First of all, apologies for my absence yesterday. This bloody beautiful Spring weather leaves me little excuse for avoiding a host of outdoor tasks which the 'Memsahib' spends all Winter compiling! Honestly, you wouldn't think my postage-stamp sized garden could produce quite so much in the way of work. Plus, there was the outside window frames to be washed prior to the painter coming later to repaint them. My suggestion that it was part of his job to wash them down simply produced a silent, laser glare across the kitchen table so I went and fetched the bucket and the step-ladder!
Anyway, to the subject in hand. You may have noticed the odd cobweb or spot of mildew on some of the jokes I offer up on a Monday morning but, despite appearances, none of them actually go back to 1642. I came across this last night in Neil MacGregor's superb book, Shakespeare's Restless World, in which he takes twenty fairly everyday objects from around that time and sets them in context, thus providing us with the equivalent of a telescope back into time. In one chaper, City Life, Urban Strife, he examines the apprentice system which was so prevalent in London in those days - apparently there were around 20,000 of them. They would join their Masters at the age of 14 and would serve for 7 or 8 years during which time they became, in effect, part of the Master's family. Sometimes, if the Master was away or busy on business, the apprentice would be assigned the job of accompanying the Mistress to public social events such as the theater. Hence this tale:
A tradesman's wife of the exchange, one day when her husband was following some business in the city, desired him he would give her leave to go and see a play; which she had not done in seven years. He bade her take his apprentice along with her, and go, but especially to have a care for her purse ... Sitting in a box, among some gallants and gallant wenches, and returning when the play was done, returned to her husband and told him she had lost her purse ... Quoth her husband, "Where did you put it?" "Under my petticoat between that and my smock." "What, [quoth he] did you feel no body's hand there?" "Yes [quoth she,] I felt one's hand there, but I did not think he had come for that."
From: "A Tradesman's Wife of the Exchange ...": Henry Peacham, The Art of Living in London, Or, A Caution how Gentlemen, Countrymen and Strangers, drawn by occasion of business, should dispose of themselves in the thriftiest way, not only in the City, but in all other populous places (1642), p.4.
Ah, well, plus ça change ... and all that sort of thing. But do treat yourself to MacGregor's excellent book.