Occasionally the law made itself felt in unexpected strength. Thus, when John Gedeney, draper, refused to be Alderman, they shut up his shop and confiscated his chattels until he changed his mind. And there was the case of the priest who bought a man’s wife. The Mayor could not punish him, because the Bishop alone had the power of punishing a priest, but he could, and did, order that no one in the City should employ him in any spiritual office whatever. And as regards the observance of prices according to regulations, there was one case, at least, in which women were sent to prison for refusing to sell at the ordered price. The arm of the law, moreover, proved long enough to catch William Blakeney, shuttlemaker, after six long years, during which he had enjoyed a pleasant and profitable time as a Pilgrim. He dressed for the part with bare feet and long hair and a Pilgrim’s staff. According to his own account, he had been to Jerusalem, Rome, Venice, and Seville; and the good people were never tired of listening to his adventures and experiences; they were never tired, in addition, of giving him food and drink. But he was found at last, and he was paraded about the streets in a cart, with a whetstone round his neck, to show that he was a liar, and was then put in pillory. A more serious offence was that of William Pykemyle. He pretended to be a messenger of the King. In this disguise he called upon the Countess of Bedford, and upon the Countess of Norfolk, carrying the command of the King that these ladies should join the Court at Leeds Castle in Kent. In return for this gracious royal command, William received rich rewards. This man was found out, tried, and sentenced first to pillory, then to prison during the King’s pleasure, and then to banishment from the City.
In connection with the ridings “about London” in carts and on horseback, with the face to the animal’s tail, with music to invite attention, with pillory for greater publicity, with the offence written on a placard hung upon the criminal’s neck, sometimes with the actual matter of offence tied round his neck, as in the case of that chain of putrid smelts forming a necklace for the vendor, were the attentions of the people confined to jeers and derision and hooting? When one stood in the pillory were things thrown? I am inclined to think that the pelting was always possible, but uncommon, because it is mentioned occasionally as having happened. Had it been customary, it would not have been mentioned. Thus, in November 1553, a certain profligate priest, or parson, Rector of St. Nicolas Cole Abbey, sold his wife to a butcher. It was a time when all priests who regarded their safety made haste to put away their wives; that was pardonable, but to make money by the sad necessity was not well thought of. Therefore Parson Chicken—that was his nickname—was carried round London in a cart. A second time this worthy priest was taken round “for assisting an old acquaintance in a ditch”—I do not understand the nature of the offence. On this occasion it is noted that the popular indignation showed itself in the hurling of rotten eggs at the man’s head, and the emptying of vessels upon him from the windows as he passed. Another case is that of Perkin Warbeck. He sat in stocks for a whole day before Westminster Hall, and also in Cheapside. He received, we learn, numberless scorns, reproaches, and gibes, but nothing is said of any personal ill-usage.
THE TUN, CORNHILL
E. Gardner’s Collection.
The description of the prison on Cornhill, called the Tun, which was of the kind elsewhere called a Clink, and consisted of one strong room above and one below, gives Stow an opportunity of enlarging upon punishments and offenders. Thus to the Tun were committed night walkers and persons suspected or proved of incontinence. In the Mayoralty of John of Northampton in 1383, the citizens, taking into their own hands the rights belonging to the Bishop, imprisoned a number of unchaste women in the Tun, and then bringing them out to be seen by all the people, cut off their hair and carried them about the City with trumpets and pipes. And they used the men who were guilty of the like offence in the same way. This public shame seems to have been felt as the greatest ignominy possible. There is, indeed, a case on record in which three persons, notorious ringleaders of false inquests (i.e. persons who take money to be put in the jury and run to be made foremen in certain cases), who were led about the City with papers on their heads and their faces to the horse’s tail, actually died of shame.
“And now,” says Stow, “for the punishments of priests in my youth: one note and no more. John Atwod, draper, dwelling in the parish of St. Michael upon Cornehill, directly against the church, having a proper woman to his wife, such an one as seemed the holiest among a thousand, had also a lusty chantry priest, of the said parish church, repairing to his house: with the which priest the said Atwod would sometimes after supper play a game at tables for a pint of ale: it chanced on a time, having haste of work, and his game proving long, he left his wife to play it out, and went down to his shop, but returning to fetch a pressing iron, he found such play to his misliking, that he forced the priest to leap out at a window over the penthouse into the street, and so to run to his lodging in the churchyard. Atwod and his wife were soon reconciled, so that he would not suffer her to be called in question: but the priest being apprehended and committed, I saw his punishment to be thus:—He was on three market days conveyed through the high street and markets of the city with a paper on his head wherein was written his trespass. The first day he rode in a cart, the second on a horse, his face to the horse’s tail, the third led betwixt twain, and every day rung with basons, and proclamations made of his fact at every turning of the street, as also before John Atwod’s stall, and the church door of his service where he lost his chantry of twenty nobles a year, and was banished the city for ever.”
THE SCOLD’S BRIDLE IN WALTON-ON-THAMES CHURCH
From What to See in England, Gordon Home.