1 Jerome, Stephen, Origen's reptentance: after he had sacrificed to the idols of the heathen. Gathered from Suidas, Nicephorus, Osiander, and the greeke and latin coppies in Origen's workes; illustrated and applied to the case of every poore penitent, who in remorse of soule shall have recourse to the throne of grace (London, 1619)Google Scholar[A short-title catalogue of books printed in England, Scotland and Ireland and of English books printed abroad, 1475–1640 (first compiled by Pollard, A. W. and Redgrave, G. R.; 2nd edn, revised and enlarged, begun by Jackson, W. A. and Ferguson, F. S., completed by Pantzer, Katherine F., with a chronological index by Philip R. Rider, 3 vols., 1976–1991)Google Scholar, hereafter STC, 14513], preface. In the light of subsequent events, it is significant, not to say ironic, that four of Jerome's metaphors in this passage are specifically female.

2 Jerome, Origen's repentance, preface. These were, of course, rhetorical commonplaces in Renaissance England, originally drawn from Cicero and finding expression, for example (although leading to different conclusions), in Sidney, Philip, The defence of poesie (1595) [STC 22535].Google Scholar

3 For a discussion of the gulf between the learned ‘great tradition’ of élite culture, and the unlearned ‘little tradition’ of popular culture, see Burke, Peter, Popular culture in early modern Europe (London, 1978), esp. ch. 2.Google Scholar

4 On the purposes of microhistory, see Muir, Edward, ‘Introduction: observing trifles’, in Microhistory and the lost peoples of Europe, eds. Muir, Edward and Ruggiero, Guido (Baltimore and London, 1991), vii–xxviii.Google Scholar For a fine recent demonstration of the technique, see Ruggiero, Guido, Binding passions: tales of magic, marriage and power at the end of the Renaissance (Oxford, 1993).Google Scholar

5 The classic anthropological discussions are Foster, George M., ‘Interpersonal relations in peasant society’, Human Organization 19 (1960), 174–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gluckman, Max, ‘Gossip and scandal’, Current Anthropology 4 (1963), 307–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Paine, Robert, ‘What is gossip about? An alternative hypothesis’, Man, new series, 2 (1967), 278–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wilson, Peter J., ‘Filcher of good names: an enquiry into anthropology and gossip’, Man, new series, 9 (1974), 93–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The most recent critical survey is Merry, Sally Engle, ‘Rethinking gossip and scandal’, in Toward a general theory of social control, vol. I: Fundamentals, ed. Black, Donald (New York, 1984), 271–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The comments of Scott, J. C. (Domination and the arts of resistance: hidden transcripts [New Haven, 1990], ch. 5)Google Scholar are especially stimulating. Historical discussions are limited to Sharpe, J. A., Defamation and sexual slander in early modern England: the church courts at York (University of York, Borthwick Papers no. 58, 1980), esp. pp. 19–22Google Scholar; Roberts, Michael, ‘“Words they are women and deeds they are men”: images of work and gender in early modern England’, in Charles, Lindsey and Duffin, Lorna eds., Women and work in pre-industrial England (London, 1985), 122–80, at pp. 153–5Google Scholar; and Ingram, M. J., Church courts, sex and marriage in England, 1570–1640 (Cambridge, 1987), ch. 10, esp. pp. 305–6.Google Scholar

6 On oral culture see Fox, A. P., ‘Aspects of oral culture and its development in early modern England’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge University, 1992).Google Scholar On scolding, see Underdown, D. E., ‘The taming of the scold: the enforcement of patriarchal authority in early modern England’ in Fletcher, A. J. and Stevenson, John eds., Order and disorder in early modern England (Cambridge, 1985), 116–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The literature on witchcraft in particular is growing increasingly concerned with women's words: see, for example, Rushton, Peter, ‘Women, witchcraft and slander in early modern England: cases from the church courts at Durham, 1560–1675’, Northern History 18 (1982), 116–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sharpe, J. A., ‘Witchcraft and women in seventeenth-century England: some northern evidence’, Continuity and Change 6 (2) (1991), 179–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Holmes, Clive, ‘Women: witnesses and witches’, Past and Present 140 (1993), 45–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a fine study of insult, see Gowing, Laura, ‘Gender and the language of insult in early modern London, History Workshop Journal 35 (1993), 1–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarGelles, Edith B., ‘Gossip: an eighteenth-century case’, Journal of Social Hisory 22 (1988–1989), 667–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is concerned with gossip in colonial America.

