Friday - July 17, 2009

A bit of English history.  The last woman to be beheaded in England was done here.

Just a couple miles down the road in Winchester sits The Eclipse Inn.  From this place in 1685 was carried out the execution of Lady Alice Lise.
The scaffold was above the door in front here.

I took the photo a year or so ago, knowing about the site but at the time not realizing who or what the circumstances were.
btw ... there is some dispute re. her age. Some have it at 72 but the most recent history says 67. Just before her 68th B.day.

Here’s the background.

Lady Alice Lisle
decapitated on Sept. 2, 1685, shortly before her 68th birthday.

Her crime was the sheltering of a clergyman fleeing the rout of Monmouth’s short lived rebellion.  Which was btw a badly botched attempt by Charles II’s bastard son to seize the thrown from his uncle, King James II.

Poor Lady A. was the wife of the late John Lisle, who was a loyal follower of that vandal Cromwell.  Alright, so I’m opinionated on the topic. Reason being that under Cromwell, there were many beautiful buildings that might be standing yet, but for his orders to destroy them.  They blew up Winchester Castle for example, and used the famous round table, hanging still in the museum here, for target practice.  So as far as I’m concerned, they were dribbling, drooling barbarians all.  No sense of the past, no feelings for history. Vandals. A pox on them.

OK, back to Lady Alice.
Her husband was a commissioner of the high court of Justice for the trial (if you want to call a lynching that) of King Charles I, who I’ll grant ya was no boy scout and perhaps not the very best king of England.  But that’s by the by.
Well, John Lisle was not a signer of the death warrant, but he did help to draw it up.  However, he was very much anti royalist and did send many to their death.

When the restoration came about, he had to flee the country.  Many of his fellow regicides didn’t make it.  I think many got the ax and it caught up to poor John as well, when a Royalist assassin found him in Switzerland.  That ends his story but poor Lady Alice was now in for it because apparently she was in touch, and we really can’t be certain if it was just sympathy for those trying to get away, or if she actually knew about and aided a rebellion. There are two schools of thought on that score.

If you ever have heard of The Bloody Assize, which was the result of the rebellion, I guess depending on what side you were on, she was either it’s deserving victim or else simply a victim.  One of the things that does become clear however, is that in actual fact she was unfairly and unlawfully convicted.

I read the transcript of her trial, and due to the language of that day, that was a trial in itself. I never finished the whole thing.

THE FOLLOWING IS FROM GOOGLE AND OF COURSE IT’S ONLY A SNIPIT.

It would appear that Lady Lisle did not grieve too deeply over her husband’s death. According to Burnett, quoted in the Salisbury Journal, ‘She was not easily reconciled to her husband on account of his association with the regicides.’ After her husband’s death she lived quietly as a widow at Moyles Court and showed some sympathy with the dissenting ministers in their trials and ordeals during Charles II’s reign.

The Presbyterians were disappointed with the Restoration. The Cavalier Parliament preserved the Church of England for which Charles I had died. Moreover, the Clarendon Code persecuted nonconformist ministers, forbidding them from all public office. The Act of Uniformity 1662 authorized a new edition of the prayer book and many Puritan teachers were dismissed from office for refusing to use it. The Conventicle Act was introduced making it a crime to worship anywhere but in a Church of England church. Furthermore, the Five Mile Act stopped nonconformist clergy living within a five mile radius of a town or old parish. The reign of Charles II, far from being merry, was an unhappy time for many sincere Christians like Alicia Lisle.

Charles II was married to Catherine Braganza of Portugal. She did not bear him any children and as a result, James his Catholic brother was due to succeed him. There was support for Charles’s illegitimate son, James, Duke of Monmouth, to become King instead of James. The Duke’s mother, Lucy Walter, had been one of Charles’s mistresses. After the death of Charles in 1685 and the succession of James to the throne, the Duke of Monmouth, who was in Holland, plotted to overthrow James II.

Alicia Lisle spent the first week of July in London during the Monmouth rebellion, but some days later returned to Moyles Court. ‘On 20th July 1685 she received a letter from John Hickes, the dissenting minister, asking her to shelter him.’ Hickes had fled the battle of Sedgemoor seeking refuge from the King’s Army. Unbeknown to Alicia, he was a Monmouth man!

