ANTI-CATHOLIC POLEMIC IN JACOBEAN PRINT CULTURE: 
CONTEXTUALIZING WESTWARD FOR SMELTS (1620) 
 
 
Except where reference is made to the work of others, the work described in this thesis is 
my own or was done in collaboration with my advisory committee. This thesis does not 
include proprietary or classified information. 
 
 
 
 
________________________________________ 
Amanda Leigh Wood 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Certificate of Approval: 
 
 
 
_________________________    ________________________ 
Alexander Dunlop        Constance C. Relihan, Chair  
Associate Professor      Hargis Professor  
English       English 
 
 
 
_________________________    ________________________ 
R. James Goldstein      Stephen L. McFarland 
Profesor       Acting Dean 
English       Graduate School 
 
 
 
ANTI-CATHOLIC POLEMIC IN JACOBEAN PRINT CULTURE: 
CONTEXTUALIZING WESTWARD FOR SMELTS (1620) 
Amanda Leigh Wood 
 
A Thesis 
Submitted to 
the Graduate Faculty of 
Auburn University 
in Partial Fulfillment of the 
Requirements for the 
Degree of 
Master of Arts 
 
Auburn, Alabama 
August 7, 2006
iii 
 
ANTI-CATHOLIC POLEMIC IN JACOBEAN PRINT CULTURE: 
CONTEXUALIZING WESTWARD FOR SMELTS (1620) 
Amanda Leigh Wood 
Permission is granted to Auburn University to make copies of this thesis at its discretion, 
upon request of individuals and at their expense.  The author reserves all publication 
rights. 
 
 
 
      
Signature of Author    
 
 
 
      
Date of Graduation    
 
 
 
 
iv 
THESIS ABSTRACT 
ANTI-CATHOLIC POLEMIC IN JACOBEAN PRINT CULTURE: 
CONTEXTUALIZING WESTWARD FOR SMELTS (1620) 
Amanda Leigh Wood 
Master of Arts, August 7, 2006 
(B.A., North Georgia College and State University, 2004) 
70 Typed Pages 
Directed by Constance C. Relihan 
 The 1620 anonymous prose fiction Westward for Smelts does not identify itself as 
a participant in the popular anti-Catholic polemic rampant in Jacobean England.  Instead, 
Smelts relies heavily upon stereotyped caricatures of Catholics which were made popular 
through the anti-Catholic polemic; Smelts seems to assume that these stereotypes are 
clear and distinguishable.  The fiction is comprised of a controlling frame story, set in 
Lenten London, and sextet of short tales, all of which stereotype Catholic behavior 
negatively.  The tales that make up Smelts are told by six fishwives, much in the tradition 
that recalls Chaucer, Boccaccio, and de Navarre.  This format allows for six ?different? 
voices to communicate to one another, contributing to a greater or lesser degree to the 
Jacobean anti-Catholic climate.   
 Contextualizing Smelts in this way works to aid readers in their own 
comprehension of the fiction; many of the anti-Catholic sentiments represented in Smelts 
v 
have either completely vanished from society and others have ?grown up,? forgetting 
their early modern English roots.  This study aims to inform Smelts? readers in such a 
way that will clarify the ambiguities and assumptions within the fiction; in 
misunderstanding or overlooking these anti-Catholic attitudes, one risks losing Smelts? 
insight into the religious climate of 1620.  
vi 
Style manual used: Chicago Manual Style, 15
th
 ed. 
Computer software used: Microsoft Word 2003
vii 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................1 
CHAPTER ONE 
The Jacobean anti-Catholic polemic....................................................................................8 
CHAPTER TWO 
Honorable women: Kinde Kit of Kingstone and the tales of the fishwives of Brainford 
and Hampton......................................................................................................................24 
CHAPTER THREE 
Catholic trinkets and sacraments: the tales of the fishwives of Stand on the Greene and  
Kingstone...........................................................................................................................32 
CHAPTER FOUR 
Divorce and marriage customs: the tales of the fishwives of Richmond and Twitnam....42 
CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................55 
BIBLIOGRAPHY.............................................................................................................57 
APPENDIX A: Which of these fower................................................................................62 
APPENDIX B: The Popes Pyramides...............................................................................63 
 
1 
                                                
INTRODUCTION
 ?I had dreamed of speaking with the dead, and even now I do not 
abandon the dream.  But the mistake was to imagine that I would hear a 
single voice, the voice of the other.  If I wanted to hear one, I had to hear 
the many voices of the dead.  And if I wanted to hear the voice of the 
other, I had to hear my own voice.  The speech of the dead, like my own 
speech, is not private property.?  Stephen Greenblatt
1
 
 I find in Stephen Greenblatt?s dream more than inspiration; in it, I see my own 
dream reflected?the overwhelming desire to hear the voice of an anonymous, dead 
Jacobean writer, to distinguish it from the many voices of the dead.  I am taunted by the 
unnamed voice of Westward for Smelts?s writer, wanting nothing more than to give him 
(or her) a name, a sex, a social class, a solid cultural identity.  However, I am aware of a 
more important question: if this writer wished to remain anonymous, what would be the 
point in struggling to identify him or her?  Smelts?s writer, under the pseudonym ?Kinde 
Kit of Kingstone,? wove social commentaries into the tapestry of the prose, proving 
himself (or herself) socially cognizant.  As I came to understand the red herring my 
obsession with the anonymity of Smelts?s writer had become, I widened my scope as 
Greenblatt has done, listening for the voices of the many as they are represented in the 
1620 prose fiction, specifically in regards to the religious climate in Jacobean England.  
However, when I listened to the voices of the dead, as Greenblatt instructs,
2
 it was not the 
voice of the rising feminist body I heard loudest; it was the voice of the oppressed 
 
1
 Shakespearean Negotiations, 20. 
2
 Ibid. 
2 
                                                
Catholic Englishman and ?woman, and, with it, the influential anti-Catholic polemic that 
rose above all other voices.  I gave in to the voices I had not expected to hear and have 
attempted to strengthen their respective voices as Smelts?s anonymous Kinde Kit presents 
them. 
 It is important to note that the fishwives do not expressly state that their tales will 
reveal anti-Catholic sentiments; rather, their use of common stereotypes draws attention 
to the need to contextualize their tales.
3
  Smelts? overarching concerns argue for attention 
to gender studies, not necessarily religious studies.  The fishwives? tales all portray 
women as, for better or worse, strong-willed and capable of achieving their desired end, 
which is often at the male characters? expense; the one exception is the fishwife of 
Hampton?s tale, which punishes its main female character Millisant for her unkind 
cunning against her suitor.
4
  After the fishwife of Brainford?s tale, the remaining five 
fishwives compete to show in their tales a woman who is stronger, more capable, and 
more praiseworthy than the women in the tales which precede them.  The fishwives tell 
tales of women who aid other women in order to emasculate possessive men, women 
who are loyal to jealous husbands and manage to escape manipulative plots, who are 
disloyal to jealous husbands and use their cunning to achieve their goals, who are good 
 
3
 Westward for Smelts has not received much scholarly attention; however, the following sources make 
note of it: H. Neville Davies, The Cobbler of Canterbury: Frederic Ouvry?s Edition of 1862 with a New 
Introduction, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1976; Marie-H?l?ne Davies, Reflections of Renaissance England: 
Life, Thought, and Religion Mirrored in Illustrated Pamphlets, 1350-1640, Allison Park, PA: Pickwick 
Publications, 1986; James L. Harner, English Renaissance Prose Fiction, 1500-1660: an annotated 
bibliography of criticism, Boston: G.K. Hall and Co., 1978; Charles C. Mish, Short Fiction of the 
Seventeenth Century, New York: New York University Press, 1963; Charles C. Mish, English Prose 
Fiction 1600-1700: A Chronological Checklist, Charlottesville: Bibliographical Society of the University 
of Virginia, 1967; and Paul Salzman, English Prose Fiction 1558-1700: A Critical History, Oxford: 
Clarendon Press, 1985. 
4
 See the forthcoming article from Constance Relihan, ?Fishwives? Tales: Narrative Agency, Female 
Subjectivity, and Telling Tales Out of School,? Early Modern Prose Fiction, Naomi Conn Liebler, editor 
(Routledge). 
3 
wives and loyal to loving husbands, who defend themselves and other women against 
dangerous men, and who foolishly manipulate men and receive due punishment for their 
bad behavior.  The women in these tales all act as models for female behavior, their 
respective storytellers hope; their behavior is either to be followed or avoided.   
 While gender studies are the most likely avenues to pursue, and arguably the 
controlling interest in the Smelts tales, I have chosen instead to focus upon the anti-
Catholicism which facilitates the fishwives? characterization of capable women.  The 
fishwives utilize stock characters and images from the Jacobean anti-Catholic polemic; 
anti-Catholicism works as a vehicle which aids the fishwives, and ultimately Smelts? 
anonymous author, in characterizing the women in their respective tales.  Most of the 
women in the tales are to be emulated by other women, and perhaps avoided by men, 
because they are smart enough to rise above the teachings of the Catholic church.  The 
women who are not to be emulated in the tales, specifically Hampton?s Millisant and 
Twitnam?s Beblam, accept their religion?s teachings and adhere to them strictly; their 
Catholicism (or Catholic sympathies) facilitate their strength, ultimately working against 
them.  The fishwives do not find role models in either of these two women: the first cons 
her suitor into taking a vow of silence; the second, a queen and not a fishwife, agrees to a 
celibate marriage.  The women who do not accept Catholic teachings as a means to 
achieve a greater end, and who rather rebel against or altogether ignore such instruction, 
are women worthy of emulation. 
 The anti-Catholicism present in Smelts varies from tale to tale; however, it is this 
variety that makes Smelts a compendium of socially acceptable anti-Catholic views.  In 
my first chapter, I describe the important anti-Catholic polemic at work in Smelts, 
4 
including a brief look at period propaganda.  I do not approach the tales of Smelts in the 
order in which they appear (that is, Kinde Kit?s frame, followed by the tales of the 
fishwives of Brainford, Stand on the Greene, Richmond, Twitnam, Kingstone, and 
Hampton); instead, I explore the common issues at work within the tales.  Kit, 
responsible for the frame story as Smelts? narrator and writer, sets the story in Lenten 
London.  His keen attention to the importance of this season alerts the reader to the 
implied religiously charged climate; the fishwives themselves are raised in importance in 
London?s marketplace, for example, because it is their product (the fish) that Londoners 
desire.   
 The fishwives of Brainford and Hampton make less use of the anti-Catholic 
dialogue than do the other four female storytellers; the polemic exists on the periphery of 
Brainford and Hampton?s tales, never quite entering them directly.  Brainford?s tale ends 
in a misunderstood miracle?the husband in her tale is duped into believing an injury he 
gives to his wife has been healed because she is truly innocent of her sins.  In truth, the 
wife had a stand-in (Brainford) who took the punishment in her stead, unbeknownst to 
the husband.  Rather than focusing its attention on the perception of miracles, Brainford?s 
tale prefers to represent women as capable of emasculating the dominant men in their 
lives.  Hampton?s tale, similar to Brainford?s, uses the predominantly Catholic practice of 
taking a vow of silence not as a religious commentary but as a means to prove her 
argument that women should not use their wit against men.  In her tale, a beautiful 
woman convinces a suitor to prove his love for her by vowing to remain silent for two 
years; he commits to the vow immediately.  The tale, although it alludes to an awareness 
of such a practice, does not rely upon the vow of silence as a means to facilitate anti-
5 
                                                
Catholic sentiments.  Instead, Hampton?s use of the vow serves as proof that the woman 
was unjust and unkind in her treatment of her suitor. 
 The fishwife of Stand on the Greene?s tale provides commentary on anti-Catholic 
feelings toward religious articles, specifically focusing on the importance of the crucifix 
to a woman.  The woman in Stand on the Greene?s tale is not given an apparent religious 
affiliation, which serves to underscore the polemic of the time that women were attracted 
to the Catholic religion by its pretty baubles and jewelry, including crucifixes.  The wife 
in Stand on the Greene?s tale does not miss her stolen crucifix, an item she seems to 
cherish; she seems to represent the common woman duped into Catholicism by its 
fashionable objects.
5
  Such a criticism of women and their willingness to embrace 
Catholic teachings supports Jacobean Anglican confusion about the nature of Catholic 
women?s attachment to religious objects.  The fishwife of Kingstone?s tale directly 
attacks the Catholic sacrament of penance.  The wife in Kingstone?s tale visits her 
confessor who is quickly identified as a lecherous man, not in the least holy.  The tale?s 
premise echoes warnings within anti-Catholic polemic that holy men who are forced into 
celibacy by religious vows will find release in unwitting female parishioners, most often 
in the privacy and secrecy of confession. 
 Anglicans? interpretation of Catholic divorce and marriage customs, considered 
archaic and unreasonable, are presented in the fishwife of Richmond?s tale and the 
fishwife of Twitnam?s tale, respectively.  The fishwife of Richmond?s tale comments 
upon the difficulty an unhappy couple must undergo in order to obtain a legal divorce.  
 
