The Sexual History of London (10 page)

John Marston, in particular, favoured an honest whore: in
The Dutch Courtesan
(1605), he claimed that if you pay your women regularly, ‘they shall stick by you as long as you live. They are no ungrateful persons; they will give you quid for quo.'
¹⁹
Unable to provide the financial stability or regular hours required by a traditional wife, these men found sympathetic partners among the prostitutes, and there was an inexorable link between the theatre and the oldest profession, not least geographical.

The great theatres, the Globe Playhouse, the Swan, the Hope and the Rose, were located on Bankside, adjacent to the famous brothels such as the Cardinal's Cap, making Bankside the Elizabethan equivalent of Soho. The influential actor-managers all owned brothels as well as theatres. Take Edward Alleyn, manager of the Rose Theatre. An actor who also flourished as a property speculator, he began his career running a bear garden at Bankside and ended his days as the founder of Dulwich College, the public school. Alleyn's own wife, Joan Woodward, was ‘carted' (driven around London and publicly humiliated) for prostitution in 1593, probably because she had inherited a number of brothels from her father, Philip Henslowe, and had failed to close them during an outbreak of the plague.

Enjoyment of the theatre was often the precursor to another form of entertainment, as many of the most popular plays were unabashedly bawdy. Once one's appetite had been whetted by the spectacles on show, repairing to the nearest brothel was an inevitable consequence. Playgoers could stroll out of the Globe and into Maiden Lane (an ironic name, clearly, as maidens were in short supply there) or take one's chances across the road in Rose Alley. Far from being an innocuous botanical reference, ‘rose' was a euphemism for a harlot: going to ‘pluck a rose' meant visiting a prostitute.
²⁰

For those who sought their entertainment alfresco, sexual release was also available in the shady streets nearby, such as Horse Shoe Alley, Unicorn Alley and Bear Gardens Alley, or in the appropriately named ‘pleasure gardens' which sprang up around the theatres. The poet Everard Guilpin tells us of one citizen who, ‘coming from the Curtain' (a London theatre which opened in 1576), ‘sneaketh in to some odd garden, noted house of sin'.

According to the puritanical Stephen Gosson, writing in 1579, the Curtain was little more than a warm-up for the brothel and served as a general market of bawdry. Whores cruised the crowded auditorium as the plays unfolded, making it clear that they were available, often without saying a word. ‘Not that any filthiness in deed is committed within the compass of that ground, as was done in Rome, but that every wanton and his paramour, every man and his mistress, every John and his Joan, every knave and his queen, are there first acquainted and cheapen [bargain for] the merchandize in that place, which they pay for elsewhere as they can agree.'
²¹

The pleasure gardens were particularly popular with the new contingent of amateurs who had entered the scene, a group who proved very unpopular with the seasoned prostitutes. According to a balladeer of the time:

These women had a variety of motives, ranging from the housewife ‘that, by selling her desires, buys herself bread and clothes'
²³
to the highly sexed wives and widows offering their favours in exchange for the excitement of tasting forbidden fruit.
²⁴
In Ben Jonson's play
Bartholomew Fair
the prostitute Punk Alice berates Judge Overdo's wife for just such behaviour: ‘A mischief on you, they are such as you that undo us and take our trade from us, with your tuft-taffeta haunches! The poor common whores can ha' no traffic for the privy rich ones; your caps and hoods of velvet call away our customers, and lick the fat from us.'
²⁵

Boys, too, were drawn into prostitution, then as now. There is little record of organized male brothels, although John Marston accused Lord Hunsdon of running a male brothel in Hoxton. Gigolos were always in demand; opportunistic and charming young men frequented the bath houses where women congregated, picking off available older women, and enjoyed a better quality of life than their female peers, or at least those women at the rough end of the market.

