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Overview
Now a thriving, modern metropolis, Coventry has been an established center of trade and culture for nearly a thousand years. But as with any site where mankind gathers, the darker side of humanity always shows itself.
Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths in Coventry takes you on a sinister journey from medieval times to the twentieth century in which you will meet villains, cutthroats, traitors, witches, martyrs, and suicidal lovers—a menagerie of crime and punishment in all their shocking variety.
Among the many awful episodes included are a brutal regicide, religious martyrdoms and a witchcraft murder in the medieval period. Also included are the story of a triple execution at Gibbet Hill, poisonings and drownings in the Georgian and Victorian eras, and in more recent times, a murderer’s lonely suicide.
For fans of historical madness and mayhem, Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths in Coventry is a fascinating compendium of crime.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781783033812 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Pen & Sword Books Limited |
| Publication date: | 10/30/2004 |
| Series: | Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 144 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
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CHAPTER 1
Marmion, Nonant, Ribbaud and Others
It appears that the earliest reference to a foul deed in Coventry was in 1143 when Earl Robert Marmion of Tamworth, a man described as being 'great in warre', rode into Coventry with a force of men. Marmion, a supporter of King Stephen entered the city in late August, headed straight for the priory of St Mary and is said to have driven the monks from the building. Once the building was occupied, Marmion constructed fortifications around it, which included the digging of trenches and mantraps. Meanwhile the men of the Earl of Chester, Ranulf Gernon, watched from nearby Coventry Castle but did nothing, perhaps because they were awaiting reinforcements.
As nothing was happening Marmion, known for his arrogance and bravado, took to riding out alone each day, parading his defiance before the castle. This was all very well until one day the earl's men unexpectedly began to pour forth from the castle gate and Marmion in a sudden panic galloped back toward the priory. He did not, however, make it to safety as he came crashing down into one of his own mantraps. There are two accounts of what happened next, one says that he lay in the ditch some hours with a broken leg before being dispatched by a cobbler. Another version, which is probably nearer the truth, is that being injured and unable to escape he was eventually spotted by a common foot soldier who decapitated him. So ended the life of the great Earl Marmion, headless in a Coventry ditch.
Interestingly, Marmion was attacking the castle of an ally, for Ranulf Gernon was also on the side of Stephen. Why did he do it? It seems that Ranulf Gernon had promised to give Coventry to Marmion, but had probably changed his mind. This claim was later put forward again by Marmion's sons. Another interesting fact concerning this event is that in 1938 when the Blue Coat School was being underpinned, parts of the priory entrance came to light. During the dig a group of skeletons was found, huddled against an old stone wall. Several of the remains showed cuts in their skulls caused by swords. The question is who were these men thrown into a roughly dug pit against an old wall, by the main entrance to the priory? Could they be men who died during the attack, and if that was the case, why after the event were they not given a proper burial? Alternatively, and most likely, it appears that no one knew they were there, and that these men were deliberately hidden. Perhaps Marmion's act of driving the monks from the priory was more violent than was supposed and the consequences were hidden from prying eyes, not to come to light until accidently discovered over 700 years later.
The priory was the scene of other deaths and suspicious incidents. In 1185 Gerard le Pucelle, Bishop of Coventry, died suddenly and was buried in the great Chapter House. Talk after his death suggested poison being the tool of his fate, administered by an unknown hand. He was soon followed by someone who may have been responsible – Hugh de Nonant. Nonant was an advisor to King Richard I; he also held the post of Sheriff of Staffordshire. He acquired the bishopric without election by paying cash to Richard. Consequently the monks disliked him, but not as much as he disliked them, for Nonant was a notorious monk hater. He was once noted as saying, 'If I had my way there would not be a monk left in England. To the devil with all monks.'
One of his first acts was to ignore a papal decree and move his chair to Lichfield, home to secular canons, not monks. From there he changed his title to Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. His malice quickly bore down on the monks of Coventry as he began to cut down their food supply and illegally took their possessions. He also took power from the Prior, making himself all-powerful.
