PUNISHMENT AND CRIME
In the following chapter will be found certain notes on crime and
criminals. There is little difference between the crimes of the
Elizabethan and those of the Stuart period. I have added two or three
stories of the period which seem to affect the manners of London.
Hundreds of such stories might be found scattered up and down the
annals of the seventeenth century. I have made these meagre selections
with sparing hand. The crime of Lord Sanquhar; the cruelty of the
Puritan in his punishments; an example of the honest citizen; the
treachery of a noble lord; the origin of General Monk’s wife, and one
or two more persons and episodes may be taken as illustrations of the
times.
The punishment of criminals under the English law remained all
through the century cruel and vindictive. High treason continued to
be punished with the old barbarities; we have seen what these were.
The coiner, if a man, was drawn on a hurdle and hanged; if a woman,
she was burned alive. For petty treason, which is the murder of a
master, a husband, or a superior officer, the offender was hanged if
a man; burned if a woman. For felony of all kinds, hanging. If a man
refused to plead he was pressed to death. After death, the body was
sometimes hung in chains. In felonies where Benefit of Clergy was
still allowed, the offender was branded on the left hand. For petty
larceny, the punishments were the loss of an ear, or a whipping.
Perjury was punished with pillory, with branding on the forehead,
while the offender’s trees were pulled up in his garden and his goods
confiscated. Forgery, cheating, libelling, using false weights and
measures, forestalling the market, offending against the statutes
in bakery and brewery, were punished with pillory, and sometimes by
nailing one or both ears to the pillory, or cutting them off, or boring
through the tongue with a hot iron. For striking in the King’s Court
the right hand was struck off. For striking in Westminster Hall while
the judges were sitting, the punishment was imprisonment for life and
confiscation of the offender’s goods.
If a jury bought in a verdict contrary to evidence they were liable to
lose the franchise; to be incapable of acting as witness or on a jury,
to lose their lands and property, and to be imprisoned.
The stocks were for drunkards and vagabonds. Scolding women were to be
ducked in the ducking stool.
This goodly array of punishments was in full practice during the
seventeenth century.
There were other crimes not dealt with in this list, especially the
crime of witchcraft. James has been held up to ridicule for believing
in witchcraft. This is unjust, because there were very few in the
country who had the strength of mind to disbelieve it. Fortunately the
wave of superstitious terror hardly touched London.
The practice of duelling could be defended on the ground of its being
a survival, in a sense, of the old ordeal by battle. James I. was the
first who made an effort to restrict and abolish the practice.
Under the Commonwealth incest and adultery were made felonies.
Incontinence for the first time was made a criminal offence, to be
punished by three months’ imprisonment.
These few notes on crime and criminal law might seem incomplete without
mention of the two greatest criminals of the century, Titus Oates and
Judge Jeffreys. Their crimes, however, have little or nothing to do
with London save that those of the former were committed for the most
part in London, and that the latter died in London.
The roguery, vice, cheateries, and thieveries practised in the City
have always been on the grand scale. Perhaps there were no more of
these things in King Charles’s reign than in our own time. But it seems
so. To begin with, there were the professed and professional sharps,
men who lived by their wits. The names by which they were known under
Queen Bess had been changed; these terms of endearment or of opprobrium
do not last long. They were now known as Huffs, Rooks, Pads, Pompinios,
Philo Puttonists, Ruffons, Shabbaroons, and Rufflers. Many of them were
of good birth and of excellent manners. When one of them extorted all
his money from a flat it was with an air so engaging that he could not
resent it; nor could he believe that he had been cheated by loaded dice
and by marked cards. Not all of them were gentlemen. Thus there was the
Angler, who carried a stick with a hook at the end, which was useful in
passing an open shop; there was the Ruffler, who pretended to be an old
soldier of Marston Moor or Naseby; there was the Wild Rogue, a boy or
girl who cut off the gold or silver buttons from people in a crowd; the
Clapper Doyen, who begged about the streets with stolen children; the
Abram man, a sham madman; the Whip Jack, a sham shipwrecked sailor; the
Mumper, a decayed merchant; and the Dommerer, who pretended to be dumb.
