Crime and Punishment in Tudor England tells the story of the enactment of law and its penalties from Henry VII to Elizabeth I. The sixteenth century was remarkable in many ways. In England, it was the century of the Tudor Dynasty. It heralded the Reformation, William Shakespeare, the first appearance of bottled beer in London pubs, Sir Francis Drake, and the Renaissance. Oh, and the Spanish Armadas—all five of them! Yes, five armadas and all failures. It was a watershed century for crime and punishment. Henry VII’s paranoia about the loyalty of the nobility led to military-trained vagrants causing mayhem and murder. Henry VIII’s Reformation meant executions of those refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy. State-controlled religion—summed up through the five reigns as Roman Catholic; Anglo-Catholic; Protestant; Roman Catholic, and Sort of Protestant but I don’t mind so long as you swear the Oath of Supremacy—became an increasingly complex, not to say confusing, issue for ordinary people. Although primary sources are rare and sometimes incomplete, the life of criminals and the punishments meted out to them still fascinates. Read about John Daniell and how he tried to blackmail the Earl of Essex; the Stafford insurrection of 1486, the first serious opposition to the new king; the activities of con-man extraordinaire, Gregory Wisdom, and many more. Crime and punishment didn’t start with the Tudors and this book summarizes judicial practices built on tradition from the Roman occupation. It covers often gory details—what happens to the body when it is beheaded, burned, boiled, or hanged? Arranged in alphabetical order of crimes, it recounts tales of blackmail, infanticide, kidnapping, heresy, and sumptuary laws. Told with occasional low-key humor, the book also includes Tavern Talk, snippets of quirky information. Dip into it at your pleasure.

Crime and Punishment in Tudor England tells the story of the enactment of law and its penalties from Henry VII to Elizabeth I. The sixteenth century was remarkable in many ways. In England, it was the century of the Tudor Dynasty. It heralded the Reformation, William Shakespeare, the first appearance of bottled beer in London pubs, Sir Francis Drake, and the Renaissance. Oh, and the Spanish Armadas—all five of them! Yes, five armadas and all failures. It was a watershed century for crime and punishment. Henry VII’s paranoia about the loyalty of the nobility led to military-trained vagrants causing mayhem and murder. Henry VIII’s Reformation meant executions of those refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy. State-controlled religion—summed up through the five reigns as Roman Catholic; Anglo-Catholic; Protestant; Roman Catholic, and Sort of Protestant but I don’t mind so long as you swear the Oath of Supremacy—became an increasingly complex, not to say confusing, issue for ordinary people. Although primary sources are rare and sometimes incomplete, the life of criminals and the punishments meted out to them still fascinates. Read about John Daniell and how he tried to blackmail the Earl of Essex; the Stafford insurrection of 1486, the first serious opposition to the new king; the activities of con-man extraordinaire, Gregory Wisdom, and many more. Crime and punishment didn’t start with the Tudors and this book summarizes judicial practices built on tradition from the Roman occupation. It covers often gory details—what happens to the body when it is beheaded, burned, boiled, or hanged? Arranged in alphabetical order of crimes, it recounts tales of blackmail, infanticide, kidnapping, heresy, and sumptuary laws. Told with occasional low-key humor, the book also includes Tavern Talk, snippets of quirky information. Dip into it at your pleasure.

Now in its second edition, Stories of True Crime in Tudor and Stuart England has been updated to include more texts about witchcraft, murder, and sexual deviance and discussions about the historical climate within which crimes occurred; voice and print culture; and types of crime and criminals. This volume contains modernized and annotated chapbooks related to crimes such as murder, theft, infanticide, rape, and witchcraft with accompanying illustrations that depict the acts and punishments of criminals in Tudor and Stuart England. In this edition, special attention has been paid to demonstrating significant overlaps and encouraging students to question authors’ reasonings behind including multiple crimes in a single work. Alongside this, further useful prompts have been included to stimulate discussion about why parables were used to open chapbooks, the historical context underpinning certain criminal acts, the value of these sources to scholars, and how certain texts compare and contrast with others. With five new chapters and an updated introduction and bibliography, the second edition of Stories of True Crime in Tudor and Stuart England is an essential resource for all students of crime and punishment in early modern England.