This led to an event that was described by Richard of Devizes, thus:
On a certain day, when the bishop was superintending the workpeople at Coventry, this monk (from Burton) stood close at his side, with the bishop resting on him familiarly. To whom the bishop said, 'Is it not right and proper, my monk, even in thy judgement, that the great beauty of so fine a church and such a splendid edifice, should rather be appropriated to god's than devils?' And while the monk was considering these words, he went on: 'I call my clerks gods, and my monks devils.' And thereupon wagging his finger on his right hand towards his clerks, who stood about, he continued, 'I say ye are gods, and ye are all children of the Highest.' And then he turned again to the left, and concluded to the monk, 'But ye monks shall perish like devils, and as one and the greatest of your princes ye shall fall away into hell, because ye are devils upon earth. Verily, if I should have to officiate for a dead monk, which I should loathe to do so, I should commend his soul to the devil, not to God.'
As he said these words a block of stone fell from the church tower missing Nonant by inches, but smashing out the brains of the monk beside him. An accident maybe, but what happened next makes one think it deliberate. Soon after this Nonant held a synod at the priory and an argument broke out between him and the monks; this resulted in him being attacked by them before the high altar and being struck on the head with the crucifix.
Nonant petitioned William Longchamps, Richard's regent, for the monks to be expelled from their house, saying, that they had deserted their rule, and charging them with becoming, 'contaminated by secular pollution' and worst for spilling his blood, their bishop's blood, before the high altar. It was decreed that the monks of Coventry Priory be expelled and replaced by canons from Lichfield. Prior Moyses went into exile in Rome and the monks scattered, some begging on the streets for survival. Nonant's power grew and he became a close ally of Prince John, deposing Longchamps and getting John onto the throne. On Richard's return Nonant himself was cast from his seat, he did, however, recover it by paying Richard 5,000 marks in 1194.
Coventry's notorious bishop Nonant died in 1198 and on his deathbed, fearing God's judgement he gathered a group of religious dignitaries and confessed a catalogue of sins. Roger of Wendover wrote:
But the religious men who stood by his bed were puzzled what to do afterhearing of such a wicked life ... and they remained silent. ... Then the bishop, in the hearing of all confessed that he had expelled the monks of Coventry, and ... had introduced irreligious priests in their stead. He chose to atone for his sins by dying in the habit of those he had, 'persecuted, and reduced to beggary'.
An early seal of a bishop of Coventry. Nonant's seal would have been much like this.
The first known execution in Coventry was recorded in the chronicle of Robert of Gloucester in the thirteenth century. This is the first account of a man being 'sent to Coventry' for execution, and as Coventry appeared to have been used often for executions it may be the origin of the famous saying, for if one was sent to Coventry in this sense no one would ever talk to them again.
Robert wrote that while Henry III (1216 – 72) was keeping court at Woodstock a secular priest was found hiding in the king's chamber. He initially made himself out to be slow-witted, but was subsequently discovered to have been engaged to murder the king. Robert tells the story:
The country was ripe for rebellion, but as yet no de Montfort had appeared to check the designs of the King, and little demand had been made for the formation of a Parliament for the adjustment of the public interest and the country's good. A council had been held until late one winter's eve at the Royal Manor of Woodstock, to consider and remedy the growing troubles of the State, but as deepening shadows grew apace the King left the Hall, tired and weary, for the rest of his chamber.
But with his mind filled with anxious cares sleep forsook him, and luckily it was so, for a grating noise, as of someone endeavouring to undo the fastenings of the window aroused him from his reverie; so pulling aside the arras he beheld a tall figure busy unfastening the lattice. Noiselessly he called his attendants from an adjoining room, who, after a struggle, succeeded in effecting a capture, and when the prisoner was brought before the King he said he was a priest named Ribbaud, and was connected with a northern monastery.
He likewise confessed to being hired by conspirators to take the King's life. At his trial he was condemned to be sent to Coventry; and there, in the presence of the people, to be, 'torne by wild horses, and drawn thro' the streets till life leave bodie,' that is, tied to the tails of two swift horses, drawn along the ground, and dragged to death, which punishment, being duly performed, the lifeless mass, was hung, drawn and quartered, and his parts sent to different towns, and there exhibited as an example of what would-be regicides might expect. 'And so learn traitors that would be.'