If we are to believe the revelations of _Meritio Latron_, the City
’prentices contained among them a considerable number of young fellows
who were common rogues and thieves; they robbed their masters as much
as they dared, both of money and of goods; they met on Saturday nights
when the masters were in the country, exchanged the goods, and feasted
together in company with other rogues of the town. In the same edifying
work we are instructed concerning the sharp practices and cheateries of
the various shopkeepers. It is hardly worth while to spend any time in
enumerating these. They are much the same in every age.
The case of Alexander Leighton is one of Royal cruelty. It may be
placed beside that of Prynne. There are others of Puritanic cruelty
quite as bad, as will be seen presently.
Leighton, a Doctor of Divinity, in 1630, was accused of framing,
publishing, and dispersing a scandalous book against King, peers, and
prelate.
He was brought before the Star Chamber, where he received his sentence.
First, he was degraded. He was then whipped and put in pillory. Being
taken out, his right ear was cut off and the right side of his nose
slit, and he was branded on the right cheek with the letters S.S.,
_i.e._ Stirrer up of Sedition. He was then taken back to the Fleet for
a week, after which, his wounds still fresh, he was again whipped,
again set in pillory, and was then deprived of his remaining ear, had
the left side of his nose slit, and the left cheek branded.
The Puritan was stern and unrelenting in his punishment. Perhaps this
fact may account for something of the hatred with which he came to
be regarded by the populace. Take, for instance, the case of Francis
Prideaux, a poor little petty thief, who would now be let off with a
month’s imprisonment:—
“Francis Prideaux is now convicted of a trespas for unlawfully ripping
up and taking away lead from the house of Richard Rothwell and is fined
12d., and must bee stripped naked from the middle upwards on Monday the
fourteenth day of this instant January betweene the houres of 9 and
11 of the clocke in the forenoone and then openly whipped on his back
untill his body be bloddy at the hinder part of a cart from the Old
Gatehouse through Long Ditch, Duke Street, and Charles Street in the
parish of St. Margaret’s Westminster, and back againe, from the said
Charles Street, through Duke Street and Long Ditch, to the said Old
Gatehouse. Hee is committed to the New Prison of the Gatehouse, ther to
remayne in safe custody untill he shall undergoe his said punishment,
and pay his said fine, and then be delivered paying his fees iiis.
viiid.”
The following history of heartless duplicity in high places is told
in the memoirs of De Grammont. The victim was one of the earliest
actresses on the stage:—
“The Earl of Oxford fell in love with a handsome, graceful actress,
belonging to the Duke’s theatre, who performed to perfection,
particularly the part of Roxana in a very fashionable new play:
insomuch that she ever after retained that name. This creature being
both very virtuous and very modest, or, if you please, wonderfully
obstinate, proudly rejected the presents and addresses of the Earl
of Oxford. The resistance inflamed his passion: he had recourse to
invectives and even spells: but all in vain. This disappointment had
such an effect upon him, that he could neither eat nor drink: this did
not signify to him: but his passion at length became so violent that he
could neither play nor smoke. In this extremity, Love had recourse to
Hymen; the Earl of Oxford, one of the first peers of the realm, is, as
you know, a very handsome man: he is of the Order of the Garter, which
greatly adds to an air naturally noble. In short, from his outward
appearance, you would suppose he was really possessed of some sense:
but as soon as ever you hear him speak you are perfectly convinced to
the contrary. This passionate lover presented her with a promise of
marriage in due form, signed with his own hand: she would not, however,
rely upon this: but the next day she thought there could be no danger,
when the Earl himself came to her lodgings attended by a clergyman and
another man for a witness: the marriage was accordingly solemnized
with all due ceremonies, in the presence of one of her fellow-players,
who attended as a witness on her part. You will suppose, perhaps, that
the new countess had nothing to do but to appear at court according
to her rank, and to display the earl’s arms upon her carriage. This
was far from being the case. When examination was made concerning the
marriage, it was found to be a mere deception: it appeared that the
pretended priest was one of my lord’s trumpeters, and the witness his
kettle-drummer. The parson and his companion never appeared after the
ceremony was over, and as for the other witness, he endeavoured to
persuade her that the Sultana Roxana might have supposed in some part
or other of a play, that she was really married. It was all to no
purpose that the poor creature claimed the protection of the laws of
God and man: both which were violated and abused, as well as herself,
by this infamous imposition: in vain did she throw herself at the
king’s feet to demand justice: she had only to rise up again without
redress: and happy might she think herself to receive an annuity of one
thousand crowns, and to resume the name of Roxana, instead of Countess
of Oxford.”
