In many of the lesser branches of art, hundreds of women have found congenial vocations. They have shown excellent taste and apt.i.tude in china painting and other forms of decorative work--in book ill.u.s.tration, as designers of carpet and wall-paper patterns, as preparers of advertis.e.m.e.nts, designers of calendars, and a host of other minor art industries.
Women as musical composers had appeared in the last half of the eighteenth century. Mrs. Beardman, who made her debut as a singer at the Gloucester festival in 1790, was equally gifted as composer, singer, and pianist. Ann Mounsey displayed early talent, and her precocity brought her into notice when she was but nine years of age.
In her maturity, her compositions gave her high rank among female composers, and in 1855 her oratorio _The Nativity_ was produced in London. She was a member of the Philharmonic Society and also of the Royal Society of Musicians. Another gifted woman, whose talents brought her early into notice and who was a member of the Royal Academy of Music, was Kate f.a.n.n.y Loder. She had been instructed in piano-forte by Mrs. Lucy Anderson, teacher to Queen Victoria when she was princess and afterward to the children of her majesty. Miss Loder was a king"s scholar at the Royal Academy, and when but eighteen years of age was appointed professor of harmony at her _alma mater_. Eliza Flower--whose sister, Mrs. Adams, wrote the words of the hymn _Nearer, my G.o.d, to Thee_--was another of the gifted composers of the century, and her name appears as the author of many hymn tunes.
To give the names of all the women composers of hymn tunes would be to give a history of hymnology in modern times, for there is no sacred song collection but embraces the compositions of many women gifted in music. To give the names of those who have figured in opera would involve a history which includes a great many more foreign artists than English; but without seeking to do more than mention a few of those whose names have figured in popular favor as operatic _prima donnas_, and omitting particular mention of their individual capabilities, there are some names which suggest themselves to the patrons of the opera as worthy of first mention in the list of England"s great singers. Catherine Tofts, Anastasia Robinson, Lavinia Fenton,--afterward d.u.c.h.ess of Bolton,--achieved celebrity in the opera during the first thirty years of the century. Lavinia Fenton was the heroine of _The Beggars" Opera_, which took London by storm. The names of Catherine Hayes and Louisa Pyne are still treasured by those whose recollections go back to the forties.
The general ill repute under which the stage rested in the seventeenth century continued to hang about it throughout the eighteenth. There was still a great deal of license allowed spectators, and it was not unusual for them to pa.s.s on the stage and behind the scenes. The rude and boisterous conduct of the patrons of the theatre made it extremely unpleasant for persons of refinement to attend it. The city streets had not yet become well protected, and the degree of security which is now afforded to pedestrians was lacking in the eighteenth century.
It was out of the question for any gentlewoman to attend the theatre unaccompanied by male escort. There were always loiterers about the streets, and any man of rank whose character was bad enough to permit him to do so felt at liberty to salute a woman with insults--which, when they came from such a source, were then styled as gallantries; and women who adopted the stage as a profession, being looked upon as having forfeited their claims to gentility, were regarded as fair game by the rakes of the day. Notwithstanding the attempts of Queen Anne to reform the manners of theatre-goers by the pa.s.sage of edicts looking to that end, the evils which made it so unpleasant to a respectable person to attend the theatre and which brought the playhouse under odium continued to be flagrant.
In the nineteenth century came a great uplift of the status of the stage and workers upon it, and, in contrast to the opinions which prevailed in the eighteenth century, an actress suffered no disparagement and had the same opportunity for cherishing her reputation as any others of the s.e.x. The stage no longer brought its followers into disrepute, for it rested with the actress herself to preserve or to tarnish her character. She was no longer, by virtue of being an actress, regarded as a Bohemian, and it was not considered a regrettable thing for a girl of character to enter upon a histrionic career. It was her course and conduct after she had entered the profession, and the nature of the plays in which she appeared and the parts which she allowed herself to present, that determined the public verdict with regard to her. As a result of the changed character of the theatre,--although it was by no means cleared of all the odium that had so long attached to it,--a larger number of men and women attended dramatic performances than ever before.
