Lidia Wardell walked naked through the Newbury meeting house. She was prosecuted, and publicly whipped for this crime. This event is common historical knowledge.The Rose and the Whip is set in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in May 1663, but tells the entire story of systematic persecution of dissenters, by dissenters. Lidia relates the story of her life, and the series of events that culminated in … that culminated in her decision to take this action in protest of the Puritan community leaders’ treatment of Quakers. As she is charged, sentenced, and tied to the whipping post, then subsequently thrashed with twenty or thirty lashes, she critically examines each of these events and reflects on how they served to transform her and her perspectives on truth and faith.
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This story has all the feels, and you almost feel every single lash right along with Lidia Wardell. Lidia decided to walk naked through the local meeting house and because of this, she has been persecuted to a thrashing at the whipping post. What boldness Lidia must have had, to walk naked in 1663. During a time in history when women were seen and not heard, and this was just a few decades before the Witch Trials.
Lidia has done what she has done, and now has to take her sentence. As she gets tied to the post, the one that these town people walk past every single day without a second thought. She slowly starts to recall events and things in her life. Although this story’s timeline, is very short it covers many years.
With each feel of the whip on her back, she evaluates her life so far and the different events and decisions she has made to get to where she is. She was only standing up for a belief and in protest of the treatment of Quakers. Although she is not the first to receive punishment, nor will she be the last, for religious persecution she also thinks of all those who have also suffered by the dissenters.
The author does a really good job writing these hard whipping scenes, in that she is able to get the reader to feel the pain and sympathy for Lidia. This was an interesting period to read about, and how they often did things with in the courts and town when it came to crime and punishment. Thank you to the author for the book, and for Historical Fiction Virtual Book tours for the invite!
Thank you HFVBT and the author for a complimentary copy. I voluntarily reviewed this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
The Rose And The Whip
By: Jae Hodges
REVIEW
The Rose And The Whip by Jae Hodges tells the relatively unknown story of Lidia Wardell. In 1663, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, this woman walked naked through the Newbury meeting house in protest of the Puritan community leaders’ treatment of Quakers. That a woman could be so audacious was unbelievable to men.
“A woman was a different matter. Her place was by her father, or her husband. His thoughts were her thoughts; his actions were her commands…she should be severely whipped lest she believe she is able to think or do as she pleases…”
As punishment for her open defiance and independent thinking, she was tied to the whipping post, stripped to the waist and received twenty or thirty lashes. With each thrash of the whip, Lidia reflects on her eye opening transformation and the events that brought her here. Subsequently, the bigger picture is related of the Puritan and Quaker disharmony and those involved in the persecution, thus the story is related in an alternating sequence.
Take a moment to appreciate the irony. These people came to the new world to escape religious persecution; however, in the new world Puritans persecuted the Quakers for their beliefs. Apparently, the past was easily forgotten. I knew next to nothing about the era before reading this story. Fortunately, there is a wealth of historical fact in the story, and I learned so much. Jae Hodges has created an amazing and meticulous researched story about a woman who deserves recognition. Lidia Wardell was beyond courageous, intelligent and unapologetic about her life, beliefs and behavior. She saw hypocrisy, and stood against it. Indeed, a woman ahead of her time.
“This much I could know. Women are bred to endure, and endure in silence if we will it. The men of the Newbury meeting house groping, this man’s furtive touch, the constable’s whip. They were nothing.”
This book is an excellent source of information about Colonial America, and I highly recommend for anyone interested in the era. Truly inspiring!
This is riveting historical fiction! Author Jae Hodges transported me back to the seventeenth century to witness an event that I wasn’t familiar with and I was almost able to feel the agony from the pain of those whips! The Rose and the Whip is told in the first person and Hodges uses both present and past events to share Lidia’s life story. The sentence meted out for her decision to walk naked into a Newbury meeting house happens almost immediately, and Lidia learns that she will receive a severe whipping. The details of this whipping are graphically described in chapters such as The First Lash, when she barely feels the sting, and then later, Twenty-one Lashes, when she admits that “I was no longer able to flinch.” These chapters alternate with the accounts of Lidia’s marriage, the birth of her sons, and the realization that the Quakers were being persecuted for their different beliefs.
he Rose and the Whip is a remarkable story of one woman’s courage, strength, and determination and it chronicles the injustice that was present almost 400 years ago in a country famous for its search for religious freedom. As I learned Lidia Wardell’s story I was amazed with the irony that the Puritans, who chose to punish the Quakers for their beliefs, were the very same people who had fled England because of their own religious persecution. This is a book that will make you think , and even question, just how much our society has really learned?
I received a copy of this book from the author via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours. There was no obligation for a favorable review. These are my own thoughts.