PATRIARCHY ON THE GALOWS 
 
 
 
Except where reference is made to the work of others, the work described in this thesis is 
my own or was done in collaboration with my advisory commite. This thesis does not 
include proprietary or clasified information. 
 
 
 
__________________________ 
Ethan Trevi?o 
 
 
 
 
Certificate of approval: 
 
 
 
________________________                   ________________________ 
Donna J. Bohanan      Daniel Szechi, Chair 
Profesor       Profesor 
History       History 
 
 
 
 
 
________________________                   ________________________ 
Kathryn Holland Braund     Joe F. Pitman 
Profesor       Interim Dean 
History       Graduate School 
 
 
PATRIARCHY ON THE GALOWS 
 
 
 
Ethan Trevi?o 
 
 
 
A Thesis 
 
 
Submited to 
 
 
the Graduate Faculty of 
 
 
Auburn University 
 
 
in Partial Fulfilment of the 
 
 
Requirements for the 
 
 
Degre of 
 
 
Master of Arts 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Auburn, Alabama 
December 17, 2007 
 
 ii 
PATRIARCHY ON THE GALOWS 
 
Ethan Trevi?o 
 
 
Permision is granted to Auburn University to make copies of this thesis at its discretion, 
upon request of individuals or institutions and at their expense. The author reserves al 
publication rights. 
 
 
 
 
 
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 iv 
THESIS ABSTRACT 
 
PATRIARCHY ON THE GALOWS 
 
Ethan Trevi?o 
 
Master of Arts, December 17, 2007 
(B.A., Emory University, 2001) 
 
92 Typed Pages 
 
Directed by Daniel Szechi 
 
 
 
 One of the most teling ways to examine society in the early modern era is to read 
the pleadings of the indicted. Typicaly taking the form of writen petitions to the 
monarch, the pleadings are indicative of the place that they se for themselves in society. 
The two models that compete to define society in the early modern period are patriarchy 
and paternalism. 
Patriarchy is the imposition of societal roles that disadvantage women. This 
implies a top-down imposition of identity. Women are limited in this model and have 
litle to no agency. Paternalism aserts that society is modeled on the family, with the 
monarch as the father figure. While it may appear to be a top-down approach similar to 
patriarchy, in reality, it implies more cooperation, as each person has a role within the 
family and, thus, within society.  
This thesis establishes that the workings of early modern English society is 
properly described by a paternal, not patriarchal model. 
 v 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
I would like to thank my wife, Heather, for being patient with me while I 
struggled with this thesis. Special thanks go to Dr. Daniel Szechi, who helped me out of 
a dificult situation and provided me with needed guidance. Dr. Donna Bohanan was a 
shoulder to lean on during the writing proces and Dr. Kathryn Holland Braund provided 
me with the Americanist point of view on what would have otherwise been a European 
project. The UK National Archives at Kew and the archivists that work there deserve 
thanks for helping me obtain the original copies of Queen Anne?s State Papers. The 
librarians working at the British Library were equaly helpful in asisting me in finding 
my fet. 
vi 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
INTRODUCTION: THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF CRIME IN EARLY MODERN 
EUROPE.......................................................1 
CHAPTER 1: THE WORKINGS OF THE COURT SYSTEM AND THE 
CREATION OF THE PETITIONS....................................10 
CHAPTER 2: THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE CONDEMNED.................25 
CHAPTER 3: GENDERING THE PETITIONS..........................40 
CONCLUSION: NO PATRIARCHY ON THE SCAFOLD.................54 
BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................62 
INDEX........................................................65 
APENDIX 1: SELECTED PETITIONS...............................68 
APENDIX 2: THE PETITIONS.....................................72 
 
 1 
INTRODUCTION: THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF CRIME IN EARLY 
MODERN EUROPE 
 
 A beautiful and vivacious girl, Mary Brooks was not lacking in suitors in 1705. 
Her father, a wealthy Baptist minister, had spared no expense on her education. By the 
time Mary turned 18, she was as wel educated as any peer?s daughter might have been. 
Her natural wit, combined with her physical charms, made her popular in Dorset, where 
men visited often, seking her hand. Mary Brooks was fussy about her future mate, 
however, and rejected al of them. In particular, she rejected out of hand a rich grocer, 
only named as ?Mr. Channing,? whose main faults were his disproportionate arms and 
legs and his splayfet. Of al of her suitors, Mr. Channing was by far the richest, and for 
this reason her parents pushed her towards a match. Mary Brooks, however, had falen in 
love with a neighbor. Acounts disagre, but it is acknowledged that her parents forced 
her to mary Mr. Channing. They were either atempting to rescue her reputation from 
the scandal provoked by her afair with the neighbor, or they were blinded by the wealth 
that Mr. Channing would bring to the family. 
 At any rate, Mr. Channing and Mary Brooks were maried. The new Mrs. Mary 
Channing found herself wel off, but unhappy. She stil loved her former neighbor. Mary 
could not bring herself to love or respect Mr. Channing and treated him with scorn. Mr. 
Channing did not find this unusual: Mary had never treated him with anything but 
contempt. Whether she was desperate or simply out of control, Mary propositioned men 
 2 
at her own wedding.
1
 Eventualy, she took up with her erstwhile neighbor again. Finding 
her mariage intolerable, she sent out her maid to procure some white mercury, also 
known as mercury bichloride, a poison used to kil rats and mice. A few days later, on 16 
April, Mary contrived to be the only one to serve her husband breakfast. Everyone else 
in the household was served by the domestic servants, but for Mr. Channing. He 
apparently consumed his rice milk with gusto, not noticing its bad taste until the end. He 
asked Mary?s brother (who lived with them) to taste the rice milk, but Mary intercepted 
the bowl and returned it to her husband. He then ordered the maid to try his breakfast, 
but Mary seized the bowl and bore it away. Mr. Channing did not have to wait long 
before his suspicions were confirmed: within an hour, his stomach was sweling, causing 
great pain. Mr. Channing must have made a dramatic sight: his teth may have loosened 
in the litle time that he had left, his kidneys likely failed catastrophicaly, and he 
probably salivated incesantly, making him drool absurdly in his last hours. 
 Mary Channing was arested for the murder of her husband. She ofered a 
spirited and inteligent defense, but it ultimately did her no good, as she was found guilty 
and sentenced to death. During the trial, it was aleged that she had already spent al of 
Mr. Channing?s money, an intimation that she only kiled him when he was no longer 
useful to her. She probably stil had money, as her maid stayed in her employ until she 
was executed, though we cannot rule out domestic loyalty. Mary?s execution was 
respited, but only when she was found to be pregnant. She caried the child to term, 
whereupon she was executed. Her execution was grisly, even for early modern England; 
                                                
1
 Martin J. Wiener, ?Alice Arden to Bil Sykes: Changing Nightmares of Intimate 
Violence in England,? The Journal of British Studies 40 (April, 2001), 190-191. 
 
 3 
Mary was sentenced to be strangled, then burned at the stake. Though she must have 
been daunted by the prospect, she went to her execution with her head held high.
2
 
Though her aceptance of her fate brought grudging respect from the spectators, 
they did not doubt that her fate was just. Mary Channing was sexualy licentious, 
?pleasure-seking, extravagant, and wilful.?
3
 She was an example of ?the chief source of 
disorder, violence, and murder [being] domestic insubordination (on the part of wives, 
adolescent children, or servants).?
 4
 By fighting against her mariage, Mary Channing 
was batling against many acepted features of society: patriarchal authority, religious 
authority, and societal norms as a whole. This was acknowledged at the time, with 
pamphlets and the Newgate Calendar?s acount highlighting her failings. On the surface, 
this appears to be an example of a patriarchal society bearing down and mercilesly 
crushing a transgresive woman. Burning at the stake was certainly a terible fate. We 
must ask, is this indicative of the execution of justice during Mary Channing?s time? 
Looking at her experience, as wel as others, I wil show that Mary Channing was not 
                                                
2
 Serious admonitions to youth, in a short account of the life, trial, condemnation 
and execution of Mrs Mary Channing who, for poisoning her husband, was burnt at 
Dorchester in the county of Dorset on Thursday, March the 21st 1706 (1706). J. L. 
Rayner and G. T. Crook, eds., The Complete Newgate Calendar 5 vols. Vol. 2. (London: 
The Navare Society, 1926) 224. Barbara White, ?Channing , Mary (1687?1706)?, 
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Pres, 2004 
[http:/ww.oxforddnb.com/view/article/67091, acesed 20 March 2007]. Both the 
Newgate Calendar and the Admonitions contain the story of ary Channing. There are 
significant diferences betwen the acounts. Where they disagre, I have relied on the 
Oxford Dictionary National of Biography to adjudicate. 
 
3
 Martin J. Wiener, ?Alice Arden to Bil Sykes,? 190-191. 
 
4
 Ibid., 189. 
 
 4 
transgresing against any hoary patriarchy. For purely practical purposes, I have 
confined this study to the reign of Queen Anne. 
Patriarchy is the imposition of a male dominance upon society. In this system, 
women would be subservient to men. In the household, the man would be the actual and 
not merely titular ruler. On a larger scale, Queen Anne would have been prevented from 
taking the throne of England just as Queen Victoria was bared from the throne of 
Hanover. Women in a patriarchal society are granted litle agency. Whatever agency 
they do have is found in revolt against the male dominated order. 
Paternalism ends up having the same forms as patriarchy, but for completely 
diferent reasons. Paternalism is the imposition of a social order in which every person 
has a role that he or she was expected to act out. While in practice this could be flexible, 
one?s place in life was supposed to be determined by birth. Circulating within this was 
the idea that men were rulers of the household, yet this did not reduce women to simple 
subservience. Instead, the household was meant to be a microcosm of the state; this 
reinforced the idea of the monarch as a parent who knows best for his or her people. 
Within this situation, every person has agency. Depending on their social rank, the 
expresion of agency may take diferent forms. Nevertheles, al individuals are alowed 
agency in a paternalistic society. 
And there was no patriarchy on the galows. There was, however, paternalism on 
the galows. We should contrast the state?s paternalism with the represive and enforced 
gender roles implied by patriarchy. We can se the distinction in action by looking at the 
petitions of the condemned and seing the manner in which they are gendered and their 
likelihood of succes. If one takes the petition as a sort of premptive galows 
 5 
confesion, then one can se that by atempting to atain spiritual peace, the petitioner 
was also atempting to atain fredom by regaining a normative role. We must also 
examine whether this was succesful. Did a transgresive woman acting out her 
?appropriate? role escape more often than a transgresive man? Does this normative role 
even imply that one sex is disadvantaged versus another? In fact, it wil be shown that 
this was not the case. While women and men did atempt to establish themselves within 
gender roles, this was not as a result of patriarchy?in which case women would be far 
more circumscribed?but as a result of the paternalism of the state: individuals were 
expresing their worth to the state; worth happened to be expresed by acting out gender 
roles. To understand this, we need to take a broad view and observe how the system 
functions. In particular, we need to examine the manner in which societal expectations 
(and how skilfully the indicted met them, as measured by reputation) determine the 
functioning of the legal system. Then, we must move on to the petitioners themselves, 
and examine specificaly who they were and what sort of expectations they atempted to 
met. And, lastly, we wil move on to examining how women gendered their petitions. 
This gendering is important, because while the male roles are wel understood, the ways 
in which women gendered their pleas is not. To understand this we must focus on female 
role-playing and representation in petitions designed to save their lives. 
The general literature on the history of crime in this era fals into two opposing 
schools. One is inspired by Marxism and takes a top-down approach to justice, aserting 
that the elites ?push down? the law to the lower orders. The second approach to crime 
and punishment is a more conservative one, though it comes from the Revisionist school. 
The Revisionist view is that the justice system is run for the lower orders and, while the 
 6 
elite provides the framework, it is the plebeians who use the justice system. Both points 
of view have their supporters and each one musters a considerable amount of evidence on 
its behalf. 
The Marxian point of view has been put forward by Douglas Hay and Peter 
Linebaugh, among others. Put simply, they asert that justice was actualy the imposition 
of elite values upon the common sort. Hay ilustrates this in his esay, ?Property, 
Authority, and Criminal Law,? contained in Albion?s Fatal Tre, in which he aserts that 
the elite were careful in who they chose to execute.
5
 This was not out of concern for the 
lower orders, but, rather, an efort to find victims whose execution would have the 
greatest psychological efect. Hay is at pains to point out that executions were about 
terifying the public into submision. This view pays particular atention to property 
crimes (which are far more numerous than violent crimes) and focuses on what sems to 
be an obvious token of clas diferentiation. 
Linebaugh draws a similar conclusion, though he works beyond the reign of 
Queen Anne. He examines the Augustan era and pays specific atention to what he cals 
?Tyburnography? in his book, The London Hanged.
6
 His thesis is that the criminal 
justice system is designed to suppres the plebeians and force them into a moneyed 
economy. Aside from the implicit problems asociated with the idea of elites forcing 
wage slavery down the plebeians? throats, Linebaugh?s asertions are compeling, but, it 
probably puts too much agency into the hands of the elite and ignores the changes 
                                                
5
 Douglas Hay and et. al., Albion?s Fatal Tre : crime and society in eightenth-
century England (New York: Pantheon Books, 1975). 
 
6
 Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the 
Eightenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres, 1993). 
 7 
wrought by the Industrial Revolution as wel as the agency of the lower orders. Like 
Hay, Linebaugh also focuses primarily on property crime. That he does so is because of 
his conviction that capitalism has been a driving force in history.
7
  
These two theses minimize the agency of the plebeians vis-?-vis the elites. While 
persuasive when one restricts the examination to executions?in particular the most 
sensational executions, as Linebaugh does?it does not hold up when pardons and the 
court system are factored in. This is what Peter King has reacted to in his Revisionist 
analyses of the English justice system. King aserts that, far from being an elite arena, 
the plebeians were deeply involved in the execution of justice. King analyzed court 
records to determine the social origins of the participants in the justice system. He found 
that the lower orders actualy vastly outnumbered the elite in the court records, as they 
did in population. The implication, then, is that justice was not just the purview of the 
elite.
8
 
John Beatie, in his works Crime and the Courts in England and Policing and 
Punishment in London, takes a similar view.
9
 Far from being an abstract system, the 
plebeians found the justice system to be a mechanism by which disputes were setled 
                                                
7
 This is not to imply that Linebaugh?s approach is so Marxist that he ignores 
other efects in favor of capital. He does, however, se capital as the moving force in The 
London Hanged. Se for example, 371-401. 
 
8
 Peter King, Crime, Justice, and Discretion in England 1740-1820 (New York: 
Oxford University Pres, 2000) and Peter King, ?Decision-Makers and Decision-Making 
in the English Criminal Law, 1750-1800,? The Historical Journal 27, No. 1 (March 
1984), pasim. 
 
9
 John Beatie, Crime and the Courts in England 1660-1800 (Oxford: Clarendon, 
1986) and John Beatie, Policing and Punishment in London 1660-1750 (New York: 
Oxford University Pres 2001), ?Introduction.? 
 
