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6

THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT CASE

Sexual harassment in the workplace is a focal point of modern employment law and a source of periodic headline news when the perpetrators turn out to be public figures, but there is nothing new under the sun.¹ The travails of Goodwife Fancy (whom we briefly met as a witness in the Case of the Exploding Gun) stand as eloquent testimony to the appalling workplace conditions faced by countless low-status women in every age, including our own. Although her voice was heard, her ultimate fate stands as an indictment of the General Court.

In April 1646, Governor Theophilus Eaton, “being informed of several lewd passages, ordered William Fancy to appear with his wife at the court to answer for them.” At some point, both spouses were examined outside of court, and their examinations were subsequently read in court.

Goodwife Fancy (we never learn her first name) told the examiner that, about two years previously, she had been working for Goodwife Robinson. She found herself alone in a cellar with Goodwife Robinson’s husband, Thomas Robinson. Thomas took hold of her, pulled down his breeches, put his hand under her skirt,² and “with strength and force labored to satisfy his lust and to defile her.” When she cried out, he covered her mouth. He finally left when he heard some shipmen calling him.

Later, when the Fancys were living in the cellar of Robert Seely, a lieutenant in the artillery company, she went out in a cornfield to bring in a barrow of wood. She heard a noise in the cornstalks and, looking about, saw Thomas Robinson. She told him, “Go and be hanged. What do you here?” Robinson, however, “fastened upon her [and] strove to have kissed her.” When she cried out, he left her.

Another time, Goodwife Robinson sent her out to gather pumpkins. Thomas Robinson made a similar attempt, but she resisted and told him that “these practices of his would not long be hid.”

Again, when she was attempting to catch a hen, Thomas Robinson “came and put down his breeches [and] strove to stop her mouth.” Goodwife Fancy made a noise, and her husband came out of the cellar. Seeing her husband, Robinson left.

Later, about a year before the trial, the Fancys lived at the house of Thomas Clark. Goodwife Fancy saw Robinson coming and “fearing his filthy lustful attempts, got and stayed out of the house.” Robinson prayed her to come in, but Goodwife Fancy told him that since “her husband knew of his filthy lewd carriages, he must therefore make peace with him.”

Several weeks before the trial, Thomas Robinson called on William Fancy and told him that Goodwife Robinson wanted “help in her childbed state.” Fancy, “considering the woman’s need,” obligingly consented to allow his wife to provide the requested assistance. Things went well for a week, but in the second week Robinson “returned to his former filthy course.” Goodwife Fancy went with Robinson to the cowhouse one evening to hold a lantern while he caught a hen. Suddenly, Robinson darkened the lantern and “took hold of her in the dark.” She cried out, “What shall I do?” Robinson “put down his breeches, put his hands under her skirt, and got them up, thrust her to the wall … and endeavored with his body to commit adultery with her.” Goodwife Fancy resisted and told him that if he continued “he would come to the gallows.” Robinson “pished at that, but told her he would never meddle with her more.”

Needless to say, this wasn’t the end of things. Later, Goodwife Fancy went out to fetch wood for a fire. “Robinson followed her, put down his breeches, and endeavored to satisfy his lust as before.” She cried out and threatened to tell his wife. Robinson desisted and assured her that this was his “last attempt upon her.”

Goodwife Fancy told her examiner that she had “acquainted her husband with Robinson’s lewd, lustful attempts upon her” (except for the cowhouse incident, which happened at a later time) and “pressed him to complain to the Governor.” Her husband, however, refused, saying that his wife, having been previously convicted of thievery,³ would not be believed.

Robinson’s harassment of Goodwife Fancy eventually came to light as a result of her larcenous past. Robinson, hearing that a pair of scissors was missing, told some people that he thought he had seen the scissors at Goodwife Fancy’s home and that she was a thief. Goodwife Fancy learned of this allegation through one of her employers, Goodwife Thomas. She responded with a proverb: “Save one from the gallows and he will hang you or cut your throat if he can.” When Goodwife Thomas inquired what this meant, Goodwife Fancy disclosed her history of abuse.

Once Goodwife Fancy had spilled the beans and Robinson’s wife found out about it, Robinson became repentant. Weeping passionately, he met Goodwife Fancy at the cutler’s shop and told her, “He would rather that his life and all goods were gone than that his wife should have known of it.”

Neither Robinson nor Goodwife Fancy wanted the case to go public, but Goodwife Thomas insisted on seeing some “general reformation” in Robinson’s conduct. Robinson met with one Robert Usher that night and said that his previous remarks were “but a word in jest” and that William Fancy’s wife had wronged him. These statements provoked Usher rather than satisfying him, and “it was resolved that counsel should be asked and proceeding ordered accordingly.”

Robinson was desperate to settle the matter. About two weeks before the trial, he offered the Fancys ten shillings in silver to drop the prosecution. The Fancys apparently declined the offer and testified in court that it had been made.

John Thomas and his wife testified that Robinson had acknowledged “some miscarriages” to them and “did weakly if at all deny the rest” of Goodwife Fancy’s charges. Robinson also told them that he knew “that a woman’s word would pass before a man’s in this case.”

Thomas Robinson’s wife told the court that her husband had confessed that “he had spoken some words to try Fancy’s wife, but he could not own all she had charged him with.” Hearing this, the court asked her where her husband was now. She dramatically replied that “yesterday, in the afternoon, he went forth in a sad discontented frame, and as she since heareth, passed over the ferry, but since she hath not heard of him.”

