Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Have You read the Title? Bloody Codes?
The timing of the sentence also allows me to repeat a nearly contemporaneous quote that I often heard from my father in my misspent youth:
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Rebecca and The Bloody Codes
- Thread starter Praefectus Praetorio
- Start date
The timing of the sentence also allows me to repeat a nearly contemporaneous quote that I often heard from my father in my misspent youth:
twonines
LIMERICUS
I must admit I have not ,although I am aware of their existence and generally savage nature , incidentally, my four times great grandfather was closely connected to Dr. Johnson.
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Harsh Martinet
Consul
The hanging...sure. The brandings...maybe one of them. The whipping...all 30 lashes...nope.
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
What would be the Fun in that?
I sincerely hope not!
Keep asking (see below)
I think I answered Barb's and Martinet's uncertainty back at the beginning.
Migoz2
Senator
I think the 'way out' leads through a trapdoor.....
Rias
Neko Girl
Rias
Neko Girl
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Chapter 12 Ramsey Prison House
Considering the serious charges and Justice Pages’ reputation for harshness, a severe sentence for Rebecca was a forgone conclusion. However, the addition of significant, pre-execution punishments shocked Mr. Todd. It was very distressing to think of this pretty, naïve girl subjected to several extended tortures before being slowly strangled to death at Tyburn Tree! He gently stroked her hair as he tried to revive her.
Two burly men pushed their way to the foot of the dock.
“Youse may go now, watchman. The just-arse has given the little hedge whore to us.”
Todd looked to challenge the uncouth interlopers, but a bailiff intervened.
“These men serve the Keeper of Ramsey, watchman. They have the rights to her. Go on your way in peace. You’ve done your duty.”
Mr. Todd had no choice; he acquiesced and left the dock. Walking out, he turned around to see the two men roughly drag Rebecca. in her chains, from the dock, while openly foundling her body. Clenching his hands in disgust, he sighed and started back to St. Giles Parish. For the first time in his life, Howard Todd questioned the judicial system that he served.
The two ruffians dragged Rebecca out of the courthouse and through the bail dock. In the outer courtyard, they were met by a short oily man with a small lawyer’s wig.
“This is the new lamb? She’s a pretty young one alright, looks unspoilt,” said Always Fair, attorney for Sir Elliott Grabbe, raising her head to see her young face, “Well, get her along. Keeper Allen is expecting delivery. I’ll go and get the court paper’s handing her to us. Get along now, boys.”
“Aye, Mr. Fair.” Replied the one man, while squeezing Rebecca’s tempting arse.
After leering at Rebecca’s backside as they moved away, Mr. Fair, went toward the court.
The men dragged Rebecca down Old Bailey and Ludgate Hill toward Fleet Street. After a few minutes, the girl revived and they forced her to walk on her own. This proved very difficult for her, as she was reaching the end of her strength. She stumbled along slowly, sobbing in despair, with her iron cuffs and heavy shackles. Soon the men were inpatient with her progress and one grabbed a branch from a tree and began beating her shoulders and butt to move her along. She cried in pain, but managed to walk a little faster.
They proceeded for a while on Fleet Street before turning south again toward the Thames. Soon, they entered St. Clement Danes parish and reached Ramsey Prison.
It looked more a warehouse than a government building. The majority of prisoners in the first half of the 18th century in London were held in private gaols. This one was run by Sir Elliott Grabbe and some silent partners for profit. He had chosen the location intentionally in the Liberty of the Duchy of Lancaster, the administrator thereof being one of the silent partners. Not only would the prison, being private, not be bothered by the authorities, but, being in the Liberty, warrants from the King’s Bench could not be served here.
One of the men knocked on the door, which was opened by a dirty, hard-looking man. “You’re here at last,” he said. “Keeper Allen has gotten in a black mood waiting.”
“We’s here as fast as may be, Mr. Spite. The girl wouldn’t move no faster!”
He surveyed the girl and commented, “Well, a pretty piece of meat like this might soften his mood,” he laughed. “At least towards us.”
Considering the serious charges and Justice Pages’ reputation for harshness, a severe sentence for Rebecca was a forgone conclusion. However, the addition of significant, pre-execution punishments shocked Mr. Todd. It was very distressing to think of this pretty, naïve girl subjected to several extended tortures before being slowly strangled to death at Tyburn Tree! He gently stroked her hair as he tried to revive her.
Two burly men pushed their way to the foot of the dock.
“Youse may go now, watchman. The just-arse has given the little hedge whore to us.”
Todd looked to challenge the uncouth interlopers, but a bailiff intervened.
“These men serve the Keeper of Ramsey, watchman. They have the rights to her. Go on your way in peace. You’ve done your duty.”
Mr. Todd had no choice; he acquiesced and left the dock. Walking out, he turned around to see the two men roughly drag Rebecca. in her chains, from the dock, while openly foundling her body. Clenching his hands in disgust, he sighed and started back to St. Giles Parish. For the first time in his life, Howard Todd questioned the judicial system that he served.
The two ruffians dragged Rebecca out of the courthouse and through the bail dock. In the outer courtyard, they were met by a short oily man with a small lawyer’s wig.
“This is the new lamb? She’s a pretty young one alright, looks unspoilt,” said Always Fair, attorney for Sir Elliott Grabbe, raising her head to see her young face, “Well, get her along. Keeper Allen is expecting delivery. I’ll go and get the court paper’s handing her to us. Get along now, boys.”
“Aye, Mr. Fair.” Replied the one man, while squeezing Rebecca’s tempting arse.