 8 
through peaceful and formulaic interpersonal confrontation. Indeed, going further, he 
states that the poor did not have a monolithic view of the justice system, a necesary 
thing if we are to acept Hay?s thesis. Instead, Beatie claims that opinions of the poor 
were particular to specific crimes.
10
 
My analysis borrows, however, from both the Marxians and the Revisionists. 
Building on the research of individuals such as Hay and Beatie, I factor in the efect of 
pardons and, most particularly, the petitions for pardons, which I refer to as ?felony 
petitions.? Al of the researchers mentioned above do acknowledge pardons, but they 
often find it dificult to fit them into their paradigm. J. M. Beatie?s analysis 
acknowledges pardons, but does not closely examine the manner they are obtained, which 
is integral to the overal working of justice.  
I wil show that plebeian aceptance and participation in the justice system are the 
result of the overal sense of fairnes in the early modern English court system that al 
orders shared. What was at work was actualy a sort of quid pro quo. While Hay is 
correct, the elite did carefully choose who they executed, he is wrong in suggesting that 
this was to terorize the populace into submision. Instead, what we have is a 
reinforcement of social values by the elites. The elite certainly saw this as their role and, 
if E.P. Thompson is correct, so did the plebeians.
1
 Thus, executions are expresions of 
paternalism. We cannot, however, ignore the other facet of this: pardons. Pardoning was 
paternal reinforcement of the social order. The pardoning proces was often, as we shal 
                                                
10
 Ibid., 73. 
 
1
 E. P. Thompson, Customs in Common (New York: The New Pres, 1991). In 
particular, the chapter ?Custom, Law and Common Right,? 97-184. 
 9 
se, lubricated by patronage. Additionaly, pardoning served to satisfy plebeian 
expectations of justice regardles of the leter of the law. Pardoning and execution, 
together, form a vital part of the mortar that cemented together early modern English 
society. 
 10 
CHAPTER 1: THE WORKINGS OF THE COURT SYSTEM AND 
THE CREATION OF THE PETITIONS 
 
 Anne Haris must have made quite a sight when she was executed. Her face had 
been burned so many times as punishment for robbery that there was not a part of it that 
was not scared. Indeed, her crime was not one that normaly waranted death; she 
should have merely been burned again, because the items she stole were not valuable 
enough to merit a death sentence. Even though she was only twenty when she was kiled, 
Anne Haris was a skiled shoplifter, known alternately as Sarah Davies, Sarah Thorn, or 
Sarah Gothorn. 
 Before ever turning fourten, Anne had left her parents? household ?in the parish 
of St. Giles without Cripplegate? and gone to live with a man known as ?Jimy the 
Mouth.? Jimy, it appears, introduced Anne to burglary. She learned how to survive on 
the strets of London as a thief. Though she was often caught, Anne knew not to steal 
items of too great a value. In this way, she avoided the death penalty. The maximum 
punishment court could inflict upon her for her crimes was being branding on the face. 
 Soon after Anne turned fourten, disaster struck: Jimy the Mouth was arested 
for felony burglary. Unable to escape, Jimy was hanged. He was ten years older than 
Anne. Though Anne may have mourned, we have no record of it. The Newgate 
Calendar tels us that she simply moved on to Wiliam Pulman, who bore the colorful 
nickname of ?Norwich Wil.? Like many Londoners, Wiliam came from outside the 
 11 
City, and was seking his fortune by fair means or foul. Anne continued her thievery and 
was further stigmatized as her face was scared again and again. 
 Norwich Wil was executed on 9 March 1705. He had made the mistake of 
?robbing one Mr. Joseph Edwards on the high of a pair of leather bags, a shirt, two 
neckcloths, two pocket-books, twenty-five guineas, a half broad-piece of gold, and four 
pounds in silver.? Though they were sometimes?retrospectively?regarded as folk 
heroes by the local populace, highwaymen were detested by the English government, and 
Norwich Wil was hanged. Anne Haris was sixten. Her lover was, again, ten years her 
senior. 
 ?Now [Anne], being twice left a hempen widow in les than thre years, had 
learned in that time to be as vicious as the very worst of her sex, and was so absolutely 
enslaved to al manner of wickednes through custom and opportunity that good 
admonitions could work no good efects upon her.? Indeed, it appears that Anne refined 
her technique at this time. She would go to a goldsmith?s shop and ask to look at his 
rings. The goldsmith would lay them out and Anne would begin to haggle with him over 
price. While he was thus distracted, Anne would rob him of a ring or two. Her method 
was ingenious: by heating ale over the fire, she thickened it into a syrup, which she then 
rubbed on her palm, alowing her to pick up rings by simply seting her hand on them. 
Though this worked, she soon acquired a reputation as a thief from Ludgate Hil to Flet 
Stret. 
 Anne was finaly captured for stealing some printed Calico ?out of the shop of 
one Mr. John Andrews? along with a Mary Parker. Once again, she had managed to steal 
items of les value than that required for a felony. Her face was so filed with burns, 
 12 
however, that her judge or jury (we do not know who made the decision) felt that she was 
iredeemable, and condemned her to hang. Anne appealed her sentence to the crown, 
sending out one leter to the Privy Council and one to the Queen. Her pleas did not avail 
her, and she was hanged on 13 July 1708. She was twenty years old.
12
 
 Anne Haris?s story is typical of the sensational tales in the Newgate Calendar. In 
fact, the only thing that distinguished her from any number of other executions was that 
her story was sensational. Taking up a lover at thirten, seing him die when she was 
fourten, taking up another lover, then seing him die when she was sixten is certainly 
atypical in any era. Anne Haris was, though, more than typical of the freaks and ghouls 
who populated the Newgate Calendar: in particular, she was typical of the female 
criminals in the manner of her crime, her pleas, and public reaction to her. What doomed 
her was probably not the weight of the evidence, nor the nature of her crime, but that her 
reputation had sunk so low that there was no redeeming her. Even in a city as large as 
London, Anne Haris was known to be an incorrigible thief. The scars on her face would 
have drowned the pleas of any character witneses she could have mustered. 
 The Newgate Calendar served early modern England as more than just 
entertaining reading. It was also paternalistic propaganda. Instead of just seting out to 
define good behavior by ofering didactic examples of bad behavior, the Newgate 
Calendar justified England?s penal system. State and elite paternalism was implicit 
                                                
12
 Newgate Calendar http:/tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/newgate2/haris.htm 
(7/27/06 1:06PM) 
 
 13 
within the early modern English justice system.
13
 The courts were a means to enforce 
social norms. So long as the justice system was working within the moral economy, 
though these social norms may appear to have been represing plebeians, the lower orders 
acepted and used the English judiciary. This was because justice was sen as an elastic 
concept. The elite certainly created it, but the plebeians used it extensively. So long as 
the elites respected the moral economy of justice, the plebeians were wiling to acept the 
upper orders? paternalism. Indeed, this was not usualy a conscious decision, but, instead, 
an aceptance of a familiar social role. Throughout the course of a case, paternalism was 
at work, influencing the likely outcome. Ultimately, paternalism was the most important 
element of the justice system. 
 Even in its most rudimentary form, plebeians were involved in the exercise of 
justice. Arest, indictment, and punishment took on the form of mob justice. During the 
reign of Queen Anne, ?hue and cry,? in which a victim could cal for (and expect) help in 
apprehending an offender, was stil in place, albeit in an atenuated form. We can se the 
broad aceptance by the plebeians of the law in their participation in such actions. 
Enforcement, then, was reliant upon a broad aceptance of the law, with the implication 
that newly made laws or laws intended to subjugate would not have had the public?s 
support.
14
 
                                                
13
 At this point in England?s history, diferentiating betwen the state and the elite 
may sem like a moot point, but it is worth noting that while the state was controlled by 
elites, this could mean diferent things on the national versus local level. 
 
14
 Beatie, Crime and the Courts in England 1660-1800, 36. 
 
 14 
 Clearly, the common folk played a major role in the early modern English legal 
system. Unlike the elite, however, justice was not, for them, an impersonal concept. 
Instead, it was viewed as a kind of personal confrontation.
15
 Anne Haris would have 
recognized it as such, even if her prosecutors did not. Her behavior was confrontational 
not merely because she was a wayward woman, but also because she conceived of justice 
in the same terms as any other interpersonal conflict.
16
 Cases were ?personal 
confrontations rather than [a] bureaucratic procedure.?
17
 
 This tels us why the plebeians used the justice system as much as they did: it was 
viewed as a just forum in which to find resolution. Indeed, prosecutions and legal 
interactions were usualy initiated by the lower orders and this gave them a basic control 
of the course of a case.
18
 Of course, when one considers that the vast majority of the 
population was composed of plebeians, plebeian involvement should come as no surprise. 
After al, normaly the victim of a crime was also the prosecutor of the criminal.
19
 
Prosecutors usualy stemed from the poor or middling sort. Surprisingly, considering 
how poor some of these individuals could be, they stil were heavily involved in 
                                                
15
 Hay, Albion?s Fatal Tre, 36 
 
16
 This is to say nothing of the fact that her behavior was also her only means of 
survival. 
 
17
 Peter King, ?Decision-Makers and Decision-Making in the English Criminal 
Law, 1750-1800,? The Historical Journal 27, No. 1 (arch 1984): 25. 
 
18
 Ibid., 26. We should not put too fine a point on this. As we shal se, there are 
plenty of moments in which the elites could influence the case. Nonetheles, the 
plebeians were the prime movers of their cases through the court system. 
 
19
 Ibid., 27. 
 
 15 
prosecutions for property crime. England?s elites desired this kind of intense involvement 
with the courts to canalize plebeian conflict into a manageable forum.
 20
 Oficialy, the 
prosecutor was expected to bear court costs. This was not usualy the case in practice, 
however, as most plebeians could not aford the court fes, so the court bore most of its 
own costs.
21
 
 How did cases come to the courts, then? We know that the victims of the crime 
brought the cases forward, but in what manner did the cases come before a judge? This is 
where we se the influence of the elite. Personal interactions across social lines 
determined the progres of a case to the courts. Local Justices of the Peace could use 
their influence to afect a compromise.
2
 Indeed, ?[i]n trespas or asault cases in which 
the public interest was not thought to be deeply engaged, magistrates were themselves 
encouraged to arange agrements that would setle the isue privately and keep it out of 
the courts.?
23
 While this was ilegal in the case of felonies (that is, cases for which the 
penalty was death), it nevertheles occurred. Even after the indictment, the defendant 
could short circuit a prosecution by restoring stolen goods or paying an indemnity.
24
 
The power of the local magistrate, however, could be considerable when brought 
to bear. The cases of Wiliam Burton and Walker Hickson ilustrate this wel and provide 
                                                
20
 Ibid., 28. 
 
21
 Ibid., 32. 
 
2
 Hay, Albion?s Fatal Tre, 40. 
 
23
 Beatie, Crime and the Courts in England 1660-1800, 39. 
 
24
 Hay, Albion?s Fatal Tre, 41. 
 
 16 
us an insight into the workings of an early modern court. The exceptional nature of their 
prosecution by a local magistrate also alows us to understand the limits of the court, 
because of the manner in which the prosecution overstepped its bounds; the cases of 
Burton and Hickson do not highlight common occurrences in court, but iregularities. 
Wiliam Burton was a sixty-year-old Tory who had just unsuccesfully run for 
Parliament. Acording to Burton, Launcelot Roper, only twenty years old, atacked him 
with a cane when Burton was riding home one afternoon. Roper, it was intimated in 
Burton?s petitions, was a client of Burton?s Whig opponent.
25
 Walker Hickson, who 
happened by, intervened. When the scuffle was over, Wiliam Burton certainly semed 
the worse for wear. He had been dragged down the road, hanging from the stirups of his 
spooked horse. It was with dificulty that Walker Hickson, himself in his sixties, fended 
off Roper long enough to catch Burton?s horse. Launcelot Roper then fled the scene and 
hid in a friend?s house. There, Roper chated with his friend, fel slep, and died, with 
not a mark on him.  
Roper?s patron rushed to a trial that Burton and Hickson could not make go away, 
though they were clearly gentry. Burton and Hickson were, furthermore, unable to mount 
a defense because of a ?litle known law? specifying that two indicted prisoners could not 
be witneses for one another.
26
 Even had they been able to testify, it might not have 
availed them. For one thing, the judge was unsympathetic and had no interest in helping 
                                                
25
 This magistrate, who loomed large throughout the procedings, is never 
mentioned by name. 
 
26
 State Papers Domestic 34, Piece 29, Folios 23-30, UK National Archives. 
 
 17 
them.
27
 The jury was downright hostile. Indeed, the prosecutor contrived to reject thre 
?church men? and replace them with Roper?s patron?s servants. Five members of the 
jury even admited that they had been ordered by the prosecution to find the men guilty. 
Even the Archbishop of York, who supported Hickson, was unable to convince the court 
of their innocence. Acording to Burton and Hickson, the jury was packed with friends 
of Roper and his patron. It did not take them long to find Burton and Hickson guilty of 
manslaughter.
28
 They were condemned to death in late 1710. While their lives were at 
stake, equaly important to Hickson and Burton were their reputations. They desired a 
pardon ?to prevent their forfeiting their good characters.? 
 We do not know the fate of Wiliam Burton or Walker Hickson, though, given 
that the recommendations of the Privy Councilors were usualy followed in pardon 
deliberations, it sems likely that they were spared. The misuse of patronage (and 
therefore the perversion of paternalism) was one of the injustices that the monarch?s 
pardon was designed to correct.
29
 Had they not been spared, their prospects would have 
been grim. There was a high tolerance for judicial violence in eightenth-century 
England. This meant that serious crimes, such as mariticide, brought drawing and 
                                                
27
 We cannot say that the judge necesarily had any bias in this situation. Being 
an asize judge, he would have known Roper?s patron, so it is possible that he was 
biased, but Burton and Hickson do not acuse him of being so. 
 
28
 Many indictments for manslaughter were indicative of a kiling that occurred in 
the heat of the moment without intent. Some were the result of men being kiled while 
setling disputes in boxing matches. These often only occurred when men were already 
wel ?in their cups.? Beatie, Crime and the Courts in England, 94 
 
29
 State Papers Domestic 34, Piece 29, Folio 26. 
 
 18 
quartering upon the perpetrator.
30
 Murder, in al of its forms, horrified the early modern 
English, even with death and violence omnipresent. It was so reviled that it was the first 
crime for which the benefit of the clergy was withdrawn.
31
 In early modern England, 
there was no doubt that the murderer deserved execution. 
 Execution was a ceremonial event that had a strong social significance. The 
manner of kiling was fraught with the symbolism that early modern crowds appreciated. 
More than just kiling for vengeance, execution was an act intended to serve as a leson 
for the general population: it was a moral act. The ceremonial aspects of execution were 
already wel entrenched by the reign of James I.
32
 Hanging and other methods of kiling 
were a means of impresing upon the populace the power of the state.
3
 We should not, 
however, asume that the convict?s death was merely intended to terorize the 
spectators.
34
 Instead, the execution was a performance: the ultimate form of state 
paternalism. 
 The fact that it was a performance created, too, a role for an audience. Indeed, 
like al good audiences, the crowd was aware of the part they had to play. Thousands of 
spectators could turn out for particularly infamous criminals. Sometimes, cavalry would 
                                                
30
 Beatie, Crime and the Courts in England, 74-75. 
 
31
 Ibid., 77. 
 
32
 J. A. Sharpe, ??Last Dying Speeches?: Religion, Ideology, and Public Execution 
in Sevententh-Century England,? Past and Present, No. 107 (May 1985): 147. 
 
