Collector’s Corner 42

Norman Watson finds a rare petition to Oliver Cromwell, written by Britain’s women.

It’s some years since I examined the Thomason Tracts in the Rare Books Room at the British Library while researching the life of Elizabeth Cromwell, Oliver’s wife of 38 years.

Among the vast collection of printed pamphlets and newspapers dating to between 1640 and 1661, gathered at the time by the London bookseller George Thomason, I handled one of two known copies of The Womens Petition to General Cromwell, a very rare tract from 1651.

This historic document is formally titled The Women’s Petition to the Right Honorable, his Excellency, the most Noble and Victorious L(ord) General Cromwell.

Printed in London and dated October 27 1651, the single-page broadside urges reform of the law in relation to debt.

The petitioners, named as K Frese, E Bassfield, D Trinhale, and E Cole, complain, “That the Norman Yoke of Bondage and Oppression is still continued upon this Nation by the impious, oppressive, delatory, and most chargeable practise of the Law, and destructive Imprisonment of Men and Women for Debt, in the several prisons, Goals (sic), Counters, holes and Dungeons of Cruelty in this Land ... (P)risons are none other than Sanctuaries ... to all unconscionable, rich, obstinate, and wilful Debtors... The two Acts set forth for release of poor Debtors (are) not worth five pounds... The Head of Tyrannie being cut off in 1648... still liveth.” (A reference to the beheading of Charles I.)

Until this example appeared, copies of the broadside survived only at the British Library and at Cromwell’s birthplace in Huntingdon.

The petition sold for £4,200 at Dominic Winter’s auction in Gloucestershire on March 4.