7 For this distinction, see Merry, , ‘Rethinking gossip and scandal’, 275.Google Scholar

8 This crude taxonomy naturally omits complex combinations which lie along the continuum. Spacks, P. M., Gossip (Chicago, 1985), ch. 1, esp. pp. 4–7Google Scholar, provides a useful discussion of the problematics of gossip.

9 For contemporary views on women as great talkers, see Jardine, Lisa, Still harping on daughters: women and drama in the age of Shakespeare (London, 1983), ch. 4Google Scholar; and Henderson, Katherine Usher and McManus, Barbara F., Half-humankind: contexts and texts of the controversy about women in England, 1540–1640 (Chicago, 1985).Google Scholar On the derivation and development of the gendered connotation of the term itself, see Rysman, Alexander, ‘How the “gossip” became a woman’, Journal of Communication 27 (1977), 176–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Jones, Deborah, ‘Gossip: notes on women's oral culture’, Women's Studies International Quarterly 3 (1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Cameron, Deborah ed., The feminist critique of language (London, 1990), 242–9, at p. 248.Google Scholar

11 For previous attempts to trace female social space, see Roberts, , ‘“Words they are women”’, 154Google Scholar; Roberts, Michael, ‘Women and work in sixteenth-century English towns’ in Corfield, P. J. and Keene, D. eds., Work in towns, 850–1850 (Leicester, 1990), 86–102Google Scholar; Aston, Margaret, ‘Segregation in church’, in Shields, W. J. and Wood, Diana eds., Women in the church (Studies in Church History 27, Oxford, 1990), 237–94Google Scholar; Wilson, Adrian, ‘The ceremony of childbirth and its interpretation’, in Fildes, Valerie ed., Women as mothers in pre-industrial England (London, 1990), 68–107Google Scholar; Houlbrooke, R. A., ‘Women's social life and common action in England from the fifteenth century to the eve of the Civil War’ Continuty and Change 1 (2) (1986), 171–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sharpe, , ‘Witchcraft and women’, 190–5.Google Scholar

12 For a case study of gossip with reference to high political issues, see Freist, Dagmar, ‘The formation of opinion and the communication network in London, 1637–c. 1645’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge University, 1992), esp. Part IIIGoogle Scholar; ‘Talking politics: flying speeches, opinions and gossip’.

13 Cannadine, David, ‘The way we lived then’, Times Literary Supplement, 09 7–13, 1990, 935–6.Google Scholar

14 For the controversial concept of ‘valorization’ in social history, see Strauss, Gerald, ‘The dilemma of popular history’, Past and Present 132 (1991), 130–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Beik, William and Strauss, Gerald, ‘Debate: the dilemma of popular history’, Past and Present 141 (1993), 207–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Collinson, Patrick, De republica Anglorum: or, history with the politics put back (Cambridge, 1989), 14.Google Scholar See the approaches suggested in Fox, Adam, Griffiths, Paul and Hindle, Steve eds., The experience of authority in early modern England (Macmillan, forthcoming).Google Scholar

16 Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XXIX, 348 [s.v. Jerome, Stephen]Google Scholar; J. and Venn, J. A., University of Cambridge matriculations and degrees, 1544–1659 (Cambridge, 1913), 386Google Scholar; J. and Venn, J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses (Cambridge, 1922), Part 1, vol. II, 473.Google ScholarCooper, C. H., Memorials of Cambridge: a new edition (Cambridge, 1860–1866), vol. 11, 115.Google Scholar

17 For Jerome at St Bride's, see Greater London Record Office DL/C/34 (Vicar-General's Book 1611–1616), fo. 27 [Jerome licensed to preach, 15 February 1612]; London Guildhall Library MS 9537/11 (Diocesan Visitation, 24 September 1612), fo. 82; and Jerome, Stephen, Moses his first sight of Canaan (London, 1614)Google Scholar [STC 14512], title-page. For the radical tradition at St Bride's, see Liu, Tai, Puritan London: a study of religion and society in the city parishes (Newark, 1986), 72–3.Google Scholar The York episcopal register suggests that Jerome was presented to Hutton Buscel on 13 April 1616 and replaced on 17 September the same year (University of York, Borthwick Institute 1A/4, fos. 124, 143). For the parish of Hutton Buscel, see VCH Yorkshire, North Riding, vol. II, 443.Google Scholar

