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‘leaving his victims to suffer in agony’
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As previously mentioned, the symptoms of arsenic poisoning closely resembled those of cholera, and while this masked many murders, it proved to be Ursula Lofthouse’s undoing and would see her swing at the New Drop.
Twenty-six-year-old Ursula was married to Robert Lofthouse, with whom she had a sixteen-month-old child. She poisoned her husband with two pennyworth of arsenic purchased from the local druggist, Mr Harland, in Kirkby Malzeard. On returning home from market one evening in early November 1834, the hungry Robert asked his wife to boil him some potatoes, but she had already made a cake for his tea, which was promptly consumed. The effects of the poison were immediate, but it was initially assumed that Robert had contracted cholera. He continued to vomit until Saturday morning and the doctor, who had been summoned the afternoon before, forty-eight hours after ingestion, could do nothing to stop it. Clearly Ursula was set on her purpose and persuaded her husband to take some more food and she spread treacle on the remainder of the fateful cake; this had the desired effect and Robert Lofthouse died soon afterwards.
Ursula might have escaped detection if it hadn’t been for her brother-in-law Henry’s concern. The supposed cause of his brother’s death was having a detrimental effect on his business, which led him to consider the suspicious circumstances surrounding it. The fear of cholera was making customers desert his shop, and he, therefore, instigated an investigation into Robert’s death.
Mr Dinsdale, a coroner of York, assisted by John Buckle, a surgeon from Bedale, examined the body of the deceased. They committed a thorough examination of the stomach contents and after consulting an eminent chemist from Leeds, named Mr West, they concluded that there was a presence of ‘white arsenic in a quantity sufficient enough to produce death’. A further ‘nail in the coffin’ of Ursula’s initial protested innocence was the fact that four chickens that had pecked at some of Lofthouse’s vomit also died, and evidence of arsenic was found in the craw of each bird. The finger of suspicion was now firmly pointed in Ursula’s direction.
The conversation on the custodial journey to York certainly helped imply her guilt – eighteen miles from Kirkby she revealed certain facts to local constable Thomas Thorpe, into whose custody she was being transferred. Thorpe testified at Ursula’s trial, stating that, ‘The prisoner began to talk about her husband. She said he had a disagreeable breath; that he would hardly allow her common necessaries to live; that she believed he had saved between £40 and £50 and that he never told her what he did with his money; that she believed he carried it to Henry Lofthouse, and that he loved Ellen Lofthouse better than her, which made her very unhappy.’
On 6 April 1835, Ursula Lofthouse was hanged alongside two other convicted murderers, Joseph Healy and William Allott, in a triple execution that marked the end of the thirty-three-year career of John Curry, one of York’s notable hangmen.
There was no question that Ann Barber had poisoned her husband James with the pennyworth of white arsenic she had purchased on the day of the murder, allegedly to ‘poison mice’. Apparently, Ann had been ‘esteemed handsome in her youth’ and had been educated among the Ranters – an anarchic religious sect of extremists who were generally held by the established Church to be lacking in ‘moral values or restraint in worldly pleasures’. Whether this education had a bearing on Ann’s moralistic views in later life we cannot know. She was happily married to James Barber for some fifteen years, until the arrival of a lodger, William Thompson, in their marital home. The subsequent affair between Thompson and Mrs Barber resulted in Ann leaving her husband and co-habiting with Thompson, although the couple only lived together for one week, after which time Ann returned to her husband, on 4 January 1821. We can conclude that matrimonial harmony was not fully restored to the Barbers, because by the 16 March Ann had poisoned her husband.
At her trial, when the jury gave their verdict of ‘guilty’, it was noted that:
She did not seem conscious of the result of the trial; but when asked in the usual form, what she had to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon her, she became sensible of her dreadful situation, trembled exceedingly, shrieked, and fell upon the floor near the bar. She was raised by the jailor, and supported herself by taking hold of the iron bar in front, and leaning backwards and forward in great agitation.
