1650: Four condemned and one reprieved on appeal from the Wiltshire Assizes

From the Journals of the House of Commons

Die Mercurii, 21 Augusti, 1650

PRAYERS.

A LETTER from Henry Roll, Lord Chief Justice, and Robert Nicholas, one of the Justices of the Upper Bench, from Taunton, of the Fourteenth of August 1650; and a Certificate from them of the whole State of the Matter, and Cause of Condemning of Nicholas Westwood, Samuel Cowdry, and Walter Goff, at the last Assizes, in the County of Wiltes, were this Day read; viz.

In Obedience to the Vote of the honourable Parliament, on Thursday the Twenty-fifth of July last; whereby we were required to certify the whole State of the Matter concerning the Condemning of Nicolas Westwood, Samuel Cowdry, and Walter Goffe, at the last Assizes held in the County of Wiltes, for the Murdering of one Joel Swettingham (a very honest Man, and had been a Soldier and Drummer in the Service of the Parliament), at the Town of the Devises, in the said County of Wiltes, and continued faithful unto the Parliament until his Death;

We humbly certify, that the Evidence appeared before us to be thus:

That the said Westwood, Cowdry, and Goff, amonst divers other Soldiers, and new-raised Men, for Ireland, were quartered at Cannyngs, some Two Miles from the Devises: And some of the said Soldiers coming to the Devises, some Three Days before the said Murder committed, and offering some Incivilities unto the People of the Town, they were questioned for it by the Constable and Officers of the said Town; and were detained in Custody for some time; but were the same Day released; and so went back to their Quarters at Cannyngs; and from thence, within a Day or two after, the said Soldiers removed their Quarters to Bromham, about Two Miles likewise distant from the said Town of the Devizes: And, the next Day, being the Day when the Murder was committed, the said Westwood, Cowdry, and Goff, amonst divers other Soldiers, came to the said Town of the Devises, and expressed some Dislike against the said Townsmen, for Imprisoning of some of their Company, the Day or Two before: And the said Goff, coming into the Mayor’s Shop of the Devises, and talking with John Imber his Apprentice, cast out some Words of Dislie concerning the Imprisoning of the Soldiers a Day or Two before; and then asked of the said Apprentice, whether there were not a fat Constable in the Town; meaning one Fitzell, a very honest Man and who had been ever faithful to the Parliament: And the said Goff expressed himself to be much discontented with the said Constable, for Imprisoning of the Soldiers some Two Days before: Then, saying, That he would be revenged to the Death of the said Constable, calling the said Constable Rogue: And, shortly after, the same Day, the said Goff, meeting with one Thomas Street, a Youth of the Devises, asked the way to some Place in the Town: The said Street told him, He might go which way he would: And the said Goff presently drew his Sword, and run the said Street into the Thigh: Whereupon the said Street’s Brother took the said Goff’s Sword, and endeavoured to break it; but, could not: Yet he bended it very muh: Whereupon the said Goff run after the said Street’s Brother, with his Sword in his Hand: And, the said Street’s Foot slipping, he fell: And the said Goff laid on the said Street with his Sword very much: Which some of the Townsmen seeing, came to rescue the said Street from Goff: Whereupon the said Goff, Westwood, and Cowdry, and Two or Three Soldiers more unknown, fell on the said Swettingham, who had nothing to do with them, being then Gathering up of Monies for the Rent of the Butcher’s Shambles; and, having only a wooden Hilt of a Hatchet in his Hand, defended himself as well as he could; but, in short Space, he was run into the Groin by the said Goffe; and received another Wound in the Buttock, by the said Cowdry: And, feeling himself so wounded, run away very feebly, from them, into a House: And they all Three followed him: And there the said Westwood gave the said Swettingham a great Wound on the Shoulder: But Swettingham got into the House, and shut the Door, to keep out the said Westwood, Goff and Cowdry; for that they thrust very hard at the Door, to come in after him: But the said Swettingham, and some others, which were in the House, kept the Door fast, and kept them out: But the said Swettingham was so mortally wounded by them, that, within a short Time after, the same Night, he died. Upon which Evidence the Jury found them all guilty of the Murder: Upon which, Sentence of Death was given on all Three, in regard they were all Three present and Actors in the said Murder.

All which we humbly submit to the Consideration of the Honourable Parliament.

Taunton, 14 Augusti 1650.
Hon. Rolle, Robert Nicholas

Resolved, by the Parliament, That the Sheriff of the County of Wiltes be, and is hereby, required to proceed to the Execution of Nicholas Westwood, Samuel Cowdry, and Walter Goff, according to Law; notwithstanding the Order of Parliament of the Twenty-fifth of July last, for respiting their Execution.