Not only was the sex trade a wretched way of life for most women, but the threat of punishment was ever present, in the form of the ‘Clink' prison and other establishments. The ‘Clink' prison, administered by the Bishop of Winchester, was conveniently located
underneath
his notorious stews, so that at least the poor girls did not have far to go. We have already learned, in the previous chapter, of the various stocks and pillories which were employed as a means of public humiliation for these unfortunate women.

During the reign of Mary Tudor (1553–8), another form of punishment became popular. ‘Small houses' were set up in every ward of London, with one installed on London Bridge. ‘Small house' was a deceptively bland euphemism for what can only be described as a method of public torture. Derived from the Near East, the ‘small house' originally consisted of a cage where the victim was locked up like an animal, and put on show on the city walls, for all to see. Its first use in the British Isles appears to have been when Edward I (1239–1307) hung Isobel, Duchess of Fife and Buchan, in a wooden cage on the walls of the City of Berwick, as a punishment for her part in crowning Robert the Bruce King of Scotland. Isobel was incarcerated for four years, a hardship which hastened her early death.

But London's city fathers devised a further refinement, by placing a pillory
inside
the cage. Men, as well as women, were locked in tiny pens, too small to lie down or turn around in, condemned to wallow in their own faeces, while the mob jostled and flung rubbish and insults at them. Many went mad; others suffered a merciful early death.
²⁶

Before going to the stocks, or the house of correction, prostitutes were publicly humiliated, stripped to the waist and their heads shaved bald, before being carted around London while a jeering crowd threw rotten vegetables and clattered barbers' basins, to create a mocking ‘rough music'. Given the high number of prosecutions for prostitution, London's barbers had a profitable sideline hiring out these basins.
²⁷
Particularly unlucky prisoners were tied to the cart's arse and whipped. But this was as nothing compared with Bridewell, which is where their troubles really began.

Bridewell, or the ‘Palace of Bridewell' as it was originally known, became a prison during the reign of young Edward VI, and was soon anything but palatial. Located on the banks of the River Thames between what is now Fleet Street and Blackfriars Bridge, Bridewell had been rebuilt by Henry VIII for the reception of the Emperor Charles V. The origin of its name lay in its proximity to the Church of St Bride's. Remaining images show a magnificent red-brick palace in the style of Hampton Court, with imposing turrets and bay windows seventy feet wide, resting in landscaped gardens that sloped down to the river.

Like so many of London's grand houses, Bridewell must have been the perfect home for an embassy. Nevertheless, in 1552, Edward VI agreed to donate Bridewell to the city as a workhouse, in an attempt to abolish London's vagrancy problem by providing accommodation and training. The aim was laudable: orphaned children could be apprenticed to various trades while the sick and infirm were set to making mattresses and bedding. Stubborn and unregenerate low-lifes, meanwhile, would learn blacksmiths' skills in the smithy and grind corn, while women would card wool and spin yarn.
²⁸

The change of use, from royal palace to beggars' workhouse, meant that structural alterations were necessary. The eighty-foot Long Gallery, with its long windows, was partitioned, to make cells. Workshops were equipped, and all the inevitable trappings of prison life were delivered – the stocks and manacles, a treadmill and a block, upon which women beat out hemp with heavy mallets.
²⁹

This regime, whilst harsh, was humane by the standards of the time; which is more than can be said for the punishment meted out to prostitutes. The process of ‘correction', designed to make the women repent, consisted of repeated whippings. These whippings were a very ceremonial affair, conducted before the board of governors. The hypocrisy, not to mention the connotations of sexual sadism that attended such events, reminds one irresistibly of King Lear's outburst:

Other forms of ‘correction' included regular beatings, starvation and gang rape. There were no sentences, as such. Unless someone appeared to bail them out, these women could be detained indefinitely. Bridewell was enough to make a shiver run down a girl's spine, a chilling prospect to any young whore. But so was death by starvation. These women had little choice but to regard Bridewell as an occupational hazard, in the same category as syphilis. ‘Bridewell' eventually became the generic term for ‘houses of correction' throughout England, and lives on today as police terminology for a custody suite.