Executed on Monday, 30 August 1821 at the New Drop, Ann ‘received spiritual consolation, and died without a struggle’ – she left behind two children, aged sixteen and ten.
However, the murder of Thomas Hodgson could be equally attributed to the victim’s gullibility as well as the poisonous pills supplied to him by an ex-employee, one Michael Simpson. Protesting his innocence and claiming that the pills he had supplied Hodgson with had been given to him by a ‘wise man’, whose identity could not be revealed. Simpson’s theft of £100 from the deceased may have had some bearing on his motives.
Thomas Hodgson, owner of the profitable limekilns in Crakehall, was described as a ‘resolute and rash man’ and seemed to have ample capacity for making enemies, as demonstrated when a horse belonging to one of his neighbours strayed on to his land – Hodgson killed the poor animal with an axe. It is possible that Simpson just held a grudge against his former employer, and that the burglary and subsequent poisoning of Hodgson at Theakston Grange was an act of revenge on his part. Simpson had called by on the pretence of enquiring after his former master’s health and to let the Hodgsons know that he had seen that some of their livestock had strayed and were in difficulty. Mrs Hodgson went to investigate as her husband was feeling unwell and was indisposed at the time, and while Simpson initially accompanied Mrs Hodgson to help with the stock, he very soon gave her the slip (presumably to return to the house and steal the £100 from underneath the Hodgsons’ mattress). On reaching the ‘strayed’ cows, Mrs Hodgson discovered that the cattle had been deliberately driven into the ditch.
Some days after this incident, Simpson again called by to console with the Hodgsons over the dreadful theft of their money. He then went on to say that he had been to see a wise man who had given him two pills, and if Mr Hodgson were to swallow them that night with nothing further to eat and then walk in the garden, the identity of the robber would be magically revealed and all the stolen money returned to him! The prospect of regaining his wealth clearly overrode common sense and Mr Hodgson was very soon afterwards taken ‘dreadfully ill’, and ‘vomited much, complained of violent pains and expired the same night’. One might think that to believe in such a foolhardy suggestion as magic pills is quite ridiculous, even in a superstitious age, but Thomas Hodgson clearly wished to see the return of his money by any means, no matter how implausible. Simpson was hanged on Monday, 17 March 1801 at the York Tyburn.
Oxalic acid was the poison of choice for two murderous sisters, Elizabeth and Helen Drysdale, aged twenty-six and twenty-four respectively, who were executed on Saturday, 10 April 1647, at the gallows of St Leonard’s. They were sentenced to death for the wilful and deliberate murder of Robert Boss from Heslington, near York, and Robert Blanchard of Walmgate in the city. The sisters had poisoned both men at the home of Dame Robinson, at the Sign of the Maypole Inn in Clifton, a suburb of York about a mile and half from the city centre. It was stated at their trial that the sisters were in fact courting both of the men, and just two days after St Valentine’s Day 1647, the two were quite unsuspecting of the fact that the Drysdale sisters had dosed them with oxalic acid, which they had purchased that morning from the chemist shop of Mr William Brooks in Stonegate, York. Heslington and Blanchard were both dead within an hour and a half of being poisoned, though strangely before they died both freely forgave Elizabeth and Helen for what they had done.
The details as to the motive of this case are scant to say the least, all we can be certain of is that after sentence of death was passed both sisters met their fate ‘with more than womanly fortitude’, leaving behind a father,
mother, four brothers and two sisters. After execution both sisters were given over to the city surgeons for dissection.
William Dove murdered his wife Harriet by poisoning her with strychnine stolen from a surgeon’s office. Harriet was of a delicate constitution, and Dove’s motive appeared to be the avoidance of further doctor’s bills and possibly to give him the freedom to marry another woman. For a whole week Dove watched the agonies of his wife – he had administered the strychnine five times, and with the sixth dose he finally killed Harriet on 1 March 1856. One of the more popular poisons still in use at the start of the twentieth century (Agatha Christie’s first murder mystery, the Mysterious Affair at Styles published in 1916, used strychnine as the murder weapon), the correct dose of strychnine can kill a person inside twenty minutes – though not in Harriet’s case – after they have suffered agonising contortions and death throes; strychnine acts by attacking the central nervous system.
