Tag Archives: treason

Wine o’clock in Whitby: dodgy drink and creative indicting in medieval Yorkshire

The picturesque town of Whitby is, of course, inextricably linked with one famous danger to humanity…

Yes, him …

OK, that was gratuitous vampire-inclusion. It is, in fact,  a less well-known, and possibly less fictional, Whitby resident and dealer of death I will be considering here. A certain Richard Cowper was in the area in the late 15th century, and, apparently, he had murder in mind.

According to an entry in the King’s Bench Indictment File for Michaelmas 1478 (KB 9/349 m. 77), Richard Cowper, a monk, was suspected of having mixed an unspecified poison in the wine he gave to William Colson, abbot of the (Benedictine) abbey of SS Peter and Hild at Whitby, and others (another monk, John Langthawe, and John [Mason], Thonas Gateshede and Richard Ledys – none of whom were specifically said to be monks). The deed was said to have been done on 20th September 1477, at a time when, so the entry is careful to specify, the imbibers were in good physical health. Not for long, however. They were unwell (languebant) from 20th September until 6th October, at which point, one of them (Richard Ledys) died. We hear no more of the others. The abbot at least survived, as he is reported dying only in 1499 – and so it is safe to say that the cause would not have been the questionable beverage supplied by R. Cowper.

The indictment is interesting – and a little odd – in its inclusion of the whole story involving he group of victims, when only one of them died. It is relevant to my research on petty treason, though, as ever, it raises just as many questions as it answers.

The relationship between the abbot and Cowper is worth considering. Cowper is called a ‘fellow-monk’ (comonachus) of the abbot, though the abbot is also called his master (magister) and the offence is said to have been committed proditorie as well as falsely and feloniously. Proditorie is generally a word seen in treason/’petty treason’ contexts. Leaving aside the fact that the abbot did not die, an offence against one’s abbot could certainly be brought under the heading of ‘petty treason’, in that it could be thought of as either a ‘servant v. master’ offence, or a ‘person owing obedience v. prelate’ case, under the categories in the 1352 Statute of Treasons. True, the use of ‘comonachus’ muddies the waters a little, but hierarchy is emphasised with the use of ‘master’ to describe Cowper’s relationship with the abbot. The relationship with Richard Ledys, the poor fellow who did die, cannot, however, really be seen as a ‘petty treason’ relationship. It is not clear that Richard Ledys was a monk at all, but, if he was, he was not the abbot, so that the relationship looks more horizontal than vertical.  Was the proditorie justified on a sort of ‘transferred intention’ basis – i.e. that Cowper intended to kill the abbot, and that intention was in the nature of treason, and applied over to the death of another person? Seems a little far-fetched. Could it be that it was being suggested that poisoning was something which made the offence petty treason? Certainly, poisoning was, in the next century, singled out as especially heinous (st. 22 Hen. VIII, c. 9), but I am not aware of any such doctrine existing in the fifteenth century.  So – a bit mysterious.

The alleged and apparently unsuccessful attempt to kill the abbot and the others who drank the wine, apart from poor old Richard Ledys, is also described as having been committed proditorie. This might be even more interesting. One of the intriguing aspects of petty treason is its position in between ‘normal’ homicide and ‘high’ treason. Generally speaking, with the exception of the penalties, it is treated as being closer to homicide than to treason. Here, though, it appears that an attempt is being assimilated to the completed act – something which probably would not have been the case in contemporary homicide but would certainly have been the case in ‘high’ treason (generally, plots and attempts at treason did not succeed …).

According to the description of Whitby Abbey in the relevant Victoria County History volume, its history was ‘devoid of exceptional interest or importance’. Well – not to legal historians, I would say!

Iechyd da!

GS

31/5/2022

 

Wine image – Photo by Max Tutak on Unsplash

Book image c/o Wikimedia Commons

Is this burning an eternal flame? Probably not, no, or: the shearman’s mysterious appeals

A case to round off January, which turned up in today’s file sorting. I think I came across this when I was writing about dwale a few years ago, and have never found a place for it, so here’s a bit of a weird one, from a King’s Bench roll of 1346: KB 27/343 m. 28 and m. 28d (AALT IMG 8042, 8397)

It’s a record of the accusations made by an approver – i.e. a man who confessed his own felony, but brought accusations (appeals) against another or others, in the hope that he could secure a conviction and be spared execution. Clearly, this process is likely to have encouraged a certain degree of untruthful accusation, so that, even more than usual, we can make no deductions about truth in these cases. Nevertheless, in an ontological-argument-for-God’s-existence fashion, there is something of value to learn in accounts of what the human mind could imagine.

Our approver was William de Ludham, shearman, and he was doing his approving in Bishop’s Lynn (now King’s Lynn) in Norfolk. Before the coroner, he recognised that he was a thief and a felon, and made a number of accusations – some fairly run of the mill robberies, But William’s appeals also included accusations against a clerk called Robert of Leicester, clerk, and Bertram of St Omer, Fleming. They had, he said, been part of a gang wandering about, in London, Bristol, Sandwich, Norwich, and elsewhere in cities and boroughs of England, and in Norwich at Trinity 1346, they had planned to follow the king as he went abroad, to burn him and his household, when an opportunity arose, either in England or abroad. Perhaps in connection with this fiendish plan, William said that Bertram carried with him sulphur and other materials to set off an inextinguishable fire, and Robert carried with him two containers, one full of poison, and another full of a powder which would make men sleep for three days, or else kill them, at the user’s choice.

[As so often, the ending is delayed – I am yet to find any sort of resolution]

So what?

Come on – treacherous plots, eternal flames and three day sleeping powder: obviously interesting. Working out what the flamey bit might have been does not seem impossible (firearms/artillery were just coming in at this point, remember … Greek fire … etc.), the sleeping/killing powder is a bit more mysterious. At first, I was thinking along the lines of blowing it under a door (clearly reading too many mystery novels) but I suppose it is more likely to mean something to put in a drink. What would that be? Some poppy product, perhaps? Processed dwale? I am intrigued at the idea of expertise implicit in William’s accusation – he assumed that a dodgy clerk would be in a position to understand the dosage which would work to cause sleep (and for how long) or death. All a bit wizardy, isn’t it?

Very much hoping to come across William, Robert and Bertram once more, and see whether this did ever go to proof.

GS

31/1/2021

Smothering and sedition: new article

There is an interesting article in the newest Historical Research, which adds to scholarship on  mid-fourteenth century law and legislation on treason: D. Crook, ‘The seditious murder of Thomas of Sibthorpe and the Great Statute of Treasons 1351-2.’ Historical Research 88 (2015) deals with the killing of a prominent royal servant, who had occupied the positions of Chancery clerk,  clerk of Parliament, justice of assize and justice of the peace. Sibthorpe was found to have been crushed or smothered in bed, by a group including a man who was supposed to be rendering an account to him. Because of his status as a sworn royal officer, this was treated as sedition, with consequent upping of the penalties of some of the homicides from hanging to hanging plus the extras associated with the traitor.  Crook makes a convincing case for the likely influence of this case (and that of Sir John de Eland) on those drawing up the Statute of Treasons, thus supplementing the account in J. G. Bellamy, The Law of Treason in England in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1970).