A Certificate from Henry Rolle, Lord Chief Justice, and Robert Nicholas, one of the Justices of the Upper Bench, of the whole State of the Matter, and Cause of Condemning of Thomas Dirdo, at the Assizes for the County of Wiltes, was this Day read; viz.

In Obedience to the Vote of the Honourable Parliament, dated the Twenty-fifth of July last; whereby we were required to certify the whole State of the Matter concerning the Condemning of one Thomas Dirdo, at the last Assizes held in the County of Wiltes;

We humbly certify, that the Evidence appeared to be thus:

That the said Dyrdo, with some other Persons, came to the House of one John Pitt, an Innkeeper in Wiltes, somewhat late in the Night: and desired Entertainment; and, having set up their Horses, and prepared something for their Suppers, finding most Part of the People gone to Bed, set on the rest of the People of the House, and bound them: And then the said Dirdo, as the said Pitt affirmed, on his Oath, to be one of the said Robbers, took, of the Goods of the said Pitt, a Sack and Three Shillings Eight-pence in Money: And the said Pitt affirmed further, That the said Dyrdoe, and the rest of the Company, went into a Chamber in the said House, where one Matthew Kynton, a Carrier then lay, with their Swords drawn; and demanded of the said Kynton his Money: And thereupon the said Kynton delivered them a Bag of Money, wherein, he said, was Ten Pounds: And then the said Dirdoe, and the rest of the said Company, cut the Packs of the said Carrier, and took thence certain Broad Cloths; a Part of which said Cloth one Coombes sold to one Blake, who shewed the said Cloth, in a Suit on his Back, at the Tryal of the said Dirdoe, and the said Coombe, and one Hussey; and also took his oath, That the said Coombes affirmed he had the said Cloth, at the time of the said Robbery: And he also affirmed, on his Oath, That the said Coombes and Hussey told him, That they did the said Robbery: Upon which Evidence, the Jury found them all Three guilty of the said Robbery: And thereupon, Sentence of Death was given against the said Dirdoe and the said Coombes and Hussey: And we further certify, That we were credibly informed, That the said Dirdoe was burnt in the Hand, at the Sessions at Newgate, for a Felony by one Levendon Blisse and him committed.

All which we humbly submit to the Consideration of the Honourable Parliament.

Taunton, 14 Augusti 1650.
Hon. Rolle, Robert Nicholas

Resolved, That the Sheriff of the County of Wiltes be, and is hereby, required to proceed to the Execution of Thomas Dirdo, according to Law, notwithstanding the Order of Parliament of the Twenty-fifth of July last, for respiting his Execution.

The humble Petition of Edward Hussey, now a condemned Prisoner in the Gaol at Sarum, lately a Soldier in the Service of the Parliament, was this Day read.

The Certificate from the Justices of Assizes, upon the former Order, touching Thomas Dirdo, was again read.

Resolved, that Edward Hussey, who stands condemned at the Assizes for the County of Wiltes, be reprieved, until the Parliament take further Order: And that Mr. Speaker do issue a Warrant to the Sheriff for that Purpose.

Ordered, that the Judges of Assizes for the County of Wiltes be required and enjoined to make Certificate to the Parliament of the whole State of the Matter of Fact touching Edward Hussey, who was condemned at the last Assizes in the County of Wiltes.

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1650: Not Anne Greene, miraculously delivered

(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.)

On this date in 1650, 22-year-old Anne Greene was hanged for infanticide.

A maidservant, she had been seduced by her master’s teenage grandson and became pregnant. Anne stated stated she had no idea she was pregnant until the baby suddenly fell out of her while she was “in the house of office” — that is, the outhouse. But when the body was found she was arrested for murder.

Medical evidence supported Anne’s claim that the baby was stillborn. It was premature, born at only 17 weeks gestation, and only nine inches long, and the midwife said she “did not believe that it ever had life.” Nevertheless, Anne was convicted of murder and condemned to death.

After Anne was hanged, she dangled for half an hour while her friends pulled down on her body and thumped on her chest with a musket butt, trying to hasten her death. After half an hour she was cut down, put in a coffin and carted off to the anatomist, Dr. William Petty.

The good Dr. Petty soon realized she wasn’t quite dead.

