Female Executions: Martyrs, Murderesses and Madwomen by Geoffrey Abbott Read Free Book Online Page B

of execution on the grounds that she was pregnant. Such factors had of course been taken into consideration by those responsible for drafting laws governing executions, and so the judge selected a jury of mature women, accompanied by the prison doctor, to adjourn to an anteroom and carry out the necessary examination. On their return the doctor stated that although the prisoner was not pregnant, she could well be in the very early stages of that condition, and this was confirmed by the spokeswoman, adding that in the opinion of the matrons, the execution of the prisoner would not involve the death of any person other than Louise herself (at the time the law stipulated that a condemned woman could not be classified as pregnant unless such condition had existed for a length of 140 days or more).
    Understandably the trial was given a great deal of attention in the local newspapers, one investigative journalist discovering an earlier murder tenuously linked with Louise Calvert, the victim being a John Frobisher for whom Louise had acted as housekeeper. He mysteriously disappeared in 1922 and when his body was retrieved from the Liverpool–Leeds Canal he was found fully dressed – except for his boots!
    Her final plea not having been upheld, Louise Calvert was taken to Strangeways Gaol, Manchester, and despite many pleas by the public on her behalf, she was hanged within the prison walls.

Condemned women occasionally ‘pleaded their belly’ (claimed to be pregnant in order to avoid being hanged), but in 1848 Charlotte Harris, guilty of murdering her husband, actually was pregnant and so she was informed that she would be allowed to have the baby – and then be hanged. At that, petitions for clemency were raised, signatures obtained across the country, public protest meetings held, and eventually, after no fewer than 40,000 women from all walks of life had appealed to Queen Victoria, a reprieve was granted.
    Clitheroe, Margaret (England)
    This lady, the first of her sex to suffer martyrdom in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, sacrificed herself for her deeply held religious principles. Imprisoned for failing to attend services in the established Protestant churches, she suffered several terms of imprisonment, and in 1586, when she was about 35 years of age, a gang of pursuivants, professional priest-hunters, raided her house and discovered not only a hidden priest hole, but also a large number of vestments and other religious items necessary for Catholic worship. 

    The martyr Margaret Clitheroe

    Margaret Clitheroe suffering peine fort et dure
    The existence of such incriminating evidence resulted in Margaret’s immediate arrest, and she was eventually charged with the heinous crime of being a Papist and for harbouring Jesuits and Catholic priests, and was committed to imprisonment in York Castle. At her trial the vestments and religious artefacts were then paraded before the court by ‘two lewd fellows’, who donned the vestments and masqueraded with altar bread in their hands, saying: ‘Behold thy gods in whom thou believest!’
    When asked whether she pleaded guilty or not guilty, she refused to do so, saying: ‘Having made no offence, I need no trial.’ Judge Clinch, losing his patience with her, told her plainly that if she refused to plead, there was no more room for mercy, and she must have the law provided in such cases. He then pronounced that she was to be subjected to peine forte et dure , severe and hard pain, saying:

You must return from whence you came, and there, in the lowest part of the prison, be stripped naked, laid down, your back upon the ground, and as much weight laid on you as you are able to bear, and so continue three days without meat or drink, except for a little barley bread on the day you do not drink, and puddle water on the day you do not eat, and on the third day be pressed to death, your hands and feet be bound to posts, and a sharp stone under your back.
    Before the ‘persuasive’