The introduction of women into commercial life was followed by the opening up of civil service appointments and a change of sentiment with regard to women engaging in trade. In 1870, when the government bought the interests of the telegraph company, the officials were brought under the existing civil service rules. Some of them happened to be women, and thus, inadvertently, women were admitted to civil service appointments under the government. In 1871 the postmaster-general bore striking testimony to the efficiency of the women employed in his department. When commenting upon the transfer of the telegraphs from private control to post office direction, he said: "There had been no reason to regret the experiment. On the contrary, it has afforded much ground for believing that, where large numbers of persons are employed with full work and fair supervision, the admixture of the s.e.xes involves no risk, but is highly beneficial."
Then, remarking upon the better tone of the male staff by reason of their a.s.sociation with women as fellow employes, he added: "Further, it is a matter of experience that the male clerks are more willing to help the female clerks with their work than to help one another; and on many occasions pressure of business is met and difficulties are overcome through this willingness and cordial cooperation."
The experience of employing women in the post office was duplicated in other departments of the public service, until it has become a recognized fact that women can be employed in connection with men without any of the results which it was apprehended would follow the departure. In the country districts, postmistresses and female carriers are not a novelty. It was the post office which first Opened up to women employment under the government, and its various departments now utilize them extensively. Although other of the public services have received women as clerks, their position is still in a measure tentative, but it can hardly be said that the employment of them by the government is any longer an experiment. In addition to the large numbers of young women who have found employment in the government service, there is no railroad company, insurance company, or any other large semi-public or private business firm or company, which has not found women to be of peculiar serviceability. The great number of women who, during the latter part of the nineteenth century, fitted themselves for business careers indicates not only a change of ideal, with a realization of their self-sufficiency, but the increased adaptability of women to the peculiar conditions of modern society.
It is no longer a curious phenomenon to see the name of a woman upon a business letterhead, or on the sign over some large commercial establishment, for frequently, when their husbands die, women themselves now take in hand the business interests of the deceased and conduct them with marked success, and with no question from their business compet.i.tors as to the propriety of their so doing. Nor do such women forfeit the esteem of society. Society as such is no longer concerned chiefly with matters of pedigree, but more largely with the question of prosperity. While it would be a.s.serting too much to say that the nineteenth century witnessed the iconoclastic shattering of the old aristocratic ideals, nevertheless, while the woman of blood maintains her rightful place in the select circles of society, the door stands ajar for women who have no other claim for recognition than that they have ama.s.sed fortunes, or inherited them, or are the wives of wealthy men. However, they must not have clinging to them the odor of their humble beginnings, if they rose from lowly walks of life. The real test applied to them is not the test of breeding, which relates to the past, but of gentility, which is the measure of the present life.
Besides the women who managed large business interests in their own names, the nineteenth century witnessed the advent of the business woman in numerous lines of small trade. To name the various kinds of business in which women are found making for themselves a sustenance would be to give a list of the many lines of retail trade; but the shopwoman of the earlier part of the nineteenth century is quite a different person from the tradeswoman of the latter half. Instead of a small, obscure shop, conducted in a hesitating, apologetic manner, to-day women are as aggressive advertisers, make as fine displays in their shops, and sustain the same business relations with the wholesale dealers, as do the retail dealers of the other s.e.x. Beyond any peradventure, women have become a part of the business organism of England, and are competing upon terms of equality with men for the patronage of the public; and they have before them just as hopeful prospects of ama.s.sing a competence for an easy and independent old age.
Great as is the army of women who enrolled themselves in the ranks of commerce and clerkship during the nineteenth century, they are in a minority as compared with the greater host of industry,--the women who are found in the factories, working upon the raw materials of human comforts and luxuries, toiling unremittingly and often under hard conditions for a mere pittance as compared with the value of their products. In 1895 there were one hundred thousand women in England holding membership in the various trade unions, and, besides these, a far larger number who were without such enrolment, such as fifty-two thousand shirtmakers and seamstresses and four hundred thousand dressmakers and milliners; and these were but a mere fraction of the immense host of women who, outside of the home, found themselves earning their own bread by their personal labor. With the growth of manufactures, women were drawn from the rural districts. It became an uncommon thing, where formerly it was the usual practice, for women to perform the work of field laborers, or to depend chiefly for support upon b.u.t.ter and cheese making, or service at the inns or in the shops of the neighboring towns. It is now only the women of the lowest rank who devote themselves for a livelihood to berry picking, hop picking, garden weeding, and like menial outdoor services.
