Chapter 19

Buried in the Cellar – on New Year’s Eve 1582

When, in the 1990s, the news emerged of the terrible crimes committed by serial killers Fred and Rose West, one of the most shocking aspects of the case was how many of the bodies of their victims had lain undiscovered, for many years, beneath the cellar of their home at 25, Cromwell Street in Gloucester. There is a chilling parallel in a case from the Tudor age which occurred in the year of 1582 in the town of Evesham, Worcestershire, just twenty miles away.

In the late sixteenth century, Evesham was a prosperous place, famous for the bounty of its orchards and a centre of local economic activity. It still boasts a number of impressive half-timbered buildings dating back to Tudor times and beyond, testimony to its historic prosperity. So it is perhaps no surprise that the story involves two local merchants or ‘mercers’.

We learn from an anonymous pamphlet printed the following year that both of these mercers lived next door to each other in the town. Robert Greenoll, a bachelor, was the more successful, trading in ‘all kindes of wares’ and ‘beloved’ by locals for providing them with all their needs on market day. Thomas Smith, a handsome and newly married man, was the son of one of the leading figures in the town and also had a good reputation. Yet he found himself of ‘indifferent welth’. Gradually he began to grow envious of his rival’s business acumen and this jealousy led him to have dark thoughts. Smith became convinced that he should secretly kill and rob his rival. And so there were ‘a thousand devises canvased over by this lewd man’ as he formulated what he thought to be a fullproof plan of action.

While, technically, the new Tudor calendar began in March it was also still traditional to mark the beginning of the year, on 1 January, and also to give gifts at this time. So, on this particular New Year’s Eve, Smith appeared to do the convivial thing of inviting Greenoll, who he knew to be a bachelor, into his house for some company and to share a quart of wine and some apples. Greeting his neighbour, he suggested that they, ‘would passe away the evening pleasantly in friendlie talke and drinking together.’ Greenoll, being a friendly type and keen to form a bond with a fellow trader, readily agreed to the idea and promised to visit later.

That crisp night the town was gripped with extra festive fervour, for a novel event was planned. A play was to be performed, perhaps at the surviving fifteenth century building that became known as the Booth Hall and may have once been an inn. As ‘it drew towards night’ the cry that a drama was to be enacted went up, ‘whereto both old and young did hastily repair’.

The play provided the cover that Smith needed to enact his evil project. His wife seems to have been away and he hurriedly gave some money to the boy who usually helped him in his shop, sending him off to watch the performance as Greenoll arrived at the house. Smith invited his guest to sit down with him by the fire for a chat and a drink.

For a while Smith and Greenoll sat by the fire ‘pleasauntly talking’. Then, Greenoll got up and stooped down to turn an apple in the fire. Seizing his chance Smith reached for a heavy ‘iron pestell’ that he had placed nearby. It was a tool which he usually used ‘to beate his spice in the morters’, but it now became his murder weapon. With his victim facing away from him, Smith suddenly gave Greenoll two ‘mightie blows on the head’. Having crushed his skull Greenoll staggered backwards and fell on to the floor, ‘yielding forth a verie pitiful and lamentable groane.’ At this point we learn that Smith experienced a moment of regret for what he’d done, but quickly decided that Greenoll was beyond the point of recovery and what he had started he must now finish. Wielding his metal cudgel once more – a weapon likely to have inflicted grievous injuries – Smith rained down more blows on his victim. Although he was clearly dying, Greenoll’s body was still ‘trembling and shaking’ and in some desperation Smith now grabbed a knife. He then attempted to cut Greenoll’s throat but botched the job and then slashed at his body, only finding the shoulder blade. Finally Smith thrust his blade into Greenoll’s heart.

With everyone at the play, Smith could be pretty sure that no-one had heard him carry out the killing or Greenoll’s screams. He dragged the body downstairs into the cellar. Smith had already been down there earlier that day to dig out a shallow hole the length of a man and just deep enough to conceal a body and now entombed his neighbour. Then he smoothed over the makeshift grave with a plasterers trowel making the surface look as undisturbed as possible. He then showered flax over the floor and moved baskets and chests over the place where Greenoll was buried. Fetching some water Smith then washed the whole house from top to bottom aiming to get rid of any trace of blood.

Before he had buried the corpse, Smith had also gone through Greenoll’s pockets to find his keys. Once his work in the cellar and house was done, he headed out into the night air, intending to let himself into Greenoll’s property. Smith had clearly expected to find the street deserted but he had, perhaps, forgotten that at this time of year a nightwatchman was posted, who happened to be passing. Rattled, Smith blurted out the phrase, ‘See and see not’.

The bemused nightwatchman continued to go about his business, but did not forget the exchange. Perhaps Smith thought himself such an important member of the community that the watchmen would turn a blind eye to theft. Boldly, Smith continued with his plan to let himself into Greenoll’s store and proceeded to pilfer it, taking, ‘a great deale of the goods from thence into his owne house.’

The next morning, the robbery of Greenoll’s shop was reported by persons unknown. Greenoll himself was missing too. Initially, suspicion seems to have fallen on a stranger, particularly with the play in town. Actors weren’t necessarily to be trusted and were almost certainly not local. But the watchman who had bumped into Smith that evening remembered what the mercer had said to him. He reported it to the town officials who also established that the last sighting of Greenoll had been at Smith’s house. The mayor immediately asked for Smith to be found and brought before him, having a ‘shrewd presumption against him to be somewhat faultie in the matter.’

Smith denied that there was any sinister meaning in his words to the watchman and claimed to be clueless about where Greenoll was. Unconvinced, the officials demanded to search Smith’s house, but he claimed not to have the keys to the main house as his wife had them and was away in King’s Norton, another village in Worcestershire. For some reason, however, Smith decided that he would let them look in the cellar, to which he did have the keys. Why did he make this dangerous offer? Perhaps, in his bravado, he felt he had done such a good job of burying the body that the officials could not find it. It was the obvious place to stuff the body if something untoward had happened to Greenoll, so perhaps if they did search the cellar and found nothing they would assume he was innocent and start looking for a culprit elsewhere. At any rate, Smith ‘tooke the keyes from his girdle and threw them unto them.’

The Booth Hall in Evesham which stood at the time of the murder of Robert Greenoll. (Copyright James Moore)

Those sent by the local bailiffs to search Smith’s cellar found nothing at first but then one of them saw that a small piece of earth was disturbed by the stairs. On further examination the surface of the floor by the chests and baskets seemed softer. Removing the obstacles they began digging down. About seven inches beneath the surface, they made the horrible discovery of Greenoll’s body and ‘beheld how cruelly and unnaturally he had beene murdered.’ Smith, who had been held elsewhere in custody while the search was undertaken, was now sent to Worcester gaol to wait for the assizes where he would face a charge of murder. We do not know the details of what happened at court, other than that he was found guilty and condemned to die by the judge.

Smith was duly hanged for the crime, but his relatives managed to successfully lobby that he was not gibbeted in a spot where all could reflect on his fate. This fact reveals that the law was open to influence. Yet the case as a whole also shows that justice was done despite Smith’s connections. He had a ‘father of good wealth and one of the chiefs in the towne’. Perhaps a trial was inevitable given Smith’s cack-handed behaviour after he committed the murder. It’s obvious that after the killing he had panicked, acting suspiciously with the watchman, making a hash of the robbery and telling obvious lies about not having the keys to his own house.

So what of his poor wife, who had been wed to Smith just two months before and herself came from a successful family? On her return from King’s Norton the author tells us that she was full of ‘greefe’ when first she heard of this ‘unhappy newes.’