5
 Frances Dolan, 27.  ?...it was widely believed that Catholicism lured women with its ritual paraphernalia, 
offering them trinkets and toys rather than a Bible they could not read.? 
6 
                                                
Jacobean English Protestants were beginning to cry out for more lenient divorce laws.
6
  
Richmond hyperbolizes this unhappy situation in order to comment upon the unrealistic 
and outdated divorce customs still existent in Jacobean English churches; of the fishwives 
who focus their tales on the anti-Catholic polemic, Richmond is the only one who sets her 
story in her present day.  Her tale represents the Jacobean anti-Catholic sentiment toward 
divorce customs in a more direct method than the other Smelts fishwives? representations 
of anti-Catholic polemic.  The fishwife of Twitnam responds to Richmond?s tale, 
deciding to illustrate a happily married couple living in celibacy.  Twitnam is the most 
likely Catholic storyteller of the sextet because she honors the celibate marriage of Saint 
Oswald
7
 and his wife (whom she names Beblam).  Twitnam hopes to prove with her tale 
that Beblam is worthy of emulation because she is happy to follow her husband?s orders 
to entertain a guest (a local hermit) and to treat him as she does her husband.  The hermit 
is eager to enjoy Oswald?s conjugal rights with Beblam, unaware the couple has agreed 
to a life of marital celibacy.  While Beblam does treat the hermit the way she would treat 
her husband, she is careful to remain faithful to her husband and to her celibacy.  
Jacobean Anglicans would have taken issue with this arrangement?to live in celibacy, 
even in marriage, was abnormal and even grounds for annulment.
8
  Although the tale 
offers some fascinating insight into a possible pro-Catholic viewpoint in the honoring of 
the celibate marriage, it is the other five fishwives? reaction to Twitnam?s tale that voices 
 
6
 Alan Macfarlane explains that by this period, ?[t]here?arose a situation whereby divorce with right to 
remarry became more and more difficult.  Moderately easy until the tenth century, increasingly difficult in 
the medieval period, just possible in the later sixteenth century, the net closed tighter and tighter? (227).  
Jacobean Anglicans not only wished for easier methods of divorce, but they also desired the possibility of 
remarriage after divorce. 
7
 Twitnam herself recognizes Oswald as a canonized saint, though Anglicans and Puritans were 
demonstratively opposed to honoring the saints? lives in the tradition which Catholics honored them. 
8
 Macfarlane, 227. 
7 
                                                
the culturally acceptable anti-Catholic polemic.  The fishwife of Kingstone argues that 
Beblam is a queen; fishwives would not be able to remain married to their husbands if 
they practiced celibacy.
9
 Rather than try to answer my initial question of who would write such a text as 
Westward for Smelts, riddled with religious commentary, I focused my search on 
answering the what.  What does the publication of such a piece say about its society and 
its readers?  Greenblatt argues that it is the responsibility of the scholar to ??ask how 
collective beliefs and experiences were shaped, moved from one medium to another, 
concentrated in manageable aesthetic form, offered for consumption.?
10
  The collective 
beliefs, or outwardly expressed beliefs, of Jacobean Anglicans are represented in Smelts, 
specifically in regards to anti-Catholic propaganda and practices. 
 
9
 Smelts, 32; hereafter, all Westward for Smelts quotations will be cited parenthetically based on the page 
numbers from the original manuscript from the 1964 microfilm. 
10
 Greenblatt, 5. 
8 
                                                
CHAPTER ONE 
The Jacobean anti-Catholic polemic
 Catholics in Jacobean England experienced great instability in their nation and 
their leader?not only were they encouraged, when James I ascended the throne, to 
consider their religion tolerated by James, but they were also forced to face social stigmas 
that had accumulated during Elizabeth?s reign.  Not far into James I?s reign, recusant 
Catholics found themselves in greater danger and instability than before.  On 24 March 
1603, mere months after James had ascended the throne, he met with Parliament, and 
released a document requiring all Catholic priests either to be converted to the Church of 
England or to be exiled to foreign countries (most likely continental Europe) where they 
could no longer endanger the king.
11
  These mandates were to be carried out no later than 
19 March 1604, six days before Parliament was due to meet again.  If these individuals 
were not properly disposed of by this deadline or if they attempted to return to England or 
Scotland, they faced dangerous consequences: 
?they shalbe left to the penaltie of the Lawes here being in force 
concerning them, without hope of any favor or remission from Us.  
Wherefore We will and command all Archbishops, Bishops, Lieutenants, 
 
11
 The decree reads: ?Wee doe hereby will and command all maner of Jesuits, Seminaries, and other Priests 
whatsoeuer, hauing Ordination from any authoritie by the Lawes of this Realme prohibited?that they doe 
before the nineteenth day of March next ensuing the date hereof, depart foorth of our Realme and 
Dominions, And that for that purpose it shall be lawfull to all Officers of our Ports to suffer the sayd Priests 
to depart from thence into an Foreine parts ?.?  James I. 1 James I, 24 Mar. 1603. By the king. 
9 
                                                
Justices of Peace, and all other our Officers and Ministers whatsoeuer, to 
be vigilant and carefull after the said nineteenth day of March past, to doe 
their duties and vigilence in discouering and apprehending of all Priests 
that shall remaine here contrary to this our declaration.
12
Although he may appear unjust or too severe in his declaration, James had due reason to 
dispose of the Catholics.  James justifies himself by reminding citizens that the Jesuits 
and other priests do not accept the national religion, thereby characterizing themselves as 
enemies to the king.  No prince, James continues, would allow dangerous enemies to 
remain in his country; forcing them into foreign lands is an acceptable course of action.
13
 Catholic citizens must have recognized the sudden change in James? attitude 
toward them and their church leaders; they were led to believe in James? tolerance for 
their religion, even going so far as to rejoice at his accession.
14
  The sudden exile of 
church officials from James I?s dominions (England, Ireland, and Scotland) came straight 
on the heels of another movement, this time in print: anti-papist writings.
15
  Protestant 
ministers were among the most prodigious writers of such propaganda and could be 
respected because of their position in the Church of England: these men had access to the 
Bible, they were assumed to have understood its teachings better than their parishioners, 
and they were personally in need of proving their loyalty to the King and the King?s 
religion.  Such anti-papal propaganda as the Elizabethan A Diaologue between a Papist 
 
12
 Ibid. 
13
 Ibid. 
14
 Alison Shell, 142.  ?Even while king of Scotland, James had allowed both English and European 
Catholics to think that he was in favour of toleration, and their jubilance at his accession was increased by 
one of the first acts of his reign, the release of the priest William Weston from prison.? 
15
 Anthony Milton, 31.  ?In Jacobean times anti-papal writings, at least in the first half of the reign, were 
the most distinctive feature of English Protestant theology and occupied the energies of all the principal 
members of the Jacobean episcopate.? 
10 
                                                
and a Protestant (1583,
16
 written by George Gifford, a preacher in Maldon), the Jacobean 
A Blow for the Pope (1615, written by Bartholomew Robertson, a ?Minister of Gods 
Word?), and the two broadsides published by the Signe of the (Golden) Faulcon
17
 Which 
of these fower that here you see, in greatest daunger you thinke to bee and The Popes 
Pyramides (1623 and 1624, respectively) tore down Catholic practices and teachings, 
pointing to specific references in the Bible as proof that the Catholic Church had misled 
its followers. 
 The two broadsides printed at the Signe of the (Golden) Faulcon in 1623 and 1624 
respectively provide visual testimony to the pervading sense of anti-Catholicism in 
Jacobean England.  The broadsides are blatant in their attacks, leaving very little room for 
misinterpretation or confusion of meaning.  The first broadside
18
 depicts four sets of dual 
predators flanking weaker prey, asking its audience to ponder the riddle, Which of these 
fower that here you see, in greatest daunger you thinke to bee.   From the top-left, 
working counter-clockwise, the four trios represented are: ?A Clyent, betweene two 
Lawyers?; ?A Goose, betweene two Foxes?; ?A Rat, betweene two Cats?; and ?A Maide, 
betweene two Friers.?  Each of the predators in the trios attempts to convince its prey to 
succumb to its seductive speech, while the prey argues for its safety.  While each trio has 
its own dangerous predicament and certainly makes a case as an answer to the riddle, it is 
 
16
 The span of the publication years for the documents I cite indicates the larger social conversation which 
Smelts represents.  This social anti-Catholic conversation took place not only in 1620 Jacobean England, 
but also in Elizabethan England and in James?s last two reigning years. 
17
 After research, no other publications from the Signe of the (Golden) Faulcon have survived.  For more on 
early modern English publishing houses, please see Peter W.M. Blayney?s ?The Bookshops in Paul?s Cross 
Churchyard,? Occasional Papers of the Bibliographical Society, no. 5, London: Bibliography Society, 
1990. 
18
 Please refer to Appendix A. 
11 
the maid between two friars who comes out as in the most danger.  The dialogue for this 
trio is as follows: 
 