Dove’s plea of insanity was rejected by the court, but the extent of media coverage generated by this particular trial sparked a subsequent debate over the use of medical and psychiatric evidence in trials. Dove was hanged at noon on Saturday, 9 August 1856 before an estimated record-breaking crowd of 15,000 to 20,000 onlookers.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DEVOUT DETAINEES
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English history is peppered with religiously incited insurrections. Lollardy, a major manifestation of theological radicalism in England inspired by the writings of fourteenth-century Bible translator John Wycliffe, culminated in the unsuccessful Lollard Rebellion of 1415. However, it wasn’t until the Reformation and subsequent Dissolution of the Monasteries, instigated by Henry VIII that such a strength of feeling would once again mobilise itself into mass protestation, one that was born in the heart of York.
The Pilgrimage of Grace
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Laws passed in the 1530s, which reduced the influence of the Catholic Church, paved the way for the Dissolution of the Monasteries, with York feeling the impact more than most. The city had long benefited from its powerful religious links as the seat of the Archbishop of York and as the home to York Minster, as well as St Mary’s Abbey, though the largest of the city’s religious houses were not alone as Holy Trinity Priory, St Leonard’s Hospital, St Andrew’s Priory, Clementhorpe Nunnery and four friars’ convents were also to suffer in the schism. Small surprise then that the religious rebellion mounted in the face of this threat, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, began in York
After the King’s Church Commissioners reached York in 1536, the first religious houses to fall were Clementhorpe Nunnery and Holy Trinity Priory in Micklegate, which were dissolved that summer.
Following the revolt led by expelled monks from the Yorkshire town of Beverley in October 1536, Yorkshire lawyer and landowner Robert Aske dubbed the rising the Pilgrimage of Grace, and rode at the head of about 5,000 horsemen through York to the minster. Here, Aske posted an order that restored all those banished monks and nuns to their former religious houses. A further 10,000 men were mustered by Sir Thomas Percy and the Abbot of St Mary’s Abbey, who rode through York on their way to join Aske at Pontefract. Negotiations that December eventually brought about a royal pardon and the rebellion seemed to be over. However, when further uprisings broke out in the New Year, Aske was arrested on charges of treason and sent back to York for execution. The Pilgrimage of Grace was over for good. After execution on 12 July 1537, Aske’s body was taken to a blacksmith’s in the Pavement, where it was riveted in chains before being suspended from a 35-foot-high gibbet on Heworth Moor.
When King Henry VIII visited York four years later on the 15 September, (Aske’s bones were still hanging in chains, a stark reminder in an age of religious intolerance) the contrite mayor, along with his aldermen and councillors, joined with the kneeling common crowd at Fulford Cross to greet Henry and his latest wife, Katherine Howard. The men promised that they were ‘from the bottoms of their stomach repentant’, a sentiment that was sweetened with the obsequious gifts of silver gilt cups containing £100 in gold for the King and £40 for Katherine.
In spite of ‘Bloody Mary’ Tudor’s attempts to reinstate the Catholic Church during her brief but zealous reign, the eradication of Catholicism remained firmly on the agenda of the Protestant Elizabeth I. From their exile on the continent, some ardent Catholics were devising ways to bring England back into the fold of the old faith. By the 1570s, their efforts had percolated as far as York, and at a time when war with Catholic Spain was a real possibility, York’s hard-line Catholic community was considered to be a serious problem. Termed as ‘recusants’, convictions of these nonconformist Roman Catholics had surged in number and this may well have been the impetus for using Monk Bar as a prison in 1577, as well as the new prison built on the King’s Staith in 1585. York Castle was also used to hold those unable to pay their fines, most of whom were women, and of the thirty recusant wives or widows imprisoned more than a third died from disease in the squalid conditions.
