The unmasking of a “poore loving wench”

During the 1640s England was torn apart by a terrible Civil War fought between the reigning monarch, Charles I, and his enemies in parliament. The EQPʚKEV UCY VJQWUCPFU QH NKXGU turned upside down, and one of the most intriguing consequences of this social dislocation was that a number of women venVWTGF KPVQ VJG GNF CNQPIUKFG VJG soldiers of king and parliament while cross-dressed as men – despite the fact that transvestitism is explicitly condemned in the Bible.

Some women donned mascuNKPG CVVKTG PQV VQ IJV DWV KP QTFGT to accompany their male partners while they were away at war. This was true of a certain Nan Ball, “a poore loving wench” who was “taken in man’s cloathes” in the royalist camp near York in 1642. Ball had, it appears, been waiting upon “her beloved”, an unnamed lieutenant in the king’s service.

Once her cover had been blown as the result of “a foolish accident” – the nature of which is, UCFN[ NGHV WPURGEK GF s 0CP YCU brought before the Earl of Lindsey, who was then governing the king’s camp in the temporary absence of Charles. Lindsey questioned the lieutenant and his cross-dressed consort, and – havKPI UCVKU GF JKOUGNH VJCV VJG lovers had indeed conspired in a sartorial deception – punished the lieutenant by dismissing him from his command. As for Ball, she was to be exposed to “publique shame”, either by being whipped or placed in the pillory, two punishments that were frequently JCPFGF QWV VQ pOQTCN QʘGPFGTUq

In the end, more merciful counsels prevailed, and a “letter was procured for… [Ball’s] reprieve”. As a result, rather than being forced to undergo harsh punishment, this ‘outed’ female cross-dresser was banished from the royalist camp and, in the words of the sympathetic writer who recorded the story, “turn’d [away] to seek her fortune”.

Her penalty for being “taken in man’s cloathes” was to be banished from the royalist camp