The compet.i.tion of women with men in manufactures was greeted at first with the sullen resentment and open opposition with which machinery was viewed when first introduced; but as women have been drawn into manufactures, men have absorbed many of the outdoor duties which formerly fell to woman"s lot in the country districts. The "bakeresses," "brewsters," and the "regrateresses"--retailers of bread--are now known simply in the history of industry; their names have become archaic and their offices obsolete. As machinery took the place of the individual intelligence of the handworker of other days, leaving only a monotonous series of mechanical manipulations for the men, aside from the superior skill called into play by the complexity of the machinery, which demanded expert and intelligent direction, women found relegated to them the simplest parts of factory work and those which did not require any large degree of mentality. As a result, the women of the factories have not developed coordinately in intelligence with their sisters in other lines of active work. This has unfortunately led them to be looked down upon as inferior to girls who work in stores or in offices. As the factory laws came to be framed with regard to greater investigation and regulation of the conditions of women"s work in factories, many of the abuses were to a degree corrected. It is not now commonly the case that a self-respecting operative is without redress if subjected to the coa.r.s.e insults of brutalized foremen, nor are women now permitted to work as formerly under conditions so harmful to their peculiar const.i.tutions. Better sanitation, fewer hours of employment, and greater regard for their comfort, have done much to brighten what was in the early part of the nineteenth century the dreariest life to which any woman could be chained.
Along with the improvements in the condition of women"s labor have gone improvements in the housing of factory people. The industrial evils that brought out such chivalrous champions of the poor as the younger Lord Shaftesbury and his a.s.sociates no longer generally prevail in factory life. There yet remains much to be done for the congregated women and girls of the factories. It was inevitable that by the bringing of them together in great numbers, many from homes of abject poverty where they had none of the benefits of careful training, and by the herding of them together in factories where the nature of their work did not furnish employment for their minds, the moral tone of the young women of daily toil should have been lower than that of their sister workers in other lines. But the dictum of Lord Shaftesbury has been sinking into the social consciousness, and has borne splendid fruit in the improvement of the conditions of factory work for women. "In the male," says he, "the moral effects of the system are very bad; but in the female they are infinitely worse, not alone upon themselves, but upon their families, upon society, and, I may add, upon the country itself. It is bad enough if you corrupt the man; but if you corrupt the woman, you poison the waters of life at the very fountain." In the first half of the nineteenth century, the actual number of women employed in factories appears to have been larger than that of men.
The existence of the factory, drawing out from the homes so many women and making their home life only a secondary consideration and an additional burden, presents one of the gravest problems of modern times--a problem that must be approached harmoniously by the philanthropists and the legislators if it is to be satisfactorily solved. Habit begets contentment, so that it is not the employes of the factory who feel most keenly the unfortunate circ.u.mstances of their existence. It is the social reformer, whose one aim is not the uplifting of the individual as such, but the betterment of the individual as the unit of the social fabric, who is most concerned for the betterment of the town life of England. As to the women themselves, when they are compensated by extra wage they have no complaint to make about the long hours; indeed, they sometimes even prefer the factory and the excitement of their surroundings to the dreary and forbidding prospect of their desolate tenements. One unnatural result of women"s work in factories is the reversal of the positions respectively of husband and wife in the home. It is not an extraordinary occurrence for women to go out to the factories and earn the bread of the family, while the men remain at home to mind the babies and care for the house. This begetting of shiftlessness in men, who are buoyed up to the point of self-supporting labor only by the dependence of their families upon them, is an incidental but a significant result of factory life upon women. It is seriously to be doubted that, in the aggregate earnings of the family, there is any real compensation for the binding of wives and children to the wheel of toil. It has been observed by careful students of industrial conditions that, for one reason or another, the maximum wage of a family and the degree of comfort in their living are not, ordinarily, greater than that of the family whose sole wage earner is the husband.
