Daniel J. Codd - Crimes and Criminals of 17th Century Britain

Crimes and Criminals of 17th Century Britain

Daniel J. Codd

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by

PEN AND SWORD HISTORY

an imprint of

Pen and Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley

South Yorkshire S70 2AS

Copyright Daniel J. Codd, 2018

ISBN 978 1 52670 608 9

eISBN 978 1 52670 610 2

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52670 609 6

The right of Daniel J. Codd to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Many thanks must go to the following: Pamela Bromley (Archivist), Warwick Castle, for her help, re the murder of Sir Fulke Greville (the images of King Charles I, the Earl of Strafford and Cromwells death mask are also used courtesy of Warwick Castle); Val Bush (Collections), Warwick Castle, for her help with Cromwells death mask; the administrators of St Marys Church, Horncastle (20 December 2015), for allowing me access and telling me about Sir Ingram Hopton; Michael Ridge, Visitor Services Assistant, Norfolk Museums Service, for help with Sir John Heydons mummified hand sadly taken off public display at Norwich Castle Museum at the time of writing, for conservation work; Reverend Kenneth Cross of St Andrews Church, Old Cleeve, and Jeanne Webb, for their help with the murder of Mr Tratte; A. Cameron (Marketing Executive), Madame Tussauds, London NW1 5LR, for permission to use the images entitled The traitors were barbarically executed in public and A pirates end at Execution Dock (see https://www.madametussauds.co.uk/london/en/ for more information on Madame Tussauds and its Chamber of Horrors); Maureen Mathias at Pembroke Castle, for permission to use the images entitled A violent street fight between Royalists and revolutionary Parliamentarians and Poyer was sentenced to death by a perverse lottery (see http://pembroke-castle.co.uk/ for more information on the Civil War Exhibition); Alice Marshall, Events Assistant, Doddington Hall, for allowing me to reproduce the image of the 1666 sea battle off the Scillies; Chethams Library, Long Millgate, Manchester, for permission to use the image of King Charles I, after his head was sewn back on (this portrait, by an unknown artist, is currently on loan to Turton Tower, Lancs); Geoff Stone, for his invaluable help with Glencoe images; Nicola Stone for her help with proof-reading, attention to detail, endless encouragement and limitless enthusiasm; Mr and Mrs Kerton, of Higher Farm, Chilton Cantelo, for allowing me to see and photograph Theophilus Bromes head; Owen Teather, for his help with the image of Rochester Cathedral; Josie Mae Skinner, for her help with the image of Marazion, Cornwall.

In particular, I would like to thank Tim Hitchcock, Robert Shoemaker, Clive Emsley, Sharon Howard and Jamie MacLaughlin, et al., The Old Bailey Proceedings Online, 1674-1913 ( www.oldbaileyonline.org ), for allowing me to cite additional information from the website in the following instances:

Law, Order and Punishment (Kelsey, the Newgate murderer): 13 June 1690, version 7.2, accessed 10 November 2015

Robbers, Bandits and Highwaymen (Golden Farmer): 22 December 1690, Version 7.2, accessed 23 September 2015

Horror Piled upon Horror (Charles Pyne): 11 July 1694, Version 7.2, accessed 19 August 2015

Why Talk to Me of Heaven? : 10 & 19 December 1679, version 7.2, accessed 10 November 2015

The Bloody Midwife (Mary Compton): 23 October 1693, Version 7.2, accessed 23 September 2015

Finally I would like to thank everyone for the kindness and generosity I have been shown at scores of libraries, museums and tourist attractions, large and small, across Britain throughout this journey of exploration, for within such places lie the half-hidden origins of books like this.

All photographs are the copyright of the author, except where otherwise stated above. All other illustrations are in the public domain.

Anyone wishing to understand what life was like during a particular era would benefit from studying the great criminal cases of the age, for these are among the best indicators as to the social, religious, political and economic doctrines that many ordinary people of the time lived their lives by, day in and day out. Their hopes, fears, beliefs, superstitions, standards of education, past-times, even their levels of compassion; all are laid bare throughout such proceedings. And so a look at crimes and criminals of the seventeenth century forces the reader to consider a curious and revealing version of todays Britain.

On the one hand, the eras populated areas may seem semi-familiar places, through the thousands of yet-existing villages, certain city street-names and a great many landmark buildings nationally, some of which were actually established in the seventeenth century, such as the rebuilt St Pauls Cathedral in London. Despite this, however, virtually all of the taverns, buildings and miscellaneous locations observed herein where heinous crimes were committed no longer exist in the form they did at the time.

This observation even applies to rural locations. Typifying this (natural) advance of history, for our purposes, is Primrose Hill, on the northern side of Regents Park site of one of the most infamous acts of the 1680s. This is the place where Sir Edmund Berry Godfreys garrotted corpse was left in a ditch, with a sword rammed through it; yet one would be hard pushed to realise it these days. In the time we are to consider, Primrose Hill was detached from the City of London by greater than two miles, formerly part of a great chase appropriated by King Henry VIII, and in the late seventeenth century still distant enough to be called the countryside. Nowadays, it has been swallowed up and incorporated into Greater London and while yet impressive, the sense of remoteness it must have presented when Sir Edmunds body was dumped here has gone forever. Its manicured grass slopes are criss-crossed with a network of paths that now accommodate all manner of joggers, kite-flyers, dog-walkers, tourists and so on. One has to leave the paths and walk west into the rougher scrubland along the perimeter of (where is now) the Barrow Hill Reservoir to come anywhere near the approximate site where, almost 350 years ago, a drama occurred that came to both horrify and disgrace London. These days, it is difficult to even sense the echo of Sir Edmunds killing, let alone imagine easily what this place must have been like when his corpse was deposited here.

Over the last four centuries, London has been redeveloped over and over, all the time spreading and growing to such immense proportions that it has now swallowed up every village, pasture and town within a 600-square mile radius. Like other cities, it was still walled at the start of the seventeenth century. Simultaneously, other British towns and villages have risen, fallen or become incorporated; ancestral homes have been rebuilt or fallen into decay; great road complexes and railway lines have opened up formerly-inaccessible parts. In some places the very landscape itself has changed through extensive deforestation, drainage, quarrying or cultivation. The point I am making is this; in most cases, the near-exact locations of the centurys horrific crimes can be reliably gauged, lending a strange familiarity to them. But it is important for the reader to consider that we are reaching so far back in history that if one could somehow be transported to the period and the locations then very few places would be immediately recognisable to us.