Captain Daniel How, a member of the court, now addressed Mark Meggs directly. “It was not his way,” How told Meggs, “to deny it before God and a court of justice, for though the court might, God would not clear him if guilty, for God may have left him to the act, although there may want evidence, as he may remember a defect of evidence in a case of this nature formerly.” Therefore, How “desired him not to leave God and himself in this act.”
Unmoved by this exhortation, Meggs continued to deny the allegation. How’s concern that the court might clear Meggs even if he was guilty turned out to be misplaced. For his “sinful and lustful attempt,” Meggs was sentenced “to be severely whipped.”
To make justice complete, in the eyes of the court, each of the Fancys then received the same sentence meted out to Meggs. Goodwife Fancy, for “concealment of the forementioned villainous and lustful attempts by several as appears by her own confessions,” and William Fancy, “for his being as it were a pander to his wife and neglecting the timely revealing of these forementioned attempts to have defiled his wife,” were each sentenced “to be severely whipped.”
Reading this travesty of a case, the modern reader cannot help but despair at the human condition. No matter how society, government, and the law might change, the same familiar drama occurs in everyday life from age to age. A low-status woman goes out in the world to work in a menial job in order to put food on the table, and her reward is to be groped and harassed at every turn. We see this happen on a regular basis today.
The poignancy of Goodwife Fancy’s story arises from its ordinariness. The scribe of the trial, who vividly brings so many salient details to light, doesn’t even dignify her with a first name. She and her husband are among the lowest of the low. They live in the cellars of various houses (they seem to move from time to time), and she does menial work in the fields and kitchen for the wives of more prosperous settlers. Whether she goes out in the field or stays at home, she is never safe. Men grope her and abuse her at every opportunity. With what turns out to be good reason, her husband tells her not to go to the authorities. Even if she does go to the authorities, she is told that no one will believe her because she has a criminal record. When someone else, at long last, tells the authorities what is going on, her principal abuser flees the jurisdiction unpunished, and she and her husband are the ones sentenced to be severely whipped.
Perhaps the one ray of light in this gloomy picture is that, when her accusations were ultimately heard in court, Goodwife Fancy’s story was believed. Although Thomas Robinson had removed himself from the jurisdiction, Mark Meggs remained before the court. The court heard both Goodwife Fancy’s accusation and Meggs’s denial. But it heard the testimony of other witnesses as well and concluded on the evidence that Meggs had indeed made a “sinful and lustful attempt.” Whether Goodwife Fancy was comforted during her whipping by the thought that Meggs had received the same punishment is dubious in the extreme.
7
THE WOMEN DISSIDENTS
The 1646 trial of three women for “several miscarriages of a public nature” reveals the Orwellian nature of life in the New Haven Colony.1 The community was centered on the church, and the word of the minister was law. Dissent was not permitted. Potential informants were everywhere. Any person so bold as to question the minister risked being brought before the General Court. This was the unhappy experience of Mrs. Brewster, Mrs. Moore, and Mrs. Leach.2
As readers of Victorian novels will recognize, servants could hear many things said in a house. Once a servant left her position, there was little to stop her from relating what she had heard. This was the case with Elizabeth Smith, “late servant to Mrs. Leach,” who informed the court what she had heard in her former service.
One day, Smith told the court, she heard Mrs. Brewster “loud in conference” with Mrs. Eaton,3 Mrs. Moore, and Mrs. Leach “as she sat at work in the next room.” Apparently finding the “conference” to be of interest, Smith called a fellow servant, Job Hall, to listen with her because he “could better remember the particulars of such a conference than herself.” Hall later joined Smith in testifying before the court.
The servants had a great deal to say. Their charges against Brewster alone are divided by the records into twelve different allegations, much like a modern-day bill of particulars (a legal list of charges). The court heard each of these charges, allowing Brewster to respond at each turn. None of these replies proved persuasive to the court. Here are the twelve charges made by Smith and Hall.
First, Brewster had discussed a sermon given by John Davenport, minister of the church. Although Hall—who had been recruited for his ostensibly superior memory—“was somewhat doubtful” as to who exactly said what, he implied that Brewster had criticized Davenport for saying that persons “could not have salvation without coming into the church.”
Brewster denied the charge. This, apparently, repeated an earlier denial that she had made to the governor and the magistrate.
Second, Brewster had disputed a comment that Davenport had made in a sermon on Ephesians 4:12.4 Davenport had said, “If a man lived where he might join the church and did not, it would prove a delusion to him.” Brewster stated that when she heard these words, “her stomach wombled as when she bred [a] child.” According to Smith, Brewster said she was “sermon sick” two or three times and, when she came home, told her son to “make waste paper” of her notes of Davenport’s sermon.
Brewster denied using these words but admitted saying that “her stomach wrought, smelling an ill savor in the seat.” Her explanation, we are told, “gave no satisfaction to the court.”
Third, Brewster asked Moore “whether she had not heard for what Mrs. Eaton was cast out of the church.”5 Moore asked Eaton why she did not confess her sin. Eaton replied that she had done so but not to the church’s satisfaction. Brewster said that “if Mrs. Eaton had seen her light before she came into the church, she had not come in.”
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