Her "apron was all blood"

I am writing about gender and violence in early modern Ireland at the moment for the larger book project. Although my co-writer and I are not concentrating only on violence against women, that has of course been a significant part of the research. So I have been thinking about how women and men spoke about violence when it occurred between members of the same household, usually husband and wife. I want to explore a little of one of the cases I am writing about here. I spoke about this household at the ANZAMEMS (Australian and New Zealand Medieval and Early Modern Society) conference in Melbourne February 2013.

In 1666 Dublin woman, Ann Brogh, supported by her brother-in-law, Walter,  wrote a desperate petition to the king asking for mercy for her husband who had been convicted of murdering his landlord, William Wells. The presiding judges had found that John Brogh, and the landlord’s wife Sarah, were guilty of murder. This case is particularly interesting to me because it is about a non-elite household and gives glimpses of the crowds of people who watched, heard and interpreted violence as it happened.

John Brough, a surgeon, had been a lodger in the household of William Wells, who lived with his wife Sarah, 8 year old son and at least one servant. Apparently John had been out at night alone with Sarah and when they returned together, William had been ‘very angry’ with her. Neighbours, heard not only the angry words, and the subsequent cries of ‘Murder’ but also saw and felt the blood seeping through the floorboards into the cellar from the Wells’ rooms. A crowd of neighbours tried to find out what was happening, but could not get through the locked door until it was forced. When they entered the room they saw the dying Wells, dressed in his night shirt, while his wife Sarah with ‘an apron all blood”, a servant and another woman Ellinor, surrounded him. John Brough stood apart in the next room with a bloodied knife in his hand, saying he had killed William. Both Sarah and John tried to convince their neighbours and then the authorities that William had started the fight by hitting John with a chamber pot during an argument but suspicions were aroused because William had been in the bed with his son at the time, while John and Sarah had been out at night alone together.

This is a crowded and bloody scene – the married couple, the child, at least one servant, and another woman all seemed to have lived in the rooms. Then a soldier, Dilkes, who was in the adjoining house belonging to Nichola Harrison and heard clearly what was happening. Nichola's hapless servant was in the cellar under the Wells’ rooms when the blood dripped down onto her. Then the neighbours gathered to help Dilkes to force the door.  While Sarah tried to deflect attention by explaining that her husband had caused the fight, her neighbours read her words as evidence of her guilt and gave full testimony against her.

What can we make of this chaotic scene? The neighbours seemed certain of what they had seen, heard  and felt. John and his relatives put a very different interpretation on the violence, while Sarah's voice is silent except for the defiant statements her neighbours heard when the door burst open. How she was covered in blood is never explained - was she struggling with William when he was struck? Did she kill her husband and John try to shield her? Where was the child through all this? 

As is usual,  there is a frustrating lack of closure for the modern reader here. John’s relatives petitioned to the highest level for his release, arguing that William was quarrelsome, implying the violence was directed at Sarah and that John was an innocent bystander. When Sarah tried to ‘plead her belly’ to avoid execution, a midwife assured the justices that she as not pregnant. Their executions were stayed for a while, but we don’t know what was their ultimate fate. [The reference is Calendar of Ormond papers, HMC vol X, app. 5. pp. 16-8.]