Petty crimes in the time of Elizabeth I
Stanhoe has not always been the peaceful place it is now. Below are some “goings-on” in Stanhoe in the time of the first Queen Elizabeth, taken from the Norwich Archdeaconry Visitation Books.
1590 Elizabeth Symms cut off a piece of Robert Atkin’s wife’s hat whilst they were in church.
1596 John Ashworth (the parson’s son, a real problem teenager) had been “getting up to larkes upon the Sabbath Daye”.
1597 Isabell Shotton was “taken suspiciously in the bedd of one Thomas Coter, a Tailor”. (It doesn’t say whether he was in it too!)
1597 John Complyn had carried corn to the malthouse in Burnham Westgate during Morning Prayer. So had Stephen Kempe.
1598 Roger Davy “did stryke one with a cudgell in the churchyard there on Sunday, the second of July last”.
1598 Henry Curson, Gent., John Warner, John Howman, Stephen Kempe, Robert Sallys, Simon Symes and George Owton (all farmers) had been “carrying of corn upon the Sabbath Day in tyme of harvest in the afternoon”. (As the date was October 17th, it seems hardly surprising they were anxious to get it in).
1601 Thomas Taylor had been “playing at stoole ball upon May Day last in tyme of divine service”.
1601 John Symond had been “working and cobbling of shoes on the Sabbath Day”.
1601 Edward Toogood had been “brawling in church on a Sabbath Day”.
1603 Roger Oxham had been “suffering divers persons to tipple and drincke in his house in service time on Sunday”.