ABSTRACT
Images of suppliant women abound in English drama of the early modern period. The affective power of such figures clearly captured the imagination of Henry Peacham, inspiring him to sketch a scene from Titus Andronicus in which Tamora is shown, flanked by male characters in a curious mix of Roman and Elizabethan dress, ‘pleading for her sons going to execution’.1 Outside the wooden walls of the theatre, no such direct methods of appeal were available to women. Some sought redress in the same way as men. Indeed, according to Tim Stretton’s estimates, not hundreds but thousands of women went to law in this period and participated ‘in civil litigation in a variety of courts’ (Stretton 1998: 42). Pleading by women, however, was not permitted in any legal setting. Women could be litigants but they could not be judges, jurors or lawyers. Along with heretics, excommunicants and criminals, no woman could plead on behalf of someone else before a judge (Stretton 1998: 67).
