10 Aug 1643 (Thu) || In regard that various reports do goe abroad, concerning the womens coming to Westminster to the Parliament House, on Wednesday last, to Petition for Peace, and that they were some wounded and some slaine (onely Petitioning for Peace, as the Malignants report and give out, and disperse their letters into all parts to that purpose, to incence the people against the Parliament) I shall relate the whole matter as neere as I can (which is like to be the last intelligence will be given, in regard we shall by the next weeke be drawne into the field to attend Martiall affairs.)¹ On Munday the Lord Major, Aldermen and Common Councell came with a Petition to the Parliament, shewing their great feares, that if the Propositions sent downe from the Lords (wherein no one Clause was to bring to Justice any one Papist or Delinquent, that have stirred the King up to this unnaturall Warre against the Parliament) should be yeilded unto, it would be destructive to our Religion, Lawes and Liberties … This Petition was likewise accompanied (contrary to the desire of the Lord Maior, Aldermen, and Common Councell, the Representative body of the City) with at least a thousand of the meaner sort of Citizens, who came in a civill manner, without any weapons, and departed assoone as the Parliament declared a dislike of their coming; […] The Malignants upon this consulted what to doe, to worke their ends, by possessing the people, the Parliament was against Peace […] to operate with them, to act violence, upon The Notion, the Parliament is against Peace, to bring their ends to passe: They that Munday night (though the Plot was laid before in Tompkins designe)² put on those women that were Ring-leaders of the crew, to get such women in and about the City of London and Suburbs, as were desirous of Peace (as they pretended) to come to the Parliament house to cry for Peace, which was to the women (nay to all Christians ought to be) a pleasing thing, and thereupon some out of an earnest desire for Peace, others out of the designe, came on Tuesday to Westminster, with white silke Ribbands in their hats, and cryed for Peace, Committed no great disorder, but when their saw their own time, went home againe:
The next day they came againe, neither the Parliament, nor City giving any order to the Trained bands to hinder them, least it should be reported they would hinder any for coming to Petition for Peace; and some in name of the rest came & delivered their Petition, entituled, the humble Petition of Many Civilly-disposed Women, (though their actions were quite contrary) which Petition the House of Commons received and read the same (there being little exception to be taken unto it) and sent them out Sir John Hepsley, and four or five more, to returne them an answer, satisfactory enough, if they had beene reasonable Creatures; but they were so farre from being satisfied with it, that Sir John Hepsley and the rest received such course usage from them, that they desired no more of such imployment: By twelve a clocke these women increased to the number of five or six thousand at least, besides the men Malignants that were amongst them, who clapt them on their backes and bid them not to be afraid, but to go on (notwithstanding their Petition) to the House of Commons doore, and cry for Peace: And accordingly they came againe to the doore of the House at the upper staires head, and assoone as they were past a part of the Trained Band that usually stood Centinell there, they thrust them downe by the head and shoulders, and would suffer none to come in or out of the Parliament house for two hours together, the trayned Band advised them to come downe, and pulled them, for this they cared not, crying nothing but powder, and having Brickbats in the yards, threw them very fast at the trained Bands, and disarmed some of them, which some beggarly fellows whom the Malignants had caused to come to assist the women, seeing their courage, threw stones also at the trained souldiers, whereupon they were forced to shoot bullets in their owne defence, and killed a Ballad-singer with one arme, for you must know (except some few women) these women were for the most part, Whores, Bawdes, Oyster-women, Kitchen-stuffe women, Beggar women, and the very scum of the Suburbs, besides abundance of Irish women: There was likewise a poore man slaine who came accidentally; notwithstanding this example, these women were not any whit scared or ashamed of their incivilities, but cryed out so much the more, even at the doore of the house of Commons, Give us these Traytors that are against peace, that we may teare them in pieces, Give us Pym in the first place[;] they were perswaded to forbeare to use such language of the Parliament and to depart, but they cryed out so much the more; all this while the Parliament was in a manner Prisoners, the guard could not in two houres make way to the House, to bring them downe, being loath to offer violence to women, at last ten Troopers (some of them Cornets) came to passe by the women, who had their Colours in their hats, which the women seeing, made 2 of them take their Ribbands out of their hats[;] not contented with that, they offered to do the like to the rest, & laid violent hands upon them, whereupon, they drew their Swords, and laid on some of them with their Swords flat-wayes for a good space, which they regarded not, but enclosed them, upon this they then cut them on the face and hands, and one woman lost her nose, whom they say is since dead[;] as soon as the rest of the women saw blood once drawne, they ran away from the Parliament House, and dispersed themselves in smaller numbers, into the Church-yards, Pallace, and other places; and about an houre after the House was up, a Troope of horse came, and cudgelled such as staid, with their Kanes, and dispersed them, and unhappily a maid servant, that had nothing to do with the Tumult, but passing through the Church-yard (which may be a warning to people to keep out of unlawfull Assemblies) was shot; the Malignants say, it was done by a Trooper that rid up to her, and shot her purposely, others say it went off by mischance, which way soever it was done, it was unfortunate, but the man was immediatly sent to prison to the Gatehouse, and is to be tryed for the fact;
Divers people going amongst the women, asked them who put them on to this businesse, they said they were at such a Lords House, and he bid them go to the house of Commons, for they were against Peace[;] others said, they had those to countenance them, in this businesse, that would not desert them; being asked where they got so many hundred yards of silke Ribbin to wear in their hats, some said at the Lady Brunckhards house in Westminster, others that [it] came from the otherside of the water, had some at a Ladies house in Southwarke, and so others at other Ladies houses in other parts of the Suburbs: The parties that appeared openly to countenance them: were Sergeant Francis, who is sent to the Lord Generall to be tried by a Counsell of War, another was one Master Pulford whom the Parliament hath likewise committed, upon Information of his countenancing these women, at the house of Commons doore: this is the true Relation of the whole businesse in effect, which no Malignant can deny; and let the world judge if there were any possibility (all faire meanes taking no effect) to appease these Tumults without mischiefe. || Richard Collings – The Kingdome’s Weekly Intelligencer (P)
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¹ Collings was a soldier; the Intelligencer was silent for three months, reappearing in November.
