Monday 6 April 2020

17th Century Sex Scandal

It just goes to prove  there is nothing new under the sun. What Millenials think of sex today young people in the 17th Century had already thought of back in their day, and done it. It was just hidden.

In 1687 a musical broadsheet (or the MTV of the day) released a ballad called:

The Female Captaine or The Counterfeit Bridegroom.

It was called after a scandal that appeared in the Bloomsbury press. An eighteen year old woman Mary Williams, put on men's clothing and started to court a young woman in Bloomsbury with the consent of her friends and family.

She called herself Captain Charles Fairfax and pretended she was heir to the Fairfax fortune. When the young woman's family heard this, they were only too pleased to have her settled with a rich young man of fortune.

They were married by a Jacobite Parson who provided the ring, the wedding clothes and the wedding feast. Everyone involved was hoping that the young woman's new husband would be generous when they had settled in their new home.

They lived together for a whole month without the 'Captaines' true sex being found out. It was said she had used a strange instrument on her new wife during the act of generation.

An old woman discovered the sordid affair by accident, she had known the 'Captaine' as Madam Mary Plunkett,when she was a whore, and reported her to the authorities.

She faced a court, was judged a cheat and a charlatan and sent to the New Prison at Clerkenwell where she spent the rest of her life.

Her life spawned one of the bawdiest ballads of the century sung to the tune of "Ladies of London." It was popular for about a year, being reprinted many times.

 

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