The story is told in a 1982 article in the British Medical Journal, titled “Miraculous deliverance of Anne Green: an Oxford case of resuscitation in the seventeenth century.” Petty and his assistant immediately set about reviving his patient through various means:

William Petty and Thomas Willis abandoned all thoughts of a dissection and proceeded to revive their patient. They caused her to be held up in the coffin and then by wrenching open her teeth they poured in her mouth some hot cordial which caused her more coughing. They then rubbed and chafed her fingers, hands, arms, and feet, and, after a quarter of an hour of this with more cordial into her mouth and the tickling of her throat with a feather, she opened her eyes momentarily. At this stage the doctors opened a vein and bled her of five ounces of blood. They then continued administering the cordial and rubbing her arms and legs. Ligatures, presumably compressing bandages, were applied to her arms and legs. Heating plasters were put to her chest and another apparently inserted as an enema, “ordered an heating odoriferous Clyster to be cast up in her body, to give heat and warmth to her bowels.”

When Anne regained consciousness, she was unable to speak for twelve hours, but after 24 hours she was speaking freely and answering questions, although her throat was bruised and hurt her. Dr. Petty put a plaster on the bruises and ordered soothing drinks.

Anne’s memory was spotty at first; it was observed that it was “was like a clock whose weights had been taken off a while and afterwards hung on again.” Within two days the amnesia disappeared, although — perhaps mercifully — she still had no memory of being hanged. Within four days she could eat solid food again, and within a month she had made a full recovery.

The Journal of Medical Biography also has an article about Anne Greene, titled “Intensive care 1650: the revival of Anne Greene”. The abstract notes,

A combination of low-body temperature and external (pedal) cardiac massage after her failed execution, it is suggested, helped to keep her alive until the arrival of the physicians who had come to make an anatomical dissection but serendipitously won golden opinions.

Anne Greene was subsequently pardoned; the authorities said God had made His will clear on the matter, and furthermore, her dead baby “was not onely abortive or stillborne but also so imperfect, that it is impossible it should have been otherwise.” She became a celebrity, and tributary poems in her honor circulated widely.


This 1651 pamphlet contains 20-odd poems about Anne Greene’s remarkable survival, ranging in style from very reverent (“Thou Paradox of fate, whom ropes reprieve, / To whom the hangman proves a gentele Shrieve”) to very not (“Now we have seen a stranger sight; / Whether it was by Physick’s might, / Or that (it seems) the Wench was Light”). One of them was a classics-heavy number submitted by 18-year-old Oxford student Christopher Wren, later to set his stamp upon the city’s architecture after the Great Fire.

Wonder of highest Art! He that will reach
A Streine for thee, had need his Muse should stretch,
Till flying to the Shades, she learne what Veine
Of Orpheus call’d Eurydice againe;
Or learne of her Apollo, ’till she can
As well, as Singer, prove Physitian.
And then she may without Suspension sing,
And, authorized, harp upon thy String.
Discordant string! for sure thy foule (unkinde
To its own Bowels’ Issue) could not finde
One Breast in Consort to its jarring stroake
‘Mongst piteous Femall Organs, therefore broke
Translations due Law, from fate repriev’d,
And struck a Unison to her selfe, and liv’d.
Was’t this? or was it, that the Goatish Flow
Of thy Adulterous veines (from thence let goe
By second Aesculapius his hand)
Dissolv’d the Parcae‘s Adamantine Band,
And made Thee Artist’s Glory, Shame of Fate,
Triumph of Nature, Virbius his Mate

She left the area for awhile to stay with friends in the country, taking her coffin with her, “as a Trophy of her wonderful preservation.” She subsequently married and bore three children before dying in 1659, nine years after her hanging.

In 2009, author Mary Hooper wrote a novel based on Anne Greene, titled Newes From the Dead.

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1650: James Graham, Earl of Montrose

On this day in 1650, James Graham, Earl of Montrose, was hanged in Edinburgh.

The tragic “Great Montrose” was renowned for his tactical genius on the battlefield during the civil wars that cost King Charles I both crown and head. Although Montrose would die as a royalist he first entered the lists in the 1630s’ Bishops’ War as part of the Covenanter army resisting the king’s bid to impose top-down religious governance on Scotland.

But Montrose was the moderate and post-Bishops War found himself a leading exponent of the pro-reconciliation faction, bitterly opposed by the chief of the Campbell clan, the Marquess of Argyll.

These two became the opposing poles for the ensuing civil war in Scotland, at once a local clan war and the vortex of a border-hopping conflict that sucked in Ireland and England too. Although Montrose, now King Charles’s lieutenant-general in Scotland, could kick tail in battle his faction was divided and ultimately outnumbered by the Covenanters. Montrose had to flee Scotland for exile in 1646.