Maide.  What say you holy man to me? 
Friar. I say, faire holy maide, leane thou to me, and on my loue, let all thy 
sinnes be laide: 
Maide. And what say you good man? 
Friar. I say shew all to me, that better then that aged man, can helpe and 
comfort thee. 
Maide. Now in what perill standes a Maide, in shrieft betweene two 
Friers?  That only make the Church a Cloake, to couer foule desires. 
The maid in the image is topless, wearing her collar, sleeves, stomacher, skirt, and shoes, 
but her breasts are fully exposed.  One friar, the elder, stands to her right, clutching her 
hand with his right hand, his left hand pressed on the small of her back, as though he is 
attempting to lead her away.  The second friar, the self-proclaimed younger, stands on her 
left, the fingertips of his left hand grazing the side of her ribcage, precariously below her 
left breast.  His right hand squeezes the top of her left shoulder, and if he were to succeed 
in pulling her toward him, he would have easily cupped her breast in his open left hand.  
The maid seems to be pushing the younger friar away, but also not acquiescing to the 
elder friar?s persuasion.  Beside her head is a balloon in which is written, ?I still shall 
doubt, when two such doe me shrieue.? 
 This image plays against the anti-Catholic fear that Catholic women were in 
danger of their confessors? hottest desires, made even clearer when the maid mourns, 
12 
?Now in what perill standes a Maide, in shrieft betweene two Friers?  That only make the 
Church a Cloake, to couer foule desires.?  The maid echoes the anti-Catholic polemic 
which argued that under the guise of confession, ?holy? Catholic men could take 
advantage of their female parishioners with great ease.  Women were taught to trust the 
men in their lives, especially the holy men in their lives; and because the Catholic Church 
offered the Mass in Latin and used a Latin Bible, male and female parishioners alike were 
subject to the priest?s personal understanding of the text to act as a guide.  If a priest were 
cunning and lustful, he could easily deceive most female parishioners, especially women 
coming to him for the sacrament of penance, into believing that his lusty advances were 
considered acceptable in the Bible.  These are the fears of the anti-Catholics; these are the 
fears depicted in the broadside Which of these fower?; these are the fears likewise 
addressed in Westward for Smelts, especially in the fishwife of Kingstone?s tale.  Women 
were considered vulnerable when alone with any man, especially a holy man.  Holy men, 
who lived celibate lives, conducted themselves against their natural and baser instincts; 
the anti-Catholic knew the holy man would not be able to withhold his desires if a 
vulnerable Catholic woman sought his guidance. 
 The two holy men of this broadside represent lecherous clerics not only in their 
words but in their actions; these men are touching the young maid in highly suggestive 
ways, obviously expecting more to come from her confession than absolution.  If the 
maid lives up to the expectations placed upon her in Jacobean England, she will submit to 
them; they are the leaders of her church and ought to be trustworthy.  But through its 
riddle, the broadside warns that the woman is in danger; in this case, it is not the woman 
herself who is in danger?she will unlikely be murdered like the goose or rat of the other 
13 
trios.  Rather than the maid?s life, it is her soul that is in the greatest danger (answering 
the riddle).  Should the maid follow her religion and confess her sins to one of the 
lascivious friars her soul is destined for Hell, an end to which all Catholics were doomed 
according to the second Signe of the Faulcon broadside, The Popes Pyramides published 
in 1624. 
 The Popes Pyramides depicts the hierarchy of the Catholic church as a pyramid of 
intertwined snakes, the largest snake coiling to the top and taking its place as a symbol 
for the pope.  From its mouth comes the word, ?Blasphemie.?  The smaller snakes wrap 
themselves around the largest, all symbols of Catholic cardinals and bishops, and all 
?speaking? words echoing anti-Catholic polemic that describes the Catholic church: 
heresie, prophanes, pride, hypocrisie, couetousnes, idleness, glutonnie, enuie, sodomie, 
cruelty, rebellion, and ignorance.  Scattered at the base of the snake pyramid are items 
commonly associated with Catholic sacraments and rituals: a pile of host wafers beside a 
chalice for wine, replicas of the keys of Heaven, rosary beads.  Flanking the image of the 
snakes and Catholic items on either side is a poem condemning the pope and Catholic 
church as the Antichrist; in scathing language, the unnamed compiler of this image calls 
into question whether or not the pope can deem a person saved, admonishes the Holy See 
for its covetous relationship with money, and declares the entirety of Catholicism a 
hypocrisy: ?They fasting teach, yet daintiest cates doe buy, / to please the tast, and serue 
their gluttony?.? 
 In larger text below the image is a short poem written as a caption to the pyramid 
of snakes: ?A Pyramis, of Serpents poysonous broode;/ (Rome,) here behold, erected is 
on high / Vpon seauen hills, where once thy glory stood / Sad Monument of thy Impietie: 
14 
/ Which all the world infecteth, farre, and nigh, / Like the Cerastes, threatening speedy 
death, / If vnawares we come within her breath.?  The writer seems to be sympathetic 
with the poor, duped Catholic lay people, but he rails against the church?s leaders, 
likening them to the most poisonous of snakes and Antichrist, declaring that the Church 
was once aligned with Heaven?s teaching but has now become tainted and likewise taints 
?this hatefull broode?.?  The writer acknowledges that those who die Catholic will 
remain in Hell with their Catholic brethren, and, more specifically with the sinful serpent 
who first tainted them; however, the writer closes his short poem with a reassurance of 
forgiveness and redemption from God: ?But pray the Lord, that he his grace would send, 
/ And in his Truth instruct you to the end.?  This ?end? would be, to good Anglicans, 
Heaven, and perhaps if God were merciful toward the reformed and remorseful Catholic, 
then that Catholic will be directed to Heaven and saved through the Church of England. 
 Perhaps more startling than the anti-Catholic diatribe on the broadside is the 
presence and number of the Catholic items scattered at the base of the pyramid of snakes.  
The items represent a number of Catholic sacraments and practices, including baptism, 
communion, and praying the rosary.  When these items are combined, they create a 
representation of a fallen Mass at the snakes? tails; for the English Protestant not 
interested in investigating the true meaning behind these items, their mystery precedes 
them and likewise incurs intense feelings of confusion and fear.  The creator of this 
broadside was apparently more concerned with the celebration of Eucharist than with any 
other Catholic practice, considering the quantity of hosts lying upon the ground (seven).  
The eighth host is housed in a monstrance whose curtain falls slightly open to reveal the 
host inside.  As Dolan explains, English Protestants feared that the objects in the Catholic 
15 
                                                
church, rather than the Word, would lure people into its folds.
19
  Although Dolan?s 
argument focuses on small items of religious jewelry (specifically, ?...trinkets and 
toys...?
20
), the fear seems to have carried over into other elements of Catholicism and the 
Catholic lifestyle to include the celebration of the Eucharist, as depicted in The Popes 
Pyramides. 
   English Protestants used these writings not only to preach against the sins of 
Roman Catholics, but they also looked to their anti-papist propaganda as a way of 
publicly announcing one?s loyalty to the King and to the so-called True Religion: ?[o]ne 
of the most public manifestations of anti-popery was the publication of anti-papal 
controversial literature.  Whatever their other ends, the composition of these works was 
seen as serving a positive spiritual function for the individual engaged in it, as a 
demonstration of his commitment to the true faith.?
21
  To be truly Protestant was to be 
able to compose these pieces of literature and to stand up against Catholics in a unified 
force in support of the Church of England, for ?Catholicism acted as the demonized 
antagonist in opposition to which English nationalism first crystalized.?
22
  Proper 
Englishmen, and proper English ministers, had a responsibility to the Crown to reinforce 
its Church and its Church?s teachings, which often resulted in anti-papist propaganda; 
their nationalism depended upon whether they sympathized with the Catholic or Anglican 
church.
23
 
19
 Dolan, 27. 
20
 Ibid. 
21
 Ibid., 37. 
22
 Raymond D. Tumbleson, 17. 
23
 Milton, 31. ?In 1600 Andrew Willet had urged anti-popery as the main vocation of the Church of 
England.  He urged that it would unite puritans and bishops, enabling them to put the presbyterian upheaval 
behind them, and would stimulate an awareness of a common identity which conformists and precisions 
16 
                                                                                                                                                
 The protection and growth of the national religion were solidly entwined with 
English national identity and loyalty: a citizen could not adhere to one element of 
?Englishness? without accepting all its elements: 
?[D]isloyalty towards the sovereign was to the Protestant statesman what 
idolatry was to the Protestant theologian.  Both identified papalism as a 
prime Catholic ill, and more generally, both were comprehensive 
accusations levelled against Catholics, acting as unifying theories to 
explain all manifestations of popish perversity and misbehaviour.  Both, 
too, are misrepresentations inspired by the warped generalities of anti-
Catholic polemic.
24
The bond between religion and law in Jacobean England created a specific type of 
nationalism, one that accepted religion as a strong guiding force in lawmaking and one 
that accepted politics as a reinforcement of Protestant teachings.  Even those Catholics 
who obeyed every English law, besides those which required citizens to recognize the 
Church of England as the true Church, were considered unlawful.  
 In order to secure themselves as nationally allegiant, Catholics had to either truly 
deny their faith and convert to the king?s, or publicly reform while privately worshiping 
according to the teachings of the Catholic Church.  The battle between both English 
Protestants and Catholics waged so greatly that even rival clergy were ?deemed to have 
failed or succeeded purely on the basis of their track record in persuading the unresolved 
 
shared.?  It was precisely this unlikely unification of puritans and Anglicans that would create a strong 
front against English Catholics during James? reign. 
24
 Shell, 110. 
17 
                                                
either to become recusants or to conform.?
25
  Although Catholics were publicly pushed to 
the wayside, if they could convert others to their church, they would feel a victory over 
the English Protestants; the sentiments were the same for English Protestants who 
successfully converted Roman Catholics.  The fight was strong on both sides, but the 
Protestants had a great advantage over the Catholics: the king was on their side. 
 During this period of religious unrest and reform, women of either religion were 
also fundamentally affected.  As the Church of England continued to reform and shift 
itself so that it created a distinct doctrine, the institution of marriage was likewise altered; 
Protestant couples needed a purely Protestant union, different from their married Catholic 
neighbors? union.  The English Protestant marriage became one centered on a different 
sort of chastity from the Catholic ideal: rather than praising sexual abstinence in a 
marriage, Protestants were praised for fidelity to their spouse.
26
  Women experienced a 
duality in their public and religious education from the growing humanist and reformative 
movements: 
Protestant marriage doctrine, as expressed in a sequence of advice books 
and manuals, followed that of humanists like Erasmus in arguing that 
wives should be treated with consideration and affection, as helpmeets and 
companions, rather than obedient servants, though such arguments were 
 
25
 Michael C. Questier, 168. 
26
 Kate Aughterson, 9.  Aughterson points out that ?[t]wo crucial intellectual and political revolutions had a 
continuing impact throughout this period in England both on the ideology of womanhood and on women?s 
actual lives: humanism and the Reformation.  Each emphasized a radical restructuring of moral and public 
life, focusing, for example, on the re-evaluation of chaste marriage, rather than virginity, as central to 
salvation, and also on the family as a unit of ethical education for an individual?s role in life.? 
18 
                                                
employed to reinforce the existing patriarchal order, rather than to cast 
doubt upon it.
27
This theory reinforces a behavioral ideal that if a woman felt as if she were cherished, 
rather than enslaved, in her home, she would be more inclined to serve and trust her 
husband.  A restructuring of the marriage doctrine to reevaluate chaste marriage for 
Protestant couples would, in a way, release the wife from tyrannical subjugation (while 
upholding the ideals of the patriarchy): 
Another specific focus was the emphasis on the New Testament, 
particularly the Pauline epistles, which advocated a spiritual life and 
spiritual equality between men and women, both in the eyes of God and in 
terms of their eventual salvation.  But depending on the exegesis of 
preachers or commentators, they also advocated womanly submission and 
bodily inferiority?.  For many women this was a source of hope and an 
opportunity for individualism: for others it meant postponing 
independence to the after-life.
28
The wife who viewed herself as more independent was so because she held more power 
over her spirituality than before: a Protestant wife did not have to submit to the demands 
of her husband if she did not feel they were in line with Christ?s teachings in the New 
Testament. 
 
27
 Julia Briggs, 49. 
28
 Aughterson, 9. 
19 
                                                
 The Protestant woman was now questioning her husband?s authority over the 
marriage, which becomes evident in such literature as Westward for Smelts.
29
  While the 
previously held belief in innate masculine authority was under reconsideration, the great 
humanist Erasmus argued that ??a wife was not obliged to obey if she was ordered to do 
something ?contrary to faith or good manners? by her husband, ?if he persists in wishing 
to be obeyed, remember that it is better to obey God than man.??
30
  Just as a Jacobean 
Englishman could determine whether or not he would obey the laws of men based upon 
their agreement with the laws of God, a married Jacobean Englishwoman was also 
permitted to decide when the laws of men, especially her husband?s orders, agreed or 
disagreed with her understanding of God?s commands and whether or not she would obey 
them.
31
  The humanists and Protestant reformers encouraged spiritual agency
32
 in 
Jacobean Englishwomen by helping these women maintain a firm understanding of the 
vernacular Bible, a different approach from that of their Catholic counterparts who still 
performed the Mass in Latin: 
The educational programme of the humanists and the Protestant insistence 
on a personal reading of the vernacular Bible meant that individual and 
 
