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Maternity and Justice in the Early Modern English Court of Chancery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2019

Amanda L. Capern
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Abstract

This article is a case study of female litigants acting in the capacity of mother in the English equity court of Chancery between 1550 and 1700. It starts by asking how prevalent mothers were as plaintiffs and defendants in Chancery, though the burden of the article is a qualitative analysis of maternal narratives in Chancery pleadings and the use of gendered tropes such as “poor mother.” Stepmothers and women acting in loco parentis—aunts, grandmothers, and godmothers—have been included to reflect the full range of women who acted in a maternal role in early modern society and explain how they were portrayed, sometimes through a querelle des femmes lens. The different legal strategies of mothers (and their lawyers) are examined in detail and the question of the “female voice” in the archives is addressed. The intention is to demonstrate how social and legal maternal identities were used to produce strategic storytelling by mothers and their lawyers in a rhetoric that they hoped would advantage their cases. More broadly, the article addresses questions about the structural connections between law and society, especially the construction of social identity and the habitus and doctrine of equity.

Type
Original Manuscript
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 58 , Special Issue 4: Women Negotiating the Boundaries of Justice in Britain, 1300–1700 , October 2019 , pp. 701 - 716
Copyright
Copyright © The North American Conference on British Studies 2019 

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References

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11 Respectively, twenty-four cases and forty cases. All calculations are those of the author using Horwitz, Henry and Moreton, Charles, Samples of Chancery Pleadings and Suits: 1627, 1685, 1735 and 1785, List and Index Society 257 (Richmond, 1995), 1–182Google Scholar.

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13 Using Horwitz and Moreton, Samples, 1–182.

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18 TNA, C 5/284/101 Chancery: Bill in Thompson v. Thompson, Mary, Susanna, Isabella, Arabella and Elizabeth Thompson, 20 July 1700.

19 TNA, C 2/Eliz/S19/61 Chancery: Bill in Saintclere v. Ford & Myles, Elizabeth Saintclere, 8 November 1597.

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23 Capern, “Rumour and Reputation,” 114.

24 TNA, C 2/Eliz/M13/36 Chancery: Bill in Merevall v. Thorley, Warren and Barnes, Edmund Merevall, 20 January 1587 and Bill (Revivor), Mary Merevall and Thomas Merevall (infant), 13 June 1595.

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27 I am grateful to Tim Stretton for sharing his essay for this special issue with me ahead of publication. It sharpened and informed my thinking about subject relationships in Chancery cases.

28 TNA, C 7/255/10 Chancery: Bill in Odams v. Odams, Margaret Odams, Mathew and Mary Odams (infants), 24 June 1652. That £10 was equivalent to £800 in 2005 (TNA, Historical Currency Converter).

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40 TNA, C 7/446/69 Chancery: Bill in Tomes v. Wharton, Elizabeth Tomes and Anthony Tomes (infant), 25 June 1660. The equivalent of £30 is about £2,000 in spending power today.

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44 TNA, C 6/252/29 Chancery: Bill in Green v. Mawson, John Green, Edmund Green, Mary Green, Dorothy Green (all minors) and Mary Green, mother and “Next Friend,” 23 October 1685.

45 TNA, C 24/1099 Chancery: Interrogatories in Green v. Mawson, Mary Green, and John Green, Edmund Green, Mary Green, Dorothy Green (all minors), n.d. April 1686.

46 TNA, C 2/ JasI/C26/63 Chancery: Bill in Cockes, and Cockes v. Cockes, Goosey and Coles, Elizabeth Cockes, 4 May 1617.

47 TNA, C 2/Eliz/E1/39 Chancery: Replication in Edwards v. Edwards, Robert Edwards and Katherine Edwards, 12 October 1580.

48 TNA, C 2/JasI/B21/38 Chancery: Answer in Brooke and Burgh v. Blake, William Blake, 19 November 1618.

49 TNA, C 2/Chas I/B41/6 Chancery: Bill in Barthram v. Reade, Johan Barthram and Thomas Barthram, n.d. 1644.

50 TNA, C 2/Chas I/B41/6 Chancery: Bill in Barthram v. Reade, Johan Barthram and Thomas Barthram, n.d. 1644.

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58 TNA, C 6/396/62 Chancery: Answer in Crowe v. Crowe, Lulman and Lulman, Elizabeth Crowe, 30 April 1697.

59 See, for example, Joan's ale is new or: a new merry medley, shewing the power, the strength, the operation, and the vertue that remains in good ale, which is accounted the mother-drink of England (London, 1680); The lawes against witches […] Also the confession of Mother Lakeland, who was arraigned and condemned for a witch […] (London, 1645); The prophesie of Mother Shipton (London, 1641).

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64 TNA, C 2/ JasI/C26/63 Chancery: Bill in Cockes, and Cockes v. Cockes, Goosey and Coles, Elizabeth Cockes, 4 May 1617.

65 For a narrative account reconstructed from Chancery records at TNA and Danby family papers at the North Yorkshire Record Office (NYRO) of the whole family litigation and Margaret Danby's guardianship of her son's estate, see Capern, “Rumour and Reputation.”

66 NYRO, ZS* Family Papers: Copy of Pleadings, Danby v. Danby, 1675.

67 “An account of my mothers suffering written under her owne hand” [Copy of Chancery deposition of Anne Danby, 1683], NYRO, OUTFAC 141.

68 “An Account” [Copy of Deposition, 1683], NYRO, OUTFAC 141; TNA, C 22/780/8 Chancery: Depositions in Danby v. Danby, 1676–1677.

69 “An Account” [Copy of Deposition, 1683] NYRO, OUTFAC 141; see Capern, “Rumour and Reputation.”

70 Fortier, Mark, The Culture of Equity in Early Modern England (Aldershot, 2005)Google Scholar; Fortier, Mark, The Culture of Equity in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Britain and America (Farnham, 2015)Google Scholar; Klinck, Conscience, Equity and the Court of Chancery; Watt, Gary, Equity Stirring: The Story of Justice beyond Law (Oxford, 2009)Google Scholar.