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Easter was a time to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ with joyful celebrations in church followed by the consumption of bountiful portions of wine and good food in the company of family and friends. Yet Easter of 1659 was not so festive for Clove Mace, who lived on St. Clement’s Manor. After being beaten to a “bloudy” pulp, he raced to John Shanck’s home to seek aid. Clove begged Shanck and John Gee to go to his house and confront his attackers—Clove’s wife and Mr. Robin Cox. Shanck and Gee did not act immediately, but when Shanck ¤nally confronted Clove’s wife she defended her actions, saying that her husband was to blame for provoking the assault when “hee had abused Robin & her.” Shanck persuaded Robin Cox and Clove’s wife to agree to end the ¤ght and “bee friends” with Clove. Probably still smarting from his wounds, Clove was reluctant at ¤rst, but he capitulated by the next night. This unfortunate event was merely another episode in the unfolding drama that was the Maces’ abusive marriage. Clove had threatened “to beate” his wife on previous occasions; his wife, not taking his threats lightly, countered with threats of her own. She con¤ded in Bartholomew Phillipps that if Clove laid a hand on her “shee would cutt his throat or poyson him.” If necessary she would get John Hart “to bee revenged on him & beate him.” Robin Cox had also con¤ded in Phillipps that he would rearrange Clove’s face, vowing that Clove would “never goe with a whole face” again if he abused his wife.1 Unfortunately we do not know whether Clove’s face was permanently dis¤gured in the beating, whether the Maces continued to live under the same roof, or if 39 2  Private Lives the marital violence ended with their pledge to “bee friends.”The only thing that can be said with certainty is that Clove and his wife remained legally married until one of them died. Divorce was not an option. Divorce was not an option for Mrs. Francis Brooke either. Her husband regularly beat her for refusing to give “the dog the pail to lick before she fetched water in it,” or when she tried to eat the food that he reserved for himself. Mr. Brooke’s weapon of choice was usually made of wood, such as the cane he beat her with until “he [broke] it all to pieces” and the “oaken” board that snapped “in 2 pieces on her.” Brooke’s violent behavior came to the court’s attention after the midwife, Rose Smith, testi¤ed that his wife had delivered a dead male fetus prematurely and that “one side of the baby was all bruised.” The midwife queried Mrs. Brooke, as was her duty, and she claimed that her husband had caused the baby’s death when he assaulted her with a pair of large metal ¤replace tongs after she ate one of his stewed “sheeps heads.”Armed with this damning statement, Rose Smith demanded an explanation from Mr. Brooke, who told her that his pregnant wife had fallen out of the peach tree. To con¤rm his innocence, he then turned to his wife and “asked her if She did not fall out of the Peach Tree.” Predictably, “She Said yes.”2 While the Brooke family suffered because of an emotionally unstable and frequently violent husband, other families faced different travails. Robert Robins lived a “pitiful” existence with his wife, who he claimed had been unfaithful to him—so often and openly, in fact, that he frequently referred to her as “a Common whore.” Criticized by his friends for tolerating such a demeaning situation, Robert threw up his hands and asked, “what would you have me doe?” Even with a “Good Wittness” to the public spectacle when “William Herde rid her from Stump to Stump,” Robert knew he faced few desirable options.3 He could continue his “pitiful” existence, he could walk away from their home, or he could ¤le for a legal separation in court—a particularly costly and time-consuming option. Pushed beyond his limit when the “Common whore”gave birth to another man’s child, Robert chose the latter option. It took two different appeals and the testimony of many witnesses before he received the judgment that he sought. He not only wanted to be rid of the “Common whore,” but he desperately wanted to avoid being ¤nancially responsible for the maintenance...

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