Crime and Punishment in Tudor England

Crime and Punishment in Tudor England tells the story of the enactment of law and its penalties from Henry VII to Elizabeth I.**xA0;The sixteenth century was remarkable in many ways. In England, it was the century of the**xA0;Tudor Dynasty. It heralded the Reformation, William Shakespeare, the first appearance of**xA0;bottled beer in London pubs, Sir Francis Drake, and the Renaissance. Oh, and the Spanish**xA0;Armadas**x2014;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**xA0;loyalty of the nobility led to military-trained vagrants causing mayhem and murder. Henry**xA0;VIII's Reformation meant executions of those refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy.**xA0;State-controlled religion**x2014;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**xA0;swear the Oath of Supremacy**x2014;became an increasingly complex, not to say confusing, issue**xA0;for ordinary people. Although primary sources are rare and sometimes incomplete, the life of criminals and the**xA0;punishments meted out to them still fascinates. Read about John Daniell and how he tried to**xA0;blackmail the Earl of Essex; the Stafford insurrection of 1486, the first serious opposition to**xA0;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 summarises judicial**xA0;practices built on tradition from the Roman occupation. It covers often gory details**x2014;what**xA0;happens to the body when it is beheaded, burned, boiled, or hanged? Arranged in alphabetical**xA0;order of crimes, it recounts tales of blackmail, infanticide, kidnapping, heresy, and sumptuary**xA0;laws. Told with occasional low-key humour, the book also includes Tavern Talk, snippets of**xA0;quirky information. Dip into it at your pleasure.