We have seen that the original seat of the family was at Heytesbury, in Wilts, distant from Farleigh about twelve miles, and here Sir Edward commonly lived. In addition to Farleigh Castle, Sir Edward possessed a great London house, standing with its gardens where now is Charing Cross station. From this house were named Hungerford Street and Hungerford Stairs. On the site of the house and garden was built by a later Hungerford, in the reign of Charles II., Hungerford Market, which continued till the site was taken for the railway station. The foot-bridge over the Thames, starting from this point, was known as Hungerford Bridge, a name still sometimes given to its successor, the existing railway bridge. It was in Hungerford Street that Charles Dickens, a child of ten, began life by sticking labels on blacking bottles.
Sir Edward made his will on December 14, 1521. By it, after leaving legacies to certain churches and friends, “the residue of all my goods, debts, cattalls, juells, plate, harnesse, and all other moveables whatsoever they be, I freely geve and bequeth to Agnes Hungerforde my wife.” She was also appointed sole executrix. Sir Edward died on January 24, 1522, six weeks after making this will.
The husband murdered was not Sir Edward Hungerford, but a first husband, John Cotell. The outlines of the story are given by Mr. Hardy from the Coram Rege Roll for Michaelmas term, 14 Henry VIII.:—
“On the Monday next after the feast of S. Bartholomew, in the 14th year of the now king (25 August, 1522), at Ilchester, before John Fitz James and his fellow-justices of oyer and terminer for the county of Somerset, William Mathewe, late of Heytesbury, in the county of Wilts, yeoman, William Inges, late of Heytesbury, in the county aforesaid, yeoman, [were indicted for that] on the 26th July, in the 10th year of the now Lord the King (1518), with force and arms made an assault upon John Cotell, at Farley, in the county of Somerset, by the procurement and abetting of Agnes Hungerford, late of Heytesbury, in the county of Wilts, widow, at that time the wife of the aforesaid John Cotell. And a certain linen scarf called a kerchier (quandam flameam lineam vocatam ‘a kerchier’) which the aforesaid William and William then and there held in their hands, put round the neck of the aforesaid John Cotell, and with the aforesaid linen scarf him, the said John Cotell, then and there feloniously did throttle, suffocate, and strangle, so that the aforesaid John Cotell immediately died, and so the aforesaid William Maghewe [Mathewe] and William Inges, by the procurement and abetting of the aforesaid Agnes, did then and there feloniously murder, &c., the aforesaid John Cotell, against the peace of the Lord the King, and afterwards the aforesaid William, and William, the body of the aforesaid John Cotell did then and there put into a certain fire in the furnace of the kitchen in the Castle of Farley aforesaid, and the body of the same John in the fire aforesaid in the Castle of Farley aforesaid, in the county of Somerset aforesaid, did burn and consume.”
The indictment charged that Agnes Hungerford, otherwise called Agnes Cotell, late of Heytesbury, in the county of Wilts, widow, late the wife of the aforesaid John Cotell, well knowing that the aforesaid William Mathewe and William Inges had done the felony and murder aforesaid, did receive, comfort and aid them on 28th December, 1518.
Such was the indictment, “which said indictment the now Lord the King afterwards for certain reasons caused to come before him to be determined, &c.” All three accused were committed to the Tower of London; “and now, to wit, on Thursday next after the quinzaine of St. Martin (November 27, 1522), in the same term, before the Lord the King at Westminster, in their proper persons came the aforesaid William Mathewe, William Inges, and Agnes Hungerford, brought here to the bar by Sir Thomas Lovell, Knight, Constable of the Tower of London, by virtue of the writ of the Lord the King to him thereupon directed.”
So they were brought to trial, and all found guilty. William Mathewe and Lady Agnes Hungerford were sentenced to be hanged; William Inges pleaded benefit of clergy. The plea was contested on the ground that he had committed bigamy, by which he lost his right to claim his clergy. The question was referred to the Bishop of Salisbury, who proved that Inges was a bigamist, and Inges was therefore also sentenced to be hanged. There is no record of a third execution; the servant hanged at the same time as Lady Agnes Hungerford was therefore William Mathewe.
The story is still incomplete: it may be hoped that records somewhere exist the discovery of which will tell us more. It will be observed that Lady Hungerford was indicted, not for the murder of her husband, but for receiving, comforting, and aiding, five months after the fact, those who, by her procurement, had murdered him. What was the nature of the comfort and aid thus given? Had something of the story leaked out, and was Lady Hungerford compelled to protect the murderers? Again, what part in the tragedy was played by Sir Edward? It is clear that at the time of the murder Agnes Cotell was supreme at Farleigh Castle. She brought over from Sir Edward’s other house the two men who committed the deed; she was so fully in command of Farleigh Castle that she could secure the use of the furnace for disposing of the body of the murdered man. It is not difficult to divine what were the relations between Sir Edward and the wife of Cotell, who was probably employed in some capacity on the estate. How did Agnes Cotell account for his disappearance? And not his disappearance only; as a preliminary step towards the marriage, Sir Edward must have been satisfied that Cotell was dead. Did he know the nature of his death? Had he a share in this great crime, or was he merely the helpless victim of an ambitious woman, bent on obtaining a great position, and reckless as to the means to be employed to obtain it? There may have been in Sir Edward a tendency towards degeneracy; his son by the first wife was executed at the Tower in 1540 for an abnormal crime. But if Sir Edward was ignorant of the murder, there must have been suspicions, perhaps necessitating the active interference of Lady Hungerford when she received, comforted, and aided the murderers. There must have been whispers, rising to open denunciation when Lady Hungerford’s protector, her husband, all-powerful in the county, had quitted the scene. For more than three years justice was blind and deaf, but only seven months after Sir Edward’s death the criminals were indicted. If we take into account the imperfect means of communication then existing, we shall find reason to believe that the law must have been set in motion very soon after Sir Edward’s death.
It will have been observed that one of Lady Hungerford’s servants pleaded his clergy, that is, he claimed the indulgence accorded by law to those who could read. In 1522 it was still the law that the privilege could be claimed by one who had committed murder. In 1531 an Act was passed by the provisions of which no person committing petty treason, murder, or felony was admitted to his clergy under the status of sub-deacon (23 Henry VIII., c. 1).
William Inges’ claim would have been perforce admitted but for the singular objection on the score of bigamy. The exception seems strange, but was founded on well-understood provisions of the law. A bigamist, it must be remembered, was not what we of to-day mean when we use the word. A bigamist was one who had married two wives, the second after the decease of the first, or who had married a widow. We will return presently to this question of bigamy, after noting what Sir Thomas Smith, writing fifty years later, says as to clergy. Let us, however, premise that benefit of clergy means, as indeed the name imports, a privilege of the clergy consisting originally in the right of the clergy to be free from the jurisdiction of lay courts, and to be subject to the ecclesiastical courts only. Sir James Fitzjames Stephen aptly compares it to “the privilege claimed by British and other foreign subjects in Turkey, in Egypt, and in China, of being tried before their own courts.” The privilege was extended by 25 Edward III. (1351-2), st. 6, c. 4, to all manner of clerks, as well secular as religious. The statute was construed as being applicable to all persons who could read, and its effect is succinctly stated in “Piers Plowman,” written a few years later:—