3
 Ibid., 161. 
 
34
 Ibid., 146-147. 
 
 19 
be needed to clear the path to the scafold.
35
 For those who were unable to atend, there 
were chapbooks and other popular publications that promoted the justice of specific 
executions.
36
 While there was certainly literature celebrating the criminal element, 
justifications of execution undoubtedly had a larger ?market penetration.?
37
  
 Though condemned for a specific crime, convicts were not so much kiled for a 
single transgresion, but, rather, for al their moral failings.
38
 In this respect, Anne Haris 
had no chance. Not only did her face betray a lifetime of failings, but her youth was a 
litany of transgresions that offended the paternalism of the elite. From running away to 
taking lovers at a young age to thievery, Anne Haris offended the norms of the paternal 
elite. Had she an excuse, or, at least, a diferent lifestyle, she might have had a chance. 
Though Anne is one of the chery-picked few in the Newgate Calendar, her case is one of 
many that were notable in that they contributed to the overal sense of justice in 
execution.
39
  
 Just before an actual hanging would come the dramatic climax of the execution: 
the galows confesion. This was the moment that the prisoner reinforced social norms 
                                                
35
 Ibid., 148-149. 
 
36
 Ibid., 152. 
 
37
 The readership of newspapers is instructive. There were large numbers of 
readers for each paper. There sems to be some consensus that around 15,000-25,000 
papers were produced each day. Where there is debate, however, is the number of 
readers that each paper had. Jeremy Black estimates 20 readers per paper, but some 
contemporary acounts are much lower. Hannah Barker, Newspapers, Politics and 
English Society 1695-1855 (Oxford: Oxford University Pres, 2000), 23. 
 
38
 Sharpe, ?Last Dying Speeches,? 156. 
 
39
 Ibid., 163. 
 
 20 
and the elite?s paternalism by acepting his or her fate. Confesions were, in practice, a 
sort of moral cleansing for the condemned. They did not detail the act that the prisoner 
was being executed for, but, instead, were ?a more general acount of past sinfulnes and 
delinquency.?
40
 This confesion had been coerced out of the condemned long before. 
Clerical blandishments as wel as popular culture emphasized the importance of a 
confesion.
41
 The clergy?s role in obtaining these confesions was, indeed, so vital as to 
efectively make them agents of the state?s paternalism. By geting these confesions the 
clergy minimized any potential separation betwen a loving church and a stern state, thus 
reinforcing the power of both.
42
  
 The just execution of prisoners further reinforced the power of the state by also 
creating a stage for the visible expresion of power. This had limits. Because there was 
no standing police force and there was national antipathy to a large standing army, early 
modern England had no means of creating a police state. This meant that the execution 
of justice had to be sensitive to public sentiment or become impotent. To ensure that 
there was widespread faith in the justice of executing criminals in general, there had to be 
means by which prisoners whose conviction was questionable or for whom there was 
public sympathy could escape the galows. This was self-reinforcing: pardons responded 
to public opinion, and were expresions of elite patronage. By reinforcing the invisible 
                                                
40
 Ibid., 150. 
 
41
 Ibid., 152. 
 
42
 Ibid., 159. 
 
 21 
justice of the elite and, most particularly, the Crown, this satisfied everyone?s sense of 
fair play and reinforced al parties? aceptance of their place in the scheme of things. 
 How, then, were pardons obtained? What sorts of negotiations and transactions 
went into geting a pardon? For the condemned, status and respectability were of 
paramount importance in obtaining pardons.
43
 If the prisoner could not rely upon his or 
her own status, then he or she could turn to a respected community member and beg for a 
testimonial.
4
 Indeed, ?mercy was part of the currency of patronage.?
45
 This reinforced 
state and elite paternalism. When a pardon was obtained, the members of the elite who 
asisted the prisoner in geting of enhanced their reputation and status.
46
 To ilustrate we 
have the example of James West. The community of Reading knew him to be an old 
offender. His family, however, appears to have been wel respected. In particular, his 
neighbors and the local clergy pitied James West?s wife and family and asked Henry 
Hyde, the Earl of Clarendon, to atempt to gain him a pardon. Even though West 
admited to being a regular criminal, Clarendon?s intervention saved him from the 
galows. James West was, instead, sent to the Queen Anne?s army in Flanders.
47
 
                                                
43
 Hay, Albion?s Fatal Tre, 44. 
 
4
 King, ?Decision-Makers and Decision-Making in the English Criminal Law,? 
45. 
 
45
 Hay, Albion?s Fatal Tre, 45. 
 
46
 Ibid., 46. 
 
47
 British Library 61618-195. The Earl of Clarendon was a former Lord of the 
Privy Seal and Lieutenant-Governor of Ireland, as wel as being Queen Anne?s uncle. 
Purged along with the rest of the Tories in 1687, he abandoned James when Wiliam of 
Orange landed. He did not, however, pledge alegiance to Wiliam and was imprisoned. 
His Tory principles certainly recommended him to Anne, but remained a non-juror 
 22 
 During the reign of Queen Anne, judges could not commute or pardon convicted 
prisoners; their power was limited to reprieves, or temporary relief while the monarch 
decided their fate. These reprieves were meant to give the monarch the opportunity to 
show mercy. At the end of the asize circuit, judges would submit a ?circuit pardon? or 
?circuit leter,? which was a list of those prisoners the judge felt to be worthy of a pardon. 
These leters would be sent to the Chancery, which usualy approved the judge?s 
recommendations.
48
 Reprieves occurred in full sight. There was no conferencing behind 
closed doors. This, in turn, made pardon recommendations transparent. The personal 
nature of criminal justice was stresed, as was the paternalist order. The actual 
pardoning, done by the monarch, was by contrast altogether mysterious to the plebeians 
because the relevant discussions occurred behind closed doors.
49
 The Privy Council 
considered the pardon requests and tendered their recommendation to the monarch. 
They, in turn, relied on the judge?s report and usualy followed his suggestions.
50
 Judges 
recommended pardons ?to met the requests of local gentry or to propitiate popular 
                                                                                                                                            
during her reign. Nevertheles, she certainly cared for him and gave him a ?1,500 
pension. When he died, Anne paid for his burial. W. A. Speck, ?Hyde, Henry, second 
earl of Clarendon (1638?1709)?, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 
University Pres, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2006 
[http:/ww.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14329, acesed 24 March 2007] 
 
48
 An alternative to execution was generaly imposed after 1660. Transportation 
was especialy popular after 1718, when judges were alowed to commute the sentence to 
transportation. Beatie, Crime and the Courts in England 1660-1800, 430-432. 
 
49
 Hay, Albion?s Fatal Tre, 47. 
 
50
 King, ?Decision-Makers and Decision-Making in the English Criminal Law,? 
50. 
 
 23 
felings of justice.? Monarchs pardoned to maintain the social order.
51
 Both 
strengthened the paternalist credentials of early modern English society. 
 To further ilustrate the point it is worth taking a look at the case of James Feilet, 
a soldier condemned to death for manslaughter. James Feilet was coming home after a 
long night of drinking when some men cornered him in a London aley, demanding his 
money. Feilet was with some friends and, being a soldier, was armed and confidently 
fought the thieves. Indeed, he ran one of the thieves through and the rest fled. Feilet 
aserted that he was acting in self-defense and that he was innocent of commiting 
malicious murder.
52
 The jury on his case agred, and found him guilty of manslaughter, 
not murder. While the penalty for manslaughter was stil death, it was manifestly a leser 
crime, and indicated to the judge that the jury felt Feilet deserved to be spared. Feilet 
certainly felt he should be pardoned, and he submited an afidavit endorsing his story to 
the Privy Council.
53
 His commander certified Feilet?s good service in Her Majesty?s 
Horse Guards.
54
 The Queen?s Council was pleased to grant Feilet?s petition and there it 
semed the mater would end. Not long after, however, Privy Councilor Charles Spencer, 
the Earl of Sunderland, received a leter from James Feilet. This time he was asking for 
money, not for a pardon: he could only be released when his friends covered his trial 
                                                
51
 Hay, Albion?s Fatal Tre, 49. 
 
52
 British Library, 61618-1, Petition of James Feilet. 
 
53
 British Library, 61618-1, Afidavit for James Feilet 
 
54
 British Library, 61618-1, Second Petition of James Feilet 
 
 24 
costs.
5
 This serves to ilustrate many things about the English prison system. For one 
thing, we can se in James Feilet?s case the power of past service and links to the 
community. Feilet had provided evidence of his usefulnes to the Crown and was 
rewarded for his service. Patronage and paternalism not only saved him from death, but 
also from rotting in prison while his friends tried to cover his costs. Feilet could even 
turn to the Crown in an atempt to get himself out of debt with his friends. The case is 
suffused with paternalism from beginning to end. 
                                                
5
 British Library, 61618-1, Petition to Sunderland. In a society in which prison 
was not a punishment, but just a holding cel, keeping a prisoner was a costly 
responsibility expected to be borne by the incarcerated. 
 25 
CHAPTER 2: THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE CONDEMNED 
 
 On 12 May 1703, a body of constables approached the district of Mayfair in 
Middlesex, England. Inspired by Queen Anne's desire to cleanse the iniquity of Mayfair, 
the constables had been sent by the Justices of Middlesex to suppres the market. Now 
one of the most exclusive areas of London, at the time Mayfair was a place where al 
kinds of "base" entertainment were given fre rein.
56
 
Originaly granted as a biwekly market under Charles I, Mayfair had grown les 
savory over the years. James I granted the rights to collect the market fes to the family 
of Sir John Coel. Over time, whether because the Coel family sought to maximize their 
profits from the market or simply because of neglect, the market at Mayfair was 
perverted. Booths that sold foodstuffs and other goods were replaced with booths for 
music, shows, and drinking. The licentious atmosphere grew until the district was 
regularly populated by a carousing mob.
57
 
 A person in Mayfair could satiate a wide range of lusts. Transvestite prostitutes 
roamed the quarter; men found it possible "to shift the Habits of their sex, to give the 
Reins to their base Inclinations."
58
 Of-duty soldiers caroused with apprentices and the 
                                                
56
 Reasons for Suppresing the Yearly Fair in Brookfield, Westminster; commonly 
called May-Fair (London, 1709), 5. 
 
57
 Ibid., 4. 
 
58
 Ibid., 5. 
 26 
youth of the city.
59
 The more traditional sort of prostitute also moved about the quarter, 
plying their trade with a forthrightnes that shocked the more puritanical of the city. 
Alongside the sex play were many booths for drinking and playacting. One commentator 
expresed disgust at the playhouse, which he termed as worse than even the brothels. 
The confluence of "brutal Lusts and Pasions of shameles and ungovernable persons" 
regularly produced a mob.
60
 
 Into this the body of constables marched, seking to disperse the rabble rousers 
and restore Mayfair to order. It would sem that at the beginning the constables had an 
easy time of it. They were able to seize and question several persons, at least one of 
whom they suspected was a prostitute. After questioning, the constables released them 
and proceded deeper into Mayfair. The disturbance that the intrusion of the constables 
caused spread throughout Mayfair. Soldiers on furlough rushed to confront the 
constables. They stood atop a baricade and hurled brickbats at them, daring the 
constables to atack. The soldiers were soon joined by Thomas Cooke, known as the 
Butcher of Gloucester. 
 Thomas Cooke had already lived a varied and tumultuous life that befited his 
place in Mayfair. Beginning as the son of a butcher in Gloucester, Cooke was 
apprenticed to a barber surgeon by his father. He did not find this to his liking, however, 
and fled at the age of seventen to serve under a page to Wiliam II. His family being 
unhappy with his wilfulnes, Thomas Cooke subsequently returned to become a butcher 
                                                
 
59
 Ibid., 6-7. 
 
60
 Ibid., 4. 
 
 27 
in his hometown of Gloucester.
61
 He rose to be the master of the butchers? guild in 
Gloucester and used the money he had earned to open an inn. During this time, if an 
anonymous leter writer is to be believed, Cook abandoned his wife and took up with a 
prostitute who may have plied her wares in his inn. The inn failed and after a brief stint 
as a grazier, Thomas Cooke ended up in London with his mistres who was now claiming 
to be his wife. They found employ in Mayfair, she possibly resuming prostitution and he 
becoming a swordfighter.
62
 
 One of the women seized by the constables when they first entered Mayfair was 
Thomas Cooke's mistres (who always refered to herself simple as the ?wife of Thomas 
Cooke?). When she was released she fled to Cooke and reported what had happened. 
Cooke seized his sword and found the constables facing off with the soldiers. Joining the 
soldiers he hurled insults and bricks at the constables until they panicked and fled. The 
soldiers and Cooke gave chase, catching one of the constables, John Cooper. Thomas 
Cooke thereupon dragged the constable into the shep pens where he stabbed him 
through the heart. 
 It was now Cooke's turn to panic. He fled from Mayfair to parts unknown and 
eventualy emerged in Dublin, Ireland. He was captured when he created a ruckus in a 
"publick house" while discussing sword fighting with a local fencer and loudly bragging 
about his part in the Mayfair riot. The fencer tried to caution Thomas Cooke, given that 
                                                
61
 There was an intimation in the Newgate Calendar that Cooke?s family were 
opposed to the Glorious Revolution. Newgate Calendar 
http:/ww.exclasics.com/newgate/ng98.htm (7/25/06 6:54PM) 
 
62
 State Papers Domestic 34 Piece 3 Number 10 Folio 18, TNA. 
 
 28 
there was a constable in the house. Cooke was roused, however, and he asked, "Was 
there any of the reforming Dogs in Ireland, for . . . we in London drive them, for . . . at a 
Fair caled May-Fair, there was a noise, and he went out to se, and . . . there was six 
Soldiers and himself, and that the Constables plaid their Parts with their Staves, and he 
made his: And farther, . . . that when the Man dropt, he wipt his Sword, and put it up."
63
 
Thomas Cooke was arested and sent back to London for trial.  
 The trial itself sems to have been fairly uneventful and typical for the time. The 
only drama came when one of the witneses could not identify Cooke as the man who 
kiled John Cooper. Nonetheles, there were other witneses who could identify Cooke as 
the kiler and in due course he was found guilty.
64
 
 Until this point, Cooke's story, while exceptionaly violent, is not notable in any 
other respect. It is the trial's aftermath that is particularly noteworthy.  Naturaly enough, 
Cooke had no desire to die. Unlike many in this era, Cooke was unwiling to acept his 
fate as just. Many who initialy protested their innocence finaly admited their guilt 
when put on the galows. Thomas Cooke, however, was constitutionaly unable to go 
peacefully into that dark night. 
 More than any other petitioner in Queen Anne's State Papers, Thomas Cooke 
produced afidavits and petitions on his own behalf. Upon being intered in Newgate, 
Cooke and his supporters, indeed, began a leter-writing blitz on his behalf. On top of his 
own petition, Cooke sent the Queen and the Privy Council afidavits from nine 
                                                
 
63
 Newgate Calendar http:/ww.exclasics.com/newgate/ng98.htm (7/25/06 
6:54PM) and State Papers Domestic 34 Piece 3 Number 10 Folio 18, TNA. 
 
