Summaries of the True Bills: Edward VI

Middlesex County Records: Volume 2, 1603-25. Originally published by Middlesex County Record Society, London, 1887.

'Summaries of the True Bills: Edward VI', in Middlesex County Records: Volume 2, 1603-25, (London, 1887) pp. 245. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/middx-county-records/vol2/p245 [accessed 25 April 2024]

Edward VI

(1.) SUMMARY OF THE TRUE BILLS

From 3 Edward VI. to the End of his Reign.



	Number of Persons.
Persons indicted for burglary	3
" " " horse-stealing	40
" " " larceny	53
" " " larceny with housebreaking	12
" " " larcenies from the person (done with secrecy or violence), including highway robberies	18
" " " manslaughter	4
" " " murder	7
" " " ox (cow &c.) stealing	3
" " " sheep-stealing	5
Persons indicted for capital felonies	145
" " " adultery and unclean living	2
" " " assault and battery	2
Person " " assault &c. with sword	1
" " " cheating and extortion	1
" " " defiling the water of a neighbour's well by putting dung &c. into it	1
Persons " " disorderly living	3
" " " forcible entry and disseisin	17
" " " harbouring ill-disposed and suspected persons	3
" " " keeping brothels	10
Person " " keeping disorderly house	1
Persons " " quarrelling, or causing and fomenting quarrels &c.	7
Person " " refusing to aid a constable &c.	1
" " " stopping a public way	1
Persons convicted of capital felonies	117
" acquitted of " "	18
Culprits 'standing mute' and sentenced to the 'peine forte et dure'	2
Felons pleading and having benefit of clergy	10
" sentenced to be hung,—males 62, female 1	63
" reprieved	15
Culprits (with indictments for capital felonies found against them) at large	7

N.B.—That the number of the convictions for capital felonies in this account so greatly exceeds the combined number of the felons who were sentenced to be hung, had benefit of clergy, or were reprieved, is chiefly due to the largeness of the proportion of the bills that exhibit no memorandum of sentence. In the numerous cases where nothing more than Po se cul ca nul appears over a culprit's name, I have not thought right to assume as a matter of course that he was sentenced to be hung, as he might have been pardoned, or have escaped from or died in gaol before sentence.