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THE “BILLINGSGATE SLUT”

On the same day (December 3, 1645) that the General Court heard the Case of the Exploding Gun, it heard an action of a different sort brought by Hannah Marsh.¹ Marsh’s case was what we would now call a defamation case, although, unlike the modern lawsuit, it was not an action for damages. As we’ll see, the court addressed the matter with the outward procedure of a lawsuit but, true to the court’s religious character, ended up resolving the matter as an internal church affair.

Marsh complained to the court that Francis Brewster had called her a “Billingsgate slut”² and had additionally said that she had been “sent for on shipboard to play the slut.”

Brewster did not contest using the words complained of. In fact, he added a few more of his own for good measure, saying, “He hoped she would dance about the whipping post.” His defense was that the words were justified. He had been “much provoked and disquieted” by Marsh’s “frowardness and brawling on shipboard.”³ Brewster affirmed that one Mrs. Norton of Charlestown told him that “a seaman was speaking filthy words” to Marsh and asked her to go on shipboard “to play the slut.”

Brewster’s defense was corroborated by the testimony of other witnesses. George Walker testified that he had also heard Mrs. Norton’s remarks. Two maids, one employed by Brewster and another employed by a member of the court named George Lamberton, testified that Marsh “was very froward and contentious and a cause of much contention and unquietness amongst them as they came from the Bay.”

Governor Theophilus Eaton, presiding over the court, stated what he understood to be the ordinary meaning of the term “Billingsgate slut.” “Some that were so called,” he told the court, “were convicted scolds and punished at the cucking stool for it, and some of them charged with incontinency.”⁴

Given this helpful definition, Brewster responded that he “had sufficiently proved the one true and he would not acquit her in the other.” When asked his ground for this “implicit charge,” he said that he relied solely on Mrs. Norton’s words.

The court had heard enough. In its view, both parties had engaged in deplorable behavior. The court told Brewster that “he ought to acknowledge his failing and so repair her reputation as much as he may.” Brewster acknowledged that he was to blame in the matter and said that he was sorry he had spoken so rashly and that “he intended no such charge against her.”

The court then turned to Marsh and reproved her “for her froward disposition,” reminding her that “meekness is a choice ornament for women and wished her to take it as a rebuke from God and to keep a better watch over her spirit hereafter, lest the Lord proceed to manifest his displeasure further against her.”

Marsh acknowledged “it had been some trouble to her that she had been so froward and contentious to the disquieting of others and hoped it should be a warning to her for time to come.”

The “Billingsgate Slut” Case says much about the expected deportment of women in the New Haven Colony (and how expected deportment may have differed from actual deportment), but it also gives us a valuable insight into the General Court’s view of the proper handling of defamation cases. As mentioned, the court seems to have handled the case as an internal church matter. Both parties were reprimanded for their behavior—Marsh “for her froward disposition” and Brewster for maligning Marsh’s reputation. Both parties acknowledged blame and assured the court that they would try to improve their behavior in the future. A somewhat censorious pastor conducting a joint counseling session could not hope for a better result.

It doesn’t appear that Marsh wanted (or could reasonably have expected) monetary damages in the first place. She simply complained to the court about the words Brewster had used to describe her. Raymond Donovan, the secretary of labor under President Reagan, famously asked, after being acquitted of fraud, “Where do I go to get my reputation back?” Marsh, it appears, wanted her reputation back. Although the court proceeding could hardly have enhanced her reputation, she did receive something approaching an apology from Brewster at the end of the process. Whether she was satisfied with the decidedly mixed result of the case is unknowable.

As it happens, the court’s treatment of Marsh’s complaint as an intrachurch matter was consistent with the way English courts had viewed such matters for hundreds of years. Defamation lawsuits in England had been administered in ecclesiastical courts since the thirteenth century. Medieval church law called for the excommunication of persons uttering defamatory remarks. Complainants came to the ecclesiastical courts seeking not damages but penance. But in practice some accommodation between the parties often resulted from the process. Under canon law, doing penance usually involved making suitable amends to the person affronted.⁵ Whether this involved the exchange of apologies or the exchange of money would depend on the situation. Although the royal courts slowly began to offer the remedy of monetary damages in some defamation cases, the ecclesiastical courts continued to exercise jurisdiction over cases involving allegations of sexual misconduct well into the seventeenth century. In England, as well as New Haven, these matters were viewed as internal church affairs.⁶

Unlike contemporary English courts, whether ecclesiastical or royal, the General Court required no complicated pleading for a complainant to obtain a hearing. Marsh simply appeared before the court and stated her case. The matter was resolved on the spot, with reprimands to both parties. Whatever one thinks of the substance of its ruling, the ruling was made with admirable efficiency.