64
 State Papers Domestic 34 Piece 3 Number 10 Folio 18, TNA. 
 29 
individuals.
65
 This was surely impresive on its own, but Cooke had two further aces in 
the hole.  
 Charnel Hayter was a former constable of the city of Westminster. He provided 
an afidavit in support of Thomas Cooke.
6
 The words of an upstanding lawman must 
surely have given the Privy Council pause. In addition, Thomas Cooke claimed to be 
unable to commit the crime, providing the afidavit of a surgeon from St. Giles without 
Cripplegate who avered that he had operated on Cooke after a fight just weks before. 
The surgeon claimed that there was no way that Cooke could have used his sword.
67
 
Indeed, four of the afidavits asert that Cooke was injured the day of the riot. Medical 
evidence such as this is exceptional. While there are numerous coroner reports, this is the 
only case in Anne's State Papers that used medical evidence on behalf of the defense. 
 What the Privy Council thought about the medical evidence is unknown. They 
were certainly curious enough to request that the Old Bailey send them Thomas Cooke's 
trial records. Among those records, though, was a damning piece of evidence, not against 
Cooke, but against Charnel Hayter, the erstwhile constable. In 1692 he had been found 
guilty of perjury and of being a vagabond. Hayter's established wilingnes to lie under 
oath almost certainly kicked the props out from under Thomas Cooke's petitions.
68
 
                                                
 
65
 State Papers Domestic 34 Piece 3 Number 10 Folios 10-17, TNA. 
 
6
 State Papers Domestic 34 Piece 3 Number 10 Folio 12, TNA. 
 
67
 State Papers Domestic 34 Piece 3 Number 10 Folio 16, TNA. 
 
68
 State Papers Domestic 34 Piece 3 Number 17 Folio 27 and State Papers 
Domestic 34 Piece 3 Number 18B Folio 28-29. 
 30 
 An anonymous leter may have been the final nail in Thomas Cooke's coffin. 
This leter, scratched out in a weak hand, painted a picture sympathetic to the prosecution 
while providing information on Cooke's character that the trial transcripts did not. The 
leter stated that Cooke kept a raucous household and was wel known for his prize 
fighting. Additionaly, it claimed that Thomas Cooke paid for the afidavits on his 
behalf.
69
 While there is no way to confirm this, it is unusual that al of the afidavits on 
Cooke's behalf are writen by Roger Smith and only marked by the person they purport to 
be from. This may only be indicative of the kind of individuals who frequented Mayfair, 
but it is unlike every other case in Queen Anne's State Papers in this respect. 
 Ultimately, Thomas Cooke's petitions were unavailing and he was executed. 
Even after his death, Cooke's mistres or wife continued to protest his innocence. She 
had a pamphlet published with the words to a song she wrote about her misery at losing 
Cooke. Even in death, she refused to believe that he was guilty.
70
 She certainly did not 
believe that he had done anything wrong, even if he had violated the leter of the law. 
 The case of Thomas Cooke is instructive. It offers the historian a glimpse into the 
popular culture of the plebeians. The revelry of Mayfair was, perhaps, more noisome 
than the elite in London would have liked, but it was unusual only in its scope. That 
Cooke may have abandoned one wife and taken up with another woman was not, in fact, 
                                                
 
69
 State Papers Domestic 34 Piece 3 Number 12 Folio 19. 
 
70
 ?An Excelent New Copy of Verses Being The Sorrowful Lamentation Of 
Mrs. Cooke, For the Loss of her Husband Thomas Cooke, the Famous Butcher of 
Gloucester, who was Executed at Tyburn on Wednefday the 11
th
 of Auguft 1703.? 
 
 
 31 
unusual. Given that there was no elite sanctioned legal means of divorce, this was the 
plebeian-created alternative. His disrespect for elite social norms, in particular the 
unwilingnes to take mariage seriously alongside his wilingnes to make money by 
fighting, made Thomas Cooke the archetypal plebeian vilain in the elite mind. Thomas 
Cooke was not merely found in Mayfair, he was an intimate part of Mayfair, with al of 
the odium that went along with it. This, with his wilingnes to murder a constable, was 
an afront to the social order in elite eyes. Nevertheles, the Privy Council was wiling to 
pardon Cooke to satisfy local sensibilities, if he could prove his case. Ultimately, the 
evidence did damn him. The fact that he was iliterate was unimportant. Nor was it 
significant that Cooke was making a living in Mayfair (as objectionable as Queen Anne 
found it). Cooke?s brief revolt against the prevailing social order was his greatest crime. 
 We can learn an enormous amount about individuals from their felony petitions. 
What, then, can these petitions tel us about the convicts as a body? Although we are not 
dealing with the entire population of prisoners found guilty, these people are 
demographicaly representative of their gender and age. They are not, it should be noted, 
representative of al orders of society. Who is in this sample, then? For that mater, 
where do these petitions come from? Moreover, how did they come into our hands? In 
exploring provenance, we wil look, in particular, at women?s petitions because they were 
les literate. As we wil se, though this may sem to imply gender bias, it is instead, 
reflective of the imposition of roles conforming to gender expectations. 
 There are one hundred thirty-seven cases in this sample. Of these, thirty-four 
were writen on behalf of women and one hundred thirty-seven were for men. Ten of 
these individuals claimed to be members of the Church of England, though this is 
 32 
probably unimportant, as most probably took membership in the church for granted.
71
 Of 
this group, we know the results for thirty-six of the petitioners. Within this body, we 
know for sure that at least ten were literate because they wrote and signed their petitions. 
Many men wrote their own petitions, though by no means al. We cannot be sure that 
women wrote their own petitions. Apparently, no women in this sample wrote their own 
petitions. It is questionable whether they could even read the petitions writen for them: 
by 1750?thirty-six years after Queen Anne?s death?only one-third of al women could 
be expected to be literate.
72
 These women, of course, were nearly al from the upper 
orders and middling sort. This did not indicate a patriarchal society disfavoring women. 
Instead, it reflected the lack of a need for literate women in early modern English society. 
A woman?s gender role was that of the keeper of oral tradition.
73
 Their role only began 
to shift from an oral to a literate one when tradition began being recorded in recipes, 
leters, and commonplace books. This would start with the elite in the late sevententh 
century and early eightenth century and work its way down the orders. A woman?s 
ability to share and aces manuscripts was directly related to her social standing.
74
 
                                                
71
 That some found the opportunity to mention their religion may actualy be more 
important. After al, if nearly everyone was an Anglican, why should the petitioners 
mention it, unles there was some doubt? 
 
72
 David Galenson, ?Literacy and the Social Origins of Some Early Americans,? 
The Historical Journal, Vol. 22, No. 1. (Mar., 1979), 78-80. 
 
73
 Dianne Dugaw, ?Women and popular culture: gender, cultural dynamics, and 
popular prints,? in Women and Literature in Britain 1700-1800, ed. Vivien Jones 
(Cambridge: Cambridge Univeristy Pres, 2000), 265. 
 
74
 Victoria Burke and Jonathan Gibson (eds), Early Modern Women's Manuscript 
Writing: Selected Papers from the Trinty/Trent Coloquium (London: Ashgate, 2004), 75. 
 
 33 
 Indeed, there was a popular perception that works claiming to be writen by 
women were, in reality, writen by men.
75
 In fact, though there were female playwrights 
who made their living by writing, there were limitations on the feminine voice: women?s 
playwriting could only be profitable by being pitched to men.
76
 One could only find a 
woman?s voice in the context of the commonplace book or leter.
7
 During Queen 
Anne?s reign, those women who made their living by writing were perceived as amateurs 
in a male forum.
78
 This reflected women?s gender roles. Their role was changing to 
alow for leters and commonplace books, but had not yet it had not shifted enough to 
open up public writing to them.  
The petitions under scrutiny conformed to aceptable female literary expresion, 
in particular, the moral and religious leter. This leter?writen to no one?was an 
expresion of righteousnes and faith. They often served to uphold normative values.
79
 
Women, then, were exposed to writing and elite women may have even engaged in 
writing. They did so to expres themselves, but generaly did so in a fashion that upheld 
normative values. This was a part of the self-reinforcing efect that literacy brought to 
women?s presentation of themselves.  
                                                
75
 Clare Brant, ?Varieties of women?s writing,? in Women and Literature in 
Britain 1700-1800, ed. Vivien Jones (Cambridge: Cambridge Univeristy Pres, 2000), 287. 
 
76
 Sarah Prescott, Women, Authorship, and Literary Culture, 1690-1740 
(Aberystwyth: University of Wales, 2003) 30. 
 
7
 Burke and Gibson, Early Modern Women's Manuscript Writing, 79. 
 
78
 Prescott, Women, Authorship, and Literary Culture, 30-31. 
 
79
 Brant, ?Varieties of women?s writing,? 296-297. 
 
 34 
 Though, the women condemned to die were almost certainly not from the lucky 
few ho could read, it is important to acknowledge women?s writings because they 
buttresed normative images of women, especialy those of the clergy. This was because 
the great majority of the women in prison were iliterate. Hence, it is likely that the 
Ordinary of Newgate or another cleric wrote the women?s felony petitions. Depending 
on their status, clergymen could be extensively educated in the Inns of Court or they 
could merely have a basic education in reading and writing. One way or another, the 
clergy, unlike the population at large, was exposed to literary culture. This, coupled with 
the already extant petition genre, shaped felony petitions during Queen Anne?s reign. 
Iliterate women, the vast majority, relied on a patron, friend, or clergyman to write their 
petitions for them. Sometimes this could become pernicious, as can be sen from the 
request of the Lord Mayor asking that John Alen, the Ordinary of Newgate in 1700, be 
replaced, because Alen was engaged in extortion under the pretence of obtaining 
pardons.
 80
 Whatever prisoners could pay, there is no doubt that the Ordinary?s 
livelihood depended on the stories of the prisoners. The Ordinary supplemented his 
living from seling acounts of the condemned?s lives. In fact, one of the more 
industrious Ordinaries, Paul Loraine, convinced Parliament to grant his publications tax-
fre status, making his sales that much more profitable. The Ordinary traveled from cel 
to cel looking for good copy.
81
 Some of the petitions writen by the clergy could have 
even been a quid pro quo for the more interesting tales, though this is doubtful: the 
                                                
80
 Peter Linebaugh, ?The Ordinary of Newgate and His Acount? in Crime in 
England 1550-1800 (Princeton: Princeton University Pres, 1977) 254. 
 
81
 Ibid., 258. 
 
 35 
Ordinary?s pamphlets were primarily intended as instructive works and lost their luster 
when the malefactor escaped punishment. It is more likely that the clergy in Newgate 
and other jails saw it as their duty to help these women. They were certainly aware of 
contemporary representations of women; and these representations were only becoming 
stronger as female writers increased in number. This provided the template from which 
clergy worked when writing the felony petitions. 
 One hundred and twenty-four cases produced felony petitions that can be found in 
Queen Anne?s State Papers Domestic, and there are an additional thirten cases in the 
British Library. Whereas the State Papers are organized somewhat topicaly or 
chronologicaly, the papers in the British Library stem from personal collections. Thus, 
many petitions?dating from his time on the Privy Council?can be found in the personal 
papers of John Churchil, Duke of Marlborough. Where the British Library is 
particularly useful is the ancilary material that contextualizes specific cases. 
 Especialy important are the funeral sermons of the Ordinary of Newgate. Not 
only do they tel us that a sentence was caried out, but also they often have precious 
biographical information that cannot be found elsewhere. The Ordinary is a fairly 
reliable source. We cannot rely upon his writings for specific biographical details, but we 
can rely upon him to have captured the broad outlines of the convict?s life.
82
 
 There are, then, one hundred and thirty-seven total cases in this study. Of these, 
one hundred and nine were men and thirty-one were women, meaning that only one-fifth 
of the cases feature women. Of the individuals lying under the death penalty, we only 
                                                
82
 Ibid., pasim. 
 
 36 
know the result for thirty-five. Four of these were pardoned with transportation, fourten 
were pardoned absolutely, and eleven were sent to the workhouse or military, with the 
remainder being executed. This would indicate that thre-fourths of the individuals who 
petitioned were pardoned. The Old Bailey Online gives the pardon rate throughout early 
modern England as being just over 50%. One should not, however, the representative 
nature of this sample. Indeed, Wiliam II had a reputation for dealing with property 
crime with execution that could have easily thrown the Old Bailey?s numbers off.
83
 In 
fact, alongside the generaly lower crime rate during the War of Spanish Succesion, 
property crime prosecutions declined precipitously during the reign of Queen Anne.
84
  
 Who, then, received these pardons? The pardon rates for men and women were 
very similar in the sample under study. Historian Peter King?s research agres: prisoners 
receiving pardons were not privileged by sex, but instead by age.
85
 This is directly owing 
to the state?s paternalism. In fact, if the prisoner could guarante future usefulnes, he or 
she had a beter chance of garnering a pardon.
86
 Usefulnes and the ability to support 
one?s family might sem to favor men, but, as it turned out, women?s ability to contribute 
to the household was taken into consideration.
 87
 Thus, youth and inexperience?not 
                                                
83
 As far as I can tel, there are no analyses of the pardon rate confined to the 
reigns of specific monarchs. 
 
84
 Beatie, Policing and Punishment in London, 338. 
 
85
 King, ?Decision-Makers and Decision-Making in the English Criminal Law,? 
37-38. 
 
86
 Ibid., 45. 
 
87
 Beatie, Crime and the Courts in England, 235, 263-264. 
 
 37 
gender?were considered strong mitigating circumstances; the ability of the prisoner to 
be redeemed by future usefulnes to society was a factor in the pardoning proces.
8
 
 Before an individual could be pardoned, he or she had to be reprieved, otherwise 
the punishment was caried out within a few days of sentencing. Most reprieves were 
designed to alow the monarch to show mercy if he or she chose. Rarely, the prisoner 
would request a reprieve to set their afairs in order, but more usualy the reprieve was 
the beginning of the pardoning proces. The judges would submit a ?circuit pardon? or 
?circuit leter? in which they listed those whom they felt should be spared. The Chancery 
had to approve these (and in this study, they always did). Then an alternative to 
execution was imposed. Transportation would become especialy popular after 1718, 
when judges were alowed to commute imediately the sentence to transportation.
89
 
 Only 17% of the condemned in this sample were transported, which is a 
surprising number, because throughout the early modern period England relied on 
transportation extensively. These numbers, however, are skewed by the Transportation 
Act, which increased the number of transportes significantly by alowing judges to 
automaticaly commute the sentence to exile. This was intended to increase the 
likelihood of convictions; juries had become chary about voting guilty when they were 
faced with condemning someone to death for a leser crime. By alowing the asize 
judge to commute the sentence, the jury was more likely to vote guilty because they knew 
                                                