The strange story of Lord Sanquhar’s revenge belongs to the reign
of James the First; it is the story of a madman: a man who went mad
with brooding over a sense of shame. He was a Scottish nobleman, and
he came to Whitefriars to practise fencing with one or other of the
fencing-masters who had lodgings in Alsatia. He was playing with a
master named Turner, and in the course of their play he received the
point or the button of his adversary’s foil in his eye, the result of
which accident was the loss of that eye altogether. The accident, it is
said, was much regretted by Turner; considering how much it reflected
upon his professional skill, this is not surprising. Lord Sanquhar,
however, sometime visited the court of the French King Henry IV. When
the King was in discourse with him he observed the loss of the eye and
asked how that occurred. “By a sword,” said Sanquhar. “Does the man
live?” asked the King.
This question set Lord Sanquhar brooding over the thing until he
persuaded himself that his honour demanded the death of Turner. It
is, however, wonderful that he should have perversely believed that
his honour demanded the murder of Turner by two hired assassins. It
was five years after the accident of the foil. The two men went to
Whitefriars about seven in the evening. They found Turner sitting
before his house with a friend. Apparently Turner knew them, for he
invited them to drink; whereupon one of them, Carliel, turning round to
cock the pistol, presented it and fired, the bullet entering the man’s
heart, so that he fell back, dead. They then fled; one of them ran up a
_cul de sac_ and was taken on the spot; the other tried to escape into
Scotland; and Lord Sanquhar tried to hide himself in the country.
They were all three caught. The two murderers were hanged opposite the
great gate of Whitefriars—now the entrance to Bouverie Street; the
noble lord was hanged in New Palace Yard.
We hear a great deal about debtors’ prisons in the course of the
eighteenth century. Some effort was made in the seventeenth century to
investigate their condition.
In 1677 a committee was appointed to examine into the security, not
the proper treatment, of the prisoners of the King’s Bench and Fleet
Street. Joseph Cooling, Marshal of the Marshalsea, deposed that he had
given, for his office, security for £10,000 and paid, besides, a rent
of £1400 a year. He said that he gave no liberty to the prisoners to
go out; that those who would not find security were not allowed even
to leave the Rules unless attended by his servants; that his servants
saw that everybody was in his lodging at nightfall; that some prisoners
had a whole house to themselves; that the reason of the Rules was that
the prison would not hold all the prisoners; that there was a table of
fees, and that he never took more than the table allowed.
Manlove, Warden of the Fleet, deposed that his office was taxed at £600
a year; that he took security from the prisoners before he suffered
them to go into the Rules, and so on.
Then came the evidence of ten prisoners. They swore that when the
Commissioners of Bankrupts went to the prison in order to examine one
Farrington, the Marshal could only produce him twice out of eleven
times that he was wanted; that when the Commissioners’ messenger
entered the prison, the prisoners jumped upon him. The evidence on this
point is not clear. Robert Black, another prisoner, gave evidence as to
the Marshal’s exactions and tyranny. He himself had signed a petition
against these exactions, and was in consequence forcibly removed to the
poor side, where the exercise yard was encumbered with sheds and where
he had to sleep in a damp cellar 4 feet underground, 18 feet square,
with nineteen others: that prisoners had been locked up day and night,
their friends refused admission to them. This evidence of Robert Black
was confirmed by others.
