Posted on 12/04/2006 12:22:50 PM PST by FLOutdoorsman
The 500-year-old death records from Lamplugh which revealed some peculiar demises.
Forget knife-carrying hoodies, people in the mid-17th century had far more dangerous opponents to worry about... such as spirits and fairies.
Also, pitchforks, stools or even a trusty frying pan were the weapons of choice when it came to street fights, a newly unearthed burial register has shown.
The document reveals the deeply superstitious – and often brutal – side of life in Oliver Cromwell's England.
Covering deaths from 1656 to 1663 – the manuscript reveals no less than four people were 'Frighted to Death by faries' while another died after being 'Led into a horse pond by a will of the whisp'.
A further seven people died after becoming 'bewitched' – and three 'old women' were drowned after being tried for witchcraft.
While most of the deaths recorded in the Cumbrian parish of Lamplugh were due to old age, drunken duels claimed two lives in bizarre fashion.
One man died in a battle 'fought with frying pan and pitchforks' while a second brawl involving a 'three-footed stool and a brown jug' accounted for another.
Also dangerous was 'Mrs Lamplughs cordial water', which accounted for two deaths.
The manuscript is not dated or signed, but experts studied the writing and concluded it was written in the mid-1700s.
It is based on the burial register from a century earlier, which has been lost, but would have been kept by the local rector.
Archivists in Cumbria came across the document recently in their archives in Whitehaven, as part of a national campaign to highlight the treasures to be found in local history.
Archivist Anne Rowe said: 'These were insecure social times and many folk in the 17th century would have been scared of fairies and will o' the wisps.
'Many a natural death would have been put down to the evil witchcraft of a harmless old widow.'
THOSE DEATHS IN FULL:
Deaths taken out of the Register of Lamplugh from Janry ye 1 1656 to Janry ye 1 1663
* On a five bar gate, stag hunters: 4
* Two Duels, first fot [fought] with frying pan and pitchforks: 1
* Second between a 3 footed stool and a brown jug: 1
* Kild [killed] at Kelton fell raices [races]: 3
* Knocked on the head at Cockfight: 2
* Crost [crossed] in love: 1
* Broke his neck robbing a hen roost: 1
* took cold sleeping at Church: 11
* hanged for clipping and coyning: 7
* of a sprain in his shouldr by saving his dog at bul bate [bull bait]: 1
* Mrs Lamplughs cordial water: 2
* Knocked on ye head with a quart bottle: 1
* Frighted to Death by faries: 4
* Of strong October at the hall: 14
* Bewitched: 7
* Broke a vein in bawling for a knight of ye shire: 1
* Old women drowned upon trial for witchcraft: 3
* Climbing a crows nest: 1
* Led into a horse pond by a will of the whisp: 1
* Over eat himself at a house warming: 1
* Died of a fright in an Excersise of ye traind bands: 1
* By the Parsons bull: 2
* Vagrant beggars worried by Esqr Lamplughs housedog: 2
* Choked with eating barley: 4
* Old age: 57
"Anyone know what this one means??
* On a five bar gate, stag hunters: 4"
I'm pretty sure that refers to people hunting stag on horseback who failed to make that jump. A five-bar gate would be pretty high.
"THIS one I get, and I think it's a hoot!"
That one I don't get.
Sounds like an apoplexy during a fit of pique. LOL!
Extreme cheerleading leads to brain embolism and death.
Ye means ter say thet 'e died more'n once't, of divers causations?
Or, does ye means his causation of mortification wast original, and in Ye GGG Catagorical?
She was crying her eyes out over a knight (broken heart??) and had a stroke.
And just what kind of funny uncles do they have in France?
The kind who leave their paper on your auntie's desk.
Oh, okay.
Looks simple after somebody explained it to me. Duh.
Loved it...and posted it to my blog...
re: Kindly English simply hanging counterfeiters, yes unless you were a woman, then you were burned alive. The last one was in the 1790s or so, mostly because she refused life transportation to His Majestie's plantations in Australia.
The English needed women prisoners to populate the new colony, so women under sentence of death were offered transportation instead. Apparently no one had been burned for a while and the threat wasn't credible, the lady in question hung tough and went to the stake. There was a bit less resistance to accepting transportation after that...
;')
http://shakespeare.about.com/od/studentresources/f/faqshowhedied.htm
"Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted."
http://www.onlineshakespeare.com/death.htm
A legend has grown up, based on a diary entry by a John Ward - a Stratford vicar. Ward wrote that "Shakspear Drayton and Ben Jhonson had a merry meeting and it seems drank too hard for Shakespear died of a feavour there contracted." This is difficult to believe as the diary entry was written fifty years after Shakespeare's death although as vicar, Ward would have listened to local gossip and knew Judith Shakespeare in her later years; whether this is based upon fact again is open to debate.
http://ise.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/life/death.html
The cause of his death is unknown. Some scholars have suggested that the signatures on his will indicate that he was already sick at the date of signing, March, 25, 1616. Shakespeare was buried on April 25, 1616 in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford, where he had been baptised just over 52 years earlier.
Ben Jonson's encomium to William Shakespeare
The First Folio | A.D. 1623 | Ben Jonson
Posted on 02/13/2006 12:46:35 AM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1577388/posts
[and now, the new version]
Shakespeare Died of Rare Cancer? (British Gallery Unveils Shakespeare Image)
Discovery Channel | March 1, 2006 | Rossella Lorenzi
Posted on 03/01/2006 4:39:20 PM EST by nickcarraway
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1588026/posts
Also...Some scholars have suggested that the signatures on his will indicate that he was already sick at the date of signing
Does it not seem mighty coincidental that William Shakespeare's testament just happened to be referred to as a will?
I begin to see that a conspiracy really was at work, and may still be afoot! Of course, I'm more paranoid than Timon of Athens.
CALLLINGARTBELL isn't even spelled right by the moron who puts CALLINGARTBELL in the keywords of topics he or she doesn't like.
"Died of fright in an Exersise of ye traind bands"
Huh?...Too much Ozzie Osbourne.
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