8
 King, ?Decision-Makers and Decision-Making in the English Criminal Law,? 
40-41. 
 
89
 Beatie, Crime and the Courts in England, 430-432. 
 
 38 
that there was gradation in the punishments. This moved the responsibility for execution 
from the men of the community to the sentencing judge. 
 Youth was, once again, a factor in eliciting a sentence of transportation. 
Transportation was usualy given to youth under the age of 17, regardles of sex.
90
 Youth 
was favored, in part, because, if the transporte survived his or her indentured servitude, 
he or she would have enough time to lead a productive life in the colonies. 
Transportation was a generaly favored way of dealing with pety criminals in the 
Augustan era. Ireland would go even further, by pasing a law that alowed vagrants to 
be transported.
91
 This was state paternalism in action: the indigent and otherwise out-of-
work were put to work in the labor strapped colonies. 
 There were two other kinds of pardons available to condemned women. One was 
the absolute pardon and the other was the workhouse. The absolute pardon was given far 
more often to women than to men. As we wil se in the next chapter, this is indicative of 
their diferent productive sphere and the way they could best serve the state, not any 
special sympathy for the woman?s plight; men could serve in the military, women could 
only serve in the home. The other alternative, the workhouse, was yet another atempt to 
extract productivity from women. Workhouses came much more into vogue later in the 
eightenth century, but there were a few in existence during the reign of Queen Anne. 
Workhouses could be very similar to modern factories. They were, however, 
                                                
90
 King, ?Decision-Makers and Decision-Making in the English Criminal Law,? 
41. 
 
91
 Neal Garnham, The Courts, Crime and the Criminal Law in Ireland, 1692-1760 
(London: Blackrock, 1996), 20. 
 
 39 
administered under the old poor laws and took on a paternalistic approach to their 
workers.
92
 At this point, they were not necesarily in existence to punish the poor for 
being poor. Nevertheles, they were an option that the Crown would turn to as an 
alternative to execution. 
 Yet, men and women had similar pardon rates. The only pardoning method that 
favored men was sending them to the military. This would be more than made up for by 
the absolute pardons given to women, bringing the male and female rates into line.  Even 
so, men and women had diferent approaches to obtaining pardons. This was directly 
related to the manner that they gendered their felony petitions. Gendering, we shal se 
in the next chapter, was the means by which women established their value to the state
                                                
92
 Maxine Berg, The Age of Manufactures 1700-1800 (New York: Routledge, 
1985) 41. 
 
 40 
CHAPTER 3: GENDERING THE PETITIONS 
 No mater the isue at hand the petitions always took the same form. Diferent 
people could write felony petitions for diferent kinds of criminals, but they were al 
developed along the same lines. Mases of petitions, moreover, did not help any more 
than a single petition. It is important to look at other factors to try to understand what 
matered in obtaining a pardon. Who wrote the petition certainly did not mater. In this 
respect, the petition acted as a sort of leveling document: by making them al the same, 
the only meaningful information to be contained within a petition was the plea itself. 
And, these were explicit appeals to the moral economy. If a woman desired to escape 
punishment, she could not aford to reject her role in society; instead, she had to embrace 
it. This is the unifying theme of the petitions under study here: an aceptance of sexual 
separation of roles in order to gain the favor of the Privy Council. To put it another way, 
women?s petitions reinforced longstanding gender roles in order to diminish or eradicate 
the perception of the woman in question as transgresive.  
 There was a problem, however, in the only mode of expresion available to the 
convicted: writing. Though there were literate women before King Charles I?s reign, the 
first woman to make a living from her writing, and thus reach a sizable audience, was 
Aphra Behn. Being the first female author of note, Aphra Behn set the stereotype for al 
women writers who followed. She was sexualy profligate, socialy ambitious, and very 
wel educated. Aphra Behn fited wel within the libertine court of Charles I, but she 
 41 
would have been out of place in Queen Anne?s austere court.
93
 Indeed, it is notable that 
the most famous work of ?women?s? literature was Pamela, a book about a moral, 
upright, and conscientious woman, writen by a man.
94
 So, the problem then becomes 
that women in literature, especialy in those stories writen by women, themselves 
transgresed the norms of early modern English society.  
Women?s writing was the beginning of an atempt to define the female self. 
Women?s identity in the early modern period was theoreticaly limited to that of wife and 
mother. Achieving this, however, was easier said than done. To make a succesful 
mariage it was considered necesary that a woman bring in a dowry.
95
 For the plebeians, 
this could simply mean the price of a cow. For the upper orders, it meant far more. The 
dowry was oftentimes a women?s insurance against abandonment or widowhood. This 
forced women from the lower orders into the workplace. Although there were jobs 
considered especialy appropriate for women, plebeian women at this time stil had a 
wide variety of opportunities available to them. Elite women were usualy provided with 
their dowry by their family and, therefore, maried much earlier and bore more children 
than plebeian women. For women from the lower orders, their household worked as a 
unit to ensure survival. Thus, while elite women ocupied themselves managing 
                                                
93
 Olwen Hufton, The Prospect Before Her, A History of Women in Western 
Europe, Vol. 1 (London, Harper Collins Publishers, 1995), 427. 
 
94
 Ibid., 443-445. 
 
95
 Ibid., 67-92. I refer here to dowries, not to jointures. The jointure alowed the 
survivor in a couple to inherit al of the property brought into a mariage. While this did 
function as a sort of insurance, as did the dowry, it is an unimportant distinction, as what 
the woman brought into a mariage was a dowry, a contract by which the dowry was 
defined as being the couple?s joint property to hold upon either?s death was a jointure.  
 
 42 
households or pursuing their intelectual interests, plebeian women were toiling in the 
workplace. For ordinary women work could take the form of in-house tasks such as 
piecework asociated with the textile industry or field tasks, such as gathering 
gleanings.
96
 But, the state, informed by the elite woman?s experience, wanted women to 
be maried and producing children. We wil se throughout the petitions below many 
cases in which women, who were regularly included in the workplace, conspicuously 
failing to invoke their vital financial role in the household (this was left to the men) and, 
instead, emphasizing their fecundity.   
 For fecundity was the primary contribution of the woman to the state. Abortion 
and infanticide were not simply murder, but were considered petit treason, a betrayal of 
the crown.
97
 This is indicative of the elite vision of a woman?s role. But, a woman was 
not simply a child production facility; she was also an active and productive member of 
the household. This tension betwen elite ideals and plebeian reality created considerable 
unease. Plebeian women had escaped the gheto of being considered inferior men, but 
their lives were stil wholly alien to their elite judges.
98
 Their motivations were 
correspondingly suspect, and when they commited a crime the lack of a recognizable, 
?masculine,? motive this caused anxiety among their male judges. Female murders, for 
example, were usualy restricted to the household: the ?intimate murder.? This was 
                                                
96
 Ibid., 154-155. 
 
97
 Of note is that counterfeiting money was, by contrast, high treason. 
 
98
 Ibid., 43. 
 
 43 
particularly shocking and consequently a staple of lurid crime literature.
9
 In Queen 
Anne?s reign, portrayals and normative expectations of women, though, began to move 
towards pasivity.
10
 This would efectively bring about a slow decline in Old Bailey 
prosecutions of women over the next two centuries.
101
 In the meantime, the identity and 
role of women was stil in flux.  
 Muddying the waters of female identity was the religious ideology of the Church 
of England. The relationship of the church to the state meant that a crime against the 
state was also a crime against God. The petition for forgivenes thus had to addres not 
merely the monarch, but also the Deity. This was a dual disadvantage for certain types of 
criminals. To take a case in point, the archetypal female criminal was the prostitute 
kiling her child.
102
 The prostitute?s solicitation of sex was an invitation to sin that men 
were considered unable to resist. The licentious woman, then, was punished more 
harshly than any male acomplice.
103
 This is a shaping factor in the content of the 
women?s petitions. Women were far more dangerous than men precisely because they 
were so alien. The writing of the petition had to emphasize pasivity while vocaly 
begging for forgivenes. This could be why so many women were wiling to acept 
tacitly their guilt in their petitions and did not atempt to justify their crime. 
                                                
9
 Wiener, ?Alice Arden to Bil Sykes,? 168. 
 
10
 Ibid., 186. 
 
101
 Clive Emsley, Crime and Society in England 1750-1900 (New York: Longman 
Publishing, 1996), 152. 
 
102
 Wiener, ?Alice Arden to Bil Sykes,? 190. 
 
103
 Ibid., 191. 
 
 44 
 
 The rhetoric and format of al petitions was formulaic and the felony petitions 
coming from the women in this sample are, if anything, even more formulaic than usual. 
Briefly, we shal compare two petitions, that of Sarah Drummond, a litigator writing to 
Charles I after Bacon?s Rebelion, and that of Anne Alen (se Figure 1), a thief 
condemned to die. Sarah Drummond was the wife of Wiliam Drummond, one of 
Nathaniel Bacon?s closest supporters. When Bacon revolted, Drummond followed suit 
and his lands were seized. Sarah Drummond was writing after Bacon?s Rebelion had 
been crushed and her husband kiled. It was her hope that she would be returned her 
lands, something that Governor Berkeley of Virginia was loathe to do. Sarah Drummond 
petitioned the king directly. The petition is divided into several parts. Underneath a 
standard heading?during Queen Anne?s reign it was ?To the Queens most Excelent 
Majesty,? Sarah Drummond?s petition was directed at ?the Right Honorable the Lords 
Commite for Trade and Plantations??there comes a short preface that identifies the 
document. In both documents, the petitioner is connected to the petition itself by this 
preface. In the case of Anne Alen it reads: ?The humble Petition of Anne Alen now 
under Sentence of Death in Newgate.?
104
 This is followed by what the document 
purports to show (handily headed by a bold ?Sheweth?). Most felony petitions follow the 
same rough format and this section is broken into thre paragraphs. The first paragraph 
establishes who the petitioner was. This is followed by an (exculpatory) explanation of 
the crime for which she is charged. The last paragraph in this section offers an 
                                                
104
 SP 34 Piece 35 Number 74 Folio 90. 
 
 45 
alternative punishment than death, whether that would be transportation or workhouse, or 
simply fredom. In a civil petition, such as Sarah Drummond?s, this could be longer and 
would deal, not with a crime, but with some sort of lawsuit or money isue. Al of this is 
followed in both petitions by a paragraph expresing awe and contrition before the power 
of the monarch. The petitions then typicaly close with a wish for the monarch?s 
continued health and happines.
105
 
 The example of Sarah Drummond is instructive, because scholars have followed 
her petition step by step, and so it serves as a convenient example of the path that a 
petition generaly took. Her petition is not signed, so we can asume that she probably 
did not write it, but, being the widow of a former governor of Albemarle, in the 
Carolinas, we can expect that she had aces to people knowledgeable about the proper 
forms a petition should take. Her petition was addresed to the Lord Commite for 
Trade and Plantations. In practice, this meant a portion of the Privy Council, just as 
specific members of the Privy Council, usualy the Secretary of State for a given region, 
reviewed felony petitions. Upon review, the councilor could choose to inquire after the 
facts of the petition, reject it out of hand, or approve it without further ado.  
We have several cases in which Privy Councilors requested explication of trial 
acounts in order to make the fairest decision possible. This was not a good sign, 
because it intimated that the Privy Council had some concerns, not the least of which 
was: if this individual was deserving of a pardon, why did not the judges write us 
recommending a pardon? We se this at work with Thomas Cooke?s case. The Privy 
                                                
105
 Wilcomb E. Washburn, ?The Humble Petition of Sarah Drummond,? The 
Wiliam and Mary Quarterly 13, No. 3 (Jul., 1956), 355-356. 
 
 46 
Council reprieved Thomas Cooke so that there would be ample time for the judge to 
write a leter explaining the trial.
106
 Once the Privy Council learned the details of the 
case, however, Thomas Cooke was doomed. In addition, we have the case of John 
Lawrence, whose pardon petition was scuttled by the leter of Chief Justice Holt, who not 
only refused to support his petition, but also believed John Lawrence to be a hardened 
criminal and so not deserving of the Queen?s mercy.
107
  
Interestingly, the Privy Councilors reviewing Sarah Drummond?s petition chose 
not to look into the facts of the case and simply pased it onto Charles I with a 
recommendation for approval. Charles approved Sarah Drummond?s petition and sent 
instructions to Virginia to have her lands restored.
108
 With the exception that felony 
petitions went to diferent Privy Councilors, both types of petitions followed the same 
route. While Queen Anne has been shown to be an involved monarch, we know of no 
case in which she overturned the recommendations of her Privy Council to pardon a 
felony. 
 Anne Alen?s petition begins by emphasizing her fecundity rather than appealing 
her sentence or trying to prove innocence, she instead focused on her value to the state. 
                                                
106
 SP 34 Piece 3 Number 11 Folio 18. The description in the National Archives? 
index is as follows: ?Chief Baron Ward and Justice Tracy to Earl of Nottingham. Report 
on the trial of Thomas Cooke, with details of his flight to Ireland and a query about 
Charnel Hayter's afidavit.? 
107
 SP 34 Piece 3 Number 140 Folio 222-223. 
 
108
 Washburn, ?The Humble Petition of Sarah Drummond,? 370. Sarah 
Drummond?s story has an interesting postscript. The colony of Virginia refused to cary 
out Charles?s order and succesfully petitioned to halt the restoration of Sarah 
Drummond?s lands. It would take quite a bit of wrangling and leter writing before the 
isue was finaly setled, but it shows the limits of what a king in England could hope to 
achieve in America. 
 