In this welcome addition to his Crime History Series, Gregory Durston points to the lack of design and short-term expediency that typified Tudor law and order. But he also detects an emergent criminal justice system amidst royal patronage, protection, and the influence of wealthy magnates. Students of English history will have heard how benefit of clergy and the ‘neck verse’ might avoid a hanging, but what of other stratagems such as down-valuing stolen goods, cruentation, chance medley, pious perjury or John at Death (a non-existent culprit blamed by the accused and treated by juries as real); all devices used to mitigate the all-pervading death-for-felony rule. Together with other artifices deployed by courts to circumvent black-letter law the author also describes how poor, marginalised and illiterate citizens were those most likely to suffer unfairness, injustice and draconian punishment. He also describes the political intrigue and widescale corruption that were symptomatic of the era, alongside such diverse aspects as forfeiture of property, evidential ploys, the rise of the highwayman, religious persecution, witchcraft and infanticide crazes. At a time of shifting allegiances?—?and as Crown, church, judges, magistrates and officials wrestled over jurisdiction, central or local control, ‘ungodly customs’, laws of convenience or malleable definitions?—?never perhaps were facts or law so expertly engineered to justify or defend often curious outcomes. Part of Durston’s Crime History Series. Covers the entire Tudor era. Based on first-hand historical research. Fully referenced to hundreds of sources.

“Collates the most shocking killings and puzzling murder mysteries from the sixteenth century in fascinating detail” —Gazette & Herald In the Tudor age the murder rate was five times higher than it is today. Now, this unique true crime guide, The Tudor Murder Files, reveals just how bloody and brutal this fascinating era really was. From the dark days of Henry VIII to the turbulent times of Shakespeare, James Moore’s new book is the first to chart the period’s most gripping murder cases in all their grizzly detail. Featuring tales of domestic slaughter, sexual intrigue, and cunning assassinations, as well as murder mysteries worthy of Agatha Christie, the book vividly brings to life the violent crime wave that gripped the sixteenth century both at home and abroad. Enter a world in which stabbings were rife, guns were used to kill victims for the first time, and in which culprits frequently escaped justice. The book also reveals just how severe some of the penalties could be, with grisly punishments for those who dared to commit the gravest of crimes. Discover how one murderer was gruesomely pressed to death, another boiled alive for poisoning his victims, and meet some of history’s most notorious serial killers, including one considered so barbaric she was labelled a vampire. “Contains more than seventy real life murders, profiling over thirty cases in detail. And not only does James chart how killers were caught and dealt with by the justice system, he also discusses how murders were reported to the new, news hungry nation.” —Luton Today

Crime was a serious problem in Shakespeare's day, and those who broke the law were treated harshly. Vagrants and beggars were placed in the stocks or whipped out of town, while traitors and murderers were usually put to death. This book investigates the thieves, vagabonds, pickpockets, swindlers, rebels and cut-throats of Elizabethan England, and looks at how they were punished.

In this welcome addition to his Crime History Series, Gregory Durston points to the lack of design and short-term expediency that typified Tudor law and order. But he also detects an emergent criminal justice system amidst royal patronage, protection, and the influence of wealthy magnates.

Crime has been present in all cultures and societies, since the beginning of time. This work focuses on the punishments common in England around the time of Shakespeare and Milton, presenting descriptions of more than fifty criminal cases. Information comes from narratives printed for the popular news media at the time of the event. Details of everyday life in England and facts about the English legal environment of the era are brought to light. Also revealed through the narratives are issues present in society today--i. e., the status of women, poverty, and corruption. Individual cases are discussed under chapters devoted to specific types of crimes.