Cuckold’s Haven
The marry’d mans miſerie, who muſt abide
The penaltie of being Hornify’d:
Hee unto his Neighbours doeth make his caſe knowne,
And tells them all plainly, The caſe is their owne.From the title of the 1638 ballad, Cuckolds Haven.
[Cuckolds Haven](mol:ANON26)
Location
Located in [Rotherhithe](mol:ROTH5), Surrey, south of the [Thames](mol:THAM2), [Cuckold’s Haven](mol:CUCK1) or [Cuckold’s Point](mol:CUCK1) was notorious in early modern [London](mol:LOND5).
Several locations on the Surrey Peninsula have been associated with [Cuckold’s Haven](mol:CUCK1):
the alternative name, [Cuckold’s Point](mol:CUCK1), fits with the location on Robert Adamsʼs map of 1588, which pinpoints [Cuckold’s
Haven](mol:CUCK1) on the upper, western point of the peninsula, while later maps show the location further east and south along the [Thames](mol:THAM2) ([Thamesis Descriptio](mol:ADAM19)). The area was associated with illicit sexuality, especially adultery, and was symbolized by a pole surmounted by a pair of
animal horns ([Chalfant 62](mol:CHAL1);
[De Marly 313](mol:DEMA1); [Bruster 195](mol:BRUS1)).
Although the [Agas map](mol:AGAS3) of 1561 does not extend far enough eastward to include [Rotherhithe](mol:ROTH5) or the Surrey Peninsula, [Cuckold’s
Haven](mol:CUCK1) is clearly marked on Robert Adamsʼs map as part of the preparations against the Spanish Armada. Adams
does not note a specific location with a symbol, but the map implies that the infamous horned pole marking the site would have stood on the northeast corner of the peninsula across from [Limehouse](mol:LIME3) ([Harper](mol:HARP5)).
The riverside marker was referred to as a pole, a mast, and even a tree that is all fruit and no leaves
([Chapman, Jonson, and Marston 149](mol:CHAP1)).
John Strype’s description of [Cuckold’s Haven](mol:CUCK1) in his 18th century edition of Stow’s
Survey of London accords with Adams’s map:
[LIMEHOUSE](mol:LIME3), a very populous Place, with fair Buildings next the River On the other Side, (viz. that of Surrey) is [Rotherhithe](mol:ROTH5). Near to this Place is [Cuckolds Point](mol:CUCK1); where there is a large pair of Horns fixed upon a Pole
(
[Strype 43](mol:STRY3)).
Strype
updated
Stow’s work in
1720, charting
[London](mol:LOND5)’s massive changes in the period between the surveys. Both authors had an intimate knowledge of
the city, its history, and its lore.
Stow’s comprehensive account of
[London](mol:LOND5), however, makes no mention of
[Cuckold’s Haven](mol:CUCK1), possibly because the Surrey Peninsula fell outside the limits of the city (
[Stow](mol:STOW1)). Still,
Stow would surely have
known of the site and its reputation through the many plays, ballads, and other printed sources that made use of the location and its associations with cuckoldry (
[Bruster 195-196](mol:BRUS1);
[St. Pierre 39-41](mol:STPI1)).
These many references also make
Strype’s claim not to know the meaning of the horned pole (
I know not the Fancy for it
) somewhat suspect (
[Strype 43](mol:STRY3)).
Maps from the 18th and 19th centuries locate [Cuckold’s Point](mol:CUCK1) further down on the eastern shoreline of the peninsula across from what later became the West India Docks, rather than directly at the northeast corner as suggested by Adams’s 1588 map ([Thamesis Descriptio](mol:ADAM19)). A set of docks on the river’s south bank where the original marker stood eventually adopted the name after the pole had disappeared from the landscape. The Nelson Dock, [London](mol:LOND5)’s only dry dock, is the last remaining of those docks ([A Thames Tour of Rotherhithe](mol:THAM8)).