 47 
She claimed to be only twenty-two years old but to have already had two children. The 
nature of her crime?stealing calico?places her as a plebeian. She does spend time 
describing the nature of the crime that she has been convicted of, but she does not asert 
her innocence. Rather, Anne Alen said that she was ?under a great[er] Sorow and 
Mortification for this Ofence than words can Expres.? Her expresion of penitence is 
important, because it expreses a sort of premptive galows confesion. Whereas the 
confesion on the galows was for the condemned?s peace of mind as wel as the 
spectator?s edification, this confesion was more private. Coming as early as it did, 
however, this confesion may have suggested to the Privy Council that Anne Alen would 
never commit such a crime again, as she surely intended: ?Resolving if her Life be 
Spared never more to Ofend in the like Nature.? This, combined with her protestations 
of her ?tender Yeares? lent credence to the idea that youth and fecundity?usefulnes to 
the state, in other words?were key considerations when crafting a petition. Anne 
Alen?s fate has so far been lost to us. For our purposes, the form of the leter is more 
important than the result, because her leter was so typical of felony petitions from 
women.
109
 
 We can, however, compare Anne Alen?s petition with two other petitions whose 
results we do know. Both of these petitions beg that the convicted be alowed 
transportation overseas as opposed to execution. One, however, was granted a full and 
total pardon, while the other was executed. The diferences in their petitions are 
instructive. Cecilia Labre was convicted of counterfeiting (se Figure 2). Her appeal is 
                                                
109
 SP 34 Piece 35 Number 74 Folio 90. 
 
 48 
schizophrenic in its approach, atempting to strike al the proper chords but leaving out 
the most important one: fecundity. She opens by begging for mercy. The initial tone of 
her leter sems to indicate aceptance of wrongdoing: ?That your Petitioner now lyes 
under Sentence of Death for High Treason and must Submit to that Dreadful Sentence.? 
The petition, though, quickly changes tack in the second paragraph by atacking the 
witnes?one Elizabeth Lucas?upon whose evidence Cecilia was convicted, by noting 
that Elizabeth had been indicted for felony and burglary. Cecilia Labre further claims 
that Elizabeth Lucas was engaged in malicious prosecution, possibly to secure a lighter 
sentence. The petition goes on to claim that Cecilia was taken so by surprise by her 
indictment that she was not even aware of the charges against her. Finaly, Cecilia does 
not beg for an absolute pardon, but instead asks to be transported overseas.
10
 The 
schizophrenic tone of the leter is revealing. Wiliam II pardoned Cecilia Labre years 
before in exchange for transportation overseas. Whether she left England and returned or 
simply escaped is unknown. We do know that upon her capture she acepted the fate 
following the breaking of the terms of her pardon as just while at the same time atacking 
her original conviction. Nonetheles, she could not offer what would have been most 
valued by the Privy Council?children?and was executed.
11
 
                                                
10
 SP 34 Piece 35 Number 49 Folio 56 and SP 34 Piece 35 Number 49A Folio 57. 
 
11
 To underscore the emphasis that the state put upon children, in 1623 in 
England and 1690 in Scotland, a law as pased that moved the burden of proof for the 
crime of infanticide from the state to the mother. In other words, the state did not have to 
prove that the woman was guilty, the woman had to prove that she was innocent. R. 
Sauer, ?Infanticide and Abortion in Ninetenth-Century Britain,? Population Studies Vol. 
32 (Mar. 1978), 82. 
 
 49 
 A far more succesful felony petition was that of Katherine Jones (se Figure 3). 
She was acused of entering a store and stealing some ?Cheapen?d Muslen.? The owner 
chased her and a friend down and found the cloth on Katherine Jones. Both Katherine 
and her friend were indicted, but she was the only one found guilty. Of note is that she 
refused to speak on her own behalf and thus almost obligated the jury to find her guilty. 
Though unwiling to testify in her own defense at trial, Katherine Jones reconsidered 
when faced with death. Her petition is headed by ?The humble Petition of Katherine 
Jones, Widdow, [who] now lyes under Sentence of Death for Picking a Pocket and must 
Submit to that Dreadful sentence [to her] Majesties Mercy? which establishes her 
wretched state from the beginning. She follows by acknowledging her crime (though she 
cals it ?Picking a Pocket?) and her fate. This is al formulaic and mostly matches Cecilia 
Labre?s petition. The similarities go on when Katherine Jones avers that she was only 
convicted on the testimony of one person, though she does not atack her acuser?s 
character as Cecilia Labre does. Instead, Katherine shows remorse. She claims that she 
has never commited a crime before and has never even been imprisoned on some minor 
charge. Then she continues by establishing her age as being 24. She has already said 
that she was a widow, so while we do not yet know if she has children or not, we do 
know that she can remary. Her last paragraph is probably the most potent. Katherine 
begs that her conviction be commuted to transportation. She does not, as Cecilia Labre, 
simply provide transportation as an alternative, but asks to be sent overseas to ?prevent 
Distraction of her Aged Parents and Children.? In esence, Katherine Jones cannot bear 
the problems she is creating for her family and, whether or not she is innocent, she is 
asking that she be alowed to escape her shame. In addition, she slips in that she has 
 50 
children. Remorse, possible innocence, and children were a powerful combination: the 
Privy Council pardoned her absolutely.
12
 
 This combination also proved to be useful to another petitioner, Sarah Wiliams, 
who does not acknowledge commiting a crime, but does not also claim to be misled or 
that she was framed. Sarah, instead, claims that while walking outside of a shop she 
happened upon two women trying to pick money of the ground. When she asked them 
what they were doing, the women told her that they had dropped some coins. Sarah was 
only too happy to help, not realizing that she was actualy helping two thieves recover 
their money. When Mr. Newman, the shop owner, came out of the shop, he caught the 
women and Sarah picking up the coins. Seizing them, he had them arested. Sarah 
Wiliams?s petition lays this out in such a manner that we cannot doubt that the only 
crime she is guilty of is being too helpful. Indeed, she does not, like some petitioners, 
simply say that she has never been charged of a crime before: she claims to have never 
commited a crime before at al. In addition, she aserts that she is the sole caretaker for 
her children; her husband serving in the army in Flanders. Thus, while Sarah cannot 
claim remorse for a crime, she replaces it neatly with a projection of moral rectitude. 
Combined with the fact that both she and her husband served the state as best they could, 
this made Sarah Wiliams an obvious choice for a pardon.
13
 
 Of course, an absolute pardon was not the monarch?s only alternative to executing 
her subject. She could also commute the sentence to transportation or send the offending 
                                                
12
 SP 34 Piece 35 Number 51 Folio 58. The decision to grant a pardon can be 
found in the petition?s marginalia. 
 
13
 61618-212. 
 
 51 
woman to the workhouse. Within this sample, only one woman was ever given 
transportation?Cecilia Labre?and then only by Wiliam II. That there is only one 
woman who was given transportation and none given transportation by Queen Anne 
could mean several things. It is possible that the records of transported women were lost 
in the intervening centuries. Transportation could have been an alternative given to 
people outside of London; perhaps it was believed that individuals from the countryside 
were more likely to survive. It is also possible that Queen Anne?s government did not 
find transportation to be a satisfactory option. Whatever the case, it was rarely ofered. 
More often, women who were not pardoned absolutely were sent to the workhouse. 
 We have two cases of note that concern women who were given the workhouse. 
One is Martha Wamon and the other is Jane White. Though convicted of separate 
crimes, both took very similar approaches in their petitions. Martha, unlike any of the 
petitions we have previously discussed, does not even hint at possible innocence. Even 
Katherine Jones, who acknowledged her crime (then promptly clouded the isue by 
speaking of having only one acuser and being misled), atempted to put the whif of 
innocence into the air. Martha?s petition silently admits her guilt by not even addresing 
her crime or the particulars of it, just noting that she lies under the sentence of death. 
Instead, Martha begs for mercy and expreses remorse. Jane White is even more 
forthright in outright admiting that she was a shoplifter. Both women, however, were 
young and Jane had thre children of her own. Neither one claimed to be maried, but 
 52 
their emphasis on youth, Jane?s emphasis on her children, and Martha?s guilty conscience 
succeded in making them candidates for a pardon?though not a full pardon.
14
 
 It could be argued that the gendering of women?s petitions was not a response to 
social paternalism, but a corollary to a patriarchal social order. If this were the case, then 
these women would be completely lacking agency. It would reduce their petitions to 
completely rote exercises. Instead, the discourse in the petitions argues for agency, and 
there are petitions that put a lie to the idea that the women were responding to 
patriarchal?as opposed to paternalistic?expectations. The best way to demonstrate this 
is to invert the petitions we have been examining and look at a petition writen by a 
woman on behalf of a man. 
 This petition originated from a woman named Anne Pritchet who was writing on 
behalf of her husband. He had just been found guilty of rape. In the petition, Anne 
Pritchet begs for her husband to be spared so that he can continue to provide for his wife 
and children. She warns the Queen that they ?wil be brought to Ruin in this World? if he 
is executed. Yet, reading more closely, one has to question whether Anne Pritchet realy 
wanted her husband fred. Wherever possible, petitions noted if this is the acused?s first 
crime. Mrs. Pritchet?s leter follows this up to a point. Instead of saying that her husband 
has commited no crime, she says ?that it is the first Foul or Gross Crime he was ever 
acused for.? Not a ringing endorsement. In addition, when speaking about his crime, 
Anne Pritchet notes that ?whether he be guilty of s[ai]d Fact, [I] cannot tel.? Anne 
                                                
14
 61618 ? 188 and 61618 ? 201. 
 
 53 
Pritchet appears to have been silently damning her husband. The Privy Council certainly 
thought so, and they rejected Anne Pritchet?s petition.
15
  
 Establishing that the female convict was, in reality, a paragon of active, fecund 
womanhood was pivotal to the succes of her petition. While a woman could claim 
remorse or innocence, her most powerful defense was that she could bear children. Of 
course, the only way to prove fecundity in the early modern period was to have already 
had children. Many women would ?plead their belies??claim that they were 
pregnant?when sentenced to death. This forced an automatic reprieve while the woman 
was examined to se if there were signs of pregnancy. If she was pregnant she was 
reprieved for the length of the pregnancy. Typicaly, a woman who gave birth to a 
healthy child guaranted her own health and was set fre. Only in very rare 
circumstances would she be caled back to her former punishment and executed, as with 
Mary Channing. While the execution of a parent could force the family onto the dole and 
thus give local taxpayers pause, a mother was probably spared just as much for the 
children she could have as much as the children she did have. Ideologicaly, the family 
was the nucleus of the social order. Keping the family together was thus not 
compasionate, it also ensured social stability. 
 
 
                                                
15
 SP 34 Piece 34 Number 12 Folio 30. 
 54 
CONCLUSION: NO PATRIARCHY ON THE SCAFOLD 
 
 From the numbers presented in the second chapter, we have sen that the ratio 
betwen condemned women and pardoned women is the same as the ratio betwen 
condemned men and pardoned men. Diferences, however, emerge when we look at the 
petitioner?s pleadings, as wel as the pardons given out by the Queen. Women were 
much more likely to be pardoned absolutely than were men. This reflects the manner in 
which the Queen and her Privy Council perceived particular individuals as useful. Men 
were given the opportunity to be a productive member of society within a strict 
framework, whether it was the workhouse, the military, or in transportation overseas. 
Women were sometimes sent to the workhouse and occasionaly given transportation, but 
they were usualy released to the not-so-strict framework of the home. In fact, men could 
be sen as oftentimes losing agency when they were commited to one of these 
frameworks. Women, on the other hand, were reinserted into a situation in which they 
had the most agency alowed their sex in early modern English society: the home. 
 This does not betray a desire on the behalf of the Privy Council or the Queen to 
return women to fredom for its own sake. Rather, it betrays the fact that the Crown felt 
that the biggest contribution women could make to England was by having children. 
Indeed, condemned men who had a large number of children definitely garnered more 
sympathy than single men in the same predicament. For women, this fact cannot be 
understated. Worth to the state was established by fecundity. It suggests that we should 
 55 
look at the early modern woman?s quest for mariage in a diferent light. The long period 
that plebeian women typicaly took to gather together a dowry was not undertaken simply 
because the most respected identity that women had open to them was that of a maried 
woman, it was also because within mariage women had more agency than at any other 
point in their life cycle. 
 The framework of mariage, then, provided women with an identity and 
(theoreticaly) this gave them some control over their existence. This was a major 
concern in post-Reformation England: while in Catholic countries wealthy women had 
the option of the convent, women in England could only find an independent (or, at least, 
semi-independent) identity through mariage. In addition, divorce in Queen Anne?s 
England was more dificult than it was in Catholic countries. This increased the 
investment in mariage. Failure was not an option for the great majority of maried 
women. This explains why a woman might defend her husband even when he was 
probably guilty of commiting a heinous crime. Hence Anne Pritchet, who sent a leter to 
the Privy Council asking that her husband be fred even though he may have commited 
rape. Her case ilustrates how women felt obliged to fight to preserve their mariages 
even in the worst situations, just to retain some control over their circumstances. 
 The Sorrowful Lamentation of Mrs. Cooke, by the wife (or mistres) of Thomas 
Cooke, the Butcher of Gloucester, also serves as an excelent demonstration of the 
importance of mariage.
16
 After a lengthy and contentious collection of misives, 
reprieves, and recriminations, Thomas Cooke was executed by hanging on August 11, 
                                                
16
 61618, The Sorrowful Lamentations of Mrs. Cooke. 
 
 56 
1703.
17
 He was likely being made into an example for the riotous population of 
Mayfair: their misbehavior and atacks upon constables would not be permited to 
continue. Cooke?s wife could not acept this situation and was determined to have the 
last word. Acordingly, she had The Sorrowful Lamentation, a collection of doggerel 
extolling her husband?s virtues and venting her splen at the state for kiling him, printed 
at her own expense. 
 Once the questions of Thomas Cooke?s guilt had ben cleared away, it could be 
sen that he was not a good candidate for a pardon. He was, in fact, the archetypal 
Mayfair vilain.
18
 Thomas Cooke made his living by sword fighting and clearly moved 
easily among the dregs of society. He had fathered no known children and was thus no 
aset to society. Mrs. Cooke could not lay claim to being an innocent dependent of her 
husband. For one thing, as mentioned, her husband had no children, and she had borne 
none from any previous mariage. For another, several sources suggested that Cooke?s 
wife was, in actuality, a prostitute.
19
 She was thus a stereotypical social threat. As if 
Thomas Cooke?s status and place in society was not enough of a negative, his wife?s 
aleged misconduct meant that he was even more objectionable to the elites to whom he 
was appealing. 
                                                
17
 Newgate Calendar, http:/ww.exclasics.com/newgate/ng98.htm (7/25/06 
6:54PM). 
 
18
 Mayfair was not the posh neighborhood it is today. During Anne?s reign 
Mayfair was a dangerous and riotous place. 
 
19
 SP 34 Piece 3 Number 12 Folio 19-20. 
 
 57 
 What we have, then, is a situation much like that described in Peter Linebaugh?s 
The London Hanged: the law being used to force the normative behaviors of the elite 
upon the plebeians. Because the plebeians were forced to relate to their beters in elite 
language, they were implicitly compeled to admit that their own language was litle more 
than ?thieves? cant.?
120
 Linebaugh goes on to asert that elite lawmaking eventualy 
helped to transform the lower orders into a lower clas; they were transformed from 
active, albeit minor, characters in English life into wage slaves. The acuracy of this 
asesment is beyond the scope of this study. There are, however, some facets of 
Linebaugh?s theses that deserve to be rexamined in light of this study. Early modern 
English society was in the midst of transformation from a traditional moral economy to a 
capitalist one. The best service that a plebeian (or, by the nintenth century, a member of 
the lower clas) could perform at the end of Linebaugh?s study was that of the waged 
worker. The wage served many purposes. It kept the plebeian fed, albeit poorly, thus 
alowing a sense of fulfilment. It bound a plebeian to a role as long as the wage was 
paid. The labor that a member of the lower clas performed was translated into wealth by 
the upper clas. Thus, the wage served to keep the plebeian down beter than the hanging 
tre (if Linebaugh is to be believed) and alowed the capitalists to enlist the lower clases 
in the service of the state by focusing their labor. If we acept that the primary thrust of 
the women?s petitions examined here was to establish a woman?s usefulnes to the state, 
then we are forced to admit that perhaps Linebaugh is on to something. The gradual 
abandonment of Tyburn after the Gordon Riots may not have been just because of 
                                                
120
 Linebaugh, The London Hanged , 274-275. 
 
 58 
plebeian resistance, but also because its purpose had been supplanted by the wage.
121
 
