Sir Thomas More [1]
off, proud stranger! or, by him that bought me, if men's milky
hearts dare not strike a stranger, yet women beat them down, ere
they bear these abuses.
BARDE.
Mistress, I say you shall along with me.
DOLL.
Touch not Doll Williamson, least she lay thee along on God's dear
earth.--And you, sir [To Caveler], that allow such coarse cates to
carpenters, whilst pigeons, which they pay for, must serve your
dainty appetite, deliver them back to my husband again, or I'll call
so many women to mine assistance as will not leave one inch
untorn of thee: if our husbands must be bridled by law, and forced
to bear your wrongs, their wives will be a little lawless, and
soundly beat ye.
CAVELER.
Come away, De Barde, and let us go complain to my lord
ambassador.
[Exeunt Ambo.]
DOLL.
Aye, go, and send him among us, and we'll give him his welcome
too.--I am ashamed that freeborn Englishmen, having beaten
strangers within their own homes, should thus be braved and
abused by them at home.
SHERWIN.
It is not our lack of courage in the cause, but the strict obedience
that we are bound to. I am the goldsmith whose wrongs you talked
of; but how to redress yours or mine own is a matter beyond our
abilities.
LINCOLN.
Not so, not so, my good friends: I, though a mean man, a broker
by profession, and named John Lincoln, have long time winked at
these wild enormities with mighty impatience, and, as these two
brethren here (Betts by name) can witness, with loss of mine own
life would gladly remedy them.
GEORGE.
And he is in a good forwardness, I tell ye, if all hit right.
DOLL.
As how, I prithee? tell it to Doll Williamson.
LINCOLN.
You know the Spittle sermons begin the next week: I have drawn a
bill of our wrongs and the strangers' insolences.
GEORGE.
Which he means the preachers shall there openly publish in the
pulpit.
WILLIAMSON.
Oh, but that they would! yfaith, it would tickle our strangers
thoroughly.
DOLL.
Aye, and if you men durst not undertake it, before God, we women
would. Take an honest woman from her husband! why, it is
intolerable.
SHERWIN.
But how find ye the preachers affected to our proceeding?
LINCOLN.
Master Doctor Standish hath answered that it becomes not him to
move any such thing in his sermon, and tells us we must move the
Mayor and aldermen to reform it, and doubts not but happy success
will ensue on statement of our wrongs. You shall perceive there's
no hurt in the bill: here's a couple of it; I pray ye, hear it.
ALL.
With all our hearts; for God's sake, read it.
LINCOLN.
[Reads.] To you all, the worshipful lords and masters of this city,
that will take compassion over the poor people your neighbors, and
also of the great importable hurts, losses, and hinderances, whereof
proceedeth extreme poverty to all the king's subjects that inhabit
within this city and suburbs of the same: for so it is that aliens and
strangers eat the bread from the fatherless children, and take the
living from all the artificers and the intercourse from all the
merchants, whereby poverty is so much increased, that every man
bewaileth the misery of other; for craftsmen be brought to beggary,
and merchants to neediness: wherefore, the premises considered,
the redress must be of the common knit and united to one part: and
as the hurt and damage grieveth all men, so must all men see to
their willing power for remedy, and not suffer the said aliens in
their wealth, and the natural born men of this region to come to
confusion.
DOLL.
Before God, tis excellent; and I'll maintain the suit to be honest.
SHERWIN.
Well, say tis read, what is your further meaning in the matter?
GEORGE.
What! marry, list to me. No doubt but this will store us with
friends enow, whose names we will closely keep in writing; and on
May day next in the morning we'll go forth a Maying, but make it
the worst May day for the strangers that ever they saw. How say
ye? do ye subscribe, or are ye faint-hearted revolters?
DOLL.
Hold thee, George Betts, there's