There is not a concurrence of views as to the wisdom of special legislation with regard to the industrial place of women. Some see in the various acts pa.s.sed to regulate the circ.u.mstances of their employment a distinct gain, while others view all such enactments as a regrettable interference of the state in a matter where it is not capable of taking cognizance of all the circ.u.mstances involved and of displaying the broadest wisdom in dealing with the subject. Then, too, it is objected on the part of some that s.e.x legislation is unwise of itself. The women themselves have not always looked with favor upon the pa.s.sage of acts for the regulation of their labor, and often complain of such as an infringement of their personal privileges as adults. They complain that the compet.i.tion of labor is already severe, and that by imposing upon them the limitations of certain acts the difficulty of making a subsistence is increased. They complain against the a.s.sociation of female with child labor, and a.s.sert that the conditions are dissimilar and the abuses to be corrected cannot be cla.s.sed under the same legislative conditions. Industrial legislation was first directed to the correction of offences against women on account of their s.e.x, but the later enactments, and those most complained of, were resented because of their making the securing of a livelihood more precarious. The _Times_ in 1895 pointed out that there were eight hundred and eighty thousand women affected by the Factories and Workshops Bill, introduced into Parliament in that year. The lack of flexibility of the measure, failing to take account of the different natures and conditions of the various employments affected, made it obviously unjust to the women employed in certain trades. Some industries have their seasons of activity and of dulness, while others fluctuate without regard to periods; and to cla.s.s all such under legislation regulating the hours of labor at the same number for them all could but work injury to the women employed in such trades and disproportionate advantage to other women employed in industries pursued evenly throughout the year.
The crux of such contentions lies in the paternal att.i.tude of the state to the female s.e.x. The expediency of depriving women of the same amount of liberty to regulate their own affairs as is accorded to men is a matter of doubt. Women feel that they can decide better for their own needs than can the legislators who have as their guide only industrial statistics, the pet.i.tions of well-meaning social reformers, and the views of those who claim expert knowledge from the outside.
Just what will be the outcome of the attempt to resolve woman into a normal relationship to modern industry without violation of the rights of self-direction and protection, which she claims as her prerogative, and at the same time to preserve society from the social blight of the reduction of considerable numbers of workingwomen to prost.i.tution and abandoned living, remains to be determined by the wisdom and experience of the twentieth century.
One of the most curious of the industrial problems at the front in the nineteenth century was the servant question. While the wheels of work were set to moving with more or less smoothness in all other ways, this important wheel in the domestic machinery has never run without friction, jarring to the nerves of housewives. Such women find a common bond of sympathy in the incompetence and dereliction of their domestics; domestics find a common subject of interest in their grievances against their mistresses. The whole matter is almost ludicrous, because it is one simply of adjustment. After the s.e.x has a.s.serted for itself a position in the realm of industry not inconsistent with the self-respect which it has sought to maintain, the women who work in the kitchens and the chambers of other women sullenly resent the imputation of their menial status in so doing.
Just why the modern servants should be looked upon as inferior to other women workers is a difficult question, for their close relation to their mistresses would appear to give them an individuality which the "hands" in a factory do not possess. The line of demarcation between the domestic employers and employes is not always a clearly p.r.o.nounced one, for it not uncommonly occurs that those who themselves employ a maid send out their own daughters to similar service. The low regard in which servants are held, and the application to them of this very term, which carries with it an implication of ignominy, is responsible for the poor grade of efficiency, intelligence, and character found among domestics as a cla.s.s. There is no reason, in the nature of the case, why a young girl with intelligence and fair education should not self-respectingly take domestic service, and rank above factory hands and many of her sister workers in inferior clerical positions.
In earlier times domestic work fell largely to men. The kitchen work which now is performed by scullery maids was done by boys and youths; and before the office of housemaid had been established, that of chamberlain signified the service of men for the work which maids are now employed to do. The very t.i.tles of those who are connected with the person of majesty signify the lowly household functions which were ordinarily performed by those to whom now fall the honors, but none of the duties, of those offices. In ecclesiastical households there were no women employed at all in former times, excepting "brewsters." The personal relationship which used to endear the tie between servant and mistress no more exists than it does between other working people and their employers. Instead of the idea of personal attachment, the monetary consideration is the only one that enters into the relationship. The maid is but a part of the machinery of the household, and must deport herself in a deferential and often an abject manner, a.s.suming a mask of propriety which is thrown off as soon as she is among her companions, when the pent-up animosity and resentment find expression. How different the modern condition from that which obtained in other times, when a lady considered no one fitting to attend upon her excepting those who were of gentle blood and between whom and herself were ties of endearment and a measure of equality! Gentle maidens performed many household duties which to-day are disdained by young ladies of lesser position. The real "servants"