After leering at Rebecca’s backside as they moved away, Mr. Fair, went toward the court.
The men dragged Rebecca down Old Bailey and Ludgate Hill toward Fleet Street. After a few minutes, the girl revived and they forced her to walk on her own. This proved very difficult for her, as she was reaching the end of her strength. She stumbled along slowly, sobbing in despair, with her iron cuffs and heavy shackles. Soon the men were inpatient with her progress and one grabbed a branch from a tree and began beating her shoulders and butt to move her along. She cried in pain, but managed to walk a little faster.
They proceeded for a while on Fleet Street before turning south again toward the Thames. Soon, they entered St. Clement Danes parish and reached Ramsey Prison.
It looked more a warehouse than a government building. The majority of prisoners in the first half of the 18th century in London were held in private gaols. This one was run by Sir Elliott Grabbe and some silent partners for profit. He had chosen the location intentionally in the Liberty of the Duchy of Lancaster, the administrator thereof being one of the silent partners. Not only would the prison, being private, not be bothered by the authorities, but, being in the Liberty, warrants from the King’s Bench could not be served here.
One of the men knocked on the door, which was opened by a dirty, hard-looking man. “You’re here at last,” he said. “Keeper Allen has gotten in a black mood waiting.”
“We’s here as fast as may be, Mr. Spite. The girl wouldn’t move no faster!”
He surveyed the girl and commented, “Well, a pretty piece of meat like this might soften his mood,” he laughed. “At least towards us.”
A reflective character with a conscience and capable of empathy. I like that.
Migoz2
Senator
They are rather thin on the ground around these parts.......
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Au contraire! I'm nothing, if not conscience-driven and empathy-filled!
Contemporary Print of Convicted Prisoner, hauled off to Gaol.
Slang:
Just-arse – common disrespectful term of a judge. Even used sometimes today by the criminal class.
Hedge whore - An itinerant harlot, who bilks the bagnios and bawdy-houses, by disposing of her favours on the wayside, under a hedge; a low beggarly prostitute.
Bagnio - A whore house, from Italian, Bagno, bath house. Originally used in English of a Turkish prison holding Christian prisoners, located beside a bath house. Extended to brothels by association with Turkish forcing of women prisoners into non-consensual sex. (See the excellent Story, "Barbary Coast" by @windar & @Barbaria1 .)
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Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Actually, the Turks and Turkish women especially were a topic of much interest in upper-class London at this time. This was driven by the publication, a few years earlier of "Turkish Embassy Letters", by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), wife of the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, about her travels and observations about Ottoman life.
If you don’t know of this remarkable woman, you should look her up.
Her writings address and challenge the restrictive contemporary social attitudes towards women and their intellectual and social growth. Her gender and class status provided her with access to female spaces that were closed off to males. Her personal interactions with Ottoman women enabled her to provide, in her view, a more accurate account of Turkish women, their dress, habits, traditions, limitations and liberties, at times irrefutably more a critique of the Occident than a praise of the Orient.
Montagu also carefully constructs Ottoman female spaces, and her own engagement with Ottoman women, as full of homoerotic desire, which is consistent with the gender and sexual fluidity that characterized much of her life and writings.
(A painting by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres that was inspired by Mary Wortley Montagu's detailed descriptions of nude Oriental beauties)
She was among the society of George I and the Prince of Wales, and counted amongst her friends Molly Skerritt, Lady Walpole, John, Lord Hervey, Mary Astell, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, Alexander Pope, John Gay, and Abbé Antonio Schinella Conti.
It was rumored that by Lady Mary and her daughter, Mary, Countess of Bute, (whose husband, John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, was the first Prime Minister from Scotland following the Acts of Union in 1707 and the first Tory to have held the post), both had affairs with Philip Wharton ,1st Duke of Wharton.
We met Lord Hervey at Sir Elliott’s dinner and will meet Wharton ere long.
Ain’t History Fun!
If you don’t know of this remarkable woman, you should look her up.
Her writings address and challenge the restrictive contemporary social attitudes towards women and their intellectual and social growth. Her gender and class status provided her with access to female spaces that were closed off to males. Her personal interactions with Ottoman women enabled her to provide, in her view, a more accurate account of Turkish women, their dress, habits, traditions, limitations and liberties, at times irrefutably more a critique of the Occident than a praise of the Orient.
Montagu also carefully constructs Ottoman female spaces, and her own engagement with Ottoman women, as full of homoerotic desire, which is consistent with the gender and sexual fluidity that characterized much of her life and writings.
(A painting by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres that was inspired by Mary Wortley Montagu's detailed descriptions of nude Oriental beauties)
She was among the society of George I and the Prince of Wales, and counted amongst her friends Molly Skerritt, Lady Walpole, John, Lord Hervey, Mary Astell, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, Alexander Pope, John Gay, and Abbé Antonio Schinella Conti.
It was rumored that by Lady Mary and her daughter, Mary, Countess of Bute, (whose husband, John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, was the first Prime Minister from Scotland following the Acts of Union in 1707 and the first Tory to have held the post), both had affairs with Philip Wharton ,1st Duke of Wharton.
We met Lord Hervey at Sir Elliott’s dinner and will meet Wharton ere long.
Ain’t History Fun!
Especially when you tell it. Love the flow, choice of words, readability of, for example, the quote below:
twonines
LIMERICUS
Very impressive scholarship and research, I take my hat off to you. I live in a house built on land that previously formed part of Lady Mary`s family estates and the village of Wortley is only a few miles away
twonines
LIMERICUS
I
Indeed.