In 1765, the coroner's inquest who sat upon the body of one, Howard, a schoolmaster of Litlington, who, "after shooting Mr. Whedd, of Fowlmere, cut his own throat," found a verdict of felo de se, upon which he was ordered to be buried in the high cross-way, but whether a stake was placed through the body, either in this or the Kneesworth case, is not stated. The custom of burying a felo de se at four cross-roads continued long after the barbarous and senseless indignity of driving a stake through the body was discontinued, and persons still living remember burials at such spots as the entrance to Melbourn, and at similar spots in other villages. Another penal order was for the body to be "anatomised" after execution, as in the case of a man named Stickwood for murdering Andrew Nunn, at Fowlmere, in 1775.
Sometimes as an alternative penalty for crimes was the system of enlistment for the Army and Navy, with which may be coupled the high-handed proceedings of the "Press-gang." The Press-gang was practically a recognised part of the machinery of the State. The law, as to recruiting, sanctioned what would now be considered most tyrannical proceedings; justices of the peace were directed to make "a speedy and effectual levy of such able-bodied men as are not younger than seventeen nor more than forty-five, nor Papists." The means for enforcing this, not only along river-sides, but often in inland country villages, was often brutal, and led to determined resistance and sometimes loss of life. There is a story in Cornwall of a bevy of girls dressing themselves up as sailors, and acting the part of the Press-gang so well that they actually put their own sweethearts to flight from the quarries in which they were working!
The dread of compulsory service was so great that the lot might fall upon men to whom the name of war was a terror. One case of this kind occurred in a village near Royston in which two men were drawn to proceed to Ireland for service, and one of them actually died of the shock and fright and sudden wrench from old associations, after reaching Liverpool on his way to Ireland!
On the subject of pressing for the services, the following characteristic entry occurs in the Royston parish books for the year 1790:—
"Ordered that the Wife of March Brown be permitted to leave the House as she says her husband is Pressed and gone to sea, and that she came to the parish for a few clothes only, as she can get her living in London by earning two shillings a Day by making Breeches for Rag fair."
Though the stocks and the gallows may seem a long way apart, yet they were really very near in the degrees of crime which linked them, and what now would appear a minor offence, had inevitably linked with it the "awful sentence of the law."
At the Bury St. Edmunds Assizes, in 1790, 14 persons received sentence of death. The extraordinary number of persons who were hung as the Assizes came round will be best understood by some figures of death sentences for the March Assizes, 1792:—Hertford 2, Cambs. 4, Bedford 4, Northampton 5, Chelmsford 4, Oxford 2, Thetford 2, Bury 6, York 17, Exeter 16, East Grinstead 3, Derby 2, Nottingham 2, Leicester 2, Gloucester 6, Taunton 3, Kingston 12. At one only of the above Assizes the number of prisoners of all kinds for trial was 85. In June, 1785, twenty-five persons were sentenced to death at the Old Bailey, and 15 of them were hung together the next week. In 1788 there were 81 capital convicts awaiting execution in Newgate, and in 1792 thirteen prisoners were sentenced to death for horse-stealing and lesser offences at a single sessions in London!
At the Herts. Assizes in 1802, John Wood, a carpenter, of Royston, was ordered to be transported for fourteen years for having some forged bank notes concealed in his workshop. In the same year, at the Cambs. Assizes, William Wright, a native of Foxton, was sentenced to death and executed at Cambridge, for uttering forged Bank of England notes. At the Hertford Assizes, in 1801, William Cox, for getting fire to a hovel of wheat at Walkern, was sentenced to death. Among other oddly sounding capital offences, I find that a man named Horn was sentenced to death at the Hertfordshire Assizes in 1791 for stealing some money from the breeches pocket of a man with whom he had slept. At the Cambs. Assizes, in 1812, Daniel Dawson was tried for an offence of poisoning a mare the property of William Adams, of Royston, and was sentenced to death, and executed at Cambridge about a fortnight afterwards.
Sheep-stealing, horse-stealing and highway robberies, were the chief offences with which capital punishment was connected, and associations were formed to prosecute offenders. The parishes of North Herts. were especially notable for sheep-stealing cases. In 1825, at the Herts. Spring Assizes, a man named Hollingsworth was indicted for stealing 55 sheep and 17 lambs, the property of William Lilley, at Therfield. The jury found the prisoner guilty and "the awful sentence of the law was pronounced upon him," so says the Chronicle—and at the July Assizes in the same year, Francis Anderson, for stealing one ewe lamb, the properly of Edward Logsden, at Therfield, was found guilty and "sentence of death was recorded." At the Cambs. Assizes in 1827, George Parry was indicted for sheep-stealing at Hauxton, and the judge "passed the awful sentence of death," remarking that the crime of sheep-stealing had so increased that it was necessary to make a severe example.
One of the most remarkable adventures of the pursuit of horse-stealers in this district occurred in 1822, and actually formed the subject of a small book [now before me] bearing the following curious title:—