18 Brand, J., The history and antiquities of Newcastle (Newcastle, 1789), vol. I, 412nGoogle Scholar; Memoirs of the life of Ambrose Barnes, late merchant and sometime alderman of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Surtees Society 50, 1866), 305–6.Google Scholar The wider context of puritan preaching in Newcastle can be traced in Robson, R. S., ‘Presbytery in Newcastle-upon-Tyne from the Reformation to the Revolution’, Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society of England 7 (05 1940), 2–23Google Scholar; Howell, Roger, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the Puritan Revolution: a study of the Civil War in North England (Oxford, 1967), ch. 3.Google Scholar For the St Nicholas' preachership, see Brand, , Newcastle, vol. I, 312–13, esp. n.z.Google Scholar Documentation in the Cheshire archive implies that Jerome may have been preaching in Newcastle as early as January 1616: see Cheshire Record Office (hereafter CRO) Quarter Sessions Files, QJF 56/2/36 (Copy of an order of the Common Council of Newcastle, February 1622).

19 See Ford, Alan, ‘The Protestant Reformation in Ireland’, in Brady, Ciaran and Gillespie, Raymond eds., Natives and newcomers: essays on the making of Irish colonial society, 1534–1641 (Dublin, 1986), 50–74, at pp. 68–70Google Scholar; and Ford, Alan, The Protestant Reformation in Ireland, 1590–1641 (Frankfurt, 1987), chs. 7–8.Google Scholar

20 Ware, James, The whole works of Sir James Ware concerning Ireland: revised and improved in three volumes (Dublin, 1745), vol. II, 334.Google Scholar

21 See Canny, Nicholas, The upstart Earl: a study of the social and mental world of Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork, 1566–1643 (Cambridge, 1982), passim, esp. p. 28 n. 34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grosart, A. B. ed., Lismore papers, by Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork ]1566–1643] (10 vols., London, 1886–1999), vol. III, 12 and passim.Google Scholar Jerome's initial contact with Boyle came through the marriage of Richard Beaumont, Viscount Swords, with one of Boyle's daughters.

22 Jerome was granted an episcopal licence to conduct the marriage of a couple from Wybunbury on 1 February 1626. Between then and 25 June 1630 Jerome was granted a total of 19 such licenses. See Marriage licenses granted within the archdeaconry of Chester in the diocese of Chester, vol. III: 1624–1632 Irvine, W. Fergusson ed. (Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 57, 1909), 50–187.Google Scholar

23 Hall, James, A history of the town and parish of Nantwich (Manchester, 1883), 297.Google Scholar

24 Jerome's career can be reconstructed from the references in Cork's diary between 3 July 1623 and 8 January 1636. He appears to have been in England between 5 May 1625 and 6 December 1630. See papers, Lismore, vol. II, 83, 144, 146, 152, 156, 340Google Scholar; vol. III, 65, 82, 100, 114, 124, 136, 154, 161; vol. IV, 46, 57–8, 79, 86, 90, 147. See also Harris, Edward ed., Travels in Holland, the United Provinces, England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1634–35Google Scholar, by Sir William Brereton, bt. (Chetham Society 1, 1844), 139.Google Scholar

25 For the context, see Corish, P. J., ‘The rising of 1641 and the Catholic Confederacy, 1641–45’, in Moody, T. W., Martin, F. X. and Byrne, F. J. eds., A new history of Ireland, vol. III: Early modem Ireland, 1534–1691 (Oxford, 1976), 289–316, at p. 303Google Scholar; and Gardiner, S. R., History of the great Civil War, vol. I: 1642–44 (new edn, London, 1987), 119.Google Scholar The fullest account of the sermon is in Carte, Thomas, The life of James, Duke of Ormonde, containing an account of the most remarkable affairs of his time and particularly of Ireland under his government (new edn, 6 vols., Oxford, 1851), vol. II, 375–83.Google Scholar For the monarchical reaction, see Mahaffy, R. P. ed., Calendar of state papers relating to Ireland, 1633–47 (London, 1901), 383–4Google Scholar (The King to the Lords Justice concerning factious preachers, 29 May 1643).

