Chapter 3

Strangled with a Scarf, then Burned in an Oven 1518

Today, Farleigh Castle is a crumbling, romantic ruin standing in the quiet Somerset countryside. In Tudor times, as a fortified manor, it was an impressive sight described by the antiquary John Leland as both ‘pretty’ and ‘stately’. Yet the history of its occupants during the sixteenth century was far from serene. Back then Farleigh was a hotbed of marital disharmony, domestic cruelty and murder. Five hundred years on, its tumbled down stones seem a metaphor for the many human lives wrecked by their association with the place.

In 1539, Lady Elizabeth Hungerford secretly wrote a long, plaintive letter to Henry VIII’s chief minster Thomas Cromwell from the castle. She was married to Farleigh’s owner, Sir Walter Hungerford, who had become a close ally of Cromwell’s during that decade. Elizabeth’s desperate missive told how she had been imprisoned by her own husband in a tower of the castle after he had unsuccessfully tried to divorce her. Not only had she been locked up, Elizabeth claimed, but Walter had endeavoured to have her starved to death and poisoned too. ‘And so I am your most wofulst and poorest bed woman left in worst case than ever I was, as a prisoner alone, continually lockt in one of my Lord’s Towers of his castell in Hungerford as I have byn these thre or four yers past, without comfort of any creature and under the custodie of my Lord’s Chaplain… which hath once or twese heretofore poysond me…’

In the letter, smuggled out without Walter’s knowledge, Elizabeth went on to protest that she had so often been denied nourishment that she had been forced to drink ‘myne owne water or else I should die for lacke of sustenance.’

Determined to further his political career at any cost, Walter had found his wife an embarrassing burden following the sudden fall from grace of her once well-connected father, Baron Hussey of Sleaford. In 1536, Hussey had been beheaded at Lincoln as punishment for his association with the Pilgrimage of Grace, an uprising against Henry VIII which had been ruthlessly put down. Ironically, it had been Hussey who had originally helped Walter Hungerford climb the greasy pole, smoothing the way with Cromwell, as Walter was first made sheriff of Wiltshire in 1533 and then Lord Heytesbury in 1536.

Perhaps it was Walter’s upbringing and early influences that were to blame for his brutal treatment of Elizabeth. For, when Walter was about fifteen, his step-mother, Agnes, had been responsible for arranging a fiendish murder. What is more her husband, Sir Edward Hungerford, Walter’s father, may well have been in on the scheme too, or at least had a part in trying to cover up the killing.

Nothing is known about Agnes’ background, apart from the fact that in 1518 she was already married to a man called John Cotell. It is thought that the couple were reasonably well to do and perhaps in the employment of the Hungerfords. In any case, in that year, Cotell mysteriously disappeared while at Farleigh. Just six months later, Agnes was married to Sir Edward Hungerford (who was recently widowed) and living at Farleigh Castle.

Sir Edward was an important man. He had been knighted as a soldier serving Henry VIII in France and had since become Sheriff of Wiltshire, Somerset and Dorset. But, just three years into his new marriage to Agnes, he died. The death came on the 24 January, 1522, just six weeks after he had made a will, dated 14 December, 1521, which stated that, ‘the residue of all my goods, chatells, juells, plate, harnesse and all other moveables whatsoever they be I freely give and bequeath to Agnes Hungerford my wife.’

Agnes was not to benefit from these riches for long. In a matter of months she was being accused of murdering her former husband, John Cotell. On 25 August, 1522, she was brought before justices at Ilchester and indicted along with two of her servants, William Mathewe and William Inges. The court heard that the men were responsible for the death of Cotell, on 26 July, 1518, at the castle, by the ‘procurement and abetting of Agnes Hungerford’.

On the day of the murder, Mathewe and Inges were said to have taken ‘a certain linen scarf called a kerchier which the aforesaid … then and there held in their hands, put round the neck of the aforesaid John Cotell, and with the aforesaid linen scarf … did feloniously throttle, suffocate and strangle, so that the aforesaid John Cotell immediately died.’ The indictment goes on to relate that they ‘then and there put into a certain fire in the furnace of the kitchen in the Castle of Farley … the body of the same John’ which ‘did burn and consume’ it. This was all done, the court heard, with the knowledge and indeed at the behest of Agnes who gave ‘comfort and aid to the actual murderers.’