² Nathaniel Tomkins, a ring-leader in “Waller’s Plot”, a plan to deliver the City of London to the King; the plot was discovered in May, and Tomkins executed in July.
editorial comment, petitions
Collings suspects Royalist duplicity regarding the King’s petition response
In ECW editor's comment on January 7 at 3:00 pm7 Jan 1642/3 || The Answer which his Majesty returned, hath in divers places of it words to this effect: That he believes the better and greater part of this City is full of love and loyalty to his Majesty, and that the former Tumults were persons of the Suburbs, not of the Inhabitants: That his Majesty lookes upon that City, as awed by the Army which gave Battle to his Majesty (meaning the Army raised by the Parliament) wherein was used all possible meanes to take away his life from him, &c. … The contrivers of this Answer had small cause to say the Parliament (for so is meant) would have taken away the life of the King; for did not the Earle of Essex petition his Majesty twice at Shrewsbury, and at Wolverhampton to withdraw his Person, lest any inconvenience might befall his Majesty: And then let the world judge whether those ill Counsellors about his Majesty be guilty of driving his Majesty in person to the Battle of Keinton, and therein to hazzard his life (which the God of heaven long preserve, that he may be a happy instrument of the honour and glory of God on earth, and bee crowned with eternall glory hereafter). And therefore if any misfortune had befalne his Majesty at that time, it could not be imputed a wilfull act in the Parliaments Army, no more then it was in him, that as he [who] was shooting at a Deer in New Forrest, bid William Rufus stand by, which that King neglecting, the Arrow glanced from off the horne of the Deere, and killed William Rufus. And therefore that worne-thred-bare expression of the contrivers of the Kings Declarations & Answers, positively charging the Parliaments army with endeavouring to take away the life of the King, ought rather to be laid aside, then to use it hereafter, there being more just cause for the Parliament to demand Justice on the contrivers of the Declaration and Answers that use the said expression, then for His Majestie (or rather the Contrivers in His name) to demand the fourementioned foure persons, for no other cause, but for doing the commands of Parliament (whom the Parliament will protect).
The last thing for the present concerning this answer, is that it was sent to London (yet rather thought to be framed at London before it was sent to Oxford) and here Printed by authority (as the Kings Printers in London affirmed) and was by some published in Print before the Citizens that presented it came out of Oxford (the respite of time being very short betwixt their delivering of it and coming away) but this circumstance is observable, that even this Answer in his Majesties name was (as is probable) without his first privity, for that he hath since sent a Countermand; nay, that very night to his Printing House, not to publish any such things in Print, which gives just presumption that the contrivers know what must be done before the King. || Richard Collings – The Kingdomes Weekly Intelligencer (P)
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¹ King William was shot in 1100 in highly dubious circumstances, by an arrow fired by nobleman Walter Tirel. The details remain murky, but clearly Collings preferred to believe it was an accident.
² Collings suggests that the King’s answer was framed in London (presumably by advisors remaining in the capital), a copy sent to Oxford so he could give it in person, and then printed in London by the King’s printers there, before the delegation had even left Oxford. As numerous copies are extant, printed at Oxford, Shrewsbury, and London by various printers, and at least one London issue is a counterfeit, it is difficult to untangle where and when the first copies were made. However the print date is given as 5th January, the day after the delegation’s royal audience, and the same day they left for London; at the same time that they arrived there two days later, on Saturday 7th, and presented Parliament with the document, Aulicus in Oxford was noting that it was already “exposed in print to the publique view”. So whilst Collings’ suggestion – that a pre-prepared answer to the petition originated with some Royalist cabal in London and not with the King himself at Oxford – is far-fetched, he is entirely correct that somebody printed and distributed the royal response before anyone in Parliament even had a chance to see it. Whether the King did issue a countermand is not known, although undoubtedly his Oxford printer would have found himself in very hot water.
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