being then at the street door, and because she came not presently unto him, he came forth to her and pulled her into the chamber by the arm, then having his private members showing out of his breeches.”

This was not the first time Zane had been free with his genital endowments. Several weeks earlier he:

“..came into the house of William Parsons, being one of his neighbours, finding the wife of William sitting at her work, drawed out his private member and laid it upon her shoulder and wished aloud that her shoulder was another thing…”

On another occasion, Zane thrust his hand under the skirts of a young girl, making her cry. When the girl’s mother confronted Zane in public and dressed him down, he responded by sneaking into her yard and soiling her clean washing with “filthy ordure and dung of people”.

The magistrates found Zane guilty and sentenced him to a series of public whippings. He was also ordered to repay the ten pounds to Ann West’s parents and to pay two shillings a week for the upkeep of her child. Ann West was also sentenced to a whipping for premarital fornication.

Source: Somerset Quarter Session Rolls, n.27, 1617. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1675: English sailors get high on cannabis in India

Thomas Bowrey (died 1713) was an English mariner, merchant and ship-owner. As a young sailor, Bowrey made many trips along the spice route, traveling to Africa, India and south-east Asia.

Bowrey was an also an avid writer and a student of foreign lands, cultures and customs. His travel diaries, spanning 1669 to 1679, were discovered and published at the beginning of the 20th century. These papers describe an incident in the mid-1670s when Bowrey and “eight or ten” of his men were on leave in Bengal.

While there they sampled some of the local bhang, or cannabis-infused water. According to Bowrey’s diary, he and his shipmates each paid sixpence for a pint of bhang, which they guzzled down behind locked doors:

“It soon took its operation upon most of us… One of them sat himself down upon the floor and wept bitterly all afternoon; the other, terrified with fear, did put his head into a great jar and continued in that posture for four hours or more… four or five lay upon the carpets highly complimenting each other in high terms… One was quarrelsome and fought with one of the wooden pillars of the porch until he had little skin upon the knuckles of the fingers.”

Bowrey himself “sat sweating for the space of three hours in exceeding measure”. He described bhang as a “bewitching” substance; anyone who uses it for a month or two cannot give it up “without much difficulty”.

Source: Thomas Bowrey, Geographical Account of Countries Round the Bay of Bengal 1669-79, published 1905. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.