The Privy Council addressed a letter to Mr. Recorder of London, Mr. Topcliffe, Nicholas Fuller, William Gerrard, and Mr. Altham, requiring them to examine strictly the two suspected persons, “and yf by those persuasions and other meanes you shall use you shall not be able to bring them to confesse the truthe of this horrible facte, then we require you to put them both or either of them to the manacles in Bridewell, that by compulsory meanes the truthe of this wicked murther may be discovered, and who were complices and privy to this confederacy and fact” (“Acts of the Privy Council,” New Series, xxviii. 187). The case is interesting as showing that torture was at this time used in ordinary criminal cases. All the dictionaries speak of manacles as instruments of restraint merely. In the present case they were evidently an instrument of torture. Its nature must have been well known to Shakespeare’s audiences, for in “The Tempest,” referred to the year 1610, Prospero says:—
“I’ll manacle thy neck and feet together”
(Act I., sc. 2).
From the Middlesex Sessions Rolls we learn that the murder was done on the night of November 12th. Richard Ainger the younger, Agnes, his wife, and Edward Ingram were tried for the crime. Richard and his wife pleaded Guilty, and were sentenced to be hanged. From Stow’s account it would appear that Richard alone was hanged. Ingram was found Not Guilty (Middlesex County Records, i. 241).
1598. On the tenth of July, 19. persons for fellony were hanged at Tyborne, & one pressed to death at Newgate of London (Stow, p. 787).
1598. The ninth of November, Edward Squire, of Greenewich was arraigned at Westminster condemned of high Treason, and on the 13. drawne from the Tower to Tyborne, and there hanged, bowelled, and quartered (Stow, p. 787).
1601. After the capture of Essex—
On the 12th of February, Thomas Lea (a kinsman of Sir Henry Lea’s, who had wore the Honour of the Garter) told Sir Robert Crofts, Captain of a Man of War, that ’twould be a glorious Enterprize for six brave mettl’d Fellows to go to the Queen, and compel her to discharge Essex, Southampton, and the rest that were in Prison. He was a Man himself of great Assurance and Resolution, had Commanded a Company in Ireland, was very intimate with Tir-Oen, and an absolute Creature of the Earl of Essex’s. This did Crofts immediately discover to the Council; insomuch that Lea was sought for, and found in the dusk of the Evening about the door of the Q.’s Privy-Chamber. He seem’d very Thoughtful, was extreamly Pale, and in a great Sweat, and frequently ask’d, Whether her Majesty was ready to go to Supper? And, Whether the Council would be there? In this Posture he was seiz’d and Examin’d, the next day had his Trial, and by Crofts’s Evidence and his own Confession, condemn’d and carried away to Tyburn, where he own’d that he had been indeed a great Offender; but as to this Design, was very Innocent; and having moreover protested, that he had never entertain’d the least ill Thought against the Queen, he was there executed. And this, as the Times were, appear’d a very seasonable piece of Rigour.[182]
1601. The xxvii. of February, Marke Bakworth [Barkworth], and Thomas Filcoks [Roger Filcock], were drawne to Tyborne, and there hanged, & quartered, for comming into the Realme contrary to the statute. Also the same day, and in the same place, was hanged a Gentlewoman, called Mistris Anne Line, a widow, for relieuing a priest contrary to the same statute (Stow, p. 794).
The crime for which Mistress Line suffered was that, Mass having been said in her house, she assisted the priest in his escape.