With this dramatic announcement, the case against Thomas Robinson ended. As far as the New Haven Colony records indicate, he was never seen again.⁴

Robinson’s disappearance was not, however, the end of the court’s inquiry into sexual matters involving Goodwife Fancy. William Fancy further testified that, about three months previously, one Mark Meggs had come to their house to collect a debt of eight shillings and asked for him. As Goodwife Fancy passed by him, Meggs “caught hold of her, put his hand under her skirt, showed her a string of wampum [beads], and told her he would give her that and five shillings more if she would teach him to get [beget] a boy.” When Goodwife Fancy resisted, Meggs went away. She told her husband what Meggs had done, whereupon Mr. Fancy and the cutler went to speak to him. Meggs acknowledged his fault to them and, later, to Goodwife Fancy.

The “cutler,” it turns out, was none other than Stephen Medcalfe, whom we earlier met when his eye was injured by a defective gun. Regardless of the state of his eyesight, Medcalfe apparently remained vigorous in other ways. Shortly after the gun accident, the Fancys were staying in Medcalfe’s house. While Goodwife Fancy was sifting meal, Medcalfe came “in a base, lustful way to kiss her by force.” She told him, “It were better he never touched any while he lived.” One night, when William Fancy was away, Medcalfe entered her room, frightening her, but went away when she cried out. She told her husband when he returned, but her husband dissuaded her from complaining to the magistrate.

The court now turned to Mark Meggs. Meggs denied Goodwife Fancy’s charge, but William Fancy testified that Meggs had told him if the matter “came to light he should be undone.”

John Mosse, a corporal of the local militia, informed the court of what one James Heywood had told him: “Mark Meggs came into Goody Fancy’s house, and down with his breeches.” Another witness, Goodman Bannister, testified of what William Fancy had told him: “Robinson was run away and feared his wife would be a cause of his being whipped and so Mark Meggs.”

Mark Meggs’s brother, John Meggs, informed the court that William Fancy had told him what his brother Mark had done and that he thought his brother would be fined.

John Thomas then said that Mark Meggs had attempted to dissuade him from coming to court by falsely telling him the governor had said his attendance would not be required.

Robert Usher informed the court that Mark Meggs had asked to meet with the Fancys and that Goodwife Fancy had declined to tell him what the meeting was about.

Goodwife Fancy now testified under oath. She told the court that Mark Meggs had come to her house to collect a debt of eight or ten shillings. He caught hold of her, put his hands under her skirt, offered her a string of wampum, and said that he had five shillings more if she would teach him to get a boy.

William Fancy was also placed under oath. He testified that Mark Meggs had “met him, acknowledged his fault, and said if he should go and tell of it he should be undone.”

Captain Daniel How, a member of the court, now addressed Mark Meggs directly. “It was not his way,” How told Meggs, “to deny it before God and a court of justice, for though the court might, God would not clear him if guilty, for God may have left him to the act, although there may want evidence, as he may remember a defect of evidence in a case of this nature formerly.” Therefore, How “desired him not to leave God and himself in this act.”

Unmoved by this exhortation, Meggs continued to deny the allegation. How’s concern that the court might clear Meggs even if he was guilty turned out to be misplaced. For his “sinful and lustful attempt,” Meggs was sentenced “to be severely whipped.”

To make justice complete, in the eyes of the court, each of the Fancys then received the same sentence meted out to Meggs. Goodwife Fancy, for “concealment of the forementioned villainous and lustful attempts by several as appears by her own confessions,” and William Fancy, “for his being as it were a pander to his wife and neglecting the timely revealing of these forementioned attempts to have defiled his wife,” were each sentenced “to be severely whipped.”

Reading this travesty of a case, the modern reader cannot help but despair at the human condition. No matter how society, government, and the law might change, the same familiar drama occurs in everyday life from age to age. A low-status woman goes out in the world to work in a menial job in order to put food on the table, and her reward is to be groped and harassed at every turn. We see this happen on a regular basis today.

The poignancy of Goodwife Fancy’s story arises from its ordinariness. The scribe of the trial, who vividly brings so many salient details to light, doesn’t even dignify her with a first name. She and her husband are among the lowest of the low. They live in the cellars of various houses (they seem to move from time to time), and she does menial work in the fields and kitchen for the wives of more prosperous settlers. Whether she goes out in the field or stays at home, she is never safe. Men grope her and abuse her at every opportunity. With what turns out to be good reason, her husband tells her not to go to the authorities. Even if she does go to the authorities, she is told that no one will believe her because she has a criminal record. When someone else, at long last, tells the authorities what is going on, her principal abuser flees the jurisdiction unpunished, and she and her husband are the ones sentenced to be severely whipped.

Perhaps the one ray of light in this gloomy picture is that, when her accusations were ultimately heard in court, Goodwife Fancy’s story was believed. Although Thomas Robinson had removed himself from the jurisdiction, Mark Meggs remained before the court. The court heard both Goodwife Fancy’s accusation and Meggs’s denial. But it heard the testimony of other witnesses as well and concluded on the evidence that Meggs had indeed made a “sinful and lustful attempt.” Whether Goodwife Fancy was comforted during her whipping by the thought that Meggs had received the same punishment is dubious in the extreme.