CHAPTER VIII

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.