Women, Murder, And Equity In Early Modern England (routledge Studies In Renaissance Literature And Culture)

Women, Murder, and Equity in Early Modern England Routledge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture SERIES EDITOR, Editor’s School 1. Stillness in Motion in the Seventeenth-Century Theatre P.A. Skantze 8. Fictions of Old Age in Early Modern Literature and Culture Nina Tauton 2. The Popular Culture of Shakespeare, Spenser and Jonson Mary Ellen Lamb 9. Performing Race and Torture on the Early Modern Stage Ayanna Thompson 3. Forgetting in Early Modern English Literature and Culture Lethe’s Legacies Edited by Christopher Ivic and Grant Williams 10. Women, Murder, and Equity in Early Modern England Randall Martin 4. Luce Irigaray and Premodern Culture Thresholds of History Edited by Theresa Krier and Elizabeth D. Harvey 5. Writing, Geometry and Space in Seventeenth-Century England and America Circles in the Sand Jess Edwards 6. Dramatists and their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton and Heywood Authorship, Authority and the Playhouse Grace Ioppolo 7. Reading the Early Modern Dream The Terrors of the Night Edited by Katharine Hodgkin, Michelle O’Callaghan, and S. J. Wiseman Women, Murder, and Equity in Early Modern England Randall Martin New York London First published 2008 by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2008 Taylor & Francis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book. ISBN 0-203-93512-8 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0-415-96115-7 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-203-93512-8 (ebk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-96115-8 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-93512-5 (ebk) For Madeline and Hermione Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments ix xi 1 Introduction 2 Equity and Self-Defense in Female Homicide News 40 3 Confession, Conversion, and Tactical Resistance 80 4 Women and Poison 123 5 Changing Representations of Infanticide and Child Murder 155 6 Conclusion 202 Notes Bibliography Index 1 209 241 273 List of Figures Figure 1.1 Figure 1.2 Figure 1.3 Figure 2.1 Figure 2.2 Figure 2.3 Figure 2.4 Figure 3.1 Figure 3.2 Figure 4.1 The Adultresses Funerall Day (1635). Reproduced by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. 13 The True Relation Of