Anne Moseley, another prisoner, gave evidence as to the filthy
condition of the place where she had to sleep; she also accused the
Marshal of taking £10 from her for permission to live at home and then
putting her on the poor side. George Phillips, another prisoner, swore
that he, with three others, was put into a room 16 feet by 15 feet, for
which they had to pay a rent of £24:6:6 a year, though it was worth
no more than £4 a year; that the Marshal let a number of such rooms,
some of them worth no more than £6 a year, at rents of £24, £36, £46,
and £62 a year.
Other prisoners deposed that whereas a table of fees had been laid down
by a commissioner in the third year of Queen Elizabeth and exhibited
in a frame hung up in the common hall of the prison; and whereas the
scale of fees had been further established by the 22nd and 23rd Charles
II., the warden of the Fleet, Richard Manlove, levied larger fees and
threatened to put the prisoners in irons if they were not paid.
There does not appear, however, to have been any redress of these
grievances. The difficulty in the minds of the judges was not as to the
treatment of the prisoner by the wardens, but as to their safe custody
and the keepers’ court before which the wardens should be tried in
case of allowing the prisoners to escape. In other words, a prisoner
for debt was regarded partly as a criminal who was rightly punished
by being kept in a damp dungeon, and nearly starved to death, and
partly as an obstinate person who refused to pay his just debts and was
therefore very properly maltreated.
In the year 1613 Mr. R. J., moved by the consideration of the
wickedness to be found in this City, and of the dangers and temptations
to which young men are exposed, completed a pamphlet of warning and
exposure. It is entitled “Looke on me London.” The title page goes on:—
“I am an honest Englishman, ripping up the bowels
of mischief lurking in thy Suburbs and Precincts.
Take heed
The hangman’s halter and the Beadle’s Whip,
Will make the Fool dance and the Knave to skip.”
The pamphlet shows, what one might have suspected, the protection
afforded by the suburbs and parts of London outside the City and
the liberties where the Lord Mayor had no jurisdiction. It was
at an innocent-looking ordinary that the young man first met the
companion who led him to destruction. He was a handsome, well-dressed,
well-spoken gentleman; he was free with his money; his manners were
easy and courteous; he laughed readily; he was known at the house,
where the drawers ran to fetch him all he wanted; it was an act of
courtesy when he spoke to the young gentleman come up from the country
to study law, as becomes one who will be a country gentleman and will
live on his estate. This brave gentleman not only condescended to
speak to the stranger, but he began to talk to him of the sights and
pleasures of the town. Would he see the play? The Curtain Theatre was
open that afternoon. Would he cross the river to see a famous fencing
match at which two would fight till one was disabled? Would he choose
rather a bear-baiting? There would be one in Paris Gardens, or, if
he liked it better, the gentleman knew where a gaming table could be
found, or a quiet hour could be spent over the dice. Or—and here he
whispered—would the young gentleman like to visit a certain _bona roba_
of his acquaintance? Upon her and her friends this friendly person
enlarged with so much eloquence that the young gentleman was inflamed,
and, forgetting his principles and his virtue, begged his friend to
take him to the house of these celestial beings.
Now this gallant of such worshipful appearance was nothing but a
“shifter” who lived by picking up such simple persons, enticing them
into the company of disorderly women, cheating at cards and dice.
“Yet for all this, my brave Shifter hath a more costly reckoning to
give him, for being thus growne into acquaintance, hee will in a
familiar kinde of courtesie accompany him up and downe the Citty,
and in the end will come unto a Mercer’s or Gold-smith’s shoppe,
of whom the young Gentleman is well knowne; there will he cheapen
velvet, satten, jewels, or what him liketh, and offer his new friend’s
credit for the payment; he will with so bold a countenance aske this
friendship, that the Gentleman shall bee to seeke of excuse to deny
him: well, although the penyworths of the one bee not very good, yet
the payment of the other is sure to bee currant.
Thus, by prodigall ryots, vaine company, and rash suretiship many of
our English yong Gentlemen are learned to say—
‘I wealthy was of late,
Though needy now be:
Three things have changed my state.
Dice, Wine, and Venerie.’”
