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Hanging for Felony: the Rule of Law in Elizabethan Colchester

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Joel B. Samaha
Joel B. Samaha
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
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Extract

Just after midnight on 24 January 1577, Alice Neate crept into a bedchamber at the New Hythe in Colchester and slit her sister-in-law's throat. She wrapped the body in a red blanket and dragged it out into the woodhouse yard where it was discovered the following morning. An intensive investigation immediately ensued. All the chief suspects except Alice Neate, namely neighbours who had visited the Neate cottage on the evening prior to the murder, satisfactorily established their innocence. The testimony against Alice was overwhelming. Even her husband conceded that his sister had been murdered and prayed, ‘God save [my] wife!’ To be sure it was only indirect evidence, yet nonetheless damaging because it came from her own husband. Her daughter Abigail's testimony, however, was utterly devastating. At first steadfastly maintaining her mother's innocence, Abigail's support collapsed when under pressure of ‘straight examination’ she finally admitted that her mother had persuaded her to conceal clear proof of the homicide. Abigail shared the bedchamber with her murdered aunt, and since she had been wide awake during the killing had been an eyewitness to the whole bloody tragedy. If that was not enough, Alice also had a clear motive. Her hatred of her sister-in-law was well known and stemmed from her belief that the murdered woman had herself murdered two of Alice's children. On the basis of this overwhelming case against her, Alice Neate was committed to prison where she was held until the next gaol delivery at which she was duly prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to hang for murder, according to the blood law of felony.

Type
Articles and Communications
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , December 1978 , pp. 763 - 782
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

1 Colchester Sessions Rolls (hereafter S/R) 2/10; Colchester Examinations and Recognizances Books (hereafter E&R) 1/233–46.

2 E&R 1/296, S/R 2/15.

3 See Samaha, J., ‘Introduction’, Colchester Examination and Recognizance Books.Google Scholar

4 Pound, R., ‘The causes of popular dissatisfaction with the administration of justice’, American Bar Association Report, XXIX (1906), 395–417.Google Scholar

5 Harrison, , The description of England (Edelen, Georges, ed., Ithaca, N.Y., 1968), pp. 194–5.Google Scholar

6 Cockburn, James S., A history of English Assizes (Cambridge 1972), pt. II.Google Scholar

7 It should be noted that most of the evidence on the point is drawn from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and not from the sixteenth. Perhaps it is a function of the survival of records but the volume and clarity of complaints increases markedly after 1600.

8 E&R 2/14.

9 S/R 3/16.

10 See Cockburn, Assizes, who was ‘surprised’ that so many suspects appeared for trial in view of the terrible conditions of the gaols.

11 Cockburn, , Assizes, pp. 103–4.Google Scholar

12 S/R 2/2.

13 Essex Record Office. Morant manuscripts (hereafter Morant) 41/71–6.

14 Ibid.

15 E&R 1/225–6.

16 E&R 1/252.

17 E&R 1/251–65.

18 E&R 1/315–21.

19 Hassell-Smith, A., County and court (Oxford, 1974), chs v and vi.Google Scholar

20 Morant 46/135.

21 Morant 46/303, 309; 47/79.

22 E&R 1/212–14.

23 E&R 1/286; S/R.

24 E&R 1/349.

25 Martin, G., The story of Colchester (Colchester 1959), pp. 48–50.Google Scholar

26 Ibid.

27 E&R 2/299.

28 E&R 1/352.

29 E&R 2/272.

30 E&R 2/298.

31 E&R 1/344.

32 It is true that in three cases the appearance of witnesses cannot be proved absolutely, because the calendars of witnesses are so badly damaged that it is not always possible to be certain of all attendant notes.

33 S/R 2/12.

34 Elton, G. R., Policy and police (Cambridge 1972), ch. VIGoogle Scholar; Samaha, , Colchester Examinations, ch. II.Google Scholar

35 See W. Holdsworth, A history of English law, in general and Samaha, Colchester Examinations, ch. II for specific discussion of the privilege in Essex during this period.

36 S/R 2/13; 3/17, 18.

37 See Samaha, ibid., for a discussion of the point.

38 18 Eliz. c. 24.

39 S/R 2/10.

40 S/R 2/20, 13.

41 S/R 2/19.

42 S/R 3/17, 8; 2/14.

43 E&R 20 March 1592–3 (uncalendared manuscript).

44 Cockburn, Assizes, especially the sections dealing with the criminal law.

45 Morant 47/335.

46 Morant 47/349.

47 Morant 47/341.

48 Morant 47/323.

49 Morant 41/71–6.

50 Folger Library, Bacon manuscripts, V.a. 197. Spelling and punctuation modernized.

51 Ibid., punctuation and spelling modernized.

52 See Green, T. A., ‘The jury and the English law of homicide, 1200–1600’, Michigan Law Review, LXXIV, no. 3 (1976), 413–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Societal concepts of criminal liability for homicide in medieval England’, Speculum, XLVII (1972), 699.Google Scholar

53 A good summary of this development is in Stephen, J. F., A history of the criminal law of England, I (London, 1883), 458–69.Google Scholar

54 See 18 Eliz. c. 24.

55 S/R 3/9.

56 S/R 3/10.

57 For a contrary view about accessories, see Cockburn, Assizes. Cockburn's conclusion that most principals were accessories does not hold up at all for the accused in Colchester, incidentally.

58 For a discussion of the origins and function of imprisonment see, Pugh, R. B., Imprisonment in medieval England (Cambridge, 1968).Google Scholar

59 Morant 47/319.

60 See Samaha, ‘Introduction’, Colchester Examinations, for a full discussion of the use of these ubiquitous devices in local law enforcement.

61 E&R 2/16, 273–80.

62 Morant 46/153.

63 See Samaba, Colchester Examinations for several examples.

64 See Cockburn, Assizes, for examples of these.

65 This point has been fully developed in Samaha, ‘Introduction’, Colchester Examinations.

66 Morant 47/319.

67 E&R 1/224.

68 E&R 2/30, 292–5, 325; S/R 3/11–14.

69 E&R 1/299.

70 E&R 1/296 and S/R 2/16.

71 Palgrave, F., The merchant and the friar (London, 1837), pp. 176–8Google Scholar for the argument that it was true even in the thirteenth century.

72 The most successful treatment of the charges is in Hay, Douglas brilliant ‘Property, authority and the criminal law’, in Thompson, (et al. eds.), Albion's fatal tree (London, 1975), pp. 17–63.Google Scholar This is so, despite the difference in time – he is writing of the eighteenth century – and even though he is trying to illustrate a point far different from mine – namely, that the death penalty was a means used by the elite of eighteenth-century England to secure deference to their social position.

73 I am grateful to Professor Stanford Lehmberg for this suggestion.

74 18 Eliz. c. 24, italics mine.

75 This and the following are based either upon specifically tabulated information drawn from Colchester Examinations and reported in the introduction to them, or are based upon impressions gained from the transcription of those records.

76 S/R 3/14, 4.

77 S/R 3/10.

78 Ibid.

79 Samaha, ‘Introduction’, Colchester Examinations. For an excellent discussion of alehouses and their clienteles, see Clark, , ‘The migrant in Kentish towns’, in Crisis and order in English towns, 1500–1700 (London 1972).Google Scholar

80 See above, note 68.

81 For a full discussion of the commissions, see Cockburn, , Assizes, especially ch. VI.Google Scholar