Another crime in Henry's reign took place at Coventry's St Mary's Priory when, we are told, 'Hugh, son of Gilbert de Balissall, fell into the Pool of the monks [St Osburg's Pool] of Coventry, and was drowned.' This description seems straightforward but Hugh was also impaled upon a spike of wood as he lay in the water, so this was a suspicious death. The finder of the body was first interviewed and cleared, suspicion subsequently fell upon a cleric named Peter Burum, who pleaded his background saying he should not answer for the charges. The Proctor of the Bishop of Chester appears to have asked for Burum to be handed over to him, and the justices concluded that, 'the twelve jurors and the four neighbouring towns say that the aforesaid Peter threw the aforesaid Hugh into the Pool, so that he fell upon a sharp stake, whereof he died on the third day afterwards. Therefore for such he is delivered to the Proctor.' Burum used his clerical background to good effect as it entitled him to be dealt with by the church, and that usually meant criminals escaped execution.
There were numerous other murders in the reign of Henry although not all in the priory. The Rolls of Justice in Eyre tell us that in 1222, Richard of Keresley was a member of the household of Robert le Scot who had a manor house in the Whitmore/Keresley area called Scot's Hill, possibly on the site of the present Whitmore Park Junior School. Richard stabbed and killed Robert Underwood with a knife and fled. His wife, the unusually named Hawisa testified against him and he was found guilty of murder and outlawed.
In 1232 Matthew Seliman killed Ivo de Tanur with a knife and was outlawed, as was Roger le Seynturer in 1262 who struck Roger Stirthup on the head with a lump of firewood in the house of one Emma. Some ran, as did Richard Labanc who killed William de Essenby in the same year, however he was later taken and hanged at Northampton. Others such as John de Corle acted differently: he struck William le Parber on the head with an axe. Parber died within a fortnight and Corle took up residence in the priory church of St Mary and there claimed sanctuary and admitted his crime to the coroner. Under these circumstances he was protected by the church for forty days, and within that time had to dress in sackcloth, carry a wooden cross and head for the nearest port and from there abjure the realm. If he stayed beyond forty days the law could take him. However, those who did attempt to leave did not always make it out of the country because relatives of their victims sometimes took justice into their own hands, and occasionally headless abjurers would be found in fields only a short distance from their sanctuary.
In the Crown Pleas of 1285 Henry le Moun is mentioned for killing his wife Alice by thrusting a sword through her chest. History does not record his motive, but he ran and was outlawed. Also, around the same time, William Dunte the miller struck and killed one Nicholas de Wroxhalle, he too was outlawed after he fled. Reginald Abbot of Sowe struck and killed William Gopil with a stick and was also outlawed.
Sometimes those who administered justice were themselves outlawed, as was Ranulf de Kaus, Bailiff of the city of Coventry in 1262. Kaus and another bailiff, Walter le Blunt, accused one Hugh Russell of possessing a stolen horse. They took him and placed him in the stocks for eight days so that as the Eyres state, 'his feet rotted through that imprisonment and later fell from his legs, from which he afterwards died'. Although Hugh le Blunt denied any knowledge of the incident the jury thought otherwise, and believed that le Blunt himself had ordered Kaus to place Russell in the stocks leaving him there long enough for the extreme cold and damp to give him frostbite, causing the loss of his feet and his eventual death. For their deed Kaus was outlawed and le Blunt wearing a habit and claiming to be a cleric, received a short committal to gaol.
CHAPTER 2Murder by Witchcraft
In the year 1325 a minor favourite of King Edward II died a raving lunatic in Coventry, his name Robert or Richard de Sowe. Sowe's death would be unremarkable had not a certain Robert Mareschal confessed that he had been murdered by witchcraft.
The case resulting from this incident is the earliest witchcraft trial in England of which details are known: the records from it still survive in The National Archives. The events leading up to this trial, began on a snowy December evening in 1324 at the home of John de Nottingham in the Shortley area of Coventry, near the Charterhouse. A group of 'gentlemen' of both Coventry and Warwickshire had gathered there to procure the services of Nottingham, a known necromancer or witch.
Before business was spoken of Nottingham and his assistant Robert Mareschal were sworn to secrecy. They were then told by the spokesman one Robert Latoner that the men gathered here had enemies who overtaxed them in many ways, they included the Prior of Coventry, the Earl of Winchester, Hugh le Despenser and his son and none other than the King himself.
Latoner offered Nottingham £20 for himself and maintenance in any religious house in England and £15 for his assistant if he would kill the king and others using his black arts; Nottingham agreed. It is said that seven days after the Feast of St Nicholas part payment was made and four pounds of wax and two rolls of canvas were supplied to Nottingham to create images.