Presently the young gentleman falls into the hands of the money-lender:—
“After all this there seizeth upon the needy Gentleman thus consumed
another Devouring Caterpillar, which is the Broker for money: one
that is either an old Banker-out citizen, or some smooth-conditioned
unthrifty Gentleman farre in debt, some one of these will helpe him to
credit with some of their late creditors with a single protestation
of meere curtesie. But by your favour, they will herein deale most
cunningly. For the citizen Broker (after money taken out for his
paines, considering for the time given, and losse in selling of the
wares put together) will bring the yong Gentleman fifty pounds currant
money for a hundred pounds good debt.
Mary, the Gentleman broker will deale more gallanter, for he will be
bounde with his fellow Gentleman for a hundred pound, sharing the money
equally betweene them, not without solemne promise to discharge his
owne fifty, and if need be, the whole hundred pounds assurance.”
The worst places are the gaming houses.
“Thus one mischiefe drawes on another, and in my opinion gaming houses
are the chiefe Fountaines thereof; which wicked places first nourisheth
our yong men of England in pride, then acquainteth them with sundry
shifting companions, whereof one sort cozeneth them at dice, cardes,
another sort consume them with riotous meetings, another sort by
Brokage bringeth them in debt, and out of credite, and then awaiteth
covetousnesse and usury to cease upon their livings, and the officious
sergiant upon their liberties: and all this (as I said before)
principally proceeds by the frequenting of gaming houses.”
Where do the rogues of all kinds haunt and find refuge?
“Now remaineth the discovery of the third sort of these haunts, which
are placed in the suburbs of the Citty, in Allies, Gardanes, and
other obscure corners, out of the common walkes of the magistrates.
The daily Guestes of these privy houses are maister-lesse men, needy
Shifters, Theeves, Cut-purses, unthrifty servants, both serving-men and
Prentises: Here a man may picke out mates for all purposes save such
as are good: here a man may finde out fellowes, that for a bottle of
wine will make no more conscience to kill a man than a butcher a beast:
Here closely lie Saint Nicholas Clearkes, that with a good Northerne
Gelding, will gaine more by a Halter, than an honest yeoman will with a
teame of good horses: Here are they that will not let to deceive their
father, to rob their brother, and fire their neighbour’s house for an
advantage. These brave companions will not sticke to spend frankly
though they have neither lands nor goods by the dead, nor honestly by
nature. But how will this hold out; Fire will consume wood without
maintenance, and Ryot make a weake purse without supply.
Gentlemen (for the most part) have lands to make money, and the yong
citizens way to get credite: but these idle fellowes have neither lands
nor credite, nor will live by any honest meanes or occupation: yet have
they hands to filtch, heads to deceive, and friends to receive, and by
these helpes, most commonly shift they badly well.
The other upon currant assurance, perhaps, get money for twenty pounds
in the hundred, but these that worst may hold the candle: they upon
their owne, or upon their maisters apparell, Brasse, Pewter, Linnin,
Wollen, or such like, will find Brokers or Friperers, that for eight
pence in the pound for every monthe’s use, will boldly for halfe the
value take these pawnes.”
The writer goes on to describe some of the tricks of usurers. They are
so hard-hearted—but he does not consider that the profession must begin
with a flinty heart— that they neither fear God nor reverence man;
that they will neither pardon their own father nor acknowledge their
mother, nor regard their brothers, and will even make merchandise of
their own children. They bear false evidence, “offend the widow and
oppress the orphan. Oh, how great is this folly of theirs! to lose
life, to seek death, and to banish themselves from heaven eternally.”
As for the various tricks that are practised:—
“I know a Broker that will take no interest for his money, but will
have the lease of your house, or your land, in use, receiving rent for
the same till you pay your principall againe, which will come to a
greater gaine than threescore in the hundred. I knowe another that will
take no interest money, but will have Pewter, Brasse, Sheetes, Plate,
Table-Clothes, Napkins, and such like things, to use in his house, till
his money come home, which will loose more in the wearing than the
interest of the money will come to.
I know another that will take a pawne twice worth the money that hee
lends, and agree with the Borrower to redeeme it at a day, or loose
it, by which meanes the poore borrower is forced sometimes for want of
money to loose his pawne for halfe the valew.