The two fugitives were found after a search of Moyles Court by Penruddock’s soldiers. Hickes was found in the malthouse and Nelthorp in a hole by the chimney in one of the rooms which presumably is the cupboard hole situated in the present staff room at Moyles Court School. Lady Alicia was arrested and conveyed to Winchester for trial before Judge Jeffries. Hickes and Nelthorp were taken to Glastonbury and after trial were hung, drawn and quartered.

On 27 August 1685 she was tried by special commission before Judge Jeffreys at Winchester, on the capital charge of harbouring Hickes, a traitor. No evidence respecting Hickes’s offences was admitted, and in spite of the brutal browbeating by the judge of chief witness, Dunne, no proof was adduced wither that Mrs. Lisle had any ground to suspect Hickes of disloyalty or that she had displayed any sympathy with Monmouth’s insurrection. She made a moderate speech in her own defence. The jury declared themselves reluctant to convict her, but Jeffreys overruled their scruples, and she was ultimately found guilty, and on the morning of the next day (28 Aug) was sentenced to be burnt alive the same afternoon. Pressure was, however, applied to the judge, and a respite till 2 Sept. was ordered. Lady Lisle petitioned James II (31 Aug) to grant her a further reprieve of four days, and to order the substitution of beheading for burning.

The first request was refused; the latter was granted. Mrs. Lisle was accordingly beheaded in the market-place of Winchester on 2 Sept., and her body was given up to her friends for burial at Ellingham. On the scaffold she gave a paper to the sheriffs denying her guilt, and it was printed, with the “Last Words of Colonel Rumbold,” 1685, and in “The Dying Speeches...of several Persons.

The Last speech of Madam LISLE, beheaded at Winchester, September 1685

Gentlemen, Friends and Neighbours,
It may be expected that I should say something at my Death, my Birth and Education being near this Place ; my Parents instructed me in the Fear of God ; and I now die of the reformed Religion ; always being instructed in that Belief that if Popery should return into this Nation, it would be a great Judgement. I die in Expectation of Pardon of my Sins, and Acceptation with the Father, by the imputed Righteousness of Jesus Christ : He being the End of the Law for Righteousness to every one that believeth. I thank God, thro’ Christ Jesus, I depart under the Blood of Sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel ; God having made this Chastisement an Ordinance to my Soul. I did as little expect to come to this Place on this occasion, as any person in this Nation ; therefore let all learn not to be high-minded, but fear. The Lord is a Sovereign, and will take what Way he seeth best to glorify himself by his poor Creatures ; I there for humbly desire to submit to his Will, praying of him, that in Patience I may possess my Soul.
The crime was, my entertaining a Non-conformist Minister, who is since sworn to have been in the Duke of Monmouth’s army. I am told, if I had not denied them, it would not have affected me : I have no Excuse but Surprise and Fear ; which I believe my Jury must make use of to excuse their Verdict to the World. I have been told, That the Court ought to be Council for the Prisoner : Instead of Advice, there was Evidence given from thence, which (tho’ it was but Hearsay) might possibly affect my Jury. My Defence was such as might be expected from a weak Woman ; but such as it was, I never heard it repeated again to the Jury.
But I forgive all persons that have wrong’d me ; and I desire that God will do so likewise. I forgive Colonel Penruddock, altho’ he told me, He could have taken those Men, before they came to my House.
As to what I expected for my Conviction, that I gave it under my Hand that I discours’d with Nelthrop ; that could be no Evidence to the Court or Jury, it being after my Conviction and Sentence.
I acknowledge his Majesty’s Favour in revoking my Sentence ; and I pray God he may long reign in Peace, and that the true Religion may flourish under him.
Two things I have omitted to say, which is, That I forgive him that desir’d to be taken from the Grand Jury, and put upon the Petty Jury, that he might be the more nearly concern’d in my Death ; and return humble Thanks to God, and the reverend Clergy, that assisted me in my Imprisonment.

Posted by peiper     on 07/17/2009 at 06:00 AM   
Filed Under: • History • UK •  
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