Under the Commonwealth incest and adultery were made felonies. Incontinence for the first time was made a criminal offence, to be punished by three months’ imprisonment.
These few notes on crime and criminal law might seem incomplete without mention of the two greatest criminals of the century, Titus Oates and Judge Jeffreys. Their crimes, however, have little or nothing to do with London save that those of the former were committed for the most part in London, and that the latter died in London.
The roguery, vice, cheateries, and thieveries practised in the City have always been on the grand scale. Perhaps there were no more of these things in King Charles’s reign than in our own time. But it seems so. To begin with, there were the professed and professional sharps, men who lived by their wits. The names by which they were known under Queen Bess had been changed; these terms of endearment or of opprobrium do not last long. They were now known as Huffs, Rooks, Pads, Pompinios, Philo Puttonists, Ruffons, Shabbaroons, and Rufflers. Many of them were of good birth and of excellent manners. When one of them extorted all his money from a flat it was with an air so engaging that he could not resent it; nor could he believe that he had been cheated by loaded dice and by marked cards. Not all of them were gentlemen. Thus there was the Angler, who carried a stick with a hook at the end, which was useful in passing an open shop; there was the Ruffler, who pretended to be an old soldier of Marston Moor or Naseby; there was the Wild Rogue, a boy or girl who cut off the gold or silver buttons from people in a crowd; the Clapper Doyen, who begged about the streets with stolen children; the Abram man, a sham madman; the Whip Jack, a sham shipwrecked sailor; the Mumper, a decayed merchant; and the Dommerer, who pretended to be dumb.
If we are to believe the revelations of Meritio Latron, the City ’prentices contained among them a considerable number of young fellows who were common rogues and thieves; they robbed their masters as much as they dared, both of money and of goods; they met on Saturday nights when the masters were in the country, exchanged the goods, and feasted together in company with other rogues of the town. In the same edifying work we are instructed concerning the sharp practices and cheateries of the various shopkeepers. It is hardly worth while to spend any time in enumerating these. They are much the same in every age.
The case of Alexander Leighton is one of Royal cruelty. It may be placed beside that of Prynne. There are others of Puritanic cruelty quite as bad, as will be seen presently.
Leighton, a Doctor of Divinity, in 1630, was accused of framing, publishing, and dispersing a scandalous book against King, peers, and prelate.
He was brought before the Star Chamber, where he received his sentence.
First, he was degraded. He was then whipped and put in pillory. Being taken out, his right ear was cut off and the right side of his nose slit, and he was branded on the right cheek with the letters S.S., i.e. Stirrer up of Sedition. He was then taken back to the Fleet for a week, after which, his wounds still fresh, he was again whipped, again set in pillory, and was then deprived of his remaining ear, had the left side of his nose slit, and the left cheek branded.
The Puritan was stern and unrelenting in his punishment. Perhaps this fact may account for something of the hatred with which he came to be regarded by the populace. Take, for instance, the case of Francis Prideaux, a poor little petty thief, who would now be let off with a month’s imprisonment:—
“Francis Prideaux is now convicted of a trespas for unlawfully ripping up and taking away lead from the house of Richard Rothwell and is fined 12d., and must bee stripped naked from the middle upwards on Monday the fourteenth day of this instant January betweene the houres of 9 and 11 of the clocke in the forenoone and then openly whipped on his back untill his body be bloddy at the hinder part of a cart from the Old Gatehouse through Long Ditch, Duke Street, and Charles Street in the parish of St. Margaret’s Westminster, and back againe, from the said Charles Street, through Duke Street and Long Ditch, to the said Old Gatehouse. Hee is committed to the New Prison of the Gatehouse, ther to remayne in safe custody untill he shall undergoe his said punishment, and pay his said fine, and then be delivered paying his fees iiis. viiid.”