Women, Agency and the Law, 1300–1700 by Bronach Kane

Author:Bronach Kane [Kane, Bronach]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Europe, Great Britain
ISBN: 9781317320012
Google: zoVECgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-10-06T16:11:19+00:00

8 THE TRAVAILS OF AGNES BEAUMONT

Bernard Capp

Agnes Beaumont, baptized in 1652, was the daughter of a Bedfordshire yeoman farmer, the youngest of his four children to survive infancy.1 She lived a generally uneventful life, except for one dramatic episode in 1674, which she later recounted in a vivid and highly emotional narrative. First published in 1760, it was to become a popular text within the nonconformist community, and had passed through ten editions by 1842.2 Agnes had no doubt told her story many times before writing it down. While the language is fresh and immediate, she ends with the throwaway remark, ‘I wish I was as well in my soul as I was then’ (l. 224), which suggests that the narrative, at least in its present form, was written long after the events it describes.

In the early 1670s, Agnes was still living at home with her father. Her mother had died, and her older siblings had married and left. Agnes remained at home, acting as housekeeper for her father, John. Semi-retired, he had made over much of his estate to his eldest son (also John), who now ran a much larger farm close by, in Edworth, about ten miles south-east of Bedford.3 Her father still raised cattle, while Agnes ran the house. They employed no servants.

In October 1672 Agnes had joined the nonconformist congregation at Gamlingay, six or seven miles from where she lived, during the brief period of religious toleration under Charles II’s Declaration of Indulgence. It was one of the outlying branches of the famous Bedford congregation, founded in 1650.4 Her brother and sister-in-law were members too, and her father attended for a time, though he soon withdrew and became increasingly hostile, swayed by the malicious stories that circulated about the Dissenters.5 A communion service was arranged at Gamlingay on Friday, 13 February 1674, to be led by the preacher John Bunyan, who sometimes rode out from Bedford to take services. Agnes’s brother was going, with his wife riding pillion behind him. Agnes was desperate to go too, and eventually persuaded her father to consent. She was hoping to be picked up from her brother’s farm by John Wilson, a leading member of the congregation, and became distressed when Wilson failed to appear. Then, by luck, Bunyan himself came riding by, and was prevailed upon, with much reluctance, to carry Agnes behind him (ll. 195–7). That might sound harmless, but it immediately set tongues wagging. As they entered Gamlingay they were spotted by Mr Lane, an Anglican minister from Bedford who sometimes preached at Edworth. Lane knew them both – Bunyan, of course, as a spiritual rival – and glowered ‘as if he would have staird his Eyes Out’. He spoke to them harshly, and subsequently ‘did scandalise us after a base manner, and did raise a very wicked report of us’ (ll. 198, 214).6 Moreover, her father was furious when he heard that Agnes was riding with Bunyan, for he had heard damaging rumours about the preacher (ll.

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