From this material Nottingham and Mareschal created waxen images of Edward II crowned, the Earl of Winchester, the prior, his Cellarer, Nicholas Crump his Seneschal, Monsieur Hugh and one of Robert de Sowe. At midnight on the Feast of the Holy Cross, Nottingham began to prove his power by taking the image of Sowe and saying an incantation as Mareschal pushed a leaden spike into the image's head. The next morning he sent Mareschal to Sowe's home, probably in Walsgrave-on-Sowe to check on the effects of the previous night's work. Mareschal spoke to various people and discovered that suddenly overnight Robert de Sowe had gone mad, shouting and screaming and unable to recognize those about him.
Mareschal later informed the court that this situation continued until the Sunday before the Feast of the Ascension, when with the agreement of the 'gentlemen' Nottingham had taken the pin from the image's head and pushed it into the heart. Over a week later Sowe stopped his ranting and died. John de Nottingham had proved his power.
The 'gentleman' were informed of the work and it was decided that the hated king himself was soon to become the next victim. However, before this happened Mareschal panicked and turned informer to try to save his own neck. The Sheriff of Warwickshire had Nottingham arrested by personal command of King Edward, and the 'gentlemen', on hearing the news, gave themselves up to the Justice. Mareschal was brought to accuse them but the 'gentlemen' denied any knowledge of the event, pleaded not guilty, and were taken with Nottingham and Mareschal into the custody of Robert de Dumbleton, marshall.
Within a short time a large group of knights and gentlemen from Warwickshire and London paid the bail on Richard Latoner and the gentlemen who then were allowed out of custody on the promise of returning after Easter.
On the fifteenth day after Easter 1325 it was ordered by the Justice that Dumbleton bring John de Nottingham before the king. This was not, however, possible for it was reported that Nottingham had died suddenly while in his custody. Mareschal and the 'gentlemen' were brought forward and the 'gentlemen' cleared of any of the alleged witchcraft or felonies and all rode off into the sunset. Mareschal, however, was returned to prison to await the advice of the court. No record of this 'advice' survives, but it seems unlikely that Mareschal ever saw the light of day again. As for Nottingham, the necromancer would have been considered too dangerous to be allowed to live, which is probably why he so conveniently 'died' in prison – most likely not struck down by illness but by something a bit more solid. So his mouth would have been closed forever, permanently preventing him from testifying against his gentlemen of Coventry and Warwickshire.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths in Coventry"
by .
Copyright © 2004 David McGrory.
Excerpted by permission of Pen and Sword Books Ltd.
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Table of Contents
FOUL DEEDS AND SUSPICIOUS DEATHS Series,
Title Page,
Copyright Page,
Dedication,
Acknowledgements,
Introduction,
CHAPTER 1 - Marmion, Nonant, Ribbaud and Others,
CHAPTER 2 - Murder by Witchcraft,
CHAPTER 3 - The Broadgate Murder and other Fifteenth-Century Deeds,
CHAPTER 4 - The Coventry Martyrs,
CHAPTER 5 - Mayors and Murder,
CHAPTER 6 - Murder in Cromwell's Coventry,
CHAPTER 7 - Soldiers Shot in the Park,
CHAPTER 8 - The Murder of Thomas Edwards 1765,
CHAPTER 9 - Murder at the Toll Gate 1772,
CHAPTER 10 - Getting Away with Murder: The Murders of Newbold and Harris 1779,
CHAPTER 11 - The Kenilworth Road Murder 1818,
CHAPTER 12 - The Sensational Golsby Murder 1844,
CHAPTER 13 - Singular Suicides,
CHAPTER 14 - Murder at the Black Dog 1854,
CHAPTER 15 - The Horrific Murder of Mrs Kington 1859,
CHAPTER 16 - The Fawson Murder and Suicide 1860,
CHAPTER 17 - The Hillfield's Poisoner 1861,
CHAPTER 18 - Child Murder in Whitmore Park 1862,
CHAPTER 19 - The Gosford Street Murder 1871,
CHAPTER 20 - Salvation and Murder: Kirby House 1887,
CHAPTER 21 - The Stoke Park Murders 1906,
Selected Sources,
Index,