26 Carte, , Ormonde, vol. II, 504–5Google Scholar; vol. V, 520; Jerome, Stephen, A minister's mite: cast into the stocke of a weake memory: helpt by rules and experiments, with a winter night schoole tutoring discourse to generous youth (London, 1650)Google Scholar [A short-title catalogue of books printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and British North America and of English books printed in other countries, 1641–1700 (compiled by Wing, Donald, vol. III, New York, 1951Google Scholar; 2nd edn, revised and enlarged by the index committee of the Modern Language Association of America, vols. I–II, New York, 1972–1982), hereafter Wing, J681CA], preface.

27 See the lists in STC, nos. 14509–16, and vol. III, 281 and Wing, no. 681CA.

28 See Ford, , Protestant Reformation, ch. 8.Google Scholar

29 Jerome, , Origen's repentance, preface.Google Scholar

30 Jerome, , A minister's mite, 28.Google Scholar

31 Jerome, Stephen, Ireland's jubilee or joyes io-paen for King Charles his welcome home (Dublin, 1624) [STC 14511]Google Scholar; DNB, vol. XXIX, 348.Google Scholar

32 For the first of these, see n. 1 above; and for the last, see n. 26 above. In the context of the Nantwich scandal, the collection of sermons is by far the most interesting of Jerome's writings. Jerome, Stephen, The haughty heart humbled, or the penitent's practice (London, 1628) [STC 14510], esp. preface and p. 116.Google Scholar

33 Scott, , Domination and the arts of resistance, ch. 5.Google Scholar

34 The following paragraphs are based upon CRO QJF 56/2/35 (Petition of Margaret Knowsley to the Justices of Chester, c. June 1627); 56/2/37 (Petition of Margaret Knowsley to the Quarter Sessions Bench at Nantwich, July 1627); 56/2/38–42 (Examinations and depositions taken at Nantwich, 10 February 1627); and CRO Consistory Court Files, EDC.5 (1627), no. 56 (Nantwich) [Jerome vs. Bradwall, and Powell, , 07 5 1627].Google Scholar It has not proved possible to identify those responsible for the drafting of Knowsley's petition.

35 On female honour, and the importance of detailed self-justification in its protection, see Sharpe, , Defamation, 15–16Google Scholar; and Gowing, , ‘Gender’, 5.Google Scholar

36 For ‘popular legalism’, see Hindle, Steve, ‘Aspects of the relationship of the State and local society in early modern England, with special reference to Cheshire, c. 1590–1630’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge University, 1992), chs. 1, 2 and 4, esp. pp. 173–5, 273–4.Google Scholar

37 Based upon an analysis of the Nantwich parish register: CRO P120/2 (01 1572–09 1653), fos. 96–317.Google Scholar One witness remembered that Margaret had once been ‘delivered of a little living child about the length of his hand which died soon after’, CRO QJF 56/2/39 (Deposition of Lawrence Mainwaring, gent.). In all subsequent citations of testimony, the status (where known), both marital and occupational, of deponents is given in the references. Without exception, all the deponents were ‘of Nantwich’.

38 For Bradwall, John, curate at Nantwich, c. 1605–1624Google Scholar, see Hall, , Nantwich, 296–7.Google Scholar

39 CRO QJF 56/2/35.

40 Brodsky, Vivien, ‘Widows in late Elizabethan London’, in Bonfield, Lloyd, Smith, Richard M. and Wrightson, K. E. eds. The world we have gained (Oxford, 1986), 122–54, at p. 142.Google Scholar For a recent survey of the literature on women's work, see Erickson, A. L., ‘Introduction’, in Clark, Alice, The working life of women in the seventeenth century ed. Erickson, A. L. (London, 1992), vii–xlii.Google Scholar

41 Knowsley herself twice refers to this practice in her second petition: ‘Mr Jerome came to Widow Miles her house where I was sucking the breasts of Mrs Mary Cordy’; and [Jerome] ‘replied that I was one that used to suck womens breasts therefore in pretence thereof I might come to him at any time without suspicion’ (CRO QJF 56/2/37, fos. 1, 2 [articles 3 and 9]. Knowsley was probably helping in the expression of milk from the breasts of women who had miscarried or who had stillbirths.