did only the coa.r.s.e and rough work of the household. They had no particular place to sleep, and, even down to the time of Elizabeth, it was not thought important to provide regular beds for "menials" in the great houses--"As for servants, if they had any shete above them it was well, for seldom had they any under their bodies to keep them from the p.r.i.c.king strawes that ranne off thorow the canvas and raxed their hardened hides." The servants who were thus treated were, of course, the antecedents of the present-day servants. It is from the traditional att.i.tude toward them that much of the present-day spirit of superiority toward domestics is derived. During the eighteenth century the condition of domestics improved, and, during the last quarter, the description of them, their tastes and their manners, is such as would be quite applicable to-day. Already the scarcity of good servants had come to be a matter of domestic concern. The lament of the lady of to-day, that her maid dresses as well as she herself, is not a new one, for it is met as far back as the seventeenth century, and in the eighteenth century Defoe remarks upon the same fact. He says, writing in 1724: "It would be a satire upon the ladies such as perhaps they would not bear the reading of, should we go about to tell how hard it is sometimes to know the chamber-maid from her mistress; or my lady"s chief woman from one of my lady"s daughters." He adds that: "From this gaiety of dress must necessarily follow encrease of wages, for where there is such an expence in habit there must be a proportion"d supply of money, or it will not do." The same subject furnished concern for people generally, and a correspondent to the _Times_ wrote, in 1794: "I think it is the duty of every good master and mistress to stop as much as possible the present ridiculous and extravagant mode of dress in their domestics.... Formerly a plaited cap and a white handkerchief served a young woman three or four Sundays. Now a mistress is required to give up, by agreement, the latter end of the week for her maids to prepare their caps, tuckers, gowns, etc., for Sunday, and I am told there are houses open on purpose where those servants who do not choose their mistresses shall see them, carry their dresses in a bundle and put them on, meet again in the evening for the purpose of disrobing, and where I doubt not many a poor, deluded creature had been disrobed of her virtue. They certainly call aloud for some restraint, both as to their dress as well as insolent manner."
The great majority of domestic servants come from the rural districts, and upon entering into town life have no one to exercise any personal concern in their welfare, and, where they do not fall into worse courses, they acquire an extravagant and reckless habit of life that uses up their earnings simply in the furthering of their vanity or pleasure. The servant question, as that of women"s position in the factory system of the country, presents problems which have proved as yet stubborn to all attempts at their solution.
One of the most curious facts of the last quarter of the nineteenth century was the evolution of the "new woman." Women, representing all manner of social pleas, running the gamut of the extremes, sought a hearing upon the platform, in the pulpit, through the press, and in literature. It looked as if the Anglo-Saxon race were on the verge of a great revolution in which the men would, either pa.s.sively or in strenuous opposition, be ignominiously relegated to the rear in the lines of new progress. The new movement grew out of a sense of social inequality on the part of some women, and this grievance was exploited in all ways and ill.u.s.trated from all viewpoints. Some of these strenuous advocates for the "rights" of the s.e.x gave themselves over to the question of dress reform, and their diverse views represented the whole range of the question, from the sensible and sane declaration for the abolishment of the tyranny of style to the adoption of male attire. Others discussed the injustice to women from the physiological viewpoint, and affirmed that motherhood was not an honorable office, but a type of feudalism to men and a subservience to their wills that was highly dishonoring to womankind. It looked as though the household G.o.ds were to be tumbled out of the home without much ado; but while some of the advocates of reform went to absurd lengths and presented extreme views and sought by all the ingenuity of sophistry to present the status of woman as a most deplorable one, there were others, more moderate in their views and expressions, who felt that there might be a clear gain for women in the affirming of her rights in the matter of conventions which held over from the eighteenth century. Whether in deportment or in dress, in intellectual pursuits or in the province of amus.e.m.e.nt, women were to exercise their judgment and common sense and live in the light of their own reason and not with reference to the mandates of men.
When the "new woman" craze pa.s.sed away, it left, as its effect, young women more self-reliant, more independent, a little more pert and self-a.s.sured, with less reverence and greater capability, than before.
On the whole, the English girl of to-day has wrought out of the complex conditions of modern society the naturalness which was a.s.serting itself throughout the eighteenth century, but was hampered by new conventions, rigid customs, and stately formalisms. It is true that the English girl of to-day would be to her grandmother a revelation, and perhaps not an agreeable one; but the standards by which estimates are made are safest and most satisfactory when contemporary. It would be venturesome to forecast the view of the _fin de siecle_ girl which may be taken at the close of the new century by those who shall cast back over the years a historical glance. Certain it is that, on the whole, she comes approximately up to the best standards of to-day, although a certain air of flippancy and the flavor of the independence of judgment, not always balanced by reason, suggest the possibility of an intellectual and spiritual trend not consistent with her most fortunate lines of development.
