1722: Arundel Cooke and John Woodburne, despite a novel defense

ExecutedToday.com ^ | April 5, 2009 | Headsman

[CheshireTheCat]

St. Edmunds, curiously becoming the first victims [edit: or maybe not] of a law of unintended consequences.

This duo’s path to the gallows begins years before their births, when Stuart Restoration parliamentarian John Coventry trod on the royal toes and was in consequence beaten up by some of Monmouth‘s goons.

Incensed, parliament passed the Coventry Act.

By this statute it is enacted that if any person shall of malice aforethought, and by laying in wait, unlawfully cut or disable the tongue, put out an eye, slit the nose, cut off the nose or lip, or cut off or disable any limb or member of any other person, with intent to maim or disfigure him, such person, his counsellors, aiders and abettors, shall be guilty of felony, without benefit of clergy.

“Previous to the passing,” claims The Newgate Calendar, “it was customary for revengeful men to waylay another and cut and maim him, so that though he did not die of such wounds he might remain a cripple during the remainder of life, and such case was not then a capital offence. It was also a dangerous practice resorted to by thieves, who would often cut the sinews of men’s legs, called ham-stringing, in order to prevent their escape from being robbed.”

Sounds like an interesting time. One may well wonder how very customary this practice was, with the half-century lapse before the law found its first prey....

[CheshireTheCat]

I accidently cut off the first line. Sorry.

[ComputerGuy]

What’s a little mayhem between rivals?

[Stingray51]

Seems to me that there should be a law similar to the Coventry Act applicable to “doctors” who surgically mutilate vulnerable teens in pursuit of woke ideology. IOW, they should hang (under sentence of law - note to Hoover’s lackeys: I am not advocating violence or criminal activity).