8-1Crimes

//Answer Prepared by//: Billy L Elizabethan England was an era of rampant crime and brutal punishments. Both escalating religious conflict and social problems resulted in increasing crime. The government’s response to criminal activity was to impose very harsh and public punishments. The religious controversy between Catholic and Protestant factions over the throne resulted in numerous assassinations and crimes of heresy and treason (Levi 4). The movement to the cities created a fertile environment for lawlessness; a poor homeless population. Sovereign authority answered wrongful acts with harsh discipline. Catholics were considered a risk to the monarchy. As a result, priests were arrested and accused of treason, a crime which was punishable by hanging and being drawn and quartered. Catholics were forced to practice their faith in secret or suffer imprisonment (Downer 18). After years of skullduggery by the Catholic factions, Queen Elizabeth finally agreed to have Mary Stuart Queen of Scots beheaded because she repeatedly tried to restore Catholicism in England (Downer 18). A traitor’s full punishment was to be drawn or disemboweled before they died by hanging, at which time their bodies were then quartered (Downer 22). There was no religious freedom in Elizabethan England. Control of the seas ensured security for Elizabethan England, so maritime justice was enforced. Men that defied the captain or committed crimes received little mercy. Murderers were tied to the body of the victim and thrown overboard. Anyone pulling a knife on an officer had his right hand cut off. Thieves were dunked three times in the sea and then banished at the next land fall. Lesser crimes such as speaking ill of officers resulted in confinement in the hole with shackles on their legs. The Elizabethan navy was only for the obedient (Editors 124). The rapid growth of London dramatically increased poverty and vagrancy resulting in more crimes like robbery, murder, rape and begging. Parliament reacted by passing many new laws addressing the growing social problems, which called for harsh punishment for various activities. Palm readers, wizards, unlicensed healers and minstrels were defined as vagrants liable to be whipped and burned on the ear for a first offense and hanged for a second offense (Editors 104). Beggars were whipped and banned from London. If they dared to return, they would be sentenced to death. The stocks were the standard punishment for very minor infractions. The crime of poaching was punished in many ways, but most frequently the poacher was banished from their home (Nettleton 34). Being underprivileged proved to be a criminal offense in Elizabethan London. Extreme public torture was the most prevalent punishment during the Elizabethan era. Criminals were beheaded and their severed head swayed atop the London Bridge (Horizon 272). Half-strangled victims would be cut down from the gallows then disemboweled and dismembered while still alive. Burning at the stake was a common spectacle that was observed and enjoyed by the blood thirsty public (Ackroyd 167). In the London Tower, prisoners were subjected to excruciating torture. The rack, a wooden frame confining ankles, head and wrists, was commonly used during interrogation, stretching and dislocating a prisoner’s joints (Editors 104). Another device called the Skeffington’s gyves was an iron that compressed the prisoner’s body into a broken ball (Editors 104). A slow, bloodless torture clasped the prisoner’s wrists in irons and dangled the victim from a pillar so that his feet barely touched the ground and then the earth beneath his feet was dug away (Editors 105). The Elizabethan government used harsh punishment to discourage criminal behavior, discipline the impoverished and control political adversaries.

Works Cited:

Ackroyd, Peter. Shakespeare The Biography. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2005

Editors of Time-Life Books. What Life Was Like in the Realm of Elizabeth. Alexandria, Virginia: TimeLife Inc., 1998.

 Leslie Dunton-Downer and Alan Riding. Essential Shakespeare Handbook. New York, New York: DK Publishing, 2004.

Levi, Peter. The Life and Times of William Shakespeare. New York: Henry Holt and Company Inc., 1988.

Nettleton, Pamela Hill. William Shakespeare Playwright and Poet. Minneapolis, MN: Compass Point

Books, 2005.