Reveals the lives of women accused of murder, from innocence to execution.

Innocent, guilty, coerced, framed.

These are the stories of dozens of women who found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Whether innocent or not, these women were all indicted for murder of some sort; most of them ended up facing execution. From Britain’s late medieval period through the following 600 years, this book explores the world of murderous female crime and pulls you in to the lives of these women. It situates their stories on the timeline of British crime and relates their terrible deeds to the criminal world and proceedings of the times they lived in. 

Enjoy this glimpse into the history of Britain’s criminal underbelly and the women within it, who showed what desperation, lack of mental health support, and cruelty, could lead to.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Table of contents
• Introduction
• Chapter One: The Later Medieval Period (1300–1500)
  • Emma le Bere (–1316)
  • Margaret de Stanton (unknown)
  • Agnes Cran (–c.1400)
• Chapter Two: The sixteenth century
  • Alice Neate (–1577)
  • Joan Farnecombe (–1578)
  • Anne Welles (–1592)
• Chapter Three: The seventeenth century
  • Margaret Ferneseede (c.1560–1608)
  • Sarah Elston (c.1632–1678)
  • Mary Aubry (–1688)
  • Margaret Martell (–1697)
• Chapter Four: The eighteenth century
  • Anne Fogget (–1716)
  • Sarah Malcolm (c.1710–1733)
  • Sarah Metyard (1718–1762) and Sarah Morgan Metyard (1738–1762)
  • Mary Bailey (c.1735–1784)
• Chapter Five: The nineteenth century
  • Ann Heytrey (c.1804–1820)
  • Margaret Shuttleworth (–1821)
  • Mary Ann Burdock (c.1797–1835)
• Margaret Jenkins (1854–)
• Chapter Six: The twentieth century, to 1960