It will be seen that the twentieth century takes woman as a practical matter of fact, and proposes to bestow upon her no fulsome eulogies, chivalrous dalliance, to place her in no position of inferiority, or to exalt her to the transcendent estate of the celestial beings. She has demanded recognition in the practical affairs of life; she has claimed the right to determine her own destiny; she has achieved the freedom of the outer world. Lofty as are the summits of human ambition, she has climbed up to the very highest peaks and written her name in letters of immortality on the scroll of the great ones of the earth, in the arts, in literature, in philanthropy. Does she ever pause to take a backward look over the steps by which she has come to her present eminence? Does she ever consider the "pit from which she was digged"? It is a far cry from the twentieth century to the early dawn of history, and none but the Eye which runs to and fro throughout the whole earth can trace the entire course of woman"s ascendency from degradation to exaltation. But it is always well to pause and to ask of the past years what report they have borne to Heaven; and the history of woman, studied in the light of fact and with such proper reflections as historical circ.u.mstance suggests, must not only be a profitable one for the correction of any ill-balanced tendencies which may appear to close observation of woman in her present position and spirit, but it must as well be an important section of, and, in a sense, interpretation of, the social development of England.
CHAPTER XV
THE WOMEN OF SCOTLAND AND IRELAND
The women of Scotland are remarkable for the strength of their domestic sentiments and for their loyalty to the land of the heather.
The stream of national life, by its merging and mingling with that of England, has never lost the individuality which has been the pride of the Scotch people in all their periods. Like two rivers meeting in confluence,--the one slow and clear, but steady and strong in its flow, the other, dashing and foaming its turbulent flood over the breakers in its rough channel,--refusing for a long time to do other than divide their common course until after long periods of a.s.sociated flow they finally merge, still showing in their different shadings the mark of their diverse origin, so was it with England and Scotland. The union is complete, but national characteristics remain.
Not so, however, with unhappy Ireland. Fundamental differences in life, in temperament, in religion, in ideals, have served to perpetuate the alienation of a people whose connection with England might seem to depend on the power of but one principle--that of force.
Not strange is it that among a people which considers itself deprived of a future the influence of the past should be predominant, and that in the recital of the mighty deeds of the Irish chieftains of yore should be found the chief delight of those who mingle their tears at the shrine of such a representative of their national defeat as the patriot O"Connell.
With the curious contradiction of nature which infusion of Celtic blood effects, no livelier or more light-hearted race of women exists upon the earth than that of Erin, yet, at the same time, none which can be plunged so deeply into melancholy and feel so profoundly the pangs of sorrow. Not to original contributions of race characteristics, however, is this contradictory temperament solely to be attributed, but to the long years of denationalization which have made Ireland the wailing place of women whose traditions are glorious with the deeds of mighty queens and amazons like Macha, Meave, Dearbhguill and Eva; the dawn of whose cycles of religious glory is marked by the life and deeds of a Bridget.
To write a history of the women of Great Britain and not speak of the differences which the names Scot and Irish connote would be as grave an error as to describe the flora of the islands and omit mention of the shamrock and the thistle. Not that the flora of the island group is essentially distinctive any more than that the differences in society, in manners and customs of the separate peoples, are radical.
It is not that there is much of diverse interest in the broad aspects of the life of the women that the recital of the history of the women of Scotland and Ireland is to have separate treatment, but to throw in strong light upon the pages of history the figures of women who belonged not to Great Britain, as such, but to Scotland or to Ireland, and who, if they date after the cementing of the union of the peoples, still perpetuate that which is distinctive in quality of life and of character.
To figure forth the famous women of these peoples will serve as sufficient commentary upon the effect of difference of life and of customs. All else has entered into the story of the women of Great Britain as it has been told, for, after all, there is a real oneness between them.
The tribal influence in both Ireland and Scotland continued to be the predominant force of patriotic purpose long after the welding of its various elements had eliminated this influence in English life. In the earlier history of both the Scotch and Irish peoples, we have to do with the force in society of this family idea, centred in great chieftains and kings, but none the less a fact of prevailing influence, an idea incarnate that served to quell the strife of warring factions in the face of a common enemy. The patriotism of both peoples has been the patriotism of the family and the fireside. The love of the tartan among the Scotch and the perpetuation of the Irish clans attest this fact to-day.
