Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/152

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104
DEVONSHIRE CHARACTERS

held at Barnstaple in the ensuing March, 1591 (n.s.), and he terminates thus:—

"The gibbet was set up on the Castle Green and xvii prisoners hanged, whereof iiij of Plymouth for a murder."

The parish register gives the particulars and the names:—

"Here ffolloweth the names of the Prysoners wch were Buryed in the Church yeard of Barnistaple ye syce [assize] week.::"March 1590-1. ******

"George Strongewithe, Buryed the xxth daye.

" Thomas Stone, Buryed the xxth daye.

" Robert Preidyox, Buryed at Bishopstawton ye xxth daye."

The three men were hanged, but Eulalia Page was burnt alive, as guilty of petty treason. Moreover, her uncle, Justice Glanville, did not condemn her to the stake. He was serjeant-at-law, and was not made a Justice of the Common Pleas till 1598, when he was knighted. He died in 1600, and his stately monument is in Tavistock Church.

The judge who sentenced Eulalia Page was, as Wyot tells us, "Lord Anderson," who tried all the cases "and gave judgment upon those who were to be executed." But John Glanville, serjeant-at-law, was present at these assizes; for Wyot gives the list of the lawyers present at the time, and he names "Sergt. Glandyl" as lodging at Roy Cades. Glandyl is a mistake for Glandvyl.

As the crime of Eulalia Page was one of petty treason, she would be burnt alive, and not hanged. Petty treason, according to a statute 25 Edward III, consists in (1) a servant killing his master; (2) a wife her hus-