8-3Crimes

Schumaker 1 Matt Schumaker English 8-3 6 April 2009 Violence and Crime in Elizabethan Times You can find examples of violence in every aspect of Elizabethan life. Gangs and brutal crime were common and criminals were kept in filthy conditions. There were a lot of different rebel groups. The most common punishment was to be hanged. One of the more brutal crimes was to be hung until half dead and then quartered alive. If the crime was not severe, the person “suffered to hang ‘till they be quite dead.” If the crime was of high treason, the offender would be beheaded. Robbery was a crime that was dealt with by hanging by chains at the scene of the crime. In the case of manslaughter, a person’s hand would be cut off. Crime and punishment were very much a part of Elizabethan life. Probably the bloodiest and most horrific crimes took place in the Tower of London. In his very detailed book titled, The Tower of London, Christopher Hibbert describes how this castle became a crime castle. It all began when William the Conqueror decided to build the tower to protect himself from enemies and to show the English people he was king. The royal family lived on the top floor, the royal court below them, and his personal staff below them. Even before the tower was finished, the first prisoner arrived. They were allowed to have personal servants, special drink and the food they liked. According to Jane Mason and Sarah Stephens in their book called //The Dead,// //the Doomed, and the Buried//, the first prisoner, Rannulf Flambard, Schumaker 2 Bishop of Durham, had barrels of wine brought to him. He shared it with the guards, got them drunk, threw a rope out of a window, climbed and ran away!  After William ruled, King Henry III made the tower larger. He even included a menagerie, which was like a zoo, (Mason, Stephens, p.19). There were leopards, lions, and a polar bear. Henry’s son, Edward I built a wall around the tower called the Outer Curtain, so now the Tower was like a small city built on twelve acres with hundreds of people living on the property, (Mason, Stephens p.20). When the 1400s came, trouble began to develop in England as King Henry, Edward I and their family, the Lancasters, began to lose power to the Yorks. King Edward IV took over and the Tower held more and more prisoners. King Richard III took over the throne and locked Edward IV’s son, Edward, and his brother in the Tower and later they were found murdered, (Mason, Stephens p.23). King Richard died in battle which allowed Henry Tudor to reign. By far his was the bloodiest dynasty to rule from the Tower, (Mason, Stephens p.23).  Henry VIII didn’t live in the tower, but he did use it as a prison. He stuck anyone in there that wanted to claim the throne from him. He imprisoned his wife, Anne Boleyn, because she couldn’t give him a male child. He had her beheaded and, according to legend, when her severed head was raised so the crowd could see her, her eyes and lips were moving, (Mason, Stephens p. 24). There is quite a bit of artwork depicting these crimes. Hibbert in his book has etchings of The Tower of London and nobles being beheaded, (p. 74, 75). It seems the nobility faced much more severe punishment than the commoner. According to article called “//Elizabethan Crime and Punishment//,” on the Elizabethan Era website, the reason that nobility or Upper Class faced harsher punishments is probably because they were well educated, wealthy and associated with Royalty and the clergy. This meant they got involved with politics and religion and the crimes that were associated with them. Typical royal crimes included treason, blasphemy, sedition, spying, rebellion, murder, witchcraft, and alchemy. Punishments included beheading, burning at the stack, and other instruments of torture like the rack, branding irons, and collars (Elizabethan Era).  Crimes committed by commoners can also be found in the article “//Elizabethan// //Crime and Punishment//,” and include theft, cut purses, begging, poaching, adultery, debtors, fraud, and dice coggers. Typical punishments were hangings, burning, the pillory and stocks, whipping, branding, the wheel, boiling in water or lead, starvation, and cutting off body parts. Clearly, living in the Elizabethan era was not easy, but it seems they were used to torture as a way to deal with crimes. In fact the last of the Elizabethans, Sir Walter Ralegh, welcomed his execution and faced it without a tremor and even asked the headsmen if he could feel the axe to make sure it was sharp enough. After he touched it, he turned to the sheriff and said, “This is sharp medicine, but it is a physician for all diseases,” (Hibbert p. 85). He was the last person to be beheaded in the Tower of London, and the era of severe punishment came to an end.    <span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Schumaker 1 <span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Works Cited <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">"Elizabethan Crime and Punishment." //William Shakespeare-Site Map// 2005 Web.06 Apr 2009. <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <http://www.william-shakespeare.info/elizabethan-crime-punishment.htm>. <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Hibbert, Christopher. //Tower of London//. Italy: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1971. Print. <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Mason, Jane, Sarah Hines Stephens. //The Dead, the Doomed, and the Buried//. New York: <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> Scholastic Inc, 2003. Print.