29
 Briggs, 48.  Briggs explains that ?[t]he claims to authority made by the monarchy and extended to the 
father as the head of the household had grown up at a time when the Church?s authority over secular affairs 
was dwindling as a result of the Reformation, which also created changes in attitudes to marriage itself.? 
30
 Qtd. in Briggs, 64. 
31
 This is not to say that Catholics ignored the striking paradox in biblical teachings of obeying God and 
submitting to the laws of men: ?there was no greater determinant of Catholic loyalist behaviour throughout 
this period than the need to reconcile the double biblical duties of obeying God and submitting to the 
ordinances of man?? (Shell 141).  Catholic loyalists attempted to smooth over this paradox by reminding 
themselves and Catholic followers of James I?s authority, despite his troubling attitude toward their 
religion.  
32
 That is, encouraging women to feel that they had a sense of control over their spiritual lives.  For 
instance, if their husbands? mandates did not match the laws of the Lord, women could exercise their 
spiritual agency to decide whether or not to follow their husband?s demands. 
20 
                                                
private reading and interpretation became increasingly important during 
this period, for both women and men.
33
If a woman were educated enough to read the Bible in the vernacular, she could easily 
use her personal copy for private study, coming to a better understanding of the Bible?s 
teachings on her own.    
 A Protestant Englishwoman was thought by Englishmen to hold powers; these 
powers could be expressed in the confines of her religion, giving her a sense of a private, 
spiritual agency.  Despite this perceived female power in spiritual matters, the 
Englishwoman?s agency did not extend into the political arena: 
Though women?s power was strictly limited in official ways, various 
different kinds of information, from ecclesiastical court records to the 
prevailing misogyny of much contemporary writing, suggests that at some 
level women were felt to possess powers that men could neither 
understand nor control.
34
Such a power is clearly expressed in all six tales of Westward for Smelts.  All six 
fishwives tell stories of women who recognize themselves as freethinking agents, 
regardless if it is at the expense of their husbands?, or another man?s, dignity.  Women 
were expected to know more in regards to housekeeping and family affairs than men and 
such knowledge could be seen as a threat; as seen in Smelts, the wives in the tales use 
their understanding of their domestic agency
35
 against the men who attempt to dominate 
them in some way.  If Smelts is to serve as a window into the perceived lives of women 
 
33
 Aughterson, 9. 
34
 Briggs 50. 
35
 That is, the agency women would have felt in the home, especially considering decisions that would 
directly affect the home and family. 
21 
                                                
of different social classes, then it may also be reversed to serve the purpose of identifying 
common flaws in the misogyny of Jacobean England.  A husband who is truly in control 
of his wife should not be so easily duped into performing her will. 
 One who acts upon one?s agency, however, faces challenges.  If a woman is to 
believe she is an independent and able entity, she should be likewise accountable for her 
actions: 
If in the legal context, women were scarcely answerable for themselves, in 
matters of religion their position was rather different.  Though excluded 
from Church government, they were expected to have beliefs, and because 
these were subject to divine, rather than human, law they were treated with 
greater respect.  Where freedom of (religious) conscience was concerned, 
women?s rights were upheld even when they differed from those of their 
husbands?.
36
Therefore, a woman behaving in a way that mirrored her understanding of spiritual 
agency under James and the Church of England could defend her behavior as religious 
and within her belief system.  Many of the women in the Smelts tales point to their 
personal religious beliefs when required to justify their behavior or action.  In some 
cases, the women demonstrate their violently protective belief in an existent cultural 
belief structure; while in others, the wife will defend her actions by justifying them 
against the cruelty of her husband, recalling her personal belief in a specific 
understanding of a holy marriage.  Such defenses of demonstrated spiritual agency 
comment upon the misogyny of Jacobean English culture: 
 
36
 Briggs, 64. 
22 
                                                
The misogynist diatribes against women as inherently vicious gave 
husbands the right to beat their wives and, at its most extreme, led to 
torture and death of ?witches.?  The women defenders of women hold up 
instead a more idealized view of the compassionate marriage in which the 
husband treats his wife as a cherished good to be loved and respected, 
while the wife can submit to a husband who is her friend and protector.
37
As storytellers describing independently thinking women surviving in a heavily 
patriarchal culture, the six fishwives defend their very female characters, and could, in 
fact, be indirectly defending Jacobean Englishwomen as a whole.  The wives in the six 
tales all strive for the ideal of compassionate, cooperative marriage; and if circumstance 
does not seem to allow for that ideal to exist, the wives remember their domestic agency 
and punish their overly domineering husbands. 
 The fishwives themselves might be considered public agents, working to earn a 
living, in London?s fish market during Lent.  The fishwives exhibit great independence 
when all six board the ferry at the end of their workday: none mentions needing to wait 
for a male companion; they travel alone.  By the end of Smelts, the six fishwives have 
convinced each other to take the ferry all the way to Kingstone, the final stop, in order to 
enjoy each other?s company and to finish the day with drink.  None of the fishwives 
seems concerned about a dominant husband who might not approve of his wife?s 
drinking; they are independent enough to make such a decision on their own, and their 
independence is reinforced when it becomes clear they intend to spend the day?s wages 
on alcohol?they do not require their husbands? permission.   
 
37
 Rosemary Radford Ruether, 133. 
23 
                                                
 Further, the fishwives of Smelts embody the very expectations of female domestic 
agency within the text in regards to their culturally assigned importance at home
38
 during 
Lent: 
?what a family was to eat fell into the area of the household activity for 
which a wife or womanfolk generally were responsible: the ritual 
importance of making correct decisions about it does something to explain 
the role of women in Elizabethan Catholicism.
39
This sentiment seems to have carried over into Jacobean England as well, spreading into 
both English Protestant and Catholic arenas.  The household?s head female member 
would be responsible for going to the market; while during Lent, ??Fishmongers are in 
their height of pride, dashing water in their ill-sented street?? (3).  The fishwives go 
beyond the commonly held cultural designation for female responsibility in the home, 
located in the market not as shoppers but as shopkeepers.  As fishwives, they locate their 
importance and responsibility not in selecting the food for their own homes but in selling 
their fish to other women whose agency is located in domesticity.  These six fishwives 
find themselves in possession of public agency
40
 and are likewise considered useful as 
they sell their product during the most ascetic time of the year for both Catholics and 
Protestants.  While many of their clients are changing their diets to accommodate strictly 
 
38
 Although in the text the fishwives do not reveal their status in the home, the reader can identify common 
cultural feelings toward women?s domestic responsibilities. 
39
 John Bossy, 112. 
40
 Public agency differs from private agency in that public agency, as I consider it, in the extent to which a 
woman feels able to voice her opinions or to behave as she likes in the public, social realm.  According to 
Hunter Cadzow, Alison Conway, and Bryce Traister in ?New Historicism, second ed. 2005? on The Johns 
Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, Louis Montrose ??argues [in ?The Poetics and Politics 
of Culture?] that individual agency is constituted by a process he calls ?subjectification??on the one hand, 
culture produces individuals who are endowed with subjectivity and the capacity of agency; on the other, it 
positions them within social networks and subjects them to cultural codes that ultimately exceed their 
comprehension and control.? 
24 
fish, these fishwives find themselves ??hauing made a good market?, and their purses 
ful of coine?? (4).  There is no mention that these women intend to turn the money over 
to their husbands, and by the end of the text it is clear that they exhibit an awareness of 
their financial independence, resulting in a deep feeling of personal agency which they 
bestow upon the wives in their individual tales. 
 
25 
CHAPTER TWO  
Honorable women: Kinde Kit of Kingstone and the tales of the fishwives of Brainford 
and Hampton 
 Four of the six Smelts tales make use of common Jacobean anti-Catholic 
sentiments; however, the frame story and the remaining two tales also contribute to this 
emphasis.  As argued in the above introduction, Smelts has an interest not in entering the 
anti-Catholic polemic directly but in identifying the elements that make a woman 
praiseworthy and a suitable role model.  The six tales build upon each other, responding 
negatively to Kit?s interest in the romance tradition?s depiction of the beautiful woman as 
a goddess.  Kit discusses religion in a general sense, setting Smelts in Lenten London, 
concerned only with the importance of fishwives during this religious season.  The two 
other ?non-religious? tales, the fishwife of Brainford?s tale and the fishwife of Hampton?s 
tale, use secular examples of women as objects of desire.  However, the wives in these 
two tales utilize their own cunning to control their statuses as objects of desire. In 
Brainford?s tale, the wife succeeds in her use of cunning and ultimately protects herself 
against her husband?s wrath; the wife in Hampton?s tale is punished for her cunning 
because she uses it to take advantage of a suitor.  Religion in these two tales, and in the 
frame story, is not a strong indicator of women?s praiseworthiness; religion is not given 
the same attention in these tales as it is in the other four.  Although the frame story 
26 
                                                
repeatedly acknowledges the Lenten season, Kit?s attention to religion is interested only 
in setting the scene. 
 Kinde Kit makes it clear throughout the prologue that the behavior of Englishmen 
and ?women is under strict mandates not only by religion but also by James? law 
forbidding the consumption of meat during Lent.
41
  According to Kit, ?[a]t this time of 
the yeere the Pudding-house at Brookes-wharfe is watched by the Hollanders Eeles-ships, 
lest the inhabitants, contrarie to the Law, should spill the bloud of innocents, which 
would be greatly to the hinderance of these Butter-boxes? (3).  Londoners were clear in 
the prohibitions placed upon them during Lent, so Kit characterizes his story in these 
familiar terms.  He exaggerates the importance of the fishmonger and diminishes the 
butcher, describing slaughterhouses on Thursdays as shut up ??like houses infected of 
the plague?? and characterizing the streets as ?ill-sented? from the fishmongers? goods.  
Such explicit description is necessary in explaining the importance of the fishwives? 
presence in London; the women who make up his fare are the women who are among the 
most important in the marketplace during Lent. 
 As for Kit, he introduces himself in the tale as a boatman interested in drinking, 
when not employed by a fare; he describes himself as a soldier, one who can face ?that 
most valiant and hardy Champion of Queene-hiue, commonly called by the name of the 
Red Knight? (4).  Without express context, such a characterization makes Kit appear 
valiant and hardy himself, a soldier willing to defend ?the Water-mans Garrison of 
Queene-hiue? against the Red Knight.  However, Smelts?s writer does not seem to expect 
 
41
 On 7 February 1625, James I released a proclamation mandating ??the restraint of killing, dressing, and 
eating of Flesh in Lent, or on Fish daies, appointed by the Law, to be hereafter strictly obserued by all sorts 
of people.?  Although the cited source was published five years after Smelts, this proclamation is a revision 
of an existing law by James I in 1608, which recalls Elizabeth I?s similar law in 1589.  
27 
readers to equate Kit with a strong soldier; a marginal gloss in the original manuscript 
explains that ?[t]he Red Knight is an Alehouse Signe at Queene-hiue, where the 
Watermen vse to tipple? (4).  Kit is not as interested in armed combat as he is interested 
in consumption of alcohol, although, without the aid of the gloss, Kit?s characterization 
of his visit to the Red Knight is convincing as a battle, characterizing alcohol?s effects as 
?sore blowes? (4).  Kit has not been drinking long before his man enters the pub to 
announce they have a potential fare heading westward (4).  After the boat ??pass[es] the 
troublesome places of the Thames (where the Wherries runne to and fro like Weauers 
shuttles) and being at Lambeth?,? Kit acknowledges the fishwives? drowsiness, for they 
too had been drinking after a full day of work (4).  He sprinkles their faces with water 
from his oars, rousing them, and promises to sing to them in order to keep their spirits 
high.  The fishwives agree but ask that Kit ??not?cloy their eares with an old Fidlers 
Song, as Riding to Rumford, or, All in a Garden Greene? (4).  Kit offers to sing to them a 
new song about a serving-man and his mistress, a ballad in the tradition of the songs the 
fishwives begged not to hear; the fishwives agree to the song, not yet knowledgeable of 
its contents, ??promising that each of them would requite [his] Song with a Tale? (5).  
Kit is pleased with the agreement and begins his song. 
 The narrator in Kit?s poorly written ballad, riddled with forced rhyme and meter, 
speaks of a deep running love for a beautiful woman, but he bemoans his position 
because he does not find himself capable of speaking to her for fear of her rejection.  The 
song is comprised of five stanzas of ten lines, each stanza repeating the idea that the 
woman?s beauty inspires his love, while his own fear of rejection inspires his silence.  
Because the song is so formulaic and characterizes women as inactive objects of 
28 
                                                
adoration, worthy of love only for their looks, the fishwives do not respond well to it.
 42
  