Fulford Cross.
Crimes of Conscience
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Margaret Clitherow (née Middleton) was born in York in 1553 and baptised in the Protestant faith in St Martin-le-Grand Church. She was married at the age of fifteen in a Protestant ceremony to John Clitherow, a prosperous butcher some years her senior. However, in 1571 Margaret converted to Catholicism, on the encouragement of the wife of Dr Thomas Vavasour, a prominent York Catholic. This turn of events led to her first spell of imprisonment in 1577 for failing to attend church. Two subsequent incarcerations followed at York Castle, the second term of imprisonment lasting for twenty months, during which time Margaret learned to read.
In 1581, an act was passed outlawing Catholic religious ceremonies; it also made sheltering a Catholic priest a criminal offence punishable by death. As a consequence, between 1582 and 1583 five priests were put to death in York at the Tyburn on Knavesmire. On gaining her liberty, Margaret began to make night-time pilgrimages to the gallows. She also created a secret room in her house in the Shambles, which was used as a refuge for Catholic priests. However, during a raid on the house in March 1586, a frightened boy revealed the location of this secret room and it was discovered that the Clitherow house had been utilised for the instruction of local children in the Catholic faith, as well as being used to shelter priests and hold Mass. On 14 March 1586, four days after her arrest, Margaret was tried at the Guildhall, where she refused to plead; to do so would have condemned all those whom she had schooled in the faith and was, therefore, a very brave act. The penalty for not pleading was peine forte et dure, a method of execution where the accused was placed under a board or a door, upon which stones were then heaped until the defendent spoke up or died. The following day, Margaret was held in prison on Ouse Bridge, deprived of food and allowed only puddle water to drink until she was eventually taken to the Toll Booth and executed on the 25 March. She was crushed beneath eight hundred pounds of rock, which caused her ribs to break through the skin. It took fifteen minutes for Margaret Clitherow to die; her last words are reported to have been, ‘Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, have mercy on me!’
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‘Punishable by death’
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A plaque marking the spot of Margaret Clitherow’s execution.
Margaret’s body was then unceremoniously dumped on one of the city’s public dunghills. However, some six weeks later, her body was exhumed by a group of dedicated Catholics who gave Margaret a Christian burial, minus her hand which remains preserved as a holy relic at the Bar Convent in York to this day. Margaret Clitherow was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970 and also endowed as the patron saint of the Catholic Women’s League. A statue of Margaret can be found in the church of St Wilfrid in High Petergate, close to the minster.
Guy Fawkes
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‘A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope, a penn’orth of cheese to choke him, a pint of beer to wash it down, And a jolly good fire to roast him.’ Some lines fro
m the well-known rhyme, ‘Remember, remember! The fifth of November, the Gunpowder treason and plot.’ In the thirteen years prior to 1595, thirty Catholic priests were tried and executed in the north of England, most of whom met their end at York’s Knavesmire. It was during these years of religious intolerance that a Protestant York schoolboy was converted to Catholicism – his name was Guy Fawkes.
The Guy Fawkes Inn, High Petergate.
Born on 13 April 1570 to Edward and Edith Fawkes, Guy was baptised at St Michael Belfry and was raised as a Protestant. In 1578, when he was eight years old, Guy’s father died. Edith lived on as a widow for nine years, however, in 1587 she re-married and both she and Guy relocated to the village of Scotton, about twenty miles from York. It was here that the teenaged Guy was heavily influenced by his step-father, laying the foundations for his subsequent conversion to Catholicism.
At the age of twenty-three, Fawkes left English soil as a converted Catholic and fought for Catholic Spain in the Eighty Years’ War, and it was at this time that he adopted the name ‘Guido’ and gained his expertise in the use of explosives. The rest is history, as they say, and now annually on the 5th November effigies of Guy are burnt on bonfires – although, tradition says that the citizens of York are not supposed to burn Guy on this day, in deference to his status as a son of the city.
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