Crime -- Great Britain; Criminals -- Great Britain; Executions and executioners; Tyburn gallows (London, England)
The husband murdered was not Sir Edward Hungerford, but a first husband,
John Cotell. The outlines of the story are given by Mr. Hardy from the
Coram Rege Roll for Michaelmas term, 14 Henry VIII.:—
“On the Monday next after the feast of S. Bartholomew, in the 14th
year of the now king (25 August, 1522), at Ilchester, before John Fitz
James and his fellow-justices of oyer and terminer for the county of
Somerset, William Mathewe, late of Heytesbury, in the county of Wilts,
yeoman, William Inges, late of Heytesbury, in the county aforesaid,
yeoman, [were indicted for that] on the 26th July, in the 10th year of
the now Lord the King (1518), with force and arms made an assault upon
John Cotell, at Farley, in the county of Somerset, by the procurement
and abetting of Agnes Hungerford, late of Heytesbury, in the county of
Wilts, widow, at that time the wife of the aforesaid John Cotell. And a
certain linen scarf called a kerchier (quandam flameam lineam vocatam
‘a kerchier’) which the aforesaid William and William then and there
held in their hands, put round the neck of the aforesaid John Cotell,
and with the aforesaid linen scarf him, the said John Cotell, then and
there feloniously did throttle, suffocate, and strangle, so that the
aforesaid John Cotell immediately died, and so the aforesaid William
Maghewe [Mathewe] and William Inges, by the procurement and abetting
of the aforesaid Agnes, did then and there feloniously murder, &c.,
the aforesaid John Cotell, against the peace of the Lord the King, and
afterwards the aforesaid William, and William, the body of the aforesaid
John Cotell did then and there put into a certain fire in the furnace of
the kitchen in the Castle of Farley aforesaid, and the body of the same
John in the fire aforesaid in the Castle of Farley aforesaid, in the
county of Somerset aforesaid, did burn and consume.”
The indictment charged that Agnes Hungerford, otherwise called Agnes
Cotell, late of Heytesbury, in the county of Wilts, widow, late the wife
of the aforesaid John Cotell, well knowing that the aforesaid William
Mathewe and William Inges had done the felony and murder aforesaid, did
receive, comfort and aid them on 28th December, 1518.
Such was the indictment, “which said indictment the now Lord the
King afterwards for certain reasons caused to come before him to be
determined, &c.” All three accused were committed to the Tower of London;
“and now, to wit, on Thursday next after the quinzaine of St. Martin
(November 27, 1522), in the same term, before the Lord the King at
Westminster, in their proper persons came the aforesaid William Mathewe,
William Inges, and Agnes Hungerford, brought here to the bar by Sir
Thomas Lovell, Knight, Constable of the Tower of London, by virtue of the
writ of the Lord the King to him thereupon directed.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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