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Authors: Alan Brooke, David Brandon
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indicate that they might be witches. They might also be called upon in investigations where female corpses needed to be examined for evidence of violence (Gaskill 2000: 256).
As London continued to expand, particularly in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, substantial numbers of women migrated there to seek work. Many of them were widowed, deserted or unmarried mothers. They were a very vulnerable group as is evident from the lives of some of those who ended their days at Tyburn. Peter Linebaugh’s analysis shows that of ninety-two women executed at Tyburn between 1703 and 1772, two-thirds were born outside London and ten had been convicted of infanticide (Linebaugh 1993: 148). Women were employed in large numbers in unskilled and low-paid work in the sweated trades and in domestic service. Their employment was particularly at risk at times of economic slump when it was all too easy for them to drift into prostitution and its concomitant, crime.
However not all the women who died at Tyburn fell into the category of the unskilled and underprivileged. In 1523 Lady Alice Hungerford was hanged at Tyburn and afterwards buried in Greyfriars. John Stow mentions a monument there to ‘Alice Hungerford hanged at Tiburne for murdering her husband’ (Stow 1999: 305). Although her name was given as Alice, it was in fact Agnes. She was the second wife of Sir Edward Hungerford, an influential West Country landowner and sheriff but it was her first husband, John Cotell, whom she was found guilty of murdering. This was a curious case because nobody suggested that she had committed the murder herself: those who actually carried it out were William Mathew and William Inges. After strangling Cotell, they had burnt his body in the furnace of Farleigh Castle kitchen. Agnes was charged with receiving, comforting and aiding the two murderers some months later when the incident came to light. William Inges, who was a servant of Agnes, pleaded benefit of clergy but this was not allowed. Her elevated social status did not prevent Agnes being found guilty, incarcerated in the Tower and eventually dying horribly at Tyburn.
The 1530s were a politically sensitive period and to speak out against Henry and his marriage to Anne Boleyn was regarded as treason. One who did so was Elizabeth Barton, a maidservant from Aldington in Kent who was known as the ‘Holy Maid of Kent’. Since 1525 Mary had suffered from a form of epilepsy which gave rise to trances. For this reason she was credited with having some form of second sight and this ‘divine gift’ made her famous. Elizabeth entered the Benedictine nunnery of St Sepulchre at Canterbury in 1527 where Catholic priests made use of her condemnation of Luther’s ideas. When Henry had formally divorced Catherine of Aragon in 1533, Elizabeth was outraged and was foolish enough to have predicted publicly that Henry would die within a month of his marriage to Anne Boleyn. Considering that it was Elizabeth, who was already well known, who had made this prediction, such an outburst could not be ignored and she was arrested for treason. She was taken to the Tower and tortured and hanged at Tyburn in April 1534. It is reputed that hers was the only female head ever to be spiked and exhibited on the drawbridge gate of London Bridge.
Another woman who died at Tyburn was Margaret Ward who helped a priest named Watson to escape from prison. She was flogged and suspended by her wrists for such a long time that she was crippled and temporarily paralysed. She was executed on 30 August 1588. We can be fairly certain that as well as the small number of recorded women who died at Tyburn, there must have been many others whose deaths scarcely warranted a mention. There is likely to have been a continuous procession of anonymous victims such as the ‘five men and four women executed for theft’ in June 1562 (Nichols 1848: 285).
The sixteenth century saw a great increase of trials and executions for
As London continued to expand, particularly in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, substantial numbers of women migrated there to seek work. Many of them were widowed, deserted or unmarried mothers. They were a very vulnerable group as is evident from the lives of some of those who ended their days at Tyburn. Peter Linebaugh’s analysis shows that of ninety-two women executed at Tyburn between 1703 and 1772, two-thirds were born outside London and ten had been convicted of infanticide (Linebaugh 1993: 148). Women were employed in large numbers in unskilled and low-paid work in the sweated trades and in domestic service. Their employment was particularly at risk at times of economic slump when it was all too easy for them to drift into prostitution and its concomitant, crime.
However not all the women who died at Tyburn fell into the category of the unskilled and underprivileged. In 1523 Lady Alice Hungerford was hanged at Tyburn and afterwards buried in Greyfriars. John Stow mentions a monument there to ‘Alice Hungerford hanged at Tiburne for murdering her husband’ (Stow 1999: 305). Although her name was given as Alice, it was in fact Agnes. She was the second wife of Sir Edward Hungerford, an influential West Country landowner and sheriff but it was her first husband, John Cotell, whom she was found guilty of murdering. This was a curious case because nobody suggested that she had committed the murder herself: those who actually carried it out were William Mathew and William Inges. After strangling Cotell, they had burnt his body in the furnace of Farleigh Castle kitchen. Agnes was charged with receiving, comforting and aiding the two murderers some months later when the incident came to light. William Inges, who was a servant of Agnes, pleaded benefit of clergy but this was not allowed. Her elevated social status did not prevent Agnes being found guilty, incarcerated in the Tower and eventually dying horribly at Tyburn.
The 1530s were a politically sensitive period and to speak out against Henry and his marriage to Anne Boleyn was regarded as treason. One who did so was Elizabeth Barton, a maidservant from Aldington in Kent who was known as the ‘Holy Maid of Kent’. Since 1525 Mary had suffered from a form of epilepsy which gave rise to trances. For this reason she was credited with having some form of second sight and this ‘divine gift’ made her famous. Elizabeth entered the Benedictine nunnery of St Sepulchre at Canterbury in 1527 where Catholic priests made use of her condemnation of Luther’s ideas. When Henry had formally divorced Catherine of Aragon in 1533, Elizabeth was outraged and was foolish enough to have predicted publicly that Henry would die within a month of his marriage to Anne Boleyn. Considering that it was Elizabeth, who was already well known, who had made this prediction, such an outburst could not be ignored and she was arrested for treason. She was taken to the Tower and tortured and hanged at Tyburn in April 1534. It is reputed that hers was the only female head ever to be spiked and exhibited on the drawbridge gate of London Bridge.
Another woman who died at Tyburn was Margaret Ward who helped a priest named Watson to escape from prison. She was flogged and suspended by her wrists for such a long time that she was crippled and temporarily paralysed. She was executed on 30 August 1588. We can be fairly certain that as well as the small number of recorded women who died at Tyburn, there must have been many others whose deaths scarcely warranted a mention. There is likely to have been a continuous procession of anonymous victims such as the ‘five men and four women executed for theft’ in June 1562 (Nichols 1848: 285).
The sixteenth century saw a great increase of trials and executions for
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