he Englishman borrows his
feathers from all nations," was a true one.

In the midst of the gayety and frivolity of the Elizabethan age, the
forces of reaction were hidden, but already active; and the mutterings
of discontent which were heard presaged the social outbreak which was
to lead a king to the block.

CHAPTER XI

WOMEN OF THE COMMONWEALTH PERIOD

The great evil of Puritanism was the tendency to hypocrisy which it
produced among the people, by forcing upon them the simulation of a
virtue greater than they in reality possessed. An affectation of piety
which was carried to fanatical extremes, and which affected men and
women alike and made them fall into stereotyped expressions and cant
utterances having a savor of religiosity, while barren of the spirit
of true devotion, was, to say the least, unwholesome for the nation.
But the very fact that the pendulum had swung so far in the direction
of primitive austerity in life and in worship showed that behind
the hollow and insincere forms and words of Puritanism there was
a magnificent earnestness of purpose, such as had been foreign to
English life as a whole, although to be found among the followers of
Wyckliffe and the Lollards.

As the spirit of Puritanism spread, its opponents, who were styled the
Libertines, became more defiant in their attitude and less regardful
of the strictures which the narrow-minded bigots, as they styled the
Puritans, cast upon them. Thus, the women were divided by the extremes
of position occupied by the men. Drunkenness among women of rank
became very common. Intellectual fervor declined and learning became
superficial, while the pet vices, inanities, and vain pomp of the
reign of Elizabeth lost much of their glitter and became mere prosaic
and gross immorality. While the women of the court indulged in
revelry, to the scandal of their sisters of the middle classes, the
latter, by their piety as well as by their pious affectations, brought
upon themselves coarse witticisms, ribald mirth, and allegations of
misconduct under the guise of sanctity. So it happened that just when
the women of the middle classes were approaching in position their
sisters of the higher circles, by the ascent of the class to which
they belonged and by the recognition on the part of the superior ranks
of their worth as individuals and their importance as a sound element
of the nation, the tendency toward a uniform equality, however remote
its realiz