Black History Month: 5 October 2020
Anne Cobbie was a prostitute who worked in the parish of St. Clement Danes, Westminster, in the 1620s. Cobbie's actions were illegal as Henry VIII had closed down the last legal brothels in 1546. She was one of ten women cited when the couple who owned the brothel where she worked were brought before the Westminster Sessions Court in 1626. The action was brought by one Clement Edwards, a clergyman from Leicestershire whose wife had left him to work in the Bankes' establishment.
Although the Bankes were briefly incarcerated in the Gatehouse Prison, close to Westminster Abbey, Cobbie evaded punishment (which could include carting, flogging, a fine, banishment from the city or imprisonment in Bridewell prison, where inmates were forced to beat hemp and spin flax). It was said that men would rather give her a gold coin worth 22 shillings 'to lie with her' than another woman five shilling 'because of her soft skin' and there is actually more evidence of African men visiting English prostitutes than vice versa at this time.
Want to find out more about black people during the Tudor era? Click here for more information, or here for more about black individuals in the period.
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