Name and Etymology
In early modern usage, the word cuckold meant primarily the husband of an unfaithful wife
(
[LEME](mol:LEME1)). The word is rooted in Middle English and Old French where it was linked to the cuckoo’s habit of laying
its eggs in the nests of other birds (
[OED cuckold, n.1](mol:OEDI1)). A man who was a knowing cuckold—and even happy with his state—was termed a
wittol.
For reasons that remain obscure, the cuckolded husband was often depicted wearing animal horns upon his head (
[Dent 272-274](mol:DENT3);
[Partridge 112-113, 139, 287](mol:PART4)).
Being
sent to Cuckold’s Haven was a common phrase describing the fate of husbands whose wives had cheated on them (
[Dent 273](mol:DENT3)).
Searching the word
cuckold in
[Early English Books Online](mol:EEBO2) yields various spellings and phrases such as
cuckold-constable,
cuckolated,
and
cuckoldage.
History
One of the earliest descriptions of the horned pole is in the diary of merchant-tailer
Henry Machyn. He notes that on 25 May 1562 there
was set up at [Cuckold’s Haven](mol:CUCK1) a great Maypole by butchers and fishermen, full of horns.
And they made great cheer, for there weas two firkins of fresh sturgeons and great conger and great turbots and great plenty of wine,
that it came to eight pounds
([Machyn 283](mol:MACH1)).
Although the precise origin of the pole is unknown, stories from the early modern period suggest it was in place as far
back as King John’s reign. Two origin stories survive. In the first, a miller from Charlton comes
home to find his wife in amorous embrace with an unknown man. The miller is enraged, but then recognizes the
man as King John and begs his forgiveness. In compensation, the king grants the miller
all the land visible from his doorway. The limit of this grant was marked by a pole at the river’s edge. However,
as a condition of the grant, the king demands that on St. Luke’s Day, October 18, the miller don a set of horns
and walk through the streets to the pole or otherwise lose the rights to the land
([Bruster 196](mol:BRUS1); [Chalfant 62](mol:CHAL1); [De Marly 313](mol:DEMA1)).
The second origin tale for the horned pole on the river’s edge associates cuckoldry and economics. A group of [London](mol:LOND5) butchers are said to have agreed to keep the monument supplied with horns in exchange for the use of the surrounding fields in perpetuity.
The horns were apparently often stolen and needed replacing on a regular basis. Loss of these lands would have been costly to the butchers, which may have fuelled the notoriety of the pole ([Bruster 196](mol:BRUS1)). Nothing is known about who owned the fields in question—or why the owner would have concerned with maintaining the pole.
The story of Charlton miller is connected to a market fair held in nearby [Bermondsey](mol:BERM2). Known as the Horn Faire, it traditionally opened with a pageant that featured citizens dressed as King John and the miller and his wife, and was followed by a procession of masked men wearing horns upon their heads. In his painting
A View of London from Greenwich, the
18th century artist
Jan Griffier portrays this procession and a view of the green with its playhouse in the foreground (
[De Marly 316](mol:DEMA1)). Contrary to the story, the fair was actually established in the parish of Charlton by decree of
King Henry III more than fifty years after
King John’s death (
[De Marly 314](mol:DEMA1)).
The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent claims that the fair was an uncivilized event,
infamous for rudeness and indecency.
Apparently many efforts were made over the years to limit the antics of the participants (
[Hasted](mol:HAST5)).
[Cuckold’s Haven](mol:CUCK1) was also a site of public executions where pirates were hung from a gibbet that stood alongside the pole. John Taylor refers to the execution of pirates in his lament for the loss of the pole marking [Cuckold’s Haven](mol:CUCK1):
Downe by St. Katherines, where the Prieſt fell in
By Wapping, where as hang’d drownd Pirats dye;
(Or elſe ſuch Rats, I thinke as would eate Pye)
And paſſing further, I at firſt obſerv’d
That [Cuckold-Haven](mol:CUCK1) was but badly ſerv’d.
For there old Tyme, had ſuch confuſion wrought,
That of that Ancient place reminaed nought.
