My eye was caught a few weeks back by the following tweet:
@historyweird: 1642: Elizabeth Johnson, a young Massachusetts maid, is flogged for “stopping her ears with her hands when the word of God was read”.
How very fascinating, I thought. At the front of the church as the congregation watched? Outside on the village green, tied to a whipping post? In private by the curate? At home, by the master of the house in which she worked?
I thought I should research a little further, and found the following case about homosexuality laws, via Google:
The first known prosecution was that of servant Elizabeth Johnson in 1642. She was sentenced to a fine and to be “severely whipped” for unspecified “unseemly practices betwixt her and another maid[.]”
So, now I’m puzzled. Was this the same lass? Surely so – same name, same State, same year. But would she really have been so foolish as to earned a second flogging in a the space of a short while?
Those were the days when religion was king. If you said a word about it, you surely committed a blasphamy. And that was a crime. Yes, in those days, your were taken to the public square. Your outer garments raised waist high. Your bloomer’s taken down, and whipped. Yes, whipped on your bare bottom. So this naughty maid, might have felt 25 lashes of leather on her naked rear end.
One wonders what particular reading made her stop her ears.
She was a shocking, a perverted creature, the same Lizzy: loved to caress other maidens, refused to listen to godly advice, and – worst of all – actually *liked* whippings!! Dear, deary, me: a desperate case, a very bad example indeed. [shakes head, clucks disapprovingly]
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