Many are the pages of British history rendered glorious by the deeds of the women of Scotland. In those early days, when the light of history is too faint to show clearly their characters or their deeds, the women of Caledonia went forth to battle with men at the sound of the pibroch. Some of the n.o.blest of them reigned as queens, were hailed as deliverers, or gave their blood in martyrdom to warm the soil of their country. The Scotch-Irish tribes accorded their women place in the deliberative bodies, and listened to their counsel. The magnificent virility which they displayed was not different from that of British women generally. The n.o.ble Boadicea was no more valorous than the Irish Meave. From the dim shadow land of the past must some of the characters of this recital be called up, but the Middle Ages and modern periods will be most largely drawn upon to tell the story of the Celtic woman, as a part of the chronicle of a country where, as we have fully seen, women have always counted as factors. Macha of the Red Tresses is the first of the Irish queens whose figure stands out with sufficient boldness to fix it upon the pages of history. Would one marvel at her beauty or her prowess, let him have recourse to the praises of the early bards and the laudations of the chroniclers.
We can well believe that, to her countrymen, she appeared as the incarnation of some divinity as she rode at the head of her body of stalwart warriors; her auburn tresses floating loose in the wind, her mantle flung carelessly over her shoulder, her neck and arms and ankles girdled with ma.s.sive gold ornaments, her eyes flashing determination as she pointed the advance to the foray with her lance directed toward the foe drawn up in battle line to receive the charge.
A quarrel as to the succession to the throne or to the headship of the tribe, which was precipitated by the death of her father without posterity excepting this intrepid daughter, was the occasion of her appearance upon the page of national affairs, or rather of tribal history. She gained the victory over her adversaries, and ruled her people for seven years. The romantic annals of this valorous lady relate how she pursued the sons of her adversary to effect their destruction; and the more certainly to accomplish her purpose, she disguised herself as a leper, by rubbing her face with rye dough. Away in the depths of a dense forest she finds them cooking the wild boar they had just slain. Having successfully used her disguise to achieve her end, she rid herself of the leprous-looking splotches. With honeyed words and the judicious flashing of love-light from a pair of wondrous eyes, the supposed leper charms her enemies. One brother follows her into a remote part of the forest, where by guile she effects the binding of him hand and foot. Returning to the camp, she successively lures the remaining brothers into the woods in the same manner and with the same result. She brought them "tied together" to Emhain. There, in a council of the tribe, womanly sentiment prevailed over sanguinary counsels, and, instead of being condemned to death, the prisoners were given over to slavery in the queen"s following; and with the romantic ideas common to her s.e.x, she had them build her a fortress "which shall be forever henceforth the capital city of this province." With her golden brooch she measured the bounds of the future castle, and it received the name "the Palace of Macha"s Brooch." So runs the legend, and so is fixed by the brooch of Macha the first date in Irish history, at a period, however, when dates have little significance, for time meant but duration, and not economy or expenditure of force.
The romance of another of Ireland"s early queens centres about the possession of a bull whose marvellously good points had awakened the queen"s envy; the pastoral relates the contest which arose therefrom.
This queen was the daughter of the King of Connaught, Ecohaidh by name, and her mother was the handmaid of his wife, the Lady Edain, who herself was a leader of great beauty and courage. The contest for the throne resulted in the elevation of Meave to the royal dignity. Before this, she had contracted marriage with a prince, with whom she lived unhappily. She returned to her father"s court, and, after her coronation, married the powerful chief Ailill. The death of her husband and that of her father, which occurred at about the same time, left her solitary. The queen"s misfortune in marriage did not deter her from seeking a further union. One day, the court of Ross-Ruadh, King of Leinster, was thrown into a great stir by the arrival of the heralds of Meave dressed in "yellow silk shirts and gra.s.s-green mantles," who announced that the famous queen was on a royal progress throughout the land in quest of a husband suited to one of her state and character. She was feted and catered to in every way, and finally fixed her choice upon the seventeen-year-old son of Ross-Ruadh, whose character promised enough meekness to insure the dominance over him of his much older spouse.
The event which the chroniclers make the prominent one of her reign had its origin in a heated dispute between the queen and her spouse as to their respective possessions. The result of the controversy was an actual inventory of their belongings. "There were compared before them all their wooden and their metal vessels of value; and they were found to be equal. There were brought to them their finger-rings, their clasps, their bracelets, their thumb-rings, their diadems, and their gorgets of gold; and they were found to be equal. There were brought to them their garments of crimson and blue, and black and green, and yellow and mottled, and white and streaked; and they were found to be equal. There were brought before them their great flocks of sheep, from greens and lawns and plains; and they were found to be equal.