The fishwives? tales reveal their ideas of an honorable woman, which are almost opposite 
to Kit?s poem.  Such lines as ?I honour still this comely creature, / And euer will doe 
while I liue: / And for her grace and goodly feature, / All honours due to her I?le giue? 
attempt to mark the song as a debased form of courtly lyric.  Despite the fishwives? 
silence, readers may guess their reactions: this song is old-fashioned and does not 
correctly depict a worthy woman.  Although the fishwives say little in response to the 
song, they hold to their earlier promise and individually tell tales.  The fishwife of 
Brainford volunteers to begin because they will come to her destination first and she 
wants to keep her promise; Brainford?s tale does not respond directly to Kit?s song, and 
likewise the remaining five fishwives? tales largely ignore the boatman?s poorly written 
poem; instead their tales are interested in characterizing women as worthy beyond their 
appearances, especially in regards to their wit.   
 Brainford, as the first storyteller, sets a precedent the other women avoid: she tells 
a story about herself; whether or not it is completely true is left to speculation, but to the 
other five fishwives, her story serves its entertaining purpose.  Brainford, an aging 
woman whom Kit describes none too kindly, sports a trait unlike most women: her nose 
is grossly scarred.  Aware that her nose is disfigured (though she claims at the end of the 
tale that the women can ??scarce see it on [her] nose?
43
), Brainford tells the story of her 
scar.  Before she became a fishwife, Brainford, who calls herself Mother Jone in the tale, 
was a bawd, ??deal[ing] with flesh exchange...? (6).  A woman in her town requests the 
services Mother Jone has to offer, but the service quickly becomes more than Mother 
 
42
 Relihan. 
43
 Smelts, 11. 
29 
                                                
Jone initially anticipated.  The wife asks Mother Jone to help conceal her adultery by 
taking her place at the empty home while her husband is away on business.  One night, 
the husband returns home earlier than expected, before the wife has had a chance to leave 
for her appointment with her lover; her husband berates her for her alleged affair, and ties 
her to a post at the entrance of the house.  That same night Mother Jone returns to the 
wife?s home to fulfill her promise when she sees the wife tied to the post; the wife 
convinces Mother Jone to trade places so she can rendezvous with her lover while her 
husband sleeps.  Mother Jone agrees and takes her place at the post, an imposter on 
behalf of the wife.  The husband wakes up, still angry with his wife, and slices Mother 
Jone across the bridge of her nose (assuming he has, in fact, injured his wife).  After the 
wife returns and replaces Mother Jone at the post, Mother Jone is forced to lie to her own 
husband regarding the injury she has sustained that night.  The wife, however, 
successfully dupes her husband into believing that she is innocent of his charges because 
her nose has been perfectly restored by morning. 
 This particular tale, though worth a closer examination of its implications, does 
not explicitly take a position on Catholic issues.
44
  The issues at work within the fishwife 
of Brainford?s tale center on her agency not only as a woman but also as a 
businesswoman.  She provides a service so that her (presumably) female clients are better 
equipped to dupe their husbands; she shines as an example of a strong-willed, confident, 
 
44
 This is not to say that Brainford?s tale is bereft of any religious commentary.  Her tale does respond to 
the religious belief in miracles, although the ?miracle? performed in her tale is hardly true.  The husband in 
Brainford?s tale is duped into thinking he cut his wife across the nose at night, though by morning her nose 
is fully healed.  The husband exclaims, ??with this knife did I giue thee this present night, a wound on the 
face, the which most miraculously is whole: which is a signe thou art free, and spotlesse, and so will I euer 
hold thee? (Smelts 11).  The husband foolishly believes in a miracle which never occurred, forgiving his 
wife of her adultery.  Because the discussion of the miracle is given so little attention in Brainford?s tale in 
comparison to the representation of an independent woman, I chose to focus on the tale?s initial argument 
that a strong woman has the power to emasculate dominant men. 
30 
and capable woman who does not rely on the instruction of a patriarch to thrive.  Mother 
Jone maintains a working business who goes to extreme lengths to ensure the safety and 
pleasure of her clients, even if it means she risks physical injury.  Mother Jone?s tale sets 
itself apart from the other five tales as an apology under the guise of fiction: the other 
fishwives do not reveal themselves as characters within their own tales and go to lengths 
in order to distance themselves from their tales, such as setting them in the distant past. 
 The fishwife of Hampton, like Brainford, does not directly respond to anti-
Catholic propaganda or Catholic teachings of the time; however, Hampton?s tale does 
indirectly represent the anti-Catholic attitude toward the practice of taking a vow of 
silence.  While one may argue that this tale is commenting on Catholic friars and nuns 
who practice such a vow, the link from this tale to the Catholic tradition is not overt.  The 
main female character, Millisant, is a beautiful creature, who is unfortunately plagued by 
vanity: she torments all potential suitors who show an interest in her.  One unlucky suitor 
braves a confrontation with Millisant and asks her why she ignores him as she does: 
?long time?have I dearly loved you, yet never did I receive the least 
token of acceptance at your hands: disdaine you my Birth?  I am a 
Gentleman, though not descended of the highest houses, yet not of the 
meanest.  Mislike you my wealth?  I have enough to maintaine a private 
Gentleman.  Mislike you my parts of body?  They are as nature gave them, 
I could wish they were more pleasing to your minde.  Doe you mis-doubt 
my love to you?  Set mee some taske in mans possibility to performe, and 
it shall confirme the same. (37) 
31 
Millisant, unmoved by his speech, replies that women are unfairly marked by stereotypes: 
??our mirth is counted immodesty, our civilest lookes lascivious, our words loose, our 
attires wanton, and all our doings apish?? (38).  She reasons that a woman cannot look 
kindly on a false suitor out of mere kindness; the suitor must earn her warm look.  
Because this young suitor offered to do whatever she ordered of him, Millisant challenges 
him to prove his love by taking a voluntary vow of silence for two years (38).  She 
explains to him that this vow is strict: he may not speak to a soul, sing, or ?use any kinde 
of sound, whereby [his] meaning may be understood?? (38).  The suitor is crushed by 
such a harsh command, but silently accepts the vow, and likewise silently walks away 
from her. 
 After the young suitor has left his home and finds himself living with the Duke of 
Cornwall, he has remained diligent in his promise to Millisant.  The Duke, troubled that 
the young man has never spoken nor sang, calls for physicians, who cannot heal him for 
they find nothing ailing him.  Finally, the Duke publishes a declaration: ?that whosoever 
could restore his [the suitor?s] speech, five hundred pounds should be their reward: but 
they not performing the cure, should give the Duke so much money, or else have 
imprisonment till they paid it? (39).  Millisant hears of the challenge, and knowing full 
well who this silent man is, decides to relieve him of his vow and so win the five hundred 
pounds.  Unfortunately for Millisant, her suitor is stalwart in his resolve to fulfill his vow, 
and she cannot relieve him of his duty; she is therefore imprisoned until her suitor?s two-
year period has been met.  Upon the deadline, the suitor approaches the Duke, confesses 
the truth behind his vow of silence, asks forgiveness for never speaking, and is rebuked 
by his host; the Duke ??praised [the suitor?s] wit for using so ungentle a person 
32 
[Millisant] so untowardly: yet blamed him withall, for keeping so rash, foolish, and 
unreasonable a vow so straightly?? (40).  Millisant is then released from prison, 
pregnant; her suitor will not have her, nor will he acknowledge the unborn child is his, 
which leaves Millisant appearing as an unwed strumpet.  Hampton leaves Millisant in this 
state, explaining that she has two options for the course of her life: ??shee was to looke 
a new customer, or else endure the open shame belonging to a Strumpet: which of them 
she did, I know not, eyther of them was bad enough?;?  Hampton finds no happy ending 
for women who abuse their wit in such a wicked manner as Millisant did (40). 
 Hampton?s tale, though it focuses and offers some commentary on vows of 
silence, does not necessarily link itself to anti-Catholic polemic; a stronger link could 
have been made had either of the characters been overtly Catholic.  While the Duke calls 
the vow ??rash, foolish, and unreasonable?,? this could be simply because the suitor 
made the vow for a woman rather than for a more worthy entity (40).  Just as the 
storytellers preceding her tale did, Hampton writes her tale as a response to the issues 
presented in earlier tales; Hampton responds directly to the fishwife of Kingstone?s tale, 
saying: ??for a woman out of the abundance of her wit, to abuse any man, or her selfe, 
in such dishonest courses, I thinke it not good: ?cause oftentimes the harme which shee 
intendeth, and the shame which shee deserueth, lighteth on her selfe?? (36).  In response 
to Kingstone?s tale (discussed in greater length below), which presents a woman in a 
position of self-defense against a clerical rapist, Hampton?s tale addresses the issue of 
women punishing men unduly.  According to Hampton, women who use their wit for 
wicked means risk harming themselves as a result. 
33 
                                                
CHAPTER THREE  
Catholic trinkets and sacraments: the tales of the fishwives of Stand on the Greene and  
Kingstone
 Women?s agency and the appropriate consequences they reap from expressing 
their agency is a recurring theme throughout Smelts, which is made more tangled and 
difficult when the fishwives add an element of religion to their tales.  The remaining four 
tales, told by the fishwives of Stand on the Greene, Richmond, Twitnam, and Kingstone, 
respond to this popular topic with such religious elements as a stolen crucifix acting as 
proof of fidelity, obtaining a parish priest?s approval for divorce, a happily married 
couple who choose to live in celibacy, and a priest who rapes a female parishioner.  
These elements together complement the religious instability of Jacobean England?
English Protestants had their own stereotypes of Catholic behavior and beliefs, and 
English Catholics could do little to contradict such stereotypes.  In the case of the 
fishwife of Stand on the Greene?s tale, for example, the use of the crucifix was not to 
prove the devout nature of the tale?s main female character; the crucifix is instead treated 
more as a precious piece of jewelry than as a treasured religious object.
45
   
 The fishwife of Stand on the Greene responds to the fishwife of Brainford?s tale, 
saying that, ??her [Stand on the Greene?s] Tale was pleasant, but scarce honest: shee 
taxed women with too much immodestie: to salue which, she would tell the aduentures of 
 
45
 The sentiment that Catholics lured women into their folds with the promise of beautiful jewelry was not 
confined to Smelts, as Dolan explains (27). 
34 
a poore Gentlewoman, that was vsed vnkindly by her Husband? (12).  She sets her tale 
during ??the troublesome raigne of King Henry the sixt,? locating her story?s setting in 
a Catholic England (1422-61 and 1470-1).  Stand on the Greene?s tale is reminiscent of 
Shakespeare?s Cymbeline: a husband wagers that his wife?s chastity will not falter in his 
absence; and, just as in Cymbeline, a man accepts the wager and works to prove 
otherwise.  When the man finds himself treated with chaste hospitality by the wife, he 
hides under her bed, more interested in winning the wager than treating the woman with 
honesty.  As the wife sleeps, the man steals a little gold crucifix which the wife always 
wears around her neck and which she apparently treasures; he slips away the following 
morning and returns to the husband with the proof of her infidelity.  In Cymbeline, 
Imogen?s husband Posthumus Leonatus gives her a bracelet as a sign of their shared 
fidelity during his forthcoming absence.  After he leaves his wife, Leonatus enters into a 
bet with Iachimo, charging him to test his wife?s chastity and to return with the bracelet, 
believing his wife will remain faithful and will never remove the bracelet from her arm.  
After failing to woo Imogen by his own cunning, Iachimo deceives her into allowing his 
trunk to be placed into her bedroom.  After she has fallen asleep, Iachimo emerges from 
the trunk and steals the bracelet from her arm.  He returns to Leonatus, victorious in the 
bet.  When she awakes the next morning, Imogen almost immediately misses her 
bracelet. 
 The wife in Stand on the Greene?s tale, in contrast, does not miss her crucifix 
until she discovers the plot against her.  The crucifix becomes an ornament, a piece of 
jewelry that can be missed, falling in line with Jacobean English attitudes toward 
Catholic religious pieces.  Stand on the Greene, as the storyteller, misleads her audience 
35 
                                                
into believing the crucifix plays a greater role in the woman?s life, qualifying it as 
something ??dayly she wore next to her heart? (15).  The crucifix is not merely hanging 
around the woman?s neck as a necklace; it is next to the heart, a place of intimate 
importance.  But, if the ornament is truly more than a jewel, why would the woman not 
realize it is missing?  If readers are to trust Stand on the Greene?s depiction of the 
woman?s relationship to her crucifix (and there is no evidence suggesting readers should 
not), then they are left with an interesting interpretation of Catholic ritual objects: they 
are expected to be intimately important, but perhaps they are only important for fashion?s 
sake. 
 The English Protestant viewed the Catholic Church as a leering, luring, deceptive 
monster, serving a false God with the intent to mislead its people.  Women were 
considered more vulnerable than men, for the Catholic Church had weapons the Church 
of England did not: religious objects turned into jewelry and trinkets.  Because Jacobean 
men viewed the English woman as a much weaker entity, the Catholic Church?s identity 
as a mysterious villain ??often corresponded to the assumption that women were 
illiterate and unlearned, and thus were loyal to a religion that coddled their incapacities, 
or, in the case of converts, were vulnerable to one that preyed on their ignorance.?
46
  The 
Church of England prohibited such use of religious jewelry, while society ??promoted a 
fashion for small wearable objects that could be kept on the person, and concealed if need 
be.?
47
  The Church of England attacked the fashion, ?operat[ing] on the assumption that 
women are vain and fashion-conscious, drawn to ornaments and objects rather than the 
Word.  [Fulminations against the fashion] also register an anxiety that, this being the 
 
