The Weaker Vessel: Woman's Lot In Seventeenth-Century England - Plot & Excerpts
One thing pleased: when he said “With all my worldly goods I thee endow”, he put a purse upon the book with two hundred guineas.’DOROTHY DOWAGER COUNTESS OF SUNDERLAND ON HER NIECE’S BRIDEGROOM, 1680On the eve of the Restoration, Pen, Sir Ralph Verney’s second sister, wrote: ‘I pray God send we may live to see peace in our times and that friends may live to enjoy each other.’ Pen had been one of that melancholy galaxy of unmarried Verney girls who remained at Claydon while Ralph went into exile, their portions caught up in the legal tangles caused by their father’s death in the King’s cause. For such dowerless young ladies, there were no brilliant matches available: it was more a case of ‘thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love’1 – or any man’s hand in marriage.Sue Verney, for example, made do with a debt-ridden and drunken widower, spending her early married life at his side in the Fleet prison. Despite this, Sue loved her designated spouse most sincerely during their few years together, before she died in childbirth.
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