Abstract
The only case in which a woman was put to trial in Parliament during the later Middle Ages was that of Alice Perrers, the mistress of Edward III. An analysis of this case reveals the deeply misogynistic attitude of Parliament towards women who dared to challenge the patriarchy by acting independently of male authority. Ironically, Alice’s marriage to William Windsor, which she tried to use in order to extricate herself from the parliamentary judgment of 1377, proved disabling: the royal Council vested interest in Alice’s former property not in the couple jointly but in the husband alone. The chapter concludes with a short analysis of the trial of Eleanor Cobham, duchess of Gloucester, in the fifteenth century, which was conducted not as a treason trial in Parliament but as a case of sorcery heard before an ecclesiastical court. Parliament was clearly uneasy about this, and secured a statute confirming that the wives of peers should, like their husbands, be tried before the Lords on charges of high crimes.
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Notes
- 1.
See below, 59.
- 2.
Seabourne, Imprisoning Medieval Women, 30–3.
- 3.
CPR, 1461–7, 178, cited by Rosenthal, ‘Other Victims’, 223. For the attainder of James Butler, see C 65/106, m. 12–13, printed in RP, V, 480–2, and in PROME, XIII, 49–55. For Eleanor Beaufort, see Cokayne, Complete Peerage, X, 128–9; and for Wenlock, see Kekewich, ‘Wenlock, John, first Baron Wenlock’, 110–11.
- 4.
For the full details of this case, see Ormrod, ‘Trials of Alice Perrers’. For Alice’s first husband, see Tompkins, ‘Alice Perrers and the Goldsmiths’ Mistery’.
- 5.
Bothwell, ‘Management of Position’.
- 6.
Trigg, ‘Traffic in Medieval Women’; Mortimer, The Perfect King, 378–82.
- 7.
C 65/30, m. 7, printed in RP, II, 329, and in PROME, V, 313: ‘Pur ce qe pleinte est faite au roy qe aucuns femmes ont pursuys en les courtz du roi diverses busoignes et quereles par voie de maintenance, et pur lower et part avoir, quele chose desplest au roi; et le roi defende qe desormes nulle femme le face, et par especial Alice Perers, sur peine de quanqe la dite Alice purra forfaire, et d’estre bannitz hors du roialme.’
- 8.
Hector and Harvey, eds, Westminster Chronicle, 231. This was an imitation of the formal process of abjuration by which those indicted of capital offences could be quit of the charges on condition that they leave the realm, never to return. See Jordan, From England to France.
- 9.
C 65/32, m. 8, printed in RP, III, 14, and in PROME, VI, 30, 31.
- 10.
C 65/32, m. 7, printed in RP, 12–14, and in PROME, VI, 26–30.
- 11.
CCR, 1377–81, 112, summarised in PROME, VI, 65; and Sharpe, ed., Calendar of the Letter Books of the City of London, VIII (Letter Book H), 81.
- 12.
Ormrod, ‘Trials of Alice Perrers’, 375–9.
- 13.
SC 8/129/6449.
- 14.
SC 8/103/5132.
- 15.
SC 8/18/890, summarised in PROME, VI, 87–8; and SC 8/146/7279.
- 16.
Gambier-Parry, ‘Alice Perrers and her Husband’s Relatives’.
- 17.
PROME, VI, 388–9.
- 18.
Giancarlo, ‘Piers Plowman, Parliament, and the Public Voice’.
- 19.
For what follows, see Griffiths, ‘Trial of Eleanor Cobham’; Carey, Courting Disaster, 138–53.
- 20.
For further details, see Freeman, ‘Sorcery at Court and Manor’.
- 21.
Myers, Crown, Household and Parliament, 93–134.
- 22.
C 49/25/6, enrolled on the parliament at C 65/96, m. 5, printed from the latter in RP, V, 56, and in PROME, XI, 367–8, and leading to the legislation in SR, II, 321–2: ‘… soient menez en respoundre, et mys a responder et adjuggez, devaunt tielx juges et peres de la roialme, si come autres peres de le roialme serroient, s’ils fuissent enditez ou empeschez de tielx tresons out felonies faitz, ou en apres affairez.’ See also Bellamy, Law of Treason, 154.
References
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Ormrod, W.M. (2020). Women on Trial in Parliament. In: Women and Parliament in Later Medieval England. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45220-9_4
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