No monumentall memorable Horne,
Or Tree or Poſte, which hath thoſe Trophees born,
Was left, whereby Poſterity may know
Where theire forefathers Crests did growe.
[Taylor sig. A3r](mol:TAYL21)
The absence of the pole must have been only temporary.
Significance and Literary References
The pole at [Cuckold’s Haven](mol:CUCK1) was so well known that several literary works make use of the location as a sort of geographical punchline,
while
popular ballads often warned of the consequences of cuckoldry via references to the pole ([Bruster 196](mol:BRUS1)). For example, William Fennor’s poem
Cornu-copiae, Paſquil’s Night Cap: or Antidote for the Head-ache, is a treatise about marital woes that ties the legend of the
[London](mol:LOND5) butchers
to the idea of the pole at
[Cuckold’s Haven](mol:CUCK1) as monument to the shrine of
Lady Fortune,
who is said to have given men marriage as a blessing on the one hand and cuckoldry
as its companion on the other (
[Fennor 43](mol:FENN2)).
In the public theatre, where cuckoldry was a common plot device, references to [Cuckold’s Haven](mol:CUCK1) and the horned pole are ubiquitous ([Blaisdell 15, 36](mol:BLAI2); [Bruster 197](mol:BRUS1); [St. Pierre 561-563](mol:STPI1)). In
Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston’s
Eastward Ho!,
[Cuckold’s Haven](mol:CUCK1) is the setting for Act IV, in which a butcher’s apprentice named
Slitgut climbs the pole to replace the horns. From atop the pole, the
apprentice observes and comments on the fates of several other characters whose boats have capsized on the
[Thames](mol:THAM2) during a storm.
Security,
a usurer and the play’s cuckold, pursues his wife and her lover on the river. When his boat
capsizes, he is washed ashore at the foot of the pole.
Slitgut offers assistance, but
Security, in humiliation, rejects him.
Eastward Ho! was one
of several plays that exploited the social symbolism of
[Cuckold’s Haven](mol:CUCK1), but the only one to set part of the action there
(
[Chalfant 62](mol:CHAL1)).
Thomas Dekker and
John Webster also refer to
[Cuckold’s Haven](mol:CUCK1)
in their plays
Northward Ho and
Westward Ho, but the action takes place in other areas around
[London](mol:LOND5).
References to [Cuckold’s Haven](mol:CUCK1) also appear in more prosaic texts like travel narratives and diaries. The German lawyer Paul Hentzner made this entry in his travel diary of a visit to [Radcliffe](mol:RADC1)
in 1598: on the opposite shore is a fixed a long pole with ram’s-horns upon it, the intention of which was vulgarly said to be a reflection upon willful and contented cuckolds
([Hentzner 45-46](mol:HENT4)). The diarist Samuel Pepys mentions [Cuckold’s Haven](mol:CUCK1) in his entry for 20 February 1662:
Up and by water with Commissioner Pett to Deptford Thence thinking to have gone down bo Woolwich in the Charles pleasure boat, but she run aground, it being almost low water, and
so by oars to the town, and there dined, took boat and to the pleasure boat, which was come down to fetch us back, and I could have been sick if I waould in going, the wind being very fresh,
but very pleasant it was, and the first time I have sailed in any one of them. It carried us to [Cuckold’s Point](mol:CUCK1), and so by oars to the Temple, it raining hard,
where missed speaking with my cousin Roger, and so walked home and to my office; there spent the night till bed time, and so home to supper and to bed.
[Pepys 43](mol:PEPY3)
The Horn Fair itself flourished until the latter part of the 19th century, where it was officially discontinued. Moral attitudes had changed and urban growth was eating up green space. The last fair was held in 1876 ([De Marly 313-314](mol:DEMA1)). In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in [Cuckold’s Haven](mol:CUCK1), and the fair has been revived at Horn Fair Park in Charlton, further east on the river’s south bank ([Ackroyd 267](mol:ACKR1)). No street names or memorials mark the original site.