42 Collinson, Patrick, The religion of protestants: the church in English society, 1559–1625 (Oxford, 1982), ch. 3, at p. 106.Google Scholar For more general comments on clerical marriage, sexuality and the Reformation, see Crawford, Patricia, Women and religion in England, 1500–1720 (London, 1993), ch. 2.Google Scholar

43 CRO EDC.5 (1627)Google Scholar, no. 56, fo. 1 (Deposition of Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Deane).

44 For this specific allegation, see CRO QJF 56/2/40, fo. 4 (Deposition of Elizabeth, wife of Robert Bulkeley).

45 Hall, , Nantwich, passimGoogle Scholar; Kitching, C. J., ‘Fire disasters and fire relief in sixteenth-century England: the Nantwich fire of 1583’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 54 (1981), 171–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lake, Jeremy, The great fire of Nantwich (Nantwich, 1983).Google Scholar

46 Hall, , Nantwich, 294–8Google Scholar; Richardson, R. C., Puritanism in north-west England: a regional study of the diocese of Chester to 1642 (Manchester, 1972), 60 n. 153, 70 n. 187,150,185, 188Google Scholar; Ley, John, Sunday a sabbath, or a preparative discourse for discussion of sabbatory doubts (London, 1641) [Wing L1886].Google Scholar

47 Hall, , Nantwich, 291.Google Scholar

48 Kitching, , ‘Fire disasters’, 181–2.Google Scholar

49 For the exercises of 1583, see Cambridge University, Gonville and Caius College MS 197. For a description of the system of preaching lectureships in eleven Cheshire towns (including Nantwich), see Paget, John, A defence of church government (London, 1641) [Wing P166], preface.Google Scholar For comments upon the significance of the municipal patronage of preachers, see Richardson, , Puritanism, 133–44Google Scholar; and for preaching lectureships in general, see Seaver, Paul S., The puritan lectureships: the politics of religious dissent, 1560–1662 (Stanford, 1970)Google Scholar; Collinson, Patrick, ‘Lectures by combination: structures and characteristics of church life in seventeenth-century England’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 48 (1975), 182–213CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Collinson, , Religion of protestants, 132–40.Google Scholar

50 Jerome, , The haughty heart humbled, sig. A₂.Google Scholar

51 CRO QJF 56/2/37, fo. 2. Even anthropologists are conscious that ‘gossip may be a phenomenon that must rely heavily on reports of participants rather than those of observers’. See Merry, , ‘Rethinking gossip and scandal’, 273.Google Scholar

52 Tantalisingly, in 1628 Jerome expressed his gratitude for Cork's and Swords' successful ‘muzlinge of that infernall Cerberus malice, and some whelpes of that hellish litter; dogged detractors who have cast aspersions as black as inke mixt with galle, upon the occasions of my coming from [Lismore]’ (Jerome, , The haughty heart humbled, sig. A₂ [my emphasis]).Google Scholar This suggests that Jerome's Irish career was also characterized by scandal. For his enduring preoccupation with scandal from 1618 to 1650, seen. 101 and 103 below.

53 Analysis of the depositions in CRO QJF 56/2/38–42 and CRO EDC.5 (1627), no. 56Google Scholar suggests that testimony referred to the actions and speeches of 60 named individuals, ranging from ‘Lord Needham’ (Sir Robert Needham of Shavington, bt) to David Holcroft of Nantwich, miller, and from Mrs Ellen Bradwall, ‘widow of John Bradwall curate of Nantwich’ to Elizabeth Ridgway, ‘Mr Minshull's maid servant’.

54 Jerome, , A minister's mite, 29.Google Scholar

55 The following paragraph is based on Knowsley's version of events, as presented in her petition of June 1627; see CRO QJF 56/2/37.

