The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-12-25 00:00:00

CORONERS' INQUEST%

Coroners' inquests taken in days gone by are valu-
able in many respects. They often throw an instruc-
tive side-light on the daily life of our ancestors, or
they arc curious from the fact of their being held
upon some person of historic interest.
The office of coroner is of great antiquity. Nearly
a thousand years ago Cnut speaks of it in his charter
to Beverley. The coroner's powers seem then to have
been very wide. They were curtailed by Magna
Charts, and settled nearly as they exist at present by
the statute de officio coronatoris of 1276. With
respect to what are now almost exclusively called
inquests, the coroner is in this statute ti;rected to go
to the place where the body of any one slain lies, or
where any person has died suddenly; and by his
warrant summon a jury out of four or five neighbour-
ing towns or hamlets, to hold an inquiry and view the
body. Among other things which this statute specially
directs is that the jury should ascertain where the
dead person " lay " on the night previous to his or
her death. The coroner "may in convenient time
take up a dead body that has been buried, in order to
view it; but if it be buried so long that it would
appear probable that he could discover nothing by
viewing it, or f there be danger of infection from dis-
interring, the inquest ought not to be taken by the
coroner but by the justices of peace by the testimony,
of witnesses, and not by view of the body." An im-
portant part of the coroner's duty, as established by
the statute of 1276, is that, if he find that a man met
with his death through some nuisance in a particular
place or township, the same place or township shall
be amerced and forced to discontinue the nuisance.
One of the earliest inquests recorded is that taken
at Norwich in the year 1250, on the body of Gerard
Godfolche, whiph was found drowned in the River
Wensum. A dispute as to the right to hold the in-
quest arose between the Corporation and the Prior,
who successfully claimed the right because that part
of the river in which the corpse was found lay within
his liberty. An interesting roll of inquests held be-
tween the years 1329 and 1341 is preserved at Ipswich.
One is on the body of John Owyth, a sailor, who was
drowned in the quay there. The jury say that John,
in company with other sailors, stood up in a boat,
and, desiring to swim, "laid aside his clothes, even to
his shirt," and leaped into the water and was drowned.
Ida le Bere was walking into the town one day when she
watiovertaken by "a horrible tempest of lightning and
thunder," and fell dead from the force of it. A sailor
was drowned by falling into the water when "too full
of wine ; " a foreigner was found dead in his bed
from "le swenaise ; ' and a man was drowned in a
pond whilst trying to catch a duckling for his dinner.
John Beneyt and John Rodland went to vespers to-
gether on All Saints' Eve. High words passed in
church, and they both left and went into the cemetery,
continuing their dispute. Here Rodland drew his
iknife and plunged it into Beneyt's left breast, killing
him instantly. Some of the inquests preserved among
the Dean and Chapter records at Canterbury are
curious. They illustrate the custom of forcing the
finder of the bodies to procure three sureties for his
further appearance, and the four nearest neighbours
of the deceased also to find sureties for a like occa-
sion; the assumptton being that such persons must
know more about the death than any one else. At
one of these inquests it was found that the deceased
had been shot to death with arrows.
From the Middlesex inquests of a later date—those
from the time of Edward VI. to the close of Eliza-
beth's reign—we learn that duels were not exclusively
confined to the gentle classes of society; that yeomen
and mechanics, butchers' bakers, and men of every,
trade were as ready as their "betters " to settle a dis-
pute at the sword's point; and that they quite as
generally as the squire or gentleman, carried weapons
of defence whilst employed in their ordinary avoca-
tions. On the Bth of March, 1550, two yeomen, on
the bridge called "the Nynge's Bridge, at West-
minster, assaulted Robert Mason, who, in the inquest
held upon him, is described as being "iIL God's and
the Ring's peace ;'' and one of the yeomen struck
him on the head with his sword. So at the inquest
held at Stratford-at-Bow about the same period, on
the body of a certain " maryner," it was found that at
nine at night a few days previously, three other
" maryners ' had quarrelled with him on the high-
way, and one of them, drawing his sword, struck him
dead. The middle-class Londoners sometimes settled
their differences in the fields round about London—
Whitechapel fields being a favourite spot; but their
combats were seldom prearranged. Their quarrels
were mostly determined on the spur of the moment.
A large majority of them were fought out in some open
highway, such as the Broad Sanctuary at Westminster.
At four o'clock on the afternoon of the 24th of April,
1573, Thomas Adderton and John Jeynes were both
in St. Paul's Church when (apropos of what does not
appear) they "exchanged insulting words." After
church, when going through "the churchyard,"
Thomas attacked John with his dagger. John /ot
away as far as he could "even to a dunghill." Here
he was again attacked, and this time used his sword
so effectively that Thomas was next day the subject
of a coroner's inquest. There seems to have been
many accidents at archery displays. One hot August
day in 1566 a labourer had settled himself down for
a quiet nap in a dry ditch at " Limehouse Butts." In
a line with the ditch was a target at which archers
were shooting; and the inquest on the labourer tells
, us that an arrow, falling short of the target, lodged
in the sleeper's head, inflicting a fatal wound.
The records of suicide are also curious. On the
19th of April, 1557, Richard Grenfylde, threw him-
self into "a certain water commonly called Clarken
.Well" and was drowned. Where the inquest is on a
woman, we often find that the suicide is described as
being committed "at the instigation of the devil."
In 15A a woman in "The Cadge" prison in Clerken-
well bound a girdle round her neck, and, fastening
the same girdle to a post in the prison, hung herself.
We learn from the Middlesex inquests that most of
those who died in prison at this period were victims
of "ye pining sicknesse."
Space forbids us to dwell on more than on inquest
of histotic interest. This is the inquiry held on the
28th of September, 1615, on the body of Lady Arabella
Stuart. On the previous day a letter had been sent
from Whitehall to the President cf the College of
Physicians stating that "whereas the Lady Arabella
is lately deceased in the Tower" it was the Ring's
pleasure (according to former custom " when prisoners
of great qualitie die in that place ") that her body
should "be viewed by persons of skill and trust," and
certificate made of the cause of death. The letter
concludes by requiring "three physicians of your
societie of good reputation as well for their learning
as otherwli.e," who, together with Lady Arabella's
personal doctors, were to return their verdict and
"acquaint his Majesty therewithall." The physicians
made their repoit accordingly. They said that the
next morning, at eight, they went to the Tower and
viewed and examined the body, and that the cause of
death was "a chronic and long sickness," the species
of disease being "that produced by long sickness"—
not a very intelligible verdict. They said her ailment
was increased by her own negligence and by a re-
fusal o 18? year she would not allow
the do ; rentr "Misc." The physicians con-
°We Pritf that "by long lying in bed she got
bed-so es and7ssiopknannhealthirts of liver and
extreme leanness, an i s 6 cu
so g Ara"
picture of the last days of Lady Arabella's unhappy
life. Here was a case of suicide, though not by
violence