Imprisoned in the Tower of London, Agnes and her conspirators were brought for full trial at Westminster on 27 November, where they all pleaded not guilty. However, the jury decided that they had indeed been to blame and sentenced all three to death. Agnes was hanged at Tyburn on 20 February, 1523. The Chronicle of the Grey Friars recorded that she had been, ‘lede from the Tower un-to-Holborne, and there put into a carte at the church yerde’ and ‘so carred un to Tyborne’ and there ‘hanged’.

Interestingly, Agnes was not burned at the stake as women who murdered their husbands usually were. Perhaps this was a concession made due to her status. However, in accordance with practice, Agnes’ possessions were seized by the crown. Mathewe was hanged alongside Agnes but William Inges sought ‘benefit of clergy’ (see page 14), claiming to be a clerk. This was denied, pending confirmation that he was, in fact, a bigamist. Six months later he too perished on the gallows.

Sadly, the existing records do not reveal why Agnes might have wanted to kill John Cotell or how she came to be married to Edward Hungerford quite so quickly afterwards. There are some intriguing possibilities, however, thrown up by examination of the known facts.

The speed of Agnes’ union with Hungerford suggests that the two were already romantically involved by the time of Cotell’s death. It seems probable that Agnes planned to ditch one husband for another who was further up the social ladder. Perhaps Hungerford had a hand in the murder too and that was one of the reasons why his wife was not arrested earlier. Certainly the swiftness with which the wheels of justice began to swing into action after Hungerford’s death suggests that rumours about Agnes’ murky past had been circulating for some time. The murder may well have been as good as common knowledge. But, holding the position of Sheriff, it is possible that Hungerford may have been able to shield his wife from prosecution while he was alive. Indeed, if there was a suspicion that he had been involved too, the authorities might have turned a blind eye given his connections to the royal court. Once Hungerford was dead, however, they saw the way clear to pursue the matter, perhaps now spurred on by Hungerford’s powerful rivals who hoped to benefit by the confiscation of estates that would inevitably follow once Agnes was found guilty of a capital crime.

The antiquarian William John Hardy, who uncovered many details of the case in the 1880s, says it does not follow that Hungerford necessarily knew about the murder. It seems unlikely, however, that he would not have had some inkling of what had gone on given that the murder had happened under his own roof and that at least one or several people in his household must have known about it already. After all, how else would such specific details of the murder come before the court within months of his death?

But just how did the case come before the courts with such detailed evidence of how Cotell had met his end? Somebody had been keeping the secret for four years and suddenly decided to bring it to light. This was a risky thing for anyone of humble origins to do when the accused was a member of the gentry. So who was it? The obvious candidate is her stepson Walter. He had the motive, having been seemingly left out of his father’s will. Indeed, it was he who was to benefit from the king’s confiscation of Agnes’ possessions, for they would be returned to him by July that year. We know from his later behaviour towards Elizabeth Hungerford, that he had a ruthless streak. Perhaps it was he who denounced his ‘wicked’ stepmother, reckoning that she should get her just desserts for the crime.

Bolder theories might even be constructed. Is it possible that Agnes was a psychopathic social climber who killed not only Cotell but Edward too? That second death, so soon after the making of a will entirely drawn up in her favour, seems awfully convenient. Of course, another far-fetched idea could be proposed – that Walter had made up the murder of Cotell in order to get his hands on Farleigh Castle.

If Walter was playing a devious game he would eventually get his comeuppance. By 1540 he was out of favour, thought of harbouring sympathies with the Pilgrimage of Grace rebels. He was accused of treason, as well as witchcraft and buggery for good measure, and executed at Tower Hill on 28 July 1540. Alongside him facing execution was his former benefactor, Thomas Cromwell.

Elizabeth Hungerford survived her ordeals and went on to marry the courtier Sir Robert Throckmorton, with whom she had four children. She lived until 1554. Yet the curse on the relationships of the Hungerfords seems to have continued. Walter’s heir, also called Walter, later tried to sue his wife, Anne, for divorce on the grounds that she had attempted to poison him and committed adultery. Having failed to prove the accusations he chose to be put in prison rather than support her financially. Wisely, she fled abroad.

Farleigh Hungerford Castle, near Bath, as it is today. It was the scene of John Cotell’s murder in 1518. (Copyright James Moore)