56 CRO 56/2/37, fo. 1. For a similar accusation, described in almost identical terms, of attempted rape by Joseph Ottiwell, vicar of Wrenbury in Restoration Cheshire, see CRO EDC.5 (1664), no. 1 (Wrenbury)Google Scholar, cited in Addy, John, Sin and society in the seventeenth century (London, 1989), 135.Google Scholar

57 For Knowsley's distinction between ‘uttering’ and ‘muttering’, see CRO QJF 56/2/37, fo. 1 (article 5). Ellen Bradwall lived in Nantwich as a widow until her death in 1645. See Hall, , Nantwich, 297.Google Scholar For the distinction between gossip and scandal, see n. 7 above.

58 This was Jerome's own metaphor for the spreading of gossip. Jerome, , The haughty heart humbled, 69–70.Google Scholar

59 CRO QJF 56/2/38, fo. 2 (Deposition of Margaret Howard).

60 CRO QJF 56/2/39 (Deposition of Jane, wife of Richard Lants, glover); 56/2/40, fo. 3 (Deposition of Marjery, wife of Henry Bickerton). Both women quoted the words of Alice Powell in almost identical terms.

61 CRO EDC.5 (1627), no. 56, fo. 2Google Scholar (Deposition of Margaret Barnes); QJF 56/2/38, fo. 4 (Deposition of Ellen Careless); 56/2/39v (Deposition of William Brown, gent.); 56/2/40, fo. 2 (Deposition of Margaret, daughter of William Barnes); 56/2/39v (Deposition of Lawrence Mainwaring, gent.). Samuel Bradwall, son of the former curate, was 22 years old in 1627, having been baptised at Nantwich on 14 December 1605. See Hall, , Nantwich, 296.Google Scholar

62 CRO EDC.5 (1627), no. 56, fo. 2Google Scholar (Deposition of Margaret Barnes), fo. 1 (Deposition of Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Deane).

63 CRO QJF 56/2/38, fo. 2 (Deposition of Margaret Howard).

64 Reports of this last meeting were repeated by various witnesses: see CRO QJF 56/2/38 (Deposition of Francis Howard); 56/2/38 (Deposition of Dorothy, wife of William Clowes); 56/2/38 (Deposition of Thomas Birch, glover); 56/2/38 (Deposition of Ellen Careless). Minshull's will (drawn up on 14 January 1628) hints at his religious views, in that his soul was dedicated ‘in an assured hope of the glorious change at the Resurrection of the just’. His inventory includes ‘twoe large bibles and other bookes’ to the value of £2–10s. The exact nature of his differences with Jerome, however, remains unclear. Minshull appointed Philip Mainwaring, who had married his daughter Ellen, to be his executor, and insisted that he collect all debts ‘except such debts as are owing to me by Alice Powell my servant which I freely forgive her’ (CRO WS Edward Minshull of Nantwich 1627).

65 There is an occasional ‘reductive’ tendency in historical interpretation to explain complex social and cultural issues in terms of factional politics. See, for example, Gregory, Annabel, ‘Witchcraft, politics and “good neighbourhood” in early seventeenth-century Rye’, Past and Present 133 (1991), 31–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66 For the denials see CRO QJF 56/2/38 (Deposition of Francis Howard); 56/2/42 (Deposition of Jane, wife of Thomas Whickstead); 56/2/38 (Deposition of Margaret, wife of Robert Whickstead, glover); 56/2/38 (Deposition of Alice, wife of Thomas Davyes, glover).

67 Knowsley's bloodcurdling oath that the child ‘should [never] part from her sydes’ is very reminiscent of the oaths used by bastard-bearers in early Stuart Lancashire. Elizabeth Cobb of Culcheth swore that she ‘desyred the Childe might sticke unto her as faste as the barke to the Tree’ if she was lying; Eleanor Waleworth of Sharington swore ‘that as ever she shoulde looke God in the face’ she could not reveal the identity of the father of her bastard; Jane Chawner of Sutton swore in labour that ‘as she and her child should part asunder’ her assertions were true (Lancashire Record Office QSB 1/194/36 [1638]Google Scholar; 1/38/58 [1628]Google Scholar; 1/70/41 [1630]Google Scholar). I am very grateful to Keith Wrightson for these references. Nonetheless, Knowsley's midwife affirmed that she had sworn the truth ‘voluntarily without any compulsion’ (CRO QJF 56/2/42 [Deposition of Jane, wife of Thomas Wickstead]).