Southwark was already famous for its low life, from the functional shacks where whores serviced the Roman garrisons to the medieval stews. But, over the years, Southwark had its high-quality brothels, too, such as the Manor House of Paris Gardens, located on the wonderfully entitled ‘Nobs' Island'.

Paris Gardens, referred to in the Domesday Book as ‘Widflete', had not always been salubrious. In 1380, it was known as a rubbish dump, where butchers tipped their offal. Part of the land was given over to kennels for the Lord Mayor's dogs and the whole area stank, particularly in the summer. But it was ripe for investment. In 1542, William Baseley, the King's Bailiff of Southwark, bought the lease for the Manor House of Paris Gardens and turned it into a casino, with ‘cardes and dyze and tabells'. There was already a bowling green outside, and it was from this period that the Manor House began to acquire an infamous reputation.

Elizabeth I granted the Manor to her cousin, Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, the ‘golden lad' who so appealed to Christopher Marlowe. In turn, Hunsdon rented it out to pimps and madams. But these were no ordinary stews: this was a high-class club, catering for the nobility, the gentry, and the emerging affluent middle class, offering sex, gambling, wine and food.

At this period, the legendary ‘Long Meg' of Westminster, an Amazonian Lancashire lass cast in the same mould as the ‘Roaring Girl' Mary Frith, stepped in and ran the Manor House as a brothel. The house then changed hands several times until it was acquired by one Donna Britannica Hollandia, whose typically preposterous
nom de guerre
testified to the fact that she was an experienced madam.

Donna Hollandia had impeccable credentials: she had already worked the ‘Italian quarter' in Cripplegate, as a whore, then promoted herself to the role of madam at St Andrews-by-the-Wardrobe. Arrested and sent to Newgate gaol, she soon escaped thanks to her contacts at court. A few words threatening to expose the sex secrets of the royals was enough to ensure Donna was smuggled out of prison, and once she had paid off the judiciary, she started to look around for pastures new, free from the restrictions of the city fathers. At length, Donna was directed to the Manor House of Paris Gardens, where she would find ‘a place fit for her purpose being wonderous commodiously planted for all accomodations [
sic
]: it was oute of the cite onlye divided by a delicate river' and boasting ‘an abundance of naturall and artificiall entrenchements'.
³¹

The Manor House itself was securely fortified. Not only was there a gatehouse and a deep moat, but the surrounding pastureland had an elaborate system of ditches which filled with water according to the ebb and flow of the Thames. ‘Ere any foe could approache it, hee must march more than a musket shotte on a narrow banke, between two dangerous ditches', according to one contemporary. And that foe would then have to contend with ‘a drawbridge and sundry pallysadoes' (earthworks, from the Portuguese ‘
paliçadas
').
³²
The gardens were elaborately landscaped, with pleasant walks and shrubberies and fine views across the river. A contemporary sketch depicts the front door of the Manor House secured by a guard armed with a musket, while the ladies of the house amuse themselves in the garden. Donna wasted no time. This suburban paradise was the ideal location for a discreet, high-class gentlemen's club, with the judiciary persuaded to turn a blind eye in return for a fresh young whore.

Donna soon became one of the most famous madams in London, with a host of celebrity patrons, including King James I and George Villiers. Regardless of their alleged homosexual relationship, they loved to disport themselves among the whores. James was a notorious libertine who enjoyed all the pleasures of the Bankside from theatres and horse-racing (which he is credited with inventing) to whores, and brothels such as Paris Gardens flourished during his reign. Luxuriously furnished and offering every comfort known to man, it was also staffed by girls who were experts in squeezing every penny out of their clients. But those men got what they paid for: they left exhausted and satisfied, well fed and entertained. Donna offered nothing if not value for money. A small woman but with a strong character, she ran her house with great efficiency, backed up by draconian security.