46
 Dolan, 27. 
47
 Ibid., 28. 
36 
                                                
case, Roman Catholicism has the advantage when it comes to recruiting women.?
48
  
When it came to religion, the Church of England was in overt competition with the 
Catholic Church; both sides boasted of higher numbers, using such statistics as proof of 
their status as the ?true? religion.
49
  
 Because the Catholic religion and its practices were mysterious to English 
Protestants, such stereotypes as the seductive priest were common images in anti-
Catholic propaganda of the time.  Smelts takes this very stereotype further than other 
examples of anti-Catholic discourse, allowing the priest to rape his victim successfully, 
but the victim takes advantage of her spiritual agency, so she can exact revenge against 
him.  The priest in the fishwife of Kingstone?s tale is the woman?s confessor, a 
characterization that speaks to a Catholic sacrament that is all-too mysterious for the 
English Protestant: penance.  Dolan explains, ?The vivid fantasies of couplings between 
priests and their d?votes articulates the fear that Catholicism promotes unseemly 
intimacies between men and women, whether confessional, sexual, or both.?
50
 It was 
well-known by the English Protestant faction that Catholics practiced the sacrament of 
penance by confessing to their priests, but the danger came when women were 
involved?confession by its very nature required a priest to be in a small room alone with 
a parishioner, male or female; and the priest was bound by Catholic law to hold all 
 
48
 Ibid. 
49
 Questier, 168: rival clergy were ?deemed to have failed or succeeded purely on the basis of their track 
record in persuading the unresolved either to become recusants or to conform.? 
50
 Dolan, 92.  Dolan continues to argue that in this view, holy men were not only suspect for seduction but 
for worshipping their parishioners: ?Here the accusation is not that Catholic men seduce and dally with 
women, or even conspire with and depend on them.  The accusation is that Catholic men worship women 
as goddesses and submit themselves to women?s advice or rule.  These are fantasies not of the seducing 
priest who invades the home and family, preying on its most vulnerable members, or of women who stray 
outside the home into adultery, but of women?s empowerment within the household as wives and mothers, 
and of women as the conduits of priestly influence.? (97). 
 
37 
                                                
confessions in the strictest of confidence.  So if a woman were to be alone with her 
confessor, not only was she susceptible to his advances, but she was also in danger of 
confessing something about which her husband would never find out. 
 The fishwife of Kingstone responds to the fishwife of Twitnam?s tale (one 
praising the practice of a sexually abstinent marriage), saying, ??if wee would be thus 
chaste, alas, our husbands would not suffer vs to continue so; therefore, for my part, I will 
neuer goe about it: I will tell you a Tale of one that was a great woman (though she was 
no Queene) and yet kept a friend besides her husband? (32).  The wife in the fishwife of 
Kingstone?s tale is not only a great woman, but she is a great woman in despite of her 
ability to maintain a relationship with her husband and a lover.  The wife meets with her 
priest to receive the sacrament of penance and, in her confession, asks him what the 
penance would be for committing adultery against her much older and aged husband, not 
wanting him to die without progeny; the priest, hopeful she will choose him, responds 
that the sin is minor (33).  The wife?s situation is not unusual: younger women could be 
paired with aging men because of the financial stability the older men offered.  Although 
the wife?s age is not revealed, it is clear that a large age difference exists between her and 
her husband, which is something she is concerned about on some level.  G.R. Quaife 
explains that, for the married Jacobean Englishwoman, ??desire, bribery and violence 
were the most common factors leading to her adulterous consent.  The hope of marriage 
was not easily absent from the married women?s consideration.  If your present husband 
was sick or aged, to cultivate a replacement was not unreasonable.?
51
  It is neither bribery 
nor violence that convinces the wife to commit adultery in Kingstone?s tale; she is 
 
51
 Quaife, 132. 
38 
                                                
concerned about her husband?s old age and does not want him to die without a son.  
While this seemingly kindhearted reason may be true, the wife first mentions that she 
does not have a husband who can meet her hottest desires; essentially, she is bored at 
home and could use some excitement in her sex life.  She checks with her confessor first, 
looking for absolution before committing the sin.  True Catholics, however, know that 
they may not receive absolution in anticipation of a future sin and even then may only 
receive forgiveness if they are truly contrite.  The wife in this tale may, in fact, be an 
English Protestant misrepresentation of a stereotypical Catholic woman, based entirely on 
suppositions about Catholic sacramental mysteries. 
 The fishwife of Kingstone combines the two separate fantasies of the adulterous 
wife and the seductive priest when the priest acknowledges, at the very least to himself, 
that he desires to be the woman?s adulterous lover.  To the priest, this woman is an object 
of lust to be enjoyed, a weaker entity to be conquered through sexual advances (33).  The 
English Protestant would recognize this priest, characterized further as a Friar (though his 
order
52
 is not specified), and would assume that priests hold an unhealthy and lustful 
obsession with women because of their tradition of celibacy.  Because of his lust, he is 
willing to break his strict celibacy in order to sexually enjoy her; reason is not a factor.  
The priest spies upon the couple long enough to learn their secret password; he leaves 
??thinking he had enough in knowing of that word which had the power to bring him to 
her bed? (34).  Later that evening, the priest, disguised as the lover, sneaks to the 
woman?s house before her lover arrives, uses the password to enter her home, and 
??[catches] her in his armes, kissing and vsing other dalliance, so long, till hee had fully 
 
52
 Though, readers are aware that his hair is tonsured, as the fishwife describes the woman rubbing her hand 
over his bald head to identify him as her confessor. 
39 
satisfied his hot desires: Then quickly tooke hee his leaue without words, which she 
wondred at? (34).  After the rape is complete, the wife is left to wonder why her lover 
would use her so unkindly, which was not his usual behavior. 
 The young lover finally arrives at the agreed-upon time, knocks on the door, and  
uses the password; the wife, confused that her lover has returned after abusing her, 
accuses him of lying to her.  The lover protests and explains that ??euen then he came 
from his Chamber? (34).  She realizes the deception but is still unsure of who could have 
taken advantage of her; the wife, keeping the rape secret, lets her lover enter her home 
and passes the night with him in enjoyment.  The following night, the priest finds ??his 
appetite?rather sharpened, then any way slacked?? and returns to the woman?s home, 
using the password (35).  She recognizes the disguised man by his voice as the same one 
who raped her the evening before, but she invites him in anyway.  While they kiss, she 
??[feels] by the short haire on his head, that it [is] the Priest? (35).  Realizing that she 
has been deceived and raped by her very confessor, she devises a plan to exact her 
revenge.  Sending the priest to the bedroom, she calls upon two of her most trusted 
servants, and sends them to tie him to the bed and there to ??cut out one of his 
genitours? (35).  The servants do so, while the priest screams loudly, but the protestation 
is to no use: the servants ??make him lighter by a stone? (35). 
 The servants call to their mistress, who takes pity on the priest and assists to bind 
his wound, tying a paper to his neck before sending him out the door.  When the priest 
awakens the next morning in his own bed, he discovers a threatening poem written on the 
paper: 
Priest, if that thou chance to tell, 
40 
                                                
What pleasure through thy wit befell: 
Likewise report not without care, 
What thou hast lost, and what they are: 
But neuer grieue there?s none that can, 
But must confesse th?art halfe a man. 
But leaue thy riding, lest that stone 
Be carued too, then hast thou none. 
So sir, farewell: th?ast made amends, 
For thy deceit: and we are friends. 
The friar is initially angered by the note and wishes he could exact a further revenge upon 
the wife, but he realizes her threat is weighty: ??by looking to his wound, hee rested 
himselfe content, and ventured to steale no more flesh?? (36).  The wife is free to 
continue her affair, no longer bothered by the priest (36).
53
 The wife in this tale is fortunate: although the priest attempts to continue raping 
her under the guise of her lover, she finds him out early on and is saved from having to 
live with the cultural effects of being raped.  Briggs explains that:  
[s]o extensive as the assumption of women?s sexual guilt that sexual 
charges brought against men by women, for harassment, assault, 
seduction, or rape, commonly foundered because women?s reputations 
were so easily blackened, and accusations of complicity were difficult to 
disprove.  It was often simpler for a woman to accept and admit sexual 
 
53
 ?...[T]he Lady injoyed her friend quietly, being neuer after troubled with the Fryer.? 
41 
                                                
guilt in the course of bringing a charge against a man, even in 
circumstances where to do so was obviously inappropriate.
54
Although the wife is innocent, she would not necessarily have been cleared of 
responsibility in court.  If she were to actively seek justice on her own, she had a better 
possibility of ultimately claiming her own guilt for, perhaps, seducing the priest with her 
beauty; what was a holy man to do in the face of such charm?  Fortunately, the wife in 
Kingstone?s tale did not have to seek justice in the English court system; she took matters 
into her own hands, coming out on top.  Kingstone?s tale represents a striking dichotomy 
in English Protestant thoughts toward Catholic women: Catholic men were dangerous 
because they could prey upon women and lure them into the religion with promises of 
sexual favors, and the women were susceptible to these tricks because of their very 
weakness as women.  Kingstone?s tale plays along with the stereotypes to an extent.  She 
depicts a dangerously lustful priest who takes advantage of the sanctity of confession, 
falling in line with English Protestant stereotypes.  The wife is also apparently 
uninformed on how to confess properly and seek absolution for her sins; if she had been 
better trained on the Catholic catechism, she would have known that her confession was 
inappropriate.  The English Protestant preferred to construct a caricature of the Catholic 
woman who did not understand the full extent of her Catholicism; after all, she would 
have only been interested in the pretty jewelry and exciting Catholic dogma of 
worshipping the Virgin Mary and other female saints. 
 The wife in Kingstone?s tale, although falling in line with some of the stereotypes 
of the period, fights these very stereotypes when she takes revenge and justice in her own 
 
54
 Briggs, 70. 
42 
hands.  Not wanting to reveal her adultery to the public, she punishes the priest by cutting 
off one of his testicles; the action also alludes to a female-to-female protection when 
coupled with the threatening poem: should he ever again attempt to rape her or another 
woman, she will return to remove the remaining testicle.  This wife is empowered despite 
her religion; in the eyes of the fishwife of Kingstone, she is a role model not for her 
Catholicism but for her agency.  When she concludes her tale, the fishwife of Kingstone 
asks her audience, ?Now tell me?if this Lady bee not as much praise-worthy for her wit, 
as the other [the wife in the fishwife of Twitnam?s tale] was for her honestie?? (36).  
The fishwives do not respond as vocally to the fishwife of Kingstone?s tale as they had to 
the preceding ones: ?[M]ost of them confirmed her argument to be sound, & the rest 
confirmed it by silence? (36).  The fishwife of Kingstone is able to find her story?s main 
female character forgivable for her Catholicism because she comes through as a woman 
who acts upon her spiritual agency, a role model for all women despite religious 
boundaries and stereotypes.
43 
                                                
