A Biographical Encyclopedia of Early Modern Englishwomen by Levin Carole Bertolet Anna Riehl Carney Jo Eldridge

Author:Levin, Carole,Bertolet, Anna Riehl,Carney, Jo Eldridge
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2016-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

Jinny Bingham [Mother Damnable] (fl. 1640s)

Jinny Bingham, also called Mother Damnable, or Mother Red Cap, was known as the Shrew of Kentish Town in the mid-seventeenth century. Bingham was said to be a woman with a “foul tongue” and a suspected witch, fortune-teller, and healer of “strange diseases.”

Jinny became pregnant at age 16 by George Coulter, and moved into a cottage built on wasteland before George was executed for stealing sheep. Bingham then had a tumultuous relationship with a violent drunk named Darby, who disappeared. Her third romance ended poorly as well when the man’s remains were found burnt in Bingham’s oven. His death was ruled accidental; it was known that he would hide in the oven to escape Bingham’s temper. During the Commonwealth, Bingham made a small income by allowing political runaways to rent her cabin; her brazenness, however, created problems even for those on the run. She was suspected of poisoning one lodger. She escaped conviction, but her neighbors were suspicious and held her accountable for problems in the community. They would yell and curse her from outside her cottage. Bingham unrelentingly yelled back and would be remembered as an “old, ill-favored creature” who would “lean out of her hatch-door, with a grotesque red cap on her head” and “a large broad noes, heavy, shaggy eyebrows, sunken eyes, and lank leathern cheeks” accompanied by a large, black cat and wearing a shawl with bats embroidered on it. At her death, it was said that hundreds of people witnessed the devil enter her house but not exit. Mother Damnable was found near her fireplace, her teapot nearby filled with “herbs, drugs, and liquid” and her body stiffened. Her cat lost its hair before dying as well.

Figure 17.1 Mother Damnable, after Unknown artist, published by James Caulfield, 1793

Source: Private collection

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