Tag Archives: Westminster sanctuary

The Bradshaws and the death of John Bell

In the spring of 1519, one John Bell was found dead at Westminster. A married couple – Robert and Joan Bradshaw – were accused in his death. The inquest jurors stated that Robert Bradshaw, yeoman of Westminster, attacked Bell between 9 and 10 pm with a sword, giving Bell a mortal wound from which heContinue reading “The Bradshaws and the death of John Bell”

Den of thieves

A potent criticism of sanctuary in the precincts of religious houses was that those precincts became dens of thieves. Though no doubt exaggerated as a general characterization of sanctuary precincts, it was true in some cases. Here are some who seem to have made Westminster Abbey their base for further crime. In Oct 1520, fourContinue reading “Den of thieves”

Violence in Croydon, 1523

In 1523, William Wyld, a landlord in Croydon, employed local labourer Nicholas Drakes as his rent-collector. On 10 November around 9 in the morning, Drakes showed up at the door of the Storer family. The Storers’ rent was overdue and Drakes asked the household head, William Storer the elder, to pay up. Storer refused, DrakesContinue reading “Violence in Croydon, 1523”

Cromwell, an Easterling, and Arras tapestries

In 1524 a Hanseatic merchant or “Easterling” petitioned one Thomas Cromwell, then a relatively obscure “jobbing lawyer” (as MacCulloch calls him), but who’d just entered into the service of Cardinal Wolsey. The merchant, Edward Smyttyng, was “privileaged within the Sanctuarye of Sainte Peter of Westminster” – he doesn’t say why he was in sanctuary, butContinue reading “Cromwell, an Easterling, and Arras tapestries”

Mistress Chauncy

This is another of those rare women who sought sanctuary – this time a really rare bird, a married woman who sought sanctuary for debt without her husband. In 1536, Gerard Chauncy, stockfishmonger of London and “yeoman of the King’s Chamber and waiter in the Tower of London,” wrote a petition to the Chancellor toContinue reading “Mistress Chauncy”

The tragedy of the Watsons: domestic violence and corruption in London, 1527

In February 1527 London brewer John Watson stabbed his pregnant wife Isabel in a quarrel. When she fell apparently lifeless to the floor, he first tried to hang himself but failed, then ran to Westminster sanctuary. In the months that followed, Isabel languished between life and death while her husband and her brother-in-law tussled overContinue reading “The tragedy of the Watsons: domestic violence and corruption in London, 1527”

The Happy Hour murders

London vintner John Parkyns had a tavern in St Michael Queenhithe parish, near the river. One day in March 1530, Parkyns had a run-in with two of the sheriff’s sergeants and both sergeants ended up dead. Though sometimes in the case of a double homicide the coroner held one inquest and wrote one report, inContinue reading “The Happy Hour murders”

The Southwell-Pennington feud

On 20 April 1532, near the king’s palace at Westminster, two gentlemen, Richard Southwell, esquire, and Sir William Pennington, faced one another in a sword fight, a quarrel that ended in Pennington’s death. The slaying came at a sensitive time in Henry VIII’s reign: much attention was focused that spring on ‘the King’s Great Matter’,Continue reading “The Southwell-Pennington feud”

Corruption and extortion in the Westminster sanctuary

Around 1550 an elderly landowner named Alexander Frognall launched a legal complaint about a situation concerning his son, Thomas, who had taken sanctuary around 1531. Frognall Sr’s narrative has two villains – Thomas Cromwell & the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt – who (allegedly) corruptly extorted land from his vulnerable son. In Alexander Frognall’s petition toContinue reading “Corruption and extortion in the Westminster sanctuary”

The “privileged men” of Westminster: the 1532 and 1533 censuses

A spotlight on two fascinating but somewhat perplexing sanctuary documents: lists of the “names of all the privileged men” in the sanctuary at Westminster Abbey, one (incomplete) drawn up in 1532 and another in 1533. Between the two lists, 119 people were named, 116 men & 3 women. The complete 1533 list (which has 89Continue reading “The “privileged men” of Westminster: the 1532 and 1533 censuses”