CHAPTER FOUR  
Divorce and marriage customs: the tales of the fishwives of Richmond and Twitnam 
 By 1620, there was a rise in English Protestant desire to differentiate from 
Catholic traditions and customs, including a reinvestigation of marriage and divorce 
customs.  The Jacobean Protestant desired more marital sexual freedom; although they 
understood children to complete a marriage, they did not believe that every sex act should 
be performed with the intent to procreate.
55
  Divorces, under the jurisdiction of the 
ecclesiastical courts, were difficult to obtain because of the extreme nature of the divorce 
law?s requirements.  A husband could ask for a divorce only if he had proof of his wife?s 
adultery, while a wife could ask for a divorce if her husband were considered 
dangerously prone to cruel and violent abuse.  The remaining two tales, the fishwife of 
Richmond?s tale and the fishwife of Twitnam?s tale, respond to customs regarding 
divorce and marriage in Jacobean England respectively.  These two tales rely upon the 
readers? understanding of these customs as they stand in both religious and secular law.   
 Since Henry VIII and Edward VI, divorce in the Church of England was an 
available option for unhappily married couples, although the option was not particularly 
 
55
 Macfarlane explains, ?The possibility of divorce with remarriage is often related to the desire for 
children.  If a couple are childless, they separate and each may try again with another partner.  A marriage 
is not complete without children.  Thus a society or civilization that forbids full divorce with the right 
remarry, that views marriage, with or without children, as indissoluble, reveals certain attitudes towards the 
purposes of marriage. [?]  Only in the tenth century in England did the easier freedom of divorce in 
Anglo-Saxon societies become crushed by the Church.  In England one then sees almost a thousand years 
of the regime that forbids divorce with right to remarry.  It was not until 1857 that civil divorce was made 
possible? (223).   
44 
                                                
preferred.  Couples who sought a divorce were required to work through the ecclesiastical 
courts because ?[t]here was no civil divorce under common law.  [?]  These 
[ecclesiastical] courts would grant divorce a mensa et thoro, from bed and board, to a 
wife whose life was in danger from her husband?s cruelty or to a husband whose wife 
committed adultery.?
56
  The Catholic Church did allow divorces under these extreme 
circumstances to exist; however, ?[s]uch a divorce was really a separation since spouses 
were not permitted to remarry.  [The divorce] suspended marital obligations of the 
innocent spouse: a husband did not have to support an adulterous wife; a wife did not 
have to cohabit with a cruel husband.?
57
  As the Church of England continued to separate 
itself and its practices from the Catholic Church, Protestant couples pushed for relief 
from the prohibition against remarriage, which required an act of Parliament and was 
often only granted to aristocratic couples who could afford such an act.
58
  William 
Perkins, a famous Elizabethan Puritan preacher (1558-1602),
59
 discusses divorce in his 
Christian Economy, ??[making] it clear that adultery is the primary grounds for 
divorce,? but he also ?takes the radical position, which is contrary to English common 
law, that marriage may be ?dissolved? for reasons other than adultery, specifically 
desertion or ?malicious and spiteful dealing of married folks one with the other.? 
(Although married persons in England could not obtain a divorce on such grounds?).?
60
  
 
56
 Dorothy M. Stetson, 6. 
57
 Ibid. 
58
 Ibid. 
59
 Joan Larsen Klein, 152: ?In his time, William Perkins (1558-1602) was one of the most famous and 
respected of Puritan preachers and writers.  [?]  In 1609, his Works were enlarged until they comprised 
three volumes.  The handsome three-volume folio Works went through approximately ten editions by 
1635.? 
60
 Ibid., 153. 
45 
                                                
Perkins, a member of a religious minority himself, highlights the difficulty in obtaining a 
divorce, the difference between what should be available and what is available: 
?it continueth here and there some special grounds of truth tending to the 
discovery of diverse errors of Popish doctrine in points appertaining to 
marriage, as namely these:?wherein is challenged the Jesuit?s proposition 
that the sole consent of the parties is sufficient, that matrimony lawfully 
begun and consummate[d] is made void only by way of divorce in the case 
of adultery.
61
Although an Elizabethan Puritan, Perkins expresses a sentiment in common with the 
mainstream Jacobean English Protestant, a sentiment which is likewise represented in the 
fishwife of Richmond?s tale: divorce should not have to depend upon adultery or 
dangerous cruelty alone. 
 The framework which the fishwife of Richmond creates in her tale acts as a 
representation of the stereotypical divorce
62
 in Jacobean England: a wife receives cruel 
treatment by her husband who suspects her of adultery.  It is not enough that the wife is 
unhappy in her marriage to an old widower, and it is not enough that the husband is 
jealous of his young wife.  Richmond plays on the stereotype of the time, employing 
conventional impressions of the unhappy couple who seeks divorce.  According to 
ecclesiastical customs and law, Richmond?s fictional couple is permitted to receive a 
divorce a mensa et thoro: the wife cheats and the husband is intolerably cruel to her.  
 
61
 Ibid., 156.  Emphasis mine. 
62
 As stated above, the Jacobean concept of ?divorce? is not the present-day concept; although what she 
means is a separation a mensa et thoro, Richmond uses the word ?divorce.?  To stay true to the text, I have 
chosen to use the same word, although such a use requires awareness of the Jacobean definition.  A couple 
asking for a divorce in the early seventeenth century would have been separated from living under the same 
roof as each other; they were not permitted to remarry. 
46 
Both parties are absolved of any marital responsibility.  The circumstances under which 
they are divorced fall in line, according to Perkins, with Catholic doctrine; however, 
identifying the perceived Catholicity employed by the tale does not necessarily imply 
Richmond?s or even the anonymous Smelts author?s affiliation with the Catholic church. 
 To Perkins, and other Puritan and Protestant believers, couples should be able to 
obtain a divorce under other circumstances as well.  It seems possible that Richmond, as 
a storyteller, is making a comment about the state of marriage in religion.  Should her 
characters have to take their marital unhappiness to such extremes in order to be 
divorced?  The tale begins with a husband jealous of his young wife?s beauty and 
lustfulness, so he locks her in the house to prevent her from having an affair, though there 
is no evidence suggesting she ever committed adultery in the beginning.  The wife finds 
her husband?s tyranny to be cruel and torturous, though there is no evidence that he has 
ever before physically abused her; but if the couple needs a divorce, and if they are 
Catholic, their relationship must reach the extremities it does.  Although the anonymous 
Smelts author depicts Richmond?s tale as a commentary on a woman seeking 
empowerment from an unfortunate situation, the tale itself could also exist as a statement 
on the difficulty of obtaining a divorce. 
 The fishwife of Richmond?s tale is presented after the fishwife of Stand on the 
Greene, but she does not comment directly on Stand on the Greene?s tale; instead, she 
continues the trend set forth by Brainford and Stand on the Greene in telling a story of a 
man duped by an empowered woman.  Richmond?s tale is one of physical assault, verbal 
abuse, and jealousy between a husband and a wife, ending in a request for divorce.  The 
wife in the tale, ?a faire, yong and lusty Damozell? is characterized as witless by a friend 
47 
of hers for her willingness to stay in an obviously unhealthy relationship: the wife reveals 
that her husband sleeps with the key to the lock under his pillow, so she is unable to 
sneak out at night.  Her friend, a female ?pew-fellow? of hers, asks her, ??wherefore 
haue you hands, but to take the key when hee is asleepe, and to goe whither you will, 
onely you must be carefull to come in at the houre he vseth to wake?? (24).  Such a 
thought has never crossed the wife?s mind before; she thanks her friend for the idea and 
agrees to steal the key that same night to come to her pew-fellow?s home.  The wife is 
successful in her escape, returns later that night to her husband?s side in the bed, and is 
able to repeat her deception, undiscovered for several more nights. 
 On the night her deception fails, however, ??her good fortune [makes] her 
bold...,? and ?she [tarries] a little longer then her houre?? (24).  Her husband awakens to 
find her not home and decides to lock the door before she returns, resulting in a lengthy 
fight between the couple when she comes home.  Angry, and desperate to enter her 
house, the wife fakes her own suicide, duping her husband into running outdoors while 
she sneaks back inside, locking him out in turn.  The couple continues to fight and argue 
before the wife?s pew-fellow arrives and is ??[willed]?to goe to her Mother, and the 
rest of her friends, and (as she could well inough without her instructions) frame a 
complaint, how that her Husband of a long time had vsed to goe on whore-hunting in the 
night?? (28).  The pew-fellow fulfills her friend?s request and returns with the wife?s 
mother, her friends, and the parish parson ??that hee might be a witnesse of her wrong? 
(28).  The husband, his face battered and scratched by his wife?s physical abuse during 
their fight, is accused by his wife?s mother that of ??[giving] her [his wife?s] right to 
others?? (28), although the man never shows evidence of having ever had an 
48 
extramarital affair.  After the mother completes her diatribe against the husband, she 
entreats the parson to witness the cruelty of her daughter?s husband:  
Beare witnesse, good Sir Iohn, and the rest of my neighbours, that see how 
my daughter is abused: for I purpose to teach this knaue how to vse his 
wife better; and not to abuse her, and then threaten her with death, if she 
complaine?. (28) 
The young wife goes down to where the parson, her mother, neighbors, and husband are, 
and ??[intreats] her (with fained teares) that she might be diuorced from her wicked 
husband, or else shee [says] her dayes were but short, for he assuredly would doe her a 
mischiefe? (29).  Upon hearing her daughter?s plea, the mother assures her daughter that 
her old husband would do well to return her dowry and divorce her; the husband 
??perceiuing?that they were all on her side, and how that they would not heare him 
speake in his owne defence?? angrily agrees to her request for a divorce (29).  The 
parson draws up the bill of divorce ??and the old man deliuered backe her portion, 
beeing glad that he was rid of his wife.  His wife on the other side was glad that shee had 
escaped that punishment which shee deseured: so they all parted seeming friends? (29). 
 The fishwives disagree on whether or not the wife in this tale is a worthy role 
model: the fishwife of Brainford compares her to Amazon women ??who out of a braue 
minde cut their husbands throates: and so made themselues, rulers of themselues? (29).  
Brainford appreciates this woman?s ability to defend herself against her abusive husband 
and to obtain a divorce from him rather than remain in his dictatorial control.  The 
fishwives of Stand on the Greene and Twitnam disagree with Brainford and wonder 
whether or not it is possible to find this wife?s actions praiseworthy.  Stand on the Greene 
49 
                                                
points out, ??what praise?had shee deserued, if she had been discouered, or failed in 
this attempt?  Nothing but curses in my mind, for she had giuen cause to all men to speak 
ill of vs women: it is not the euent, but the honesty of the intent, that iustifies the action? 
(29).  Obtaining a divorce from one?s husband was an issue that extended even beyond 
the realms of religious convention: a woman who was able to divorce her husband was 
one who outwardly expressed her agency and empowerment. 
 Another marital practice upon which Catholics and English Protestants differed 
was celibacy.  Although the celibate marriage is traceable to medieval English works, 
such as The Book of Margery Kempe, Jacobean England had a much different idea of 
what constituted a chaste marriage.  To the Catholic couple, living in chastity would be 
akin to living in celibacy, just as Margery and her husband lived, the couple denying to 
continue sexual intercourse with one another (or anyone else, for that matter).  The 
Catholic church taught that ??virginity and celibacy were the holiest of states, ideals that 
all should aspire to, while marriage as an inferior way of life, a necessary evil, improved 
by sexual abstinence?.?
63
  To preserve their marriage from carnal exploitation, and to 
reach a holier state than other couples, a Catholic couple could agree to live in 
abstinence. 
 Such abstinence to the English Protestant, however, was reminiscent of the vows 
nuns and priests took to enter lives of celibacy; and such celibacy could be viewed as an 
unhealthy repression of natural sexual desires.  The English Protestant worried that 
repressing these desires could lead to wanton sexual behavior, such as raping one?s 
female parishioner under the secrecy of confession, as represented in Kingstone?s tale.  
 
