OUR PROFANE ANCESTORS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 76, 1 April 1899, Page 5 (Supplement)

OUR PROFANE ANCESTORS.

PENALTIES FOR SWEARING 200

YEARS AGO,

The Hertfordshire County Council are spending a considerable sum of money on having their county records sorted; bound and placed in order. A committee has been appointed for this purpose, and at a meeting:, of the council they reported the results of their investigations on the rolls from 1701 to 1714. Some of the entries make strange reading to-day. For instance: Certificate that Richard Rowland of Potten. petty chapman, who swore 'God damn him' three times, was fined 3/. That Mary Stratton, wife of George Stratton of Ware Upland, who swore 'By God' several times, was, for default of distress, set in the stocks three ehours and that Thomas Phip of Ware Upland, victualler, being convicted of swearing 'By his Maker,' paid 1/ to the poor of Ware Upland. And again: Certificate that John Doggett of Tewin, yeoman, swore four oaths—once 'By God he shot your dogs,' on another occasion 'God damme, you may kiss my wife.' They appear to have been very sharp on swearing in those days, for the committee have found in these records a large number of such certificates and presentments for profane oaths, the delinquents being mulcted in FINES OF 1/ PER OATH; in default they were set up in the stocks. In reference to the following entry, it would be interesting to know what was done by the magistrates: Information of Anne, wife of Matthew Audley, of Standon, glover, that there was unlawful familiarity between her husband and Mary Welsh and that the said Mary had given the informant abusive language and threatened to Tight with her, proposing that she who beat should have the said Matthew. The said Mary was evidently a lively customer, for in the same year there is recorded: Presentment of Mary Welsh of Standon, spinster, for being a common and assiduous disturber of the peace and originator of divers quarrellings, controversies and fights in her parish. Two other entries which the committee have unearthed are as follows: September 5, 1702.—Deposition by Luke Eales, junior, of Welwyn, that, at about seven on the previous night, he passed the cart of William Brown, carrier, in Lempsford Mill Hill, and after he had passed he heard Mr3 Anne Phipps cry out, but the way being narrow he could not get to her; however, she was relieved by another. And he heard Mr Battel say: .'Sirrah, you had like to have killed a woman In the company, and dare you give such language, you

OUGHT TO HAVE YOUR HEAD

BROKE

Upon which Brown made answer: 'What would you have, sirrah? and immediately struck the said Battel thirty or forty blows with a cart whip, and said they (meaning the clergy) were black-coated rascals, and that they would be damned and that the devil would fetch them to hell by hundreds, with other reviling words.

Depositions of John Nicllls 'of Bovingdon that on Sunday 3rd February, Robert Crowfoot, clerk, William Bunn,, John Axtell, Samuel Johnson of Bovingdon, and John Marryott, gentleman, of King's Langley, did, in the middle of the divine morning service, come into the church o£ Bovingdon in tumultuous manner and went up to the reading desk where the said Robert Crawford demanded the desk off the minister then reading prayers by an order he said he had from the Bishop of Lincoln. The minister said, 'Let me see it and I will obey it.' But the said Crowfoot refused to shew it and continued to make a disturbance.