In this welcome addition to his Crime History Series, Gregory Durston points to the lack of design and short-term expediency that typified Tudor law and order. But he also detects an emergent criminal justice system amidst royal patronage, protection, and the influence of wealthy magnates. Students of English history will have heard how benefit of clergy and the ‘neck verse’ might avoid a hanging, but what of other stratagems such as down-valuing stolen goods, cruentation, chance medley, pious perjury or John at Death (a non-existent culprit blamed by the accused and treated by juries as real); all devices used to mitigate the all-pervading death-for-felony rule. Together with other artifices deployed by courts to circumvent black-letter law the author also describes how poor, marginalised and illiterate citizens were those most likely to suffer unfairness, injustice and draconian punishment. He also describes the political intrigue and widescale corruption that were symptomatic of the era, alongside such diverse aspects as forfeiture of property, evidential ploys, the rise of the highwayman, religious persecution, witchcraft and infanticide crazes. At a time of shifting allegiances?—?and as Crown, church, judges, magistrates and officials wrestled over jurisdiction, central or local control, ‘ungodly customs’, laws of convenience or malleable definitions?—?never perhaps were facts or law so expertly engineered to justify or defend often curious outcomes. Part of Durston’s Crime History Series. Covers the entire Tudor era. Based on first-hand historical research. Fully referenced to hundreds of sources.

Forbidden Desire is a pioneering study of the history of male-male sex in the whole of Early Modern Europe, including the European colonies and the Ottoman world.

Crime and Punishment in Tudor England tells the story of the enactment of law and its penalties from Henry VII to Elizabeth I. The sixteenth century was remarkable in many ways. In England, it was the century of the Tudor Dynasty. It heralded the Reformation, William Shakespeare, the first appearance of bottled beer in London pubs, Sir Francis Drake, and the Renaissance. Oh, and the Spanish Armadas—all five of them! Yes, five armadas and all failures. It was a watershed century for crime and punishment. Henry VII’s paranoia about the loyalty of the nobility led to military-trained vagrants causing mayhem and murder. Henry VIII’s Reformation meant executions of those refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy. State-controlled religion—summed up through the five reigns as Roman Catholic; Anglo-Catholic; Protestant; Roman Catholic, and Sort of Protestant but I don’t mind so long as you swear the Oath of Supremacy—became an increasingly complex, not to say confusing, issue for ordinary people. Although primary sources are rare and sometimes incomplete, the life of criminals and the punishments meted out to them still fascinates. Read about John Daniell and how he tried to blackmail the Earl of Essex; the Stafford insurrection of 1486, the first serious opposition to the new king; the activities of con-man extraordinaire, Gregory Wisdom, and many more. Crime and punishment didn’t start with the Tudors and this book summarizes judicial practices built on tradition from the Roman occupation. It covers often gory details—what happens to the body when it is beheaded, burned, boiled, or hanged? Arranged in alphabetical order of crimes, it recounts tales of blackmail, infanticide, kidnapping, heresy, and sumptuary laws. Told with occasional low-key humor, the book also includes Tavern Talk, snippets of quirky information. Dip into it at your pleasure.

Designed for those studying law for the first time, this book explores where the English common law came from.