The execution of Charles I opened the door for Montrose’s own untimely end, in one of those classic affairs of double-dealing. The exiled Charles II, having now inherited the claim, named Montrose his lieutenant in Scotland and dispatched his family’s longtime paladin back to native soil to try to raise an army. But even as he did so, he was negotiating with Argyll’s Covenanters, who saw a chance to make good their political and religious objectives by playing kingmaker with their former enemy.

So when Montrose landed in 1650, he found little support and was overwhelmed at the Battle of Carbisdale. After several days’ wandering he sought refuge with a former friend who he did not realize was now also on the government’s side, and was promptly arrested and given over to his enemies for execution and for posthumous indignities: his head was mounted on a pike atop Edinburgh’s Tolbooth, and his four limbs nailed to the gates of Stirling, Glasgow, Perth and Aberdeen.

After the end of Cromwell‘s Protectorate, and the actual restoration of Charles II, these scattered remains were gathered up and interred with reverence at St. Giles Cathedral. The present-day Dukes of Montrose are his direct descendants.

James Graham, Earl of Montrose and his execution have the still more considerable honor of a verse tribute by legendary dreadful poet William McGonagall. (Montrose himself was known to try his hand at poetry, too.)

The Execution of James Graham, Marquis of Montrose
A Historical Poem

‘Twas in the year of 1650, and on the twenty-first of May,
The city of Edinburgh was put into a state of dismay
By the noise of drums and trumpets, which on the air arose,
That the great sound attracted the notice of Montrose.

Who enquired at the Captain of the guard the cause of it,
Then the officer told him, as he thought most fit,
That the Parliament dreading an attempt might be made to rescue him,
The soldiers were called out to arms, and that had made the din.

Do I, said Montrose, continue such a terror still?
Now when these good men are about my blood to spill,
But let them look to themselves, for after I am dead,
Their wicked consciences will be in continual dread.

After partaking of a hearty breakfast, he commenced his toilet,
Which, in his greatest trouble, he seldom did forget.
And while in the act of combing his hair,
He was visited by the Clerk Register, who made him stare,

When he told him he shouldn’t be so particular with his head,
For in a few hours he would be dead;
But Montrose replied, While my head is my own I’ll dress it at my ease,
And to-morrow, when it becomes yours, treat it as you please.

He was waited upon by the Magistrates of the city,
But, alas! for him they had no pity.
He was habited in a superb cloak, ornamented with gold and silver lace;
And before the hour of execution an immense assemblage of people were round the place.

From the prison, bareheaded, in a cart, they conveyed him along the Watergate
To the place of execution on the High Street, where about thirty thousand people did wait,
Some crying and sighing, a most pitiful sight to see,
All waiting patiently to see the executioner hang Montrose, a man of high degree.

Around the place of execution, all of them were deeply affected,
But Montrose, the noble hero, seemed not the least dejected;
And when on the scaffold he had, says his biographer Wishart,
Such a grand air and majesty, which made the people start.

As the fatal hour was approaching when he had to bid the world adieu,
He told the executioner to make haste and get quickly through,
But the executioner smiled grimly, but spoke not a word,
Then he tied the Book of Montrose’s Wars round his neck with a cord.

Then he told the executioner his foes would remember him hereafter,
And he was as well pleased as if his Majesty had made him Knight of the Garter;
Then he asked to be allowed to cover his head,
But he was denied permission, yet he felt no dread.

He then asked leave to keep on his cloak,
But was also denied, which was a most grievous stroke;
Then he told the Magistrates, if they could invent any more tortures for him,
He would endure them all for the cause he suffered, and think it no sin.

On arriving at the top of the ladder with great firmness,
His heroic appearance greatly did the bystanders impress,
Then Montrose asked the executioner how long his body would be suspended,
Three hours was the answer, but Montrose was not the least offended.

Then he presented the executioner with three or four pieces of gold,
Whom he freely forgave, to his honour be it told,
And told him to throw him off as soon as he uplifted his hands,
While the executioner watched the fatal signal, and in amazement stands.

And on the noble patriot raising his hands, the executioner began to cry,
Then quickly he pulled the rope down from the gibbet on high,
And around Montrose’s neck he fixed the rope very gently,
And in an instant the great Montrose was launched into eternity.

Then the spectators expressed their disapprobation by general groan,
And they all dispersed quietly, and wended their way home
And his bitterest enemies that saw his death that day,
Their hearts were filled with sorrow and dismay.

Thus died, at the age of thirty-eight, James Graham, Marquis of Montrose,
Who was brought to a premature grave by his bitter foes;
A commander who had acquired great military glory
In a short space of time, which cannot be equalled in story.

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