The woman?s felony petition, then, was concomitant with the wage: it represented an 
early stage in the transformation of the lower orders. The felony petition shows the 
proces of the transformation of plebeian culture through rhetoric by elite culture already 
in train; it left no doubt what in the plebeian?s life was valued. 
 As an example of the distance betwen elite and popular culture in the eightenth 
century, we have the case of Thomas Colley. Hanged in 1751, Colley?s story can be 
found in the Newgate Calendar. Thomas Colley roused the plebs in his local vilage in 
pursuit of an elderly couple that he suspected to be witches. The parish elite atempted to 
hide the couple, but were eventualy thwarted by a mob, who seized the pair and brought 
them to Colley. He ritualy ducked the couple until one of them died. When Colley was 
arested, he was put under the guard of 100 soldiers brought from outside of the county to 
prevent the local plebeians from freing him. Told from the point of view of a local 
magistrate, the acount betrays the local elites? horror at the vilagers? superstitions.
12
 
That the hanging reinforced elite values, there is no doubt. Such a hanging demonstrated 
that, while the plebs may have made use of the legal system, it was necesary to do so in 
ways that conformed to elite expectations. 
 J. M. Beatie?s Crime and the Courts states that punishments in early modern 
England always involved community participation.
123
 Indeed, from the pilory to the 
                                                
121
 Ibid., Chapter 12, pasim. 
 
12
 Rayner and T. Crook, The Complete Newgate Calendar. Vol. 3, 205. 
 
123
 Beatie, Crime and the Courts, 466. 
 
 59 
scafold, the public was always intimately involved with the infliction of sanctions upon 
the criminal. The legal proces in England also had regular means by which the 
punishment could be ameliorated or amplified. The crowd surrounding a convict in the 
pilory occasionaly kiled the guilty and a local judge or magistrate could reprieve and 
sometimes pardon a convict.
124
 The felony petitions fit neatly into this proces. This 
became even more pivotal as English society began a gradual turn away from 
interpersonal violence as a commonplace feature of life. A recurring theme of trials 
throughout Beatie?s study is that of victims devaluing the goods stolen from them so as 
to alow the criminal to escape a death sentence. The frequency with which clemency 
was offered made juries more likely to vote for the death penalty, because they knew that 
a judge (and perhaps even the Privy Council or Quen) would evaluate their decision 
acording to normative criteria to which they generaly subscribed. If the Privy Council 
or magistrate found the jury?s decision to be just, the members of the jury were reasured 
that they had not sent a person to death who did not deserve it. Convictions in this era 
thus began to increase. 
 Queen Anne?s reign is a crossroads in English criminal history. The transition to 
Foucault?s society of imprisonment had begun, but the strict and draconian sentencing 
rules had yet to be ameliorated.
125
 In fact, they were becoming more vicious, as the 
benefit of clergy was gradualy being edged out of secular courts (anyway, a benefit 
which women were not alowed). Nevertheles, while the conviction rate was going up, 
                                                
124
 Ibid., 430-432. 
 
125
 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Alan 
Sheridan, trans. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977), 7. 
 
 60 
non-violent punishments were being resorted to more and more often. The value of the 
individual began to be appreciated. Family life was pivotal in this transition, because 
family life was taken as being ideologicaly analogous to the state. The individual?s 
value to the state was thus analogous to his or her role in the family. Both men and 
women had value, as did children. This value was then carefully built into these 
petitions. 
 Early modern England was a society in which men and women were increasingly 
divided into ideologicaly driven separate spheres. In actual practice, the divisions 
betwen men and women often blurred, particularly among the lower orders. The 
division of roles betwen men and women was not a tool of represion meant to favor 
males in English society; instead, it was an acknowledgement of very real diferences 
betwen men and women. Childbirth was a dangerous task that men could not 
experience or even hope to understand without modern medical knowledge. Conversely, 
men were expected to take part in war. These diferences had ben enshrined in elite 
culture and were being asimilated by popular culture. This was not a means of 
represion, but, instead, biological diferences preserved as tradition viewed through an 
English cultural lens. Women engaging in transgresive behavior threatened the social 
order just as transgresive men threatened the social order. Unlike men, women had 
more limited opportunities to act out. Men were far more likely to kil or steal outside of 
their family because their sphere normaly lay outside the home. Women generaly only 
had the opportunity to kil their own relations, such as husbands, brothers, or children. 
The disopprobrium atached to the intimate murder was not because a woman commited 
it, but because it represented a betrayal of the social order. As women lost agency and 
 61 
were moved more and more into the ideological background during the Victorian era, 
men became the ones who betrayed social order and thus were punished more harshly 
than previously. 
 So, in what ways was there patriarchy on the galows? As we have sen, the 
pardon rate for men and women was roughly equal during Queen Anne?s reign. At the 
surface level, then, women were neither rewarded nor punished any more than men. The 
reasons that men were pardoned are much more obvious when one looks at what the 
sentences were commuted to, whether it was transportation or transfered to the military: 
service to the state was paramount. Men pardoned and released to their families would 
sem not to have offered any special service to the state, until one reads their petitions 
more closely. In fact, these men typicaly supported large families or convincingly 
claimed innocence. The thinking underlying women?s pardons is not so obvious, as the 
majority were released absolutely. More detailed analysis of the contents of women?s 
felony petitions, coupled with close scrutiny of who was, and who was not, pardoned in 
fact offers a similar solution: women who could serve the state regained their fredom. 
Only their method of serving the state was diferent. We do not, then, have blatant 
patriarchy at work in the pardoning proces, because the system did not favor men, nor 
did it simply become a means of represion aimed at women. Pardons were gender blind 
in that they were given equaly to men or women. Though, the means individuals had of 
serving the state were not gender blind, they were not intended to privilege one sex over 
the other. The galows was not a means of represion that emanated from a culturaly 
hegemonic elite, nor was it a means of represion for a patriarchal social order. 
 62 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
Primary Sources 
 
?An Excelent New Copy of Verses Being The Sorrowful Lamentation Of Mrs. Cooke, 
For the Loss of her Husband Thomas Cooke, the Famous Butcher of Gloucester, 
who was Executed at Tyburn on Wednefday the 11
th
 of Auguft 1703? 
 
United Kingdom. Blenheim Collection 
 
The Newgate Calendar http:/tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/completenewgate.htm 
 
The Newgate Calendar http:/ww.exclasics.com/newgate/ngintro.htm 
 
J. L. Rayner and G. T. Crook, eds., The Complete Newgate Calendar 5 vols. (London: 
The Navare Society, 1926) 224.  
 
Reasons for Suppresing the Yearly Fair in Brookfield, Westminster; commonly called 
May-Fair. London, 1709. 
 
Serious admonitions to youth, in a short account of the life, trial, condemnation and 
execution of Mrs Mary Channing who, for poisoning her husband, was burnt at 
Dorchester in the county of Dorset on Thursday, March the 21st 1706. London, 
1706. 
 
United Kingdom. State Papers Domestic 34 (1702-1714). 
 
 
Secondary Sources 
 
Barker, Hannah, Newspapers, Politics and English Society 1695-1855. Oxford: Oxford 
University Pres, 2000. 
 
Beatie, John, Crime and the Courts in England 1660-1800. Oxford: Clarendon, 1986. 
 
__________, Policing and Punishment in London 1660-1750. New York: Oxford 
University Pres 2001. 
 
Berg, Maxine, The Age of Manufactures 1700-1800. New York: Routledge, 1985. 
 
 63 
Brant, Clare, ?Varieties of women?s writing.? In Women and Literature in Britain 1700-
1800, ed. Vivien Jones. Cambridge: Cambridge Univeristy Pres, 2000. 
 
Burke, Victoria and Jonathan Gibson, eds., Early Modern Women's Manuscript Writing: 
Selected Papers from the Trinty/Trent Coloquium. London: Ashgate, 2004. 
 
Dugaw, Dianne, ?Women and popular culture: gender, cultural dynamics, and popular 
prints.? In Women and Literature in Britain 1700-1800, ed. Vivien Jones. 
Cambridge: Cambridge Univeristy Pres, 2000. 
 
Emsley, Clive, Crime and Society in England 1750-1900. New York: Longman 
Publishing, 1996. 
 
Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Alan Sheridan, trans. 
New York: Pantheon Books, 1977. 
 
Galenson, David, ?Literacy and the Social Origins of Some Early Americans,? The 
Historical Journal 22 (Mar., 1979). 
 
Garnham, Neal, The Courts, Crime and the Criminal Law in Ireland, 1692-1760. 
London: Blackrock, 1996. 
 
Hay, Douglas and et. al., Albion?s Fatal Tre : crime and society in eightenth-century 
England. New York: Pantheon Books, 1975. 
 
Hufton, Olwen, The Prospect Before Her, A History of Women in Western Europe, Vol. 
1. London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1995. 
 
King, Peter, ?Decision-Makers and Decision-Making in the English Criminal Law, 1750-
1800.? The Historical Journal 27 (arch 1984). 
 
__________, Crime, Justice, and Discretion in England 1740-1820. New York: Oxford 
University Pres, 2000. 
 
Linebaugh, Peter, ?The Ordinary of Newgate and His Acount.? In Crime in England 
1550-1800. Princeton: Princeton University Pres, 1977. 
 
__________, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eightenth Century. 
Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres, 1993. 
 
Prescott, Sarah, Women, Authorship, and Literary Culture, 1690-1740. Aberystwyth: 
University of Wales, 2003. 
 
 64 
Sauer, R., ?Infanticide and Abortion in Ninetenth-Century Britain,? Population Studies 
32 (Mar. 1978). 
 
Sharpe, J. A., ??Last Dying Speeches?: Religion, Ideology, and Public Execution in 
Sevententh-Century England,? Past and Present 107 (May 1985). 
 
Speck, W. A., ?Hyde, Henry, second earl of Clarendon (1638?1709)?, Oxford Dictionary 
of National Biography, Oxford University Pres, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2006 
[http:/ww.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14329, acesed 24 March 2007] 
 
Thompson, E. P., Customs in Common. New York: The New Pres, 1991. 
 
Washburn, Wilcomb E., ?The Humble Petition of Sarah Drummond,? The Wiliam and 
Mary Quarterly 13 (Jul., 1956). 
 
White, Barbara, ?Channing , Mary (1687?1706)?, Oxford Dictionary of National 
Biography, Oxford University Pres, 2004 
[http:/ww.oxforddnb.com/view/article/67091, acesed 20 March 2007]. 
 
Wiener, Martin J., ?Alice Arden to Bil Sykes: Changing Nightmares of Intimate 
Violence in England.? The Journal of British Studies 40 (April, 2001). 
 
 65 
INDEX 
 
A 
Abortion......................................................41, 47, 77 
Alen, Anne..............................................42, 45, 46, 61, 64 
Anne, Queen of England 4, 6, 12, 13, 21, 23, 24, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 39, 41, 
 43, 45, 49, 51, 53, 54, 58, 60 
B 
Beatie, John.................................7, 8, 13, 15, 17, 22, 35, 36, 57, 76 
Behn, Aphra.........................................................39 
Burton, Wiliam....................................................15, 17 
C 
Charles I, King of England......................................24, 39, 42, 45 
Charles I, King of England.....................................24, 39, 42, 45 
Cloucester..................................................25, 29, 54, 76 
Coel, John..........................................................24 
Colley, Thomas.......................................................57 
Cooke, Thomas................................25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 44, 54, 55, 76 
Court..........................................................0, 10, 33 
D 
Drummond, Sarah............................................42, 44, 45, 78 
Dublin..............................................................26 
E 
Execution......................................................17, 18, 77 
G 
Gender.............................................................41 
H 
Haris, Anne...........................................10, 11, 12, 13, 19, 67 
Hay, Douglas.......................................6, 7, 8, 13, 15, 20, 22, 77 
Hayter, Charnel....................................................28, 44 
Hickson, Walker................................................15, 17, 68 
I 
Infanticide........................................................47, 77 
 66 
Ireland...............................................21, 26, 37, 44, 68, 77 
J 
James I, King of England...............................................24 
Jimy the Mouth.....................................................10 
John Cooper.......................................................26, 27 
Jones, Katherine..............................................47, 50, 63, 69 
K 
King, Peter......................................................7, 14, 35 
L 
Labre, Cecilia............................................46, 48, 49, 62, 69 
Linebaugh, Peter.........................................6, 7, 33, 55, 56, 77 
London...............3, 6, 7, 10, 12, 22, 24, 26, 29, 31, 35, 37, 39, 49, 55, 56, 76, 77 
Lucas, Elizabeth......................................................47 
M 
Mayfair.................................................24, 25, 26, 29, 55 
iddlesex...........................................................24 
N 
Newgate Calendar.........................3, 10, 12, 19, 25, 27, 54, 57, 67, 73, 76 
O 
Old Bailey Online..............................34, 64, 66, 67, 69, 70, 71, 73, 75 
P 
Pamela.............................................................40 
Paternalism...........................................................4 
Patriarchy.........................................................4, 53 
Paul Lorraine, Ordinary of Newgate..................................33, 34, 77 
Petition...................................23, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 61, 62, 63, 78 
Plebeian............................................................41 
Pritchet, Anne.....................................................51, 54 
Privy Council.......12, 17, 22, 23, 27, 28, 30, 34, 39, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 51, 53, 54, 58 
Pulman, Wiliam...................................................10, 11 
R 
Restoration..........................................................36 
Roper, Launcelot......................................................15 
S 
St. Giles without Cripplegate..........................................10, 28 
State Papers Domestic..............................16, 17, 26, 27, 28, 29, 34, 76 
 67 
T 
Thompson, E.P........................................................8 
Tory.............................................................15, 21 
Transportation....................................22, 36, 37, 49, 64, 69, 71, 74 
Tyburn........................................................29, 56, 76 
W 
Wamon, Martha..................................................50, 74 
hig...............................................................16 
White, Jane.......................................................50, 75 
iliam II, King of England....................................25, 35, 47, 49 
Wiliams, Sarah....................................................48, 75 
 
 68 
APENDIX 1: SELECTED PETITIONS 
 
 
 
 
 
 69 
 
Figure 1. The Petition of Anne Alen, an example of a typical woman?s felony petition. 
 
Photograph by Author. 
 
 70 
 
Figure 2. The Petition of Cecilia Labre. 
 
Photograph by Author. 
 71 
Figure 3. The Petition of Katherine Jones. 
 
