Chapter 22

The Man who Killed His Own Children for Money 1590

In the 1591 pamphlet entitled Sundrye Strange and Inhumaine Murthers Lately Committed, there is the brief tale of an unmarried ‘young damsel’ called Alice Shepheard, from Salisbury in Wiltshire, who denied being pregnant until it became impossible to refute it any longer. She revealed the truth to her mother and grandmother who fetched a midwife. Alice gave birth to a little boy. She then broke the neck of the child and, with the help of the other three women, secretly buried the body in the churchyard. Their crime would probably have gone undiscovered if a dog had not picked up the scent of the dead baby and unearthed it, exposing the corpse above ground. It was spotted by a passer-by, Hugh Mawdes, who alerted parish officials. Being a newborn baby and presumably with no record of a baptism or burial they quickly realised that this was a case of infanticide. Local folk, many of whom had surmised that Alice had been pregnant, suspected she was at fault. Her son’s body was inspected at Our Lady Church in Salisbury by ‘all the chiefs of the town’ and Alice and the other women were examined by the local justices. Each swore, under oath that they had nothing to do with the child’s death. However, on their way out of the building, one of the justice’s servants overheard the midwife having misgivings about lying. All of the women were brought back in front of the justices and, eventually, all confessed to their part in the deed. They were put in prison and, at the next assizes, found guilty and sentenced to death.

Shame and duress, combined with worry about how she would provide for the child, were no doubt some of the factors that drove Alice to kill her own baby. In the same pamphlet, however, is the sorry tale of Nicholas Lincoln, a fifty-year-old man from Warehorne in Kent, who definitely did not love his children. Indeed he was prepared to take drastic action against them in pursuit of financial gain. Lincoln we are told, was a widow and the ‘unnaturall father of foure unfortunate children’ – three boys and a girl. A yeoman, we learn that he wasn’t without means but had been seeking the hand in marriage of a wealthy widower. The woman refused him ‘in respect of his great charge of children.’ On learning this Lincoln was downcast and returned home, sitting down with ‘great heavinesse’ by the fireside. Another man, Thomas Hayton, who occasionally worked for Lincoln, happened to be at the house and seeing his employer looking heavy-hearted enquired why he looked so ‘pensive’. Lincoln told him that his children stood in the way of finding a new, suitable wife. Then he blurted out: ‘If I could make them awaie by any meanes I could marrie a rich widowe.’

Title page of the 1591 pamphlet Sundrye Strange and Inhumaine Murthers Lately Committed. (Courtesy of Lambeth Palace Library)

The devil had ‘entered so farre into his minde’ that Lincoln had been considering just how he could make his children disappear. He was too much of a coward to kill them himself and now saw an opportunity. Here was Hayton, a poor labourer. Perhaps he could be bribed into helping. Lincoln offered Hayton forty shillings and a cow if he would kill his children for him. If, at any point Hayton should be suspected, then Lincoln said he would admit that he had been the culprit. At first Hayton hesitated, but ‘as he was poor so he was covetous’ and he finally agreed. The pair then set about planning how they could commit the crime and cover their tracks.

On the morning of 5 December, 1590 Lincoln had breakfast with his family as usual and then set off for the market in Ashford, a few miles away. He took his eldest son, aged fifteen and the labourer, Hayton, with him. At some point in the journey Hayton made an excuse and returned back the way he had come, leaving Lincoln and his son to continue on to town.

Once in Ashford, Lincoln bought three pairs of new shoes for his other children. It was all part of a sham. He knew that Hayton was already back at his house where he had ‘speedily murthered,’ the unsuspecting trio, ‘knocking them on the heads with a hatchet and cutting all their throates.’

Lincoln sent his teenage child home from Ashford ahead of him while he did some more shopping. But when the son arrived at the front door he found it barred from the inside. He tried to raise the other children but could hear no sounds. Puzzled, he waited at the door for his father. When Lincoln came home he feigned concern and, rather than forcing his way in or going to the back entrance as one might have expected, he went to get some of the other villagers to come to the house with him to help investigate what had happened. And so he ‘came home with companie who were eye witnesses of this tragicall spectacle.’ The villagers and the son were confronted by the bloody sight of two ‘pretty’ boys and a girl slaughtered, ‘which grievous and unexpected sight made the beholders to stand amazed.’ There was no sign of the murderer.

Despite his attempts to make it look as if his children had been the victims of an unknown attacker and create witnesses who could swear he had not been at the property at the time of the murder, Lincoln didn’t do a good job of acting the devastated father. He ‘made no signe of sorrow’ and when the locals mentioned the name of Hayton, who had been seen around the property that day, Lincoln publicly dismissed the idea that he might be involved. Instead he commended Hayton as ‘a verie honest fellow’. Then Lincoln revealed the full extent of his own callous nature. Incredibly he pointed the finger of blame at his remaining son.

In the next few days Lincoln began to behave very strangely. He ‘would secke no meanes to burie the children nor that the coroner should view them.’ Lincoln kept the corpses in the house for the next three days and kept everyone else away. A Mistress West was finally brave enough to call round to give him a ticking off for the ungodly way in which he was behaving.

Lincoln was now moved to bury the children. However, rather than having them taken to the churchyard, he took the bizarre course of digging a hole in his own house, burying all three of his victims two feet deep. News of what had happened had obviously got out as five days after the killings the coroner appeared on the scene. He found the children concealed under boards and just a little earth, swiftly ordering the bodies to be removed. In the meantime Hayton had been apprehended and arrested, though he denied any knowledge of the killings. The authorities seem to have ignored Lincoln’s suggestion that his own son had been the murderer.

Hayton was brought before the bodies of the children. This was one of a number of cases where the corpses were said to have ‘bled afresh’ when confronted with their killer, thereby identifying him. This intervention by the Lord was, in practice, a convenient way to ‘prove’ guilt in the absence of witnesses or any other evidence. Hayton was said to have been so overcome with the sight that he confessed on the spot and went on to accuse the father too, revealing the details of the murder plot.

Both Hayton and Lincoln were taken to prison in Canterbury. The official record shows that they then appeared at the Sevenoaks assizes on 25 February and that, ‘by inquisitions held on Dec 10th 1590,’ a jury found that ‘on Dec 5th Thomas Hayton from Hastings broke into the house of Nicholas Lincolne at Warehorne attacked the three children with an axe and then cut their throats with a knife.’ Hayton pleaded guilty but Lincoln, indicted as an accessory to murder, refused to admit his part in the crime. He was nevertheless found guilty and he and Hayton were sentenced to be hanged. The execution took place on 27 February near Ashford, where Lincoln was finally induced to admit his responsibility for the ‘foule and odious offence’.