I know another that will not lend, but buy at small prices, and
covenant with the borrower to buy the same againe, at such a price, at
such a day, or loose it. This is a fellow that seekes to cozen the Law,
but let him take heed lest the devill his good maister cozens not him,
and at the last carry him post into hell.
I know another that will lend out his money to men of occupations, as
to Butchers, Bakers, and such like, upon conditions to bee partners in
their gaines but not in their losses, by which meanes hee that takes
all the paines and ventures all is forced to give the Broker halfe the
profit for his money.
I know another, for his money lending to a Carpenter, a Brick-layer, or
a Plaisterer, will agree with them for so many daies worke, or so many
weekes, for the loane of his money, which if all reckonings bee cast
will come to a deere interest.
I know many about this citty that will not bee seene to be Brokers
themselves, but suffer their wives to deale with their money, as to
lend a shilling for a peny a weeke. To Fish-wives, Oister-women,
Oringe-wenches and such like, these be they that looke about the citty
like rats and weasels, so gnaw poore people alive, and yet go invisible.
This if it be well considered of, is a Jewish Brokage, for indeed the
Jewes first brought usury and brokage into England, which now by long
sufferance have much blemished the ancient vertues of this Kingdome:
let us but remember this one example, how that in the time of King
Henry the Third, the good cittizens of London, in one night slew five
hundred Jewes, for that a Jew took a Christian penny in the shilling
usury, and ever after got them banished the city: but surely those
Brokers aforesaid deserve worse than Jewes, for they be like unto
Strumpets, for they receive all men’s money, as well the Beggar’s as
the Gentleman’s: nay, they will themselves take money upon Brokage, to
bring their trade into a better Custome, which in my minde is a wicked
custome to live only by sinne.”
In the New Exchange, Strand, at the sign of the “Three Spanish
Gypsies,” lived from 1632 to 1649 Thomas Ratford and Ann his wife. They
kept a shop for the sale of washballs, powder, gloves, and such things;
the wife taught girls plain work, and about the year 1667 she became
sempstress to Monk, then a Colonel, and carried linen to his place. Her
father was one John Clarges, a farrier at the Savoy, and farrier to
Colonel Monk in 1632. He was a man of some success in trade, because he
promoted a Maypole on the site of the Strand Cross. He died in 1648. In
1649 Mrs. Ratford and her husband “fell out and parted.” In 1652 she
married General Monk.
Years afterwards the question arose in a court of law whether Ratford
was dead at the time of the marriage. Witnesses swore they had seen
him, but as he had never turned up to receive money due to him, which
was inconceivable if he were living, nor had he visited any of his
friends, nor was there any occasion why he should have kept out of the
way, unless it could be proved that the Duchess paid him for silence,
and as the question was only raised after all were dead, the verdict
of the jury was in favour of the legality of the marriage. The story
which represents Ann Clarges as the daughter of a washerwoman who
carried the linen which her mother had washed to Monk’s house is thus
completely disproved. Since her father was farrier to Monk in 1632, it
is possible that he noticed the girl before her marriage; it is also
quite possible that some kind of _liaison_ was carried on between Monk
and Mrs. Ratford; this perhaps was the reason of the separation, and
the marriage took place, one thinks, as soon as the death of Ratford
was known.
Thomas Bancroft, grandson of Archbishop Bancroft, was for many years
one of the Lord Mayor’s officers of the City, who in the execution
of his office, by information and summoning the citizens before the
Lord Mayor upon the most trifling occasions, and for many things not
belonging to his office, not only pillaged the poor, but likewise
many of the rich, who, rather than lose time in appearing before
the said magistrate, gave money to get rid of this common pest of
citizens, which, together with his numerous quarterages from brokers,
annually amassed a considerable sum of money. By these and other
mercenary practices he effectually incurred the hatred and ill-will
of the citizens of all denominations, that the persons who attended
his funeral obsequies with great difficulty saved his corpse from
being jostled off the bearers’ shoulders in the church by the enraged
populace, who, seizing the bells, rang them for joy at his unlamented
death, a deportment heretofore unheard of among the London rabble.