68 CRO QJF 56/2/41 (Deposition of Alice Clark, spinster). For gossip as the communication of private information that symbolizes intimacy, and therefore risks the accusation of disloyalty from the intimate, see Merry, , ‘Rethinking gossip and scandal’, 276–7.Google Scholar

69 For this exchange, see CRO QJF 56/2/40, fo. 3 (Deposition of Marjery Bickerton).

70 See Underdown, , ‘The taming of the scold’, passim.Google Scholar

71 The first petition against Knowsley has not survived but its contents can be gathered from CRO Quarter Sessions Order Books, QJB 1/5, fo. 185v (Nantwich, July 1627); QJF 56/1/8 (Anonymous Petition to the Quarter Sessions Bench at Knutsford, 04 1627).Google Scholar

72 CRO QJF 55/4/61 (Recognizance of Ralph Knowsley of Nantwich, husbandman, 11 January 1627).

73 CRO QJB 1/5, fo. 171 (Chester, , 01 1627Google Scholar). For a full-scale discussion of magisterial responsibility to arbitrate in such disputes, see Hindle, , ‘The State and local society’, ch. 4.Google Scholar

74 CRO QJF 56/2/38–42; QJB 1/5, fo. 180v (Knutsford, April 1627).

75 Public Record Office Chester Great Sessions Crown Books, CHES 21/3, fo. 159v (Chester, April 1627); Chester Great Sessions Gaol Files, CHES 24/119/1, unfol. (Calendar of Gaol Delivery, April 1627); CRO QJF 56/2/42v (Examinations taken at Chester, 29 March 1627); 56/2/34 (Examination taken at Chester, 19 June 1627).

76 CRO QJF 56/2/35; 56/2/37.

77 CRO QJF 56/2/36.

78 The following account is based on Bodleian Library Tanner MS 73, fos. 136–136v (Robert Jenison to Dr Samuel Ward, 29 March 1622). I am very grateful to Alan Ford for this reference.

79 See Chaloner, W. H., ‘Salt in Cheshire, 1600–1870’, Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society 71 (1961), 58–74Google Scholar; Ellis, Joyce, ‘The decline and fall of the Tyneside salt industry, 1660–1790: a re-examination’, Economic History Review, second series 33 (1) (1980), 45–58.Google Scholar The terms in which Robert Jenison and Alice Powell described Jerome's misconduct are so similar as to suggest that the story had actually spread to Nantwich before the investigation of 1627. See nn. 60 and 78, above.

80 The Order of the Bench in the Knowsley case survives as CRO QJB 1/5, fos. 185v–186 (Nantwich, July 1627). For a similar (although ultimately futile) attempt to defend Richard Parker of Dedham, one of the most famous godly ministers of all, against a plausible accusation of sexual scandal, see Collison, Patrick, The Elizabethan puritan movement (London, 1967), 438–9Google Scholar; and Collinson, , The puritan character (Los Angeles, 1987), 8–9.Google Scholar

81 Manning, R. B., ‘The origins of the doctrine of sedition’, Albion 12 (1980), 99–121, at pp. 100–1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

82 CRO QJB 1/5, fo. 183 (Nantwich, July 1627).

83 CRO QJB 1/5, fos. 185v–186 (Nantwich, July 1627). Nantwich was one of those market towns which had only recently improved the machinery of its sanctions against women: when the grand jury of the Nantwich Leet petitioned for ‘a cuckingestoole’ in April 1592, Sir Hugh Cholmondley provided the town with both a stool and a ‘fine new cage’. See Hall, , Nantwich, 72.Google Scholar

84 CRO QJF 56/3/41 (Petition of Margaret Knowsley to the Bench at Middlewich, October 1627); QJB 1/5, fo. 195 (Middlewich, October 1627).

