Free The Weaker Vessel: Woman's Lot in Seventeenth-Century England by Antonia Fraser Page A

convenient to use a pet-name or diminutive consistently for a particular character; sometimes I have used the same surname or rank for a woman throughout the book (as for example Margaret ‘Godolphin’, antedating her marriage, and Margaret ‘Duchess’ of Newcastle, despite the changes in her husband’s title). My aim in all this has been clarity for the reader.
    I wish to thank the Marquess of Bath for permission to quote from the Longleat MSS , and Miss Jane Fowles, Librarian and Archivist to the Marquess of Bath; Miss Cathleen Beaudoin, Reference Librarian of the Public Library, Dover, New Hampshire, for letting me see the Jon Scale MS on Quaker women; and the Wardens, Melvin and Sandra Roberts, of the Religious Society of Friends, Nottingham Meeting, for permission to quote from the letter of Isabel (Fell) Yeamans. I am grateful to the staff of numerous libraries, principal among them the Bodleian Library, the British Library, the Institute of Historical Research, the London Library and the New York Public Library.
    I should also like to express my thanks to the following, who helped me in a variety of different ways over the years, from answering queries to conducting stimulating conversations: Dr Maurice Ashley; Professor John Barnard; Mr G.P. Bartholomew; Dr Chalmers Davidson; Mr Fram Dimshaw; Lt. Col. John Dymoke of Scrivelsby; Mr Peter Elstob; Miss Jane Ferguson, Librarian to the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh; Mr John Fowles; Ms Valerie Fildes; Reverend Mother M. Gregory IBVM ; Pauline Gregg; Mrs Cicely Havely; Mr Cyril Humphris; P.J. Le Fevre; Sir Oliver Millar; Mr G.C.E. Morris; Sir Iain Moncrieffe of that Ilk; Mr Richard Ollard; Professor Elaine Pagels; Mr Derek Parker; Professor J.H. Plumb; Mr Anthony Powell; Dr Mary Prior; the Duke of Rutland; Ms Sally Shreir; Lady Anne Somerset; Emma Tennant; Miss Dorothy Tutin;Brigadier Peter Young.
    Over the years I have much appreciated professional support from my publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, John Curtis of Weidenfeld and Nicolson and Robert Gottlieb of Knopf. In addition, I am deeply indebted to my daughter Flora Powell-Jones for her assiduous researches; to Mrs Hatherley d’Abo who showed herself a heroine typing the manuscript; to Linden Lawson of Weidenfeld’s for patient editorial overseeing; to Dr Malcolm Cooper for the Chronology and to Gila Falkus for the Index.
    Lastly I would like to acknowledge with affection and gratitude three early readers of the book: my mother, to whom it is justly dedicated; my daughter Rebecca; and my husband, who was, as he is fond of pointing out, ‘the first’.
    ANTONIA FRASER
    All Hallows Eve, 1983

Chronology of Important Events 1603–1702

1603 Death of Elizabeth I; accession of James I
1605 Discovery of the Gunpowder Plot
1611 Publication of the Authorized Version of the Bible
1614 The Addled Parliament
1616 Death of William Shakespeare
1620 Pilgrim Fathers sail for America
1621 Parliament issues Protestation against James I’s excesses
1625 Death of James I; accession of Charles I
1628 Assassination of the Duke of Buckingham; the Petition of Right issued
1629 Charles I dissolves Parliament (and rules without one until 1640)
1634 Raising of ship-money; imprisonment of Prynne
1638 Scottish National Covenant drawn up
1639 End of the First Bishops’ War
1640 The Short Parliament; the Second Bishops’ War; first sitting of the Long Parliament
1641 Execution of Strafford; the Grand Remonstrance issued
1642 Beginning of the First Civil War; Battle of Edgehill (23 October)
1643 Battles of Roundway Down (13 July) and first Newbury(20 September); Parliament signs Solemn League and Covenant with Scots; first meeting of the Westminster Assembly
1644 Battles of Cheriton (29 March), Marston Moor (2 July), Lostwithiel (2 September) and second Newbury (27 October)
1645 Introduction of the Self-Denying Ordinance and formation of the New Model Army; Battle of Naseby (14 June); execution of Laud
1646 Charles I