Alice, widow of Sir Thomas West, dated 1395, in which the lady bequeaths "the ring with which I was spoused to God" to her son Sir Thomas. In like manner Katherine Riplingham leaves a gold ring set with a diamond—the ring with which she was sacred—to her daughter Alice Saint John. To some vowesses the custody even of a son or daughter appeared unworthy of so precious a relic; and thus we learn that Lady Joan Danvers, by her will dated 1453, gave her spousal ring to the image of the Crucifix near the north door of St. Paul's, while Lady Margaret Davy presented hers to the image of Our Lady of Walsingham.

In certain instances the formality of episcopal benediction was dispensed with, a simple promise sufficing. As a case in point, John Brackenbury, by his will dated 1487, bequeathed to his mother certain real estate subject to the condition that she did not marry again—a condition to which she assented before the parson and parish of Thymmylbe. "If," says the testator, "she keep not that promise, I will that she be content with that which was my father's will, which she had every penny." But, in compacts or wills in which the married parties themselves were interested, the vow seems to have been usually exacted. Wives sometimes engaged with their husbands to make the vow; and the will of William Herbert, Knight, Earl of Pembroke, dated July 27, 1469, contains an affecting reminder of duty—"And, wife, that you may remember your promise to take the order of widowhood, so that you may be the better maistres of your owen, to perform my will, and to help my children, as I love and trust you," etc.

Husbands left chattels to their wives provided that they took the vow of chastity. The will of Sir Gilbert Denys, Knight, of Syston, dated 1422, sets out: "If Margaret, my wife, will after my death vow a vow of chastity, I give her all my moveable goods, she paying my debts and providing for my children; and if she will not vow the vow of chastity, I desire my goods may be divided and distributed in three equal parts." On like terms wives were appointed executrices. William Edlington, Esq., of Castle Carlton, in his will dated June 11, 1466, declares: "I make Christian, my wife, my sole executor on this condition, that she take the mantle soon after my decease; and in case she will not take the mantle and the ring, I will that William my son [and other persons named] be my executors, and she to have a third part of all my goods moveable."

Such is the frailty of human nature that even when widows accepted the obligation of faith and chastity in the most solemn manner, the vow was occasionally broken. This will hardly excite surprise when we consider the youth, or comparative youth, of some of the postulants. Mary, the widow of Lewis, King of Hungary, was only twenty-three at the time of her profession. Our English annals yield striking instances of promises followed by repentance. Thus Eleanor, third daughter of King John, "on the death of her first husband, the Earl of Pembroke, 1231, in the first transports of her grief, made in public a solemn vow in the presence of Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, that she would never again become a wife, but remain a true spouse of Christ, and received a ring in confirmation, which she, however, broke, much to the indignation of a strong party of the laity and clergy of England, on her marriage with Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester." Another delinquent was Lady Elizabeth Juliers, Countess of Kent. When her first husband died, in 1354, she took a vow of chastity before William de Edyndon, Archbishop of Canterbury. Six years later she was wedded privately and without licence to Sir Eustace Dabridgecourt, Knight. As the result, the Archbishop of Canterbury instituted proceedings against her, and she was condemned to severe penance for the remainder of her life. In the light of these examples it is unnecessary to observe that the infraction of a vow so strict and stringent brought the utmost discredit on any widow who might be guilty of it.

The question has been raised why widows did not, instead of making their especial vow, enter the third orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis, both of them intended for pious persons remaining in the world. The answer has already, in some degree, been given in what was said regarding the extinct order of deaconesses. Followers of St. Dominic and St. Francis were bound to recite daily a shortened form of the Breviary, supposing that they were able to read, or, if they were not able, a certain number of Aves and Paternosters. They were further expected to observe sundry fasts over and above those commanded by the Church, and thus they became qualified for all the benefits accruing to the first two orders, Dominican and Franciscan. With the vowesses it was different. The one condition imposed upon them was that of chastity, as tending to a state of sanctification. They took upon themselves no other obligation whatever, and consequently acquired no title to the blessings and privileges flowing from the strict observance of rules to which they did not subscribe. Even after the Reformation the custom did not absolutely cease. At any rate, Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, who died in 1676, is stated, after the death of her last husband, to have dressed in black serge and to have been very abstemious in the matter of food.

Here and there may be found funeral monuments containing representations of vowesses. Leland remarks, with reference to a member of the Marmion family at West Tanfield, Yorkshire: "There lyeth there alone a lady with the apparill of a vowess"; and in Norfolk there are still in existence two brasses of widows and vowesses. The earlier and smaller, of about the year 1500, adjoins the threshold of the west door of Witton church, near Blofield, and bears the figure of a lady in a gown, mantle, barbe or gorget, and veil, together with the inscription:

ORATE ANIMA DOMINE JULIANE ANGELL
VOTRICIS CUJUS ANIME PROPRICIETUR DEUS.

The other example is in the little church of Frenze, near Diss, which contains, among a number of other interesting brasses, that of a lady clothed, like the former, in gown, mantle, barbe, and veil. This figure, however, shows cuffs; the gown is encircled with an ornamental girdle, and depending from the mantle on long cords ending in tassels. Underneath runs the legend:

HIC JACET TUMULATA DOMINA JOHANNA
BRAHAM VIRDUA AC DEO DEDICATA. OLIM UXOREM
JOHANNIS BRAHAM ARMIGERI QUI OBIT XVIII DIE
NOVEMBRIS ANNO DOMINI MILLINO CCCCXIX CU
JUS ANIME PROPICIETUR DEUS. AMEN.

Below are three shields, of which the dexter bears the husband's arms, the sinister those of Dame Braham's family, and the middle the coats impaled. In neither of these examples is the ring—the most important symbol—displayed on the vowess's finger. This omission may be explained, perhaps, by the fact that it was not buried with her, being, as we have seen, sometimes bequeathed as an heirloom and sometimes left as a gift to the Church.

Notwithstanding the desire of so many husbands that their widows should live "sole, without marriage," it is well known that second and even third marriages were not uncommon in the Middle Ages, and, provided that they did not involve an infraction of some solemn engagement, do not appear to have incurred social censure any more than at present.

ECCLESIASTICAL

CHAPTER III

THE LADY FAST

It was pointed out as one of the distinctions between vowesses and members of the third orders of the Dominican and Franciscan brotherhoods that the latter were pledged to the observance of fasts from which the former were exempt. Tyndale complains of the "open idolatry" of abstinences