Besides the fairs already mentioned a third was added by Elizabeth's
charter to be held on Ascension Day. These are still among the most
considerable cattle fairs in the county. The same charter ratified a
market on Mondays and provided for another on Saturdays. The latter is
now held weekly, the former twice a month. The flour mill at Lamellion
mentioned in the charter of 1275, and probably identical with the mill
of the Domesday Survey, is still driven by water.
LISLE, ALICE (c. 1614-1685), commonly known as Lady Alice Lisle, was
born about 1614. Her father, Sir White Beckenshaw, was descended from an
old Hampshire family; her husband, John Lisle (d. 1664), had been one of
the judges at the trial of Charles I., and was subsequently a member of
Cromwell's House of Lords--hence his wife's courtesy title. Lady Lisle
seems to have leaned to Royalism, but with this attitude she combined a
decided sympathy with religious dissent. On the 20th of July 1685, a
fortnight after the battle of Sedgemoor, the old lady consented to
shelter John Hickes, a well-known Nonconformist minister, at her
residence, Moyles Court, near Ringwood. Hickes, who was a fugitive from
Monmouth's army, brought with him Richard Nelthorpe, also a partizan of
Monmouth, and under sentence of outlawry. The two men passed the night
at Moyles Court, and on the following morning were arrested, and their
hostess, who had denied their presence in the house, was charged with
harbouring traitors. Her case was tried by Judge Jeffreys at the opening
of the "Bloody Assizes" at Winchester. She pleaded that she had no
knowledge that Hickes's offence was anything more serious than illegal
preaching, that she had known nothing previously of Nelthorpe (whose
name was not included in the indictment, but was, nevertheless,
mentioned to strengthen the case for the Crown), and that she had no
sympathy with the rebellion. The jury reluctantly found her guilty, and,
the law recognizing no distinction between principals and accessories in
treason, she was sentenced to be burned. Jeffreys ordered that the
sentence should be carried out that same afternoon, but a few days'
respite was subsequently granted, and James II. allowed beheading to be
substituted for burning. Lady Lisle was executed in Winchester
market-place on the 2nd of September 1685. By many writers her death has
been termed a judicial murder, and one of the first acts of parliament
of William and Mary reversed the attainder on the ground that the
prosecution was irregular and the verdict injuriously extorted by "the
menaces and violences and other illegal practices" of Jeffreys. It is,
however, extremely doubtful whether Jeffreys, for all his gross
brutality, exceeded the strict letter of the existing law.
See Howell, _State Trials_; H. B. Irving, _Life of Judge Jeffreys_;
Stephen, _History of the Criminal Law of England_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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