85 CRO QJB 1/5, fo. 190v (Middlewich, October 1627).

86 CRO EDC.5 (1627), no. 56.Google Scholar

87 CRO QJF 56/2/37, fo. 3.

88 Bod. Lib. Tanner MS 73, fo. 136. For a discussion of mockery of authority figures and its implications, see Thompson, E. P., Customs in common (London, 1991), ch. 2, esp. p. 66Google Scholar, and Rollison, David, The local origins of modern society: Gloucestershire, 1500–1800 (London, 1992), ch. 8.Google Scholar

89 In 1620 the French ambassador remarked upon the frequency in England of ‘free speaking, cartoons, defamatory libels: the ordinary precursors of civil war’. See Manning, , ‘Doctrine of sedition’, 103 n. 15.Google Scholar

90 For numerous other Cheshire examples, see Hindle, , ‘The State and local society’, chs. 4 and 7.Google Scholar

91 The only explicit discussion of privacy in early modern England is in Laslett, Peter, The world we have lost: further explored (London, 1983), 179–81.Google Scholar But see also Amussen, S. D., An ordered society: gender and class in early modern England (London, 1988).Google Scholar

92 For these locations, see CRO QJF 56/2/38 (Deposition of Dorothy, wife of William Clowes); 56/2/41 (Deposition of Alice Clark, spinster); 56/2/38 (Deposition of Thomas Birch, glover); 56/2/38 (Deposition of Alice, wife of Thomas Davyes, glover); 56/2/39 (Deposition of David Holcroft, miller); 56/2/42 (Deposition of Jane, wife of Thomas Whickstead).

93 CRO EDC.5 (1627), no. 56, fo. lvGoogle Scholar (Deposition of Mary, wife of William Brown); QJF 56/2/39 (Deposition of Jane, wife of Richard Lants, glover); 56/2/40, fo. 3 (Deposition of Thomas Davyes).

94 For this incident, see CRO QJF 56/2/40, fo. 4 (Deposition of Elizabeth, wife of Robert Bulkeley); 56/2/40, fo. 4 (Deposition of Felicity, wife of Thomas Shore).

95 Of these 59 conversations, 29 were described to magistrates second-hand (i.e., A testifying about an exchange between A and B); a further 25 were reported third-hand (i.e., A testifying that B had told of a conversation between B and C); and five more were recounted fourth-hand (i.e., A testifying that B had been told by C of a conversation between C and D). This total excludes reports of the same conversation by separate witnesses: for instance, the four versions of a conversation between Margaret Knowsley and Ellen Bradwall are counted as one.

96 For interesting speculations about the possibility of identifying ‘women's historical consciousness’, see Fentress, James and Wickham, Chris, Social memory (Oxford, 1992), 137–43.Google Scholar

97 For her legal expertise, see CRO QJF 56/2/35. For the curse, a corruption of a woman's benediction to Christ after his casting out of demons in the gospels (Luke 11.27), see n. 56 above. These words, attributed to Jerome by Knowsley, are fascinating, and their appropriation suggests the possibility that Knowsley was a ‘reader’, whether active or passive, if not a writer.

98 At least three witnesses repeated Knowsley's invocation of this punishment: ‘before she would wrong that good man and justify that which was false against him she would be pulled in peeces with wild horses every peece no bigger than her hand’; ‘she would be pulled in peeces before she would ever confess that which was false against that good man’; ‘she would be pulled in peeces before she would ever accuse that good man so unjustly as they would have had her’. See CRO QJF 56/2/38 (Deposition of Francis Howard); 56/2/38 (Deposition of Dorothy, wife of William Clowes); 56/2/38 (Depositiuon of Thomas Birch, glover). Cf. Sir Walter Mildmay's observation that Archbishop Grindal was ‘so settled in his opinion as before he would yield himself guilty he would be torn in pieces with horses’ (Collinson, Patrick, Archbishop Grindal, 1519–83: the struggle for a reformed church [London, 1979], 260Google Scholar). Although probably part of proverbial wisdom for generations, the first literate fixings of the expression that ‘wild horses would not drag it out of me’ were in the late sixteenth century. See Wilson, F. P. ed., The Oxford dictionary of English proverbs (3rd edn, Oxford, 1970), 889.Google Scholar

99 CRO QJF 56/2/40, fo. 1 (Deposition of Mary Wimsult, wife of John Wimsult Jr).

100 On the possibility that formal prosecution might itself be regarded as libellous, see Hindle, , ‘The State and local society’, ch. 2.Google Scholar

101 Jerome, , Origen's repentance, preface.Google Scholar

102 Gowing, , ‘Gender’, 19.Google Scholar

103 Jerome, , A minister's mite, 37.Google Scholar

104 CRO QJF 56/2/37, fo. 3.