63
 Briggs, 48. 
50 
                                                
Sexual abstinence in marriage was too much akin to priests? celibacy for the liking of 
English Protestants: ?[i]n the reformers? view, celibacy had too often concealed sexual 
misbehaviour, or contributed to the clergy?s mystique.  Marriage, in their view, was the 
condition ordained for man by God, as the creation of Eve for Adam demonstrated.?
64
  
The Catholic Church?s teaching, therefore, of a holy, celibate marriage, did not agree 
with the English Protestant?s understanding of God?s will for man.  The shift in 
Protestant England supported a sexually active married couple, for if the couple were 
happily satisfying each other?s desires, they were less likely to stray into an extramarital 
affair.  Marriage and sexual activity within that marriage were so advocated by English 
Protestants that ?[m]arriage could now be enjoyed even by the clergy, while the 
traditional refuges from it, nunneries and monasteries, no longer existed.  Chastity was no 
longer identified with celibacy, but rather with faithful wedded love?.?
65
  To the English 
Protestant, then, a chaste marriage was characterized by a faithful, most likely sexually 
active, couple. 
 The fishwife of Twitnam approaches this topic differently from her fellow 
fishwives; she wishes to tell a story of a happily married couple rather than one of a 
wanton wife.  She does not tell her story to encourage the stereotype of the disempowered 
wife living in sexual abstinence with her husband.  Instead, Twitnam seeks to prove that a 
wife can be both sexually chaste, even while married, and still exhibit great personal 
agency, especially if tempted.  She conveniently sets her tale in seventh-century Britain, 
under the rule of King Oswald, when the country?s official religion would have been 
Catholicism (although the denotation would not have existed in this time period).  
 
64
 Ibid. 
65
 Briggs, 49. 
51 
                                                
Twitnam?s characters can comfortably adhere to the Roman Church?s celebration of 
celibacy, especially because her main characters are Oswald and his wife (whom she calls 
Beblam), the sainted king
66
 and queen of Britain.  She claims that after this couple gives 
birth to a son ??they willingly agreed (that they might the better serue their Sauiour) not 
to touch one the other after any carnall manner? (30).  As with Catholic priests and nuns 
who agree to the vow of celibacy, Oswald and Beblam are focused entirely on properly 
serving their Lord, never again to enjoy sexual activity inside (or outside) their marriage. 
 Twitnam?s tale proceeds from the fishwife of Richmond?s tale; she responds to 
Richmond?s tale, agreeing with the fishwife of Stand on the Greene, saying, ?I think so 
too?I doe not like this foolish hardinesse: and men are apt to speake ill of vs without 
cause: therefore to make amends, I will tell of a vertuous and chaste Dame, and one 
whose life may bee a mirrour for all womene? (29).  Twitnam?s tale is indeed about a 
virtuous and chaste woman, though she maintains a characterization unlike many chaste 
women of Jacobean England: she is married.  Twitnam?s tale attempts to prove that 
women can be married and still lead chaste and exemplary lives; Twitnam would rather 
find a role model in a good, chaste wife than in a woman who dupes her abusive husband 
into divorcing her.  To further Twitnam?s case in finding a role model in Beblam, she 
opens her tale explaining that Oswald ?for his iust gouernment and holy life, had the 
name of Saint giuen him? (30).  Readers may assume if the husband is able to lead a holy 
life, the wife is holy by proxy, so when Twitnam plainly states the couple?s intention to 
abstain from sexual activity, it does not come as a surprise. 
 
66
 For a more detailed biography of the historical Saint Oswald, please see S. Anselm Parker?s ?St. 
Oswald,? New Advent: On-Line Catholic Encyclopedia, K. Knight, editor, 
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11348c.htm>. 
52 
                                                
 According to Twitnam?s tale, Beblam and Oswald lived for the service of God, 
ignoring their baser instincts: ?Thus liued this vertuous couple, vntill their deaths, onely 
esteeming the seruice of God, and the auoiding of worldly tentations for their cheife 
pleasure? (30).  They are visited by a hermit and entertain him as a guest in their home; 
the hermit asks Oswald how he is able to maintain a holy life yet still claim a wife.  The 
hermit?s question is apropos as he seems to speak in place of the listening fishwives who 
could be wondering the same.  Oswald responds to his question with patience: ?Marriage 
is no hinderance to holy life, for therein doe we but follow the institution of God, which 
hee ordained for the increase of the world?? (30).  The statement resounds with English 
Protestant overtones, although Twitnam tells her tale as though she has a general 
understanding of Catholic doctrine, while Oswald anachronistically anticipates clearly 
Protestant views.
67
 To further encourage the hermit to test Oswald and Beblam?s celibate marriage, 
Oswald gives the hermit his ring, entreating the hermit to ask Beblam to use him as she 
would use her husband.  The hermit eagerly accepts the wager, ??hoping to haue kinde 
entertainment at his Queenes hands...and told her, that it was her Husbands will that she 
should vse him in all respects as shee would vse himselfe, if hee were there? (30).  
Beblam kindly agrees to fulfill her husband?s request and feeds the hermit dinner.  The 
hermit is admittedly disappointed when he is served mere bread and water, expecting 
something much grander for the king?s meal:  
 
67
 Recall Briggs?s argument of the English Protestant reformers? view of chastity in marriage: ?Marriage, in 
their view, was the condition ordained for man by God, as the creation of Eve for Adam demonstrated? 
(48). 
53 
When the time of supper was come, and the Hermet expected some 
delicate cheere, he onely was fed with bread, which was serued vpon a 
stately manner, by diuers Gentlemne that did attend him: likewise when he 
called for drink, they gaue him wholesome water to coole his hote desires: 
no other cates got hee, yet was it no worse then the Queene her selfe ate 
of. (30-1) 
The hermit has not expected such an ascetic lifestyle between a king and queen, but the 
wager he set forth with Oswald has not yet been broken: the hermit has so far been 
treated just as the king himself would have been treated.     
 Once the meal is complete, a servant asks the hermit if he should be pleased to 
retire to bed for the evening; although the hermit is still disappointed from the scant 
dinner, he is overjoyed when entering the bedroom: 
?for he saw no worser woman then the Queene should be his bedfellow.  
So quickly vndressing himselfe he went in bed to her (not forget-getting in 
his thoughts to praise her for obeying her Husbands will) where hauing 
lyne awhile, thinking of some strange things, lust and the euill disposition 
of his minde beganne to infect his soule so, that with a kinde imbrace hee 
besought the Queene to shew some mercy towards his hot affection. (31) 
Beblam, not unprepared for such lascivious behavior, rings a bell and calls forth four 
women, ??who took this Hermet and cast him in a Cisterne full of water, that stood in 
the Chamber?? (31).   
 The hermit?s desires are immediately quelled, though they do not remain so for 
long; he decides he should convince the queen by flattery to sleep with him: 
54 
Most rare, beauteous, admirable, and vnparalelled woman, I will not onely 
commend thee for thy beauty and greatnesse of Birth and place; but also I 
will adore thee with more than humane worship, for the extraordinarie 
vnderstanding which thou hast aboue others of thy sexe. (31) 
The hermit continues to flatter the queen, commending her for her brilliant plan: she must 
have expected the servants would have been suspicious, so (the hermit reasons) the queen 
must have used her wit to plan to dump him into the cistern of water in order to fool the 
servants.  He suddenly ??clip[s] her in his armes?,? but Beblam is once again 
unreceptive to his advances and rings the bell once more (32).  The four female servants 
return and ?[duck] him twise so much as they did before, so that they laid him in the bed 
halfe drowned?? (32).  By the time the hermit leaves Oswald and Beblam, he believes 
they have committed to a truly celibate marriage; out of shame over his behavior, he 
resolves ?neuer after [to] looke into other mens liues, but [to mend] his owne? (32). 
 Oswald and Beblam, although married and supporters of a marriage that assists 
procreation, choose to continue in sexual abstinence for the increase of their holy lives.  
Because they have a son and heir, they recognize procreation will continue in his stead, 
and they have fulfilled their marital duties according to God?s will for marriage.  This 
sentiment aligns itself with both Catholic and Protestant doctrine; both branches of 
Christianity acknowledge the importance of procreation in a marriage.  Once the couple 
has sufficiently procreated, however, they exhibit Catholic ideals: in order to continue 
serving God properly, they recognize a need to devote themselves entirely to God without 
the temptation of carnal lust.  They are willing to remain married?to divorce would have 
been an unjustifiable sin when they can live in celibacy.  Twitnam expects the fishwives 
55 
to agree that the wife in her tale is comparable to the wife in the fishwife of Richmond?s 
tale, although she did not have to behave cruelly to her husband.  Of course, to compare 
the two women is difficult, since the one is married to an old, abusive widower and the 
other a just, religious king.  Although the fishwives agree that Beblam is a virtuous 
queen, and a woman to be admired solely for her virtue, they unanimously refuse to agree 
with Twitnam?s view that Beblam represents a proper role model for them: ??they all 
said, This Queene was a vertuous woman, and worthy to bee had in memory, but shee 
was not to be any president for them, seeing shee was a Queene, and they were but 
Fishwives? (32).  Before continuing with her own tale, the fishwife of Kingstone 
elaborates the sentiment, stating, ?Truely?if wee would be thus chaste, alas, our 
husbands would not suffer vs to continue so?? (32).  The recurring feeling is that a 
queen has more agency in her marriage, than does a fishwife, with which she may choose 
to remain sexually abstinent. 
 
56 
CONCLUSION 
 Westward for Smelts is rich with cultural implications, compiling many voices at 
once as it relies upon a fictional character within it to act as its writer.  The strongest 
voices that cry for attention in this piece are the ones interested in women?s roles, 
especially focused upon the ideal image of women: what makes a woman praiseworthy or 
a suitable role model?  The fishwives and Kinde Kit are more concerned with the idea of 
the honorable woman and in identifying who she is based upon their knowledge of 
women?s roles.  To explore this side of the Smelts, gender studies would have been the 
obvious direction; however, I found myself drawn to the vehicle the fishwives use in 
order to depict the honorable woman: the anti-Catholic polemic of Jacobean England. 
This secondary voice is the voice that pointed to assumptions the fishwives made?the 
assumptions that their readers understood the religious climate of the time period and 
would respond ?properly? to the little jokes or references at work within the individual 
tales. 
 Smelts serves a fascinating role in Jacobean prose fiction, especially as a piece 
that has been largely ignored by scholars.  The work does not merely represent popular 
anti-Catholic polemic, but it weaves together the assumptions and stereotypes made by 
Jacobean Protestants into one piece.  The fishwives respond to one another under the 
assumption that they are familiar with the anti-Catholic polemic; they are so familiar with 
it, in fact, that they are able to weave it into their own stories, treating the stereotypes 
57 
against Catholics as though they are socially normal behaviors and ways of viewing 
another faith background.  As modern readers, experiencing Smelts without any 
foreknowledge of Jacobean assumptions and stereotypes could prove detrimental to our 
understanding of the text.  A woman raped by her confessor may not be difficult to grasp, 
but a woman regarding her crucifix as a pretty jewel rather than an intimately important 
religious object is trickier to comprehend. 
 Of course, it is necessary to recall Greenblatt?s argument that scholars should 
listen not for the one voice but the many voices when attempting to historicize a text.  
Admittedly, I listened to the many voices and found something in common with them: 
their responses to the anti-Catholic polemic.  That is not to say that this is the only pattern 
within Smelts? many voices.  In fact, the text is rich with other socio-political 
implications that require further study.  It was my intention, however, to examine in as 
great detail as I could the pattern I found to be strongest.  As I reread Smelts in the future, 
I fully expect further and perhaps stronger patterns to emerge.  No matter how faint, 
Smelts? voices will be heard. 
 
58 
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