There were brought before them their steeds and their studs, from pastures and from fields; and they were found to be equal. There were brought before them their great herds of swine, from forest and from deep glens and from solitudes; their herds and their droves of cows were brought before them, from the forests and most remote solitudes of the province; and, on counting and comparing them, they were found to be equal in number and excellence. But there was found among Ailill"s herds a young bull, which had been calved by one of Meave"s cows, and which, not deeming it honourable to be under a woman"s control, went over and attached himself to Ailill"s herds."
Deeply chagrined that she had not in all her herds a bull to match this one, which seems to have been a remarkable animal, she asked her chief courier where in all the five provinces of Erin its counterpart might be found. He replied that not only could he direct her to its equal, but to its superior. The possessor of this animal was Dare, son of Fachtna of the Cantred of Cualigne, in the province of Ulster.
Its name was the Brown Bull of Cualigne. Straightway was the courier, MacRoth, sent to Dare with an offer of fifty heifers for the animal, and the further a.s.surance that, if he so desired, he and his people might have the best lands of what are now the plains of Roscommon, besides other valuable considerations, which included the permanent friendship of the queen herself.
Swiftly upon his errand sped the courier, accompanied by an impressive train of attendants. A friendly and hospitable reception and entertainment awaited them, and Dare accepted the terms they offered.
One of the courtiers expressed admiration for the amiability of the king who thus consented to part from that which, on account of his power, the four other provinces of Erin could not have wrested from him. From this praise a cup-valorous a.s.sociate dissented, and maintained that it was no credit to him, since, had he refused, Meave of herself could have compelled him to surrender it. The steward of Dare, coming in at this inopportune moment, heard the insulting vaunt, and went out in a rage and bore to his master the remark he had heard.
Dare, in a pa.s.sion of resentment, withdrew his offer, swearing by all the G.o.ds that Meave should not have the Brown Bull by either consent or force. Meave, on hearing of his determination, was correspondingly incensed, and without delay gathered together her forces and declared war upon Dare.
In a hotly contested battle, the army of Meave defeated that of her adversary, and the Brown Bull was carried back to her own country.
According to the grave narrative of the chronicler, the issue of the bulls had yet to be fought out by the animals themselves, for no sooner did the captive bull come into the province of Connaught than there was precipitated a tremendous conflict with his rival, the bull of Ailill. The tale describes vividly and with much of fabulous admixture the contest, which resulted in the rout of the White-horned.
Thus was the honor of Meave doubly sustained by the wage of battle.
This and many other strange narratives with regard to the undoubtedly historical Meave have vested her with a halo of romance, and so veiled her real personality that it is rather in her mythical than her historical character that she has come down to us; for there is little doubt of her being the original of Queen Mab of fairy fame. Spenser gathered much of his fairy lore in Ireland, and in the section where this famous queen lived and where grew up the ma.s.s of tradition and fable which must have appealed strongly to the imagination of the author of the _Faerie Queen_.
The intense religious character of the Irish people is not to be accredited to the persistence of superst.i.tious influences and beliefs in the new garb of Christian enlightenment; for although their exuberant fancy has always peopled their land with races of malign as well as of amiable spirits, the real impress of religion is that which they received from early Christian sources. Bridget, the saint who heads the calendar of Irish women of sanct.i.ty, was born in the first half of the fifth century A.D., and survived until the end of the first quarter of the sixth. She it was who, despite the disadvantages of her s.e.x, performed a work paralleled by but few persons in the religious history of the country. It was inevitable that there should have grown up about her a fund of story and fable from which it is now difficult to distinguish in order to give her real work its full appreciation without sanctioning stories that have their roots in the soil of the fond fancy of a grateful people.
As one divests a rare parchment of its later writing in order that the original ma.n.u.script may be studied, so, when the after-traditions and the excrescences of the supernatural are removed from the character of Bridget, her real worth is seen and the value of the record of her life, which is thereby disclosed, is greatly enhanced. As to her learning, her blameless character, her wisdom, her charity, and her honesty, there is no manner of doubt. To swear by her name was to give to the a.s.severation the sanct.i.ty of inviolable truth.