Photograph by Author.
 72 
APENDIX 2: THE PETITIONS 
 
Ane Alen  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 74 Folio 90 
 
John Alen  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 92 Folio 16 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/1710s/t17151012-31.html 
 
Benjamin Arnel  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 93 Folio 17 
 
Thomas Bagley  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 120 Folio 164 
 
Andrew Bainds  Result: Pardon (HM's Service)  
British Library 61618 - 1 
 
Henry Baker  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 121 Folio 165 
 
Christopher Banestar Result: Pardon (Transportation)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 32A Folio 108 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 32B Folio 109 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 32C Folio 10 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 32D Folio 11 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 64 Folio 203 
 
Henry Barat  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 38 Number 1 Folio 16 
 
Samuel Barister  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 30 Number 28 Folio 50 
 
Elizabeth Beamond Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 93 Folio 109 
 
Mary Benet  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 120 Folio 149 
 
Thomas Bets  Result: Unknown 
 73 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 7 Number 71 Folio 13 
 
Joseph Bilers  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 123 Folio 152 
 
Richard Blackham Bar Result: Pardon (Absolute)  
British Library 61618 - 1 
 
Wiliam Bond  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 73 Folio 8 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 73A Folio 89 
 
Henry Boner  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 32 Number 74A Folio 127 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 32 Number 74B Folio 128 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 32 Number 74C Folio 129 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 32 Number 76A Folio 131 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 32 Number 76B Folio 132 
 
James Bouchier  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 127 Folio 173 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 127A Folio 174 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 127B Folio 175 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 58 Folio 70 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number Folio 173A 
 
Wiliam Boyle  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 38 Number 10 Folio 15 
 
John Brenan  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 23 Number 15 Folio 30 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 23 Number 15A Folio 27-28 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 23 Number Folio 29 
 
John Brown  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 40A Folio 145 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 40B Folio 146-148 
 
Wiliam Bunce  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 6 Number 70 Folio 17 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 6 Number 70A Folio 18 
 
Robert Burleigh  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 21 Number 95 Folio 163-164 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 2 Number Folio 25 
 
Wiliam Burton  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 29 Number 18A Folio 23 
 74 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 29 Number 18B Folio 24 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 29 Number 18C Folio 25 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 29 Number 18D Folio 26-27 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 29 Number 18E Folio 28 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 29 Number 18F Folio 29-30 
 
Jacob Buth  Result: Pardon (Absolute)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 9 Folio 278 
  
Chantrel  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 4 Number 12 Folio 12 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 4 Number 23 Folio 31 
 
Hugh Clensey  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 13 Folio 164 
 
Thomas Colins  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 68 Folio 80 
 
Thomas Coke  Result: Rejected  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 9 Folio 1 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 10 Folio 12 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 10 Folio 13 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 10 Folio 14 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 10 Folio 15 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 10 Folio 16 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 10 Folio 17 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 1 Folio 18 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 12 Folio 19-20 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 18 Folio 26 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 18A Folio 27 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 18B Folio 28-29 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 13 Folio 30-31 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/170s/t17030707-2.html 
 
Patience Coper  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 121 Folio 150 
 
John Corbet  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 28 Folio 85 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/1710s/s17130708-1.html 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/1710s/t17130708-19.html 
 
Edward Cox  Result: Pardon (HM's Service)  
British Library 61617 - 18 
 
Alexander Dalzel Result: Pardon (Absolute)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 20 Number 6 Folio 1-12 
 75 
 
Daniel Defoe  Result: Pardon (Absolute)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 2 Number 27 Folio 48-48A 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 128 Folio 205 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 129 Folio 206-207 
 
Jane Denis  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 58 Folio 69 
 
Timothy Dun  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 38 Number 13 Folio 21 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/1710s/t17140407-23.html 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/1710s/s17140407-1.html 
 
Jane Dyer  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 6 Number 7 Folio 13 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 6 Number 7A Folio 14 
 
Richard Dyot  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 18 Number 38 Folio 75 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 31 Number 52A Folio 13 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 31 Number 52B Folio 134-135 
 
Ane Edwards  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 38 Number 19 Folio 31 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/1710s/s17140630-1.html 
 
Martha Elton  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 141 Folio 197 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 142 Folio 198 
 
Robert English  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 143 Folio 19 
 
John Estrick  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 14 Folio 20 
 
Robert Evance  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 10 Number 127 Folio 23-234 
 
James Feilet  Result: Pardon (Absolute)  
British Library 61618 - 1 
 
Thomas Ferat  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 30 Number 51A Folio 96 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 30 Number 51B Folio 97 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 30 Number 51C Folio 98-9 
 
 76 
Lawrence Fitz Gerald Result: Pardon (Absolute)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 1 Number 43 Folio 65 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 1 Number 43A Folio 6 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 1 Number 43B Folio 67 
 
Edward Fuler  Result: Pardon (HM's Service)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 136 Folio 169 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 136A Folio 170 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 136B Folio 171 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 136C Folio 172 
 
Katherine Garwod  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 19 Folio 148 
 
Anthony Gearish Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 30 Number 19 Folio 37 
 
Charles Godal  Result: Pardon (Absolute)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 28 Number 27 Folio 42 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/1710s/s1711205-1.html 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/1710s/t1711205-15.html 
 
Margaret Gren  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 47 Folio 54 
 
Henry Halfal  Result: Pardon (HM's Service)  
British Library 61618 - 45 
British Library 61618 - 45 
 
Thomas Hal  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 15 Folio 15 
 
Ane Haris  Result: Rejected  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 11 Folio 151 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 11A Folio 152 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 106 Folio 128 
Newgate Calendar htp:/tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/newgate2/haris.htm 
 
James Haris  Result: Pardon (HM's Service)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 17 Folio 146 
 
Daniel Hewghs  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 23 Number 12 Folio 21 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 23 Number 12A Folio 23 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 23 Number Folio 2 
 
Walker Hickson  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 29 Number 18A Folio 23 
 77 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 29 Number 18B Folio 24 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 29 Number 18C Folio 25 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 29 Number 18D Folio 26-27 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 29 Number 18E Folio 28 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 29 Number 18F Folio 29-30 
 
Elizabeth Hil   Result: Pardon (Absolute) 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 18 Folio 147 
 
Hil   Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 62 Folio 186 
 
Thomas Hitchman Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 161 Folio 27 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 14 Folio 16 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 14A Folio 17 
 
John Hoblyn  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 4 Number 47 Folio 7 
 
Hockenhul  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 4 Number 12 Folio 12 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 4 Number 23 Folio 31 
 
John Hodgkins  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 157 Folio 23 
 
Mary Holden  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 41 Folio 52 
 
Wiliam Hopley  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 8 Number 5 Folio 10 
 
Jane Houston  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 23 Folio 51 
 
Wiliam Hugins Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 38 Number 21 Folio 34 
 
Robert Husher  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 32 Number 26A Folio 38-39 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 32 Number 26B Folio 40 
 
John Ireland  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 14 Folio 16 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 14A Folio 17 
 
Richard Jaret  Result: Unknown 
 78 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 162 Folio 28 
 
Edward Jeferies  Result: Rejected  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 107 Folio 129 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 107A Folio 130 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 107B Folio 131 
 
Joseph Johnson  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 60 Folio 70-71 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 67 Folio 73 
 
Elizabeth Jones  Result: Pardon (Absolute)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 86 Folio 101 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/1710s/t171012-16.html 
 
Katherine Jones  Result: Pardon (Absolute)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 51 Folio 58 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 51A Folio 59 
 
Thomas Kerby  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 94 Folio 236 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 8 Folio 23-24 
 
James King  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 13 Number 36 Folio 58 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 13 Number 38 Folio 62 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 13 Number Folio 59 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 13 Number Folio 63 
 
Cecilia Labre  Result: Pardon (Transportation)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 49 Folio 56 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 49A Folio 57 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/170s/t170015-24.html 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/170s/o17040426-1.html 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/170s/s17040426-1.html 
 
John Law  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 140 Folio 178 
 
Moses Lawes  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 23 Number 20 Folio 41 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 23 Number Folio 40 
 
Francis Lawrence Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 19 Folio 24 
 
John Lawrence  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 138 Folio 219 
 79 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 139 Folio 20 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 140 Folio 22-23 
 
Richard Lawrence Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 63 Folio 202 
 
Richard Lewis  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 92 Folio 108 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 13 Folio 153 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 14 Folio 154 
 
George Litle  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 15 Folio 14 
 
Priscila Long  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 168 Folio 234 
 
Francis Lynch  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 97 Folio 164-165 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 98 Folio 16-167 
 
Daniel Mackinon Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 10 Folio 26-27 
 
John Mapas  Result: Pardon (Absolute)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 1 Number 42A Folio 63 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 1 Number 42B Folio 64 
 
Wiliam Marvel  Result: Pardon (Absolute)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 131 Folio 162 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/1710s/o17101206-1.html 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/170s/t17091207-27.html 
 
Edward Marven  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 102 Folio 281 
 
John Mayne  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 17 Number 43 Folio 78-79 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 17 Number 43A Folio 81 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 17 Number 43B Folio 82 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 17 Number 43C Folio 83 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 17 Number 43D Folio 84 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 17 Number 43E Folio 85 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 17 Number 43F Folio 86 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 17 Number Folio 80 
 
Richard Miler  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 30 Number 27 Folio 49 
 80 
 
Thomas Milet  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 15 Folio 14 
 
John Mitchel  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 124 Folio 168 
 
Thomas More  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 172 Folio 238 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 173 Folio 239 
 
Paul Nash  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 25 Folio 53 
 
Martha Niblet  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 41 Folio 52 
 
John Noris  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 121 Folio 165 
 
John Norton  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 29 Folio 3 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 69 Folio 81 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 69A Folio 82 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 70 Folio 84 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 70A Folio 83 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 70B Folio 85 
 
Thomas Oades  Result: Pardon (HM's Service)  
British Library 61618 - 13 
 
Lucius O'Brien  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 17A Folio 48-49 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 17B Folio 50 
 
Wiliam Ogden  Result: Pardon (Transportation)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 176 Folio 249-250 
 
Richard Parsmore Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 68 Folio 21 
 
Wiliam Paterson Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 31 Number 56 Folio 141 
 
Nathaniel Paulson Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 138 Folio 219 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 139 Folio 20 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 140 Folio 22-23 
 81 
 
John Peney  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 179 Folio 257-258 
 
Roger Pinckney  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 1 Number 26 Folio 3 
 
Wiliam Pore  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 15 Folio 14 
 
James Powel  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 184 Folio 263-264 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/1710s/t17140630-8.html 
 
Robert Presgrove Result: Pardon (Absolute)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 183 Folio 216A-262 
 
Elizabeth Price  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 57 Folio 68 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 6 Folio 79 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/170s/t1703015-19.html 
 
Prichet   Result: Rejected  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 12 Folio 30 
 
Thomas Pritchard Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 2 Number 65 Folio 98 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 2 Number 74 Folio 16-17 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 2 Number 75 Folio 18 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 2 Number 75A Folio 19 
 
Wiliam Pulham  Result: Pardon (HM's Service)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 135 Folio 168 
 
James Radison  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 65 Folio 204 
 
John Ratburn  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 10 Number 132 Folio 245 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 10 Number 132A Folio 247-248 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 10 Number 132B Folio 249-250 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 10 Number Folio 246 
 
John Rawlings  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 4 Number 50A Folio 82 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 4 Number 50B Folio 83 
 
George Richardson Result: Unknown 
 82 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 186 Folio 267 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 187 Folio 268 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 18 Folio 269 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 189 Folio 271 
 
Henry Robinson  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 91 Folio 15 
 
Joseph Robinson  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 87 Folio 256 
 
Martha Rogers  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 109 Folio 147 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 109A Folio 148 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 109B Folio 149 
 
Robert Roman  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 105 Folio 126 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 105A Folio 127 
 
Hanibal Roscarick Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 134 Folio 165 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 50 Folio 16 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 50A Folio 167 
 
John Roter  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 15 Folio 14 
 
Thomas Rus  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 185 Folio 26 
 
Thomas Smalbone Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 1 Number 98 Folio 16 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 1 Number 9 Folio 167 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 1 Number 10 Folio 168 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 1 Number 101 Folio 169 
 
Robert Smart  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 196 Folio 281 
 
George Smith M Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 12 Folio 26-27 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 12A Folio 28-29 
 
John Smith M Result: Rejected  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 62 Folio 76 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 64 Folio 7 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 83 Folio 102-103 
 83 
Newgate Calendar htp:/tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/newgate2/smith1.htm 
 
Sarah Smith  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 79 Folio 95 
 
Frances Spencer  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 65 Folio 78 
 
Daniel Spendelow Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 48 Folio 5 
 
Thomas Sprignil Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 10 Number 137 Folio 259 
 
John Staford  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 108 Folio 179-180 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 109 Folio 181 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 10 Folio 182 
 
Henry Stanley  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 63 Folio 75 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 4 Number 12 Folio 12 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 4 Number 23 Folio 31 
 
Margaret Stevenson Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 193 Folio 278 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/1710s/t17140630-26.html 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/1710s/s17140630-1.html 
 
John Suley  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 8 Number 52 Folio 82 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 8 Number 52A Folio 83 
 
John Suton  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 31 Number 42 Folio 97 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 31 Number 43 Folio 98 
 
Stephen Swift  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 76 Folio 92 
 
Symon Syleman  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 132 Folio 163 
 
An Taylor  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 31 Number 73 Folio 165 
 
John Tustin  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 130 Folio 207 
 84 
 
unknown  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 3 Number 135 Folio 215-216 
 
unknown A  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 19 Number 19 Folio 28 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 19 Number 19A Folio 29 
 
unknown C  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 25 Folio 324 
 
Joseph Utin  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 207 Folio 296 
 
Mary Vernon  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 1 Number 25 Folio 31-32 
 
Richard Walker  Result: Pardon (HM's Service)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 8 Number 69 Folio 107-108 
 
Walker   Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 8 Folio 12 
 
Martha Wamon Result: Pardon (HM's Service)  
British Library 61618 - 18 
 
Phoebe Ward  Result: Rejected  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 28 Number 26 Folio 41 
 
Thomas Warwick Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 210 Folio 29-30 
 
Lawrence Waterman Result: Pardon (Transportation)  
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 58 Folio 191-192 
 
Mary Waters  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 56 Folio 67 
 
Samuel Watkins  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 10 Folio 26-27 
 
George Watson  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 2 Number 13 Folio 26 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 2 Number 13A Folio 27-28 
 
James Wats  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 65 Folio 18 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 6 Folio 19 
 85 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 67 Folio 120 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 68 Folio 121 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 69 Folio 12 
 
Elizabeth Way  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 10 Folio 150 
 
John Way  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 98 Folio 27 
 
James West  Result: Pardon (HM's Service)  
British Library 61618 -195 
 
John Wheatley  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 1 Number 12 Folio 17-18 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 1 Number 12A Folio 19 
 
Jane White  Result: Pardon (HM's Service)  
British Library 61618 - 201 
 
Mary White  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 72 Folio 87 
 
Sarah White  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 7 Number 70 Folio 131 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 7 Number 70A Folio 132 
 
John Whiteside  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 35 Number 63 Folio 75 
 
John Whitington Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 43 Folio 54 
 
Sarah Wiliams  Result: Pardon (Absolute)  
British Library 61618 - 212 
 
John Wils  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 8 Number 4 Folio 9 
 
Edward Wright  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 36 Number 218 Folio 315 
 
John Wright  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 154 Folio 239, 242 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 154A Folio 240-241 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 37 Number 15 Folio 243 
Old Bailey Online htp:/ww.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/1710s/t17151207-12.html 
 
 86 
Samuel Yealse  Result: Unknown 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 6A Folio 205 
UK National Archives SP 34 Piece 34 Number 6B Folio 206