The Dell, the Kynchen Morte, and the Kynchen Cove were boys and girls in training for the life of the vagabond.
Queen Elizabeth was fond of driving into the country as well as going upon the river. One summer evening she rode out from Aldersgate, along the road now called Goswell Road, towards the village of Iseldon or Islington. Just outside the town she was surrounded and beset by a number of beggars, to her great annoyance. Wherefore she sent her running footman, Stone, to the Mayor and to the Recorder complaining of this nuisance. The Recorder sent out warrants that same night to the quarters complained of, and into Westminster, with the result that seventy-four beggars were apprehended and sent to Bridewell, where they were “punished” (i.e. soundly flogged). Some of them were found to be very rich and usurers.
The mob under Elizabeth did not venture in assemblies on acts of violence. One or two exceptions must be made. Once an armed company, headed by gentlemen, attacked Bridewell. Seeing that their object was the release of certain unrepentant women whose profession concerned the gentlemen only, it is probable that the whole of the rioters were gentlemen. On another occasion the ’prentices rose against foreigners. Instances of hatred between Spanish residents and citizens of London are common in the pages of Machyn. Thus on October 15, 1554, a Spaniard killed a servant of Sir George Gifford without Temple Bar. The cause of the quarrel is not stated. Ten days afterwards the unfortunate foreigner was hanged at Charing Cross. On the 4th of November following there was a great fray at Charing Cross between Spaniards and English. Not many were hurt, and those who began it were arrested, especially a blackamoor. In January another Englishman was murdered by three Spaniards, two of whom held him while the other ran him through. In April was hanged a certain person, servant to a poulterer. He robbed a Spaniard in Westminster Abbey, and for the offence was condemned to be hanged for three days, and then to be buried under the gallows. He was hanged in a gown of tawny frieze, and a doublet of tawny taffeta, with hose lined with sarcenet. Before being turned off he railed at the Pope and the Mass.
Of street violence there was still a great deal, but not so much as formerly. The following letter speaks for itself.
“On Thursday laste (Feb. 13th 1587) as my Lorde Rytche was rydynge in the streates, there was one Wyndam that stode in a dore, and shotte a dagge at him, thynkynge to have slayne him; but God provyded so for my L. Rytche that this Wyndam apoyntynge his servant that mornynge to charge his dagge with 11 bulletts, the fellow, doubtinge he mente to doe sum myschefe with it, charged it only with powder and paper, and no bullett; and so this L.’s lyfe was thereby saved, for otherwyse he had beene slayne. Wyndam was presently taken by my Lord Rytche’s men, and, beynge broughte before the Counsell, confessed his intende, but the cause of his quarrell I knowne not; but he is commyted to the Towre. The same daye also, as Sir John Conway was goynge in the streetes, Mr. Lodovyke Grevell came sodenly uppon him, and stroke him on the hedd with a sworde, and but for one of Sir John Conwaye’s men, who warded the blow, he had cutt off his legges; yet did he hurte him sumwhat on bothe his shynns; the Councelor sente for Lodovyke Grevell and have commytted him to the Marchallcye.” (Drake, Shakespeare and his Times, vol. ii.)
The cucking-stool, trebucket, or tumbril, for the ducking of a scold, was commonly found in every village. There were several kinds of it. One was a chair set at the end of a braser which acted on a see-saw principle; one a stump put into the ground at the edge of the water. Another was a “standard” fixed at the entrance of a pond. To this was attached a long pole, at the extremity of which was fastened the chair. Such an one stood almost within the memory of man at the great reservoir in the Green Park. Another kind was a sort of cart on four wheels, with a braser, at the end of which was the chair. All over Oxford these things are found, also at Wootton Bassett, Broad Water Worthing, Leominster, Marlborough, Newbury, Scarborough, Warwick, Ipswich. In 1777 a woman was ducked at Whitchurch.
The trial of Ben Jonson, an account of which has been recovered by Mr. John Cordy Jeafferson for the Middlesex County Record Society, began with the inquest on the body of one James Feake, held in Holywell Street, St. Leonard’s Shoreditch, in the thirty-ninth year of Queen Elizabeth, and on the 10th day of December. The said James Feake was killed in a brawl by one Gabriel Spencer, who struck him with his sword in its scabbard in the right eye, so that he fell down, and after languishing for three days, died of the wound. What was done to Gabriel Spencer does not appear. Perhaps the case was treated as one of self-defence. However, Gabriel Spencer presently met with his reward. For in the month of September following, viz. in 1598, the said Gabriel fell to quarrelling with a young man named Ben Jonson, in Shoreditch, or Hoxton Fields; from words they quickly came to blows, and Gabriel was pierced by Ben Jonson’s sword through the right side, so that he died immediately. Jonson was thrown into prison and was tried for manslaughter, not for murder. He pleaded guilty; he also pleaded his clergy, read his “neck-verse,” and was released in accordance with the statute 18 Eliz. c. 7, after being branded in the hand with what the London people called the Tyburn T.
I have found one instance, the earliest, of a kind of transportation. Among Frobisher’s Company were six men condemned to death. Their sentence was commuted into banishment. They were sent on board Frobisher’s ship, to be landed on the shores of “Freezeland,” that is Greenland or Labrador, with weapons and provisions. They were instructed to win the good-will and friendship of the natives and to inquire into their “estate.” In other words, to find out all that could be learned concerning them. It is unfortunate that history makes no further mention of these pioneers.
THE CUCKING-STOOL.
From an old print in the British Museum.