Volume 3

The Percy anecdotes / collected and edited by Reuben and Sholto Percy [pseud.].

Date:
pref. 1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Percy anecdotes / collected and edited by Reuben and Sholto Percy [pseud.]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    she had decided in person twelve battles. Black Agnes, the Countess of March, who defended the castle of Dunbar against the English, in the reign of Edward III. [see Anecdotes of Enterprise}, exhibited proofs of the most determined bravery. The Maid of Orleans is another well-known instance ; and the Abbe Arnaud relates, that a Countess of Belmont used to take the field with her hus- band, and fight by his side. She sent several Spanish prisoners of her taking to Marshal Feuquiers ; and what is not a little extraordi- nary, this Amazon was at home all affability and sweetness, and gave herself up to reading and acts of piety. The warlike spirit among the women con- sistent with ages of barbarism, when every- thing is impetuous because nothing is fixed, and when all excess is the excess of force, continued in Europe upwards of four cen- turies, always showing itself in moments of national danger; and there were eras and countries in which that spirit appeared with particular lustre : such were the displays it made in the 15th and 16th centuries in Hun- gary, and in the islands of the Archipelago and the Mediterranean, when they were in- vaded by the Turks. [For numerous traits of female heroism, see A nccdotes of Enterprise, Heroism, and IVar.] Rights of Women. English history presents many instances of women exercising prerogatives which they are now denied. In an action at law, it has been determined, that an unmarried woman having a freehold, might vote for members of par- liament, and there is one instance on record, that of Lady Packington, who returned two members of Parliament. A recent authority has decided that a woman may be an over- seer of the poor. Lady Broughton was keeper of the Gatehouse prison ; and in a much later period, a woman was appointed governor to the House of Correction at Chelmsfcrd, by order of the court. In the reign of George the Second, the minister of Clerkenwell was chosen by a majority of women. The office of Champion has frequently been held by a woman, and was so at the coro- nation of George the First. The office of Grand Chamberlain is at present filled by two women; the office of High Constable of England has been borne by a woman ; and that of Clerk of the Crown in the Court of King's Bench has been granted to a female. The celebrated Anne, Countess of Pembroke, Dorset, and Montgomery, held the hereditary office of Sheriff of Westmoreland, and ex- ercised it in person at the assizes at Appleby, sitting on the bench with the judges. Dea- conesses are mentioned in ancient councils, when baptism was by immersion ; and in an * ld edition of the New Testament, printed in the year 1574, a woman is called a minister of ' the church; and in the present day, women are permitted to preach among the Quakers and Methodists. Danger of Insincerity. The Empress Eudocia, amidst all the gran- deur of so elevated a station, led a very studious and philosophic life, and lived very happily, till a trifling accident exposed her to the jealousy of her husband. The emperor, it is said, having sent her an apple of an extraordinary size, she sent it to Paulinus, whom she respected on account of his learning. Paulinus, not knowing from whom it came, presented it to the emperor, who soon after seeing the empress, asked her what she had done with the apple ? Eudocia being apprehensive of raising suspicions in her husband, if she should tell him that she had given it to Paulinus, very unwisely de- clared that she had eaten it. Her confusion may easily be conceived, when the emperor produced the apple, and indignantly gave vent to his suspicions of the motives which had led to the present, and her disingenuous concealment of it. He ordered Paulinus to be put to death ; but allowed Eudocia to re- tire to Jerusalem, where she spent many years in the most irreproachable manner, and dis- tinguished herself by her acts of charity and beneficence. The Tartars. Athough the Mahometan law allows a plurality of wives, yet very few of the Tartars have more than one. As long as they con- tinue to live in amity with the first, they seldom take a second. Their weddings are very splendid, and it is by no means unusual for a Tartar peasant to spend from one to two thousand roubles at his marriage. A Tartar having more than one daughter, will not give the younger in marriage before the elder, even though a higher price be offered for her ; therefore, be her beauty or disposition ever so much commended and extolled by her attend- ants, the girl has no chance of being married sooner than her sisters, or, perhaps, if there be many of them, of getting a husband at all. Among the peasantry, however, this rule is often dispensed with. The daughter of a Murza may not marry a peasant. A Tartar wife is most completely the slave of her hus- band, and is only desirable as she serves to gratify his passions, or to connect him with some Tartar of better family or greater riches than himself. Among the peasantry, how- ever, who are less bound by rigid forms, or less observant of them than their superiors, sincere affection is often displayed; but their religious tenets, as long-established customs, teach them to suppress and subdue feeling, rather than to indulge it. When a Murza visits the apartments of his women, they all rise on his entrance, and again when he leaves it, although he comes and goes very fre- quently. This ceremonious mark of respect is never omitted, even by the wife or by any other of the females, except they be very old women, who, on account of their age, are ex- cused from this form.