GEORGE BETTS [aside to Lincoln] Lincoln, let’s beat them down, and bear no more of these abuses.
LINCOLN [aside to George Betts] We may not, Betts. Be patient and hear more.
DOLL How now, husband? What, one stranger take thy food from thee, and another thy wife? By’r Lady, flesh and blood, I think, can hardly brook that.
LINCOLN Will this gear never be otherwise? Must these wrongs be thus endured?
GEORGE BETTS Let us step in, and help to revenge their injury.
BARDE What art thou that talkest of revenge? My Lord Ambassador shall once more make your Mayor have a check if he punish thee not for this saucy presumption.
WILLIAMSON Indeed my Lord Mayor on the Ambassador’s complaint sent me to Newgate one day because, against my will, I took the wall of a stranger. You may do anything. The goldsmith’s wife, and mine now, must be at your commandment.
GEORGE BETTS The more patient fools are ye both to suffer it.
BARDE Suffer it? Mend it thou or he if ye can or dare. I tell thee, fellow, an she were the Mayor of London’s wife, had I her once in my possession I would keep her in spite of him that durst say nay.
GEORGE BETTS I tell thee, Lombard, these words should cost thy best cap, were I not curbed by duty and obedience. The Mayor of London’s wife? O God, shall it be thus?
DOLL Why, Betts, am not I as dear to my husband as my Lord Mayor’s wife to him, [ to Williamson] and wilt thou so neglectly suffer thine own shame? [To de Barde ] Hands off, proud stranger, or, by Him that bought me, if men’s milky hearts dare not strike a stranger, yet women will beat them down ere they bear these abuses. BARDE Mistress, I say you shall along with me.
DOLL Touch not Doll Williamson, lest she lay thee along on God’s dear earth. (To Cavelier) And you, sir, that allow such coarse cates to carpenters, whilst pigeons which they pay for must serve your dainty appetite: deliver them back to my husband again, or I’ll call so many women to mine assistance as we’ll not leave one inch untorn of thee. If our husbands must be bridled by law, and forced to bear your wrongs, their wives will be a little lawless, and soundly beat ye.
CAVELIER Come away, de Barde, and let us go complain to my Lord Ambassador. Exeunt both
DOLL Ay, go, and send him among us, and we’ll give him his welcome too. I am ashamed that free-born Englishmen, having beaten strangers within their own bounds, should thus be braved and abused by them at home.
SHERWIN It is not our lack of courage in the cause, but the strict obedience that we are bound to. I am the goldsmith whose wrongs you talked of; but how to redress yours or mine own is a matter beyond all our abilities.
LINCOLN Not so, not so, my good friends. I, though a mean man, a broker by profession, and named John Lincoln, have long time winked at these vile enormities with mighty impatience, and, as these two brethren here, Bettses by name, can witness, with loss of mine own life would gladly remedy them.
GEORGE BETTS And he is in a good forwardness, I tell ye, if all hit right.
DOLL As how, I prithee? Tell it to Doll Williamson.
LINCOLN You know the Spital sermons begin the next week. I have drawn a bill of our wrongs, and the strangers’ insolencies.
GEORGE BETTS Which he means the preachers shall there openly publish in the pulpit.
WILLIAMSON O, but that they would! I’faith, it would tickle our strangers thoroughly.
DOLL Ay, and if you men durst not undertake it, before God, we women will. Take an honest woman from her husband? Why, it is intolerable.
SHERWIN ⌈to Lincoln⌉ But how find ye the preachers affected to our proceeding?
LINCOLN Master Doctor Standish means not to meddle with any such matter in his sermon, but Doctor Beal will do in this matter as much as a priest may do to reform it, and doubts not but happy success will ensue upon our wrongs. You shall perceive there’s no hurt in the bill. Here’s a copy of it. I pray ye, hear it.
ALL THE REST With all our hearts. For God’s sake, read it.
LINCOLN (reads) ‘To you all the worshipful lords and masters of this city, that will take compassion over the poor people your neighbours, and also of the great importable hurts, losses, and hindrances whereof proceedeth extreme poverty to all the King’s subjects that inhabit within this city and suburbs of the same. For so it is that aliens and strangers eat the bread from the fatherless children, and take the living from all the artificers, and the intercourse from all merchants, whereby poverty is so much increased that every man bewaileth the misery of other; for craftsmen be brought to beggary, and merchants to neediness. Wherefore, the premises considered, the redress must be of the commons, knit and united to one part. And as the hurt and damage grieveth all men, so must all men set to their willing power for remedy, and not suffer the said aliens in their wealth, and the natural-born men of this region to come to confusion.’
DOLL Before God, ’tis excellent, and I’ll maintain the suit to be honest.
SHERWIN Well, say ’tis read, what is your further meaning in the matter?
GEORGE BETTS What? Marry, list to me. No doubt but this will store us with friends enough, whose names we will closely keep in writing, and on May Day next in the morning we’ll go forth a-Maying, but make it the worst May Day for the strangers that ever they saw. How say ye? Do ye subscribe, or are ye faint-hearted revolters?
DOLL Hold thee, George Betts, there’s my hand and my heart. By the Lord, I’ll make a captain among ye, and do somewhat to be talked of for ever after.
WILLIAMSON My masters, ere we part let’s friendly go and drink together, and swear true secrecy upon our lives.
GEORGE BETS There spake an angel. Come, let us along then.
Exeunt
Sc. 2 An arras is drawn, and behind it, as in sessions, sit the Lord Mayor, Justice Suresby, and other Justices, ⌈and the Recorder⌉, Sheriff More and the other Sheriff sitting by. Smart is the plaintiff, Lifter the prisoner at the bar
LORD MAYOR
Having dispatched our weightier businesses,
We may give ear to petty felonies.
Master Sheriff More, what is this fellow?
MORE
My lord, he stands indicted for a purse.
He hath been tried; the jury is together.
LORD MAYOR
Who sent him in?
SURESBY That did I, my lord.
Had he had right, he had been hanged ere this,
The only captain of the cutpurse crew.
LORD MAYOR What is his name?
SURESBY
As his profession is: Lifter, my lord,
One that can lift a purse right cunningly.
LORD MAYOR
And is that he accuses him?
SURESBY
The same, my lord, whom, by your honour’s leave,
I must say somewhat too, because I find
In some respects he is well worthy blame.
LORD MAYOR
Good Master Justice Suresby, speak your mind.
We are well pleased to give you audience.
SURESBY
Hear me, Smart. Thou art a foolish fellow.
If Lifter be convicted by the law,
As I see not how the jury can acquit him,
I’ll stand to’t thou art guilty of his death.
MORE ⌈to the Lord Mayor⌉
My lord, that’s worth the hearing.
LORD MAYOR
Listen then, good Master More.
SURESBY ⌈to Smart⌉
I tell thee plain, it is a shame for thee