in 1072, when William gave the Earldom of Northumberland to Waltheof, the son of Siward, Yorkshire was placed under the separate government of a vice-comes, or sheriff. In the first instance this official was appointed by the Earl of Northumberland. At a later date he has annually looked to the Crown for his office. Lord-lieutenants of counties were not appointed till July 24, 1549, chief constables and coroners having preceded them in 1307, and justices of the peace in 1387. York was first represented by an earl in 1138, when, after the victory of the Standard over the Scots, Stephen appointed William le Gros the first Earl of Yorkshire, or of York. The first Duke of York was, as previously stated, Edmund Langley; the eleventh and (for the present) the last Duke of York was Frederick, the brother of George IV. Of one remaining office of antiquity mention should be made. The trumpeter still exists. He dates from the middle ages, and owes his position not only to the shirereve, whose duty it was not only to find trumpeters and javelin men, but also a carriage for the judge, and three hundred yeomen and squires to guard that learned dignitary from one place of assize to another, and to keep the In very recent years, when the police did duty in the courts, the sheriff paid his share of the police rate, and among his other responsibilities it was his to job my Lud "a carriage from Long-acre, à la Cinderella, rats, bag, wig, footmen, and all." And so late even as on the 26th March, 1856, three months only before the Police Bill was passed,' the sheriff of Suffolk, Mr. Archidune, was fined £100 by the chief justice, Sir John Jervis, "for not providing javelin courts. It was passed on June 4, 1856. men at the assizes." And upon this the judge observed that "the gentry of Suffolk had no right to employ police to keep order in court, as it threw the' cost on the rates, and left the county denuded of police; though the principle had been agreed to in court of quarter sessions as a proper means of relieving the shire-reves of some portion of the costs of the appointment." Now of course the guarding of the courts falls in almost every county to the police. Where, however, the sheriffs are still burdened with the maintenance of javelin men to guard the assize courts, their expenses are at times indeed considerable, and often not at all within their own control. In 1860 the sheriff of Abbleby dressed his javelin men and trumpeters in the costume of the time of Charles I., in which, it has been said, they looked "picturesque and as ridiculous as a cow in a drawing-room." At this date the respectable old gentlemen who toddle after the judge's carriage during the York assizes are in appearance scarcely less ridiculous. OFFENDERS AND OFFENCES. CHAPTER XII. SAD history indeed is that of a castle such as many poor wretches have ended their days within the prison walls; how many a crime has been committed by them! Possibly the better education of the masses will do much to rectify this; certain it is at any rate that a want of education has done much in days gone by, and still does much, to fill the prisons of England. Apart from this, however, it is curious and instructive to note the various offences for which men suffer, and the various motives which lead men to commit such offences. A glance at the history of Yorkshire crime, as afforded by Chap. XIV. of this work, will show that arson, cattle-stealing, coining, coin-clipping, highway robbery, murder, rape, sorcery, and witchcraft have been constantly practised; and for these offences, as for conspiracy, cutting and maiming, debt, forgery, fraud, fraudulent bankruptcy, libel, manslaughter, perjury, refusal to plead, slander, and theft, men and women have suffered very bitterly. Poverty has sometimes been the moving cause of crime; avarice, envy, gratification of sensual desires, greed for money, habitual drink, hate, jealousy, temper, and revenge have operated upon many; while with a few a species of courage (as often instanced in highway robbery), a species of cowardice (as frequently exampled in perjury), an illbegotten love (as repeatedly betrayed in seduction and subsequent child-murder), and a desire for fame have been the leading motives of offence. Moreover, the holding at certain times of certain political or religious views has been a constant means of terminating life. A deeper glance at the history of Yorkshire crime will reveal many points of interest, both as to character and custom. Such a glance it is possible for us to give, with no small pleasure to ourselves, by considering the subject of crime in two chapters—the first on offenders and offences, the second on trials and punishments. And the interest and pleasure thus revealed will be concentrated and increased by dealing with the subjects under consideration in alphabetical fashion. It would not seem necessary, however, to speak on every particular crime or form of trial or punishment that could be named; many of those mentioned will touch incidentally on others not professedly dealt with.1 And sufficient will be gathered for all practical purposes from the crimes and the short biographical accounts of some of the criminals committing them, and from the judicial and punitive proceedings of the law set forth here Thus, for example, the case of Mary Bateman's murder deals as well with fraud as with witchcraft and sorcery. Thus, too, in the following chapter, cases of refusal to plead are dealt with under the punishment inflicted for such an offence. I after. First, then, of offenders and offences, and of offences first of arson. ARSON. Here we record the name of Jonathan Martin, who possibly, with a view to perpetuate his name, followed the example afforded him in the year B.C. 355, by Eratostratus, or Erostratus, who, for a like purpose, destroyed by fire the famous temple of Diana-a temple of which Ctesiphon was the famed architect, for which Scopas carved some of the columns, and concerning which it is said that it took two hundred and twenty years to build. Martin's destructive powers were aimed at the great cathedral of York, which for two centuries had occupied much of the time of those engaged in building and thoroughly completing it. Jonathan Martin was born, in 1782, at Hexham, in Northumberland. For some years he worked as a journeyman tanner; he then, in 1804, went to London, where he was pressed and sent on board the Hercules, one of the many ships of the line that three years before had taken 1 It will be noted that many of the important trials related in this chapter took place at the commencement of this century. This period has been designedly selected, in view that the instances cited may seem neither too ancient nor too modern. Moreover, by keeping the instances together within one period of twenty or thirty years, as for the most part has been done, most phases of crime are necessarily touched upon. For it is an old saying and true that history repeats itself. Crimes of the same nature are committed by persons of like disposition year after year, century after century. It is only fair to add that much of the information given in this chapter has been gleaned from a work which it is believed is not now in print the very interesting little work (published some fifty years ago) on "York Castle in the Nineteenth Century," by Leman Thomas Rede, Esq. |