LISLE, ALICE (c. 1614-1685)

This article appears in Volume V16, Page 775 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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LISLE, ALICE (c. 1614-1685) , commonly known as Lady Alice

Lisle

LISLE, ALICE (c. 1614-1685)

, was born about 1614. Her father, Sir White Beckenshaw, was descended from an old

Hampshire

HAMPSHIRE (or COUNTY OF SOUTHAMPTON, abbreviated HANTS)

family; her husband, John

Lisle

LISLE, ALICE (c. 1614-1685)

(d. 1664), had been one of the judges at the trial of Charles I., and was subsequently a member of Cromwell's

House

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

of Lordshence his wife's courtesy title. Lady Lisle seems to have leaned to Royalism, but with this attitude she combined a decided sympathy with religious dissent. On the loth of July 1685, a fortnight after the battle of Sedgemoor, the old lady consented to shelter John

Hickes

HICKES, GEORGE (1642-1715)

, a well-known Nonconformist minister, at her residence, Moyles Court, near Ringwood.

Hickes

HICKES, GEORGE (1642-1715)

, who was a fugitive from Monmouth's army, brought with him Richard Nelthorpe, also a partizan of Monmouth, and under sentence of outlawry. The two men passed the night at Moyles Court, and on the following morning were arrested, and their hostess, who had denied their presence in the

house

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

, was charged with harbouring traitors. Her case was tried by Judge

Jeffreys

JEFFREYS, GEORGE JEFFREYS, 1ST BARON (1648-1689)

at the opening of the "Bloody Assizes " at Winchester. She pleaded that she had no knowledge that Hickes's offence was anything more serious than illegal preaching, that she had known nothing previously of Nelthorpe (whose name was not included in the indictment, but was, nevertheless, mentioned to strengthen the case for the Crown), and that she had no sympathy with the rebellion. The jury reluctantly found her guilty, and, the law recognizing no distinction between principals and accessories in treason, she was sentenced to be burned.

Jeffreys

JEFFREYS, GEORGE JEFFREYS, 1ST BARON (1648-1689)

ordered that the sentence
should be carried out that same afternoon, but a few days' respite was subsequently granted, and James II. allowed beheading to be substituted for burning. Lady Lisle was executed in Winchester market-place on the 2nd of September 1685. By many writers her death has been termed a judicial murder, and one of the first acts of

parliament

PARLIAMENT (Anglo-Lat. parliamentum, Fr. parlement, from parler, to speak)

of William and Mary reversed the attainder on the ground that the prosecution was irregular and the verdict injuriously extorted by " the menaces and viclences and other illegal practices " of Jeffreys. It is, however, extremely doubtful whether Jeffreys, for all his

gross

GROSS

brutality, exceeded the strict

letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

of the existing law.
See Howell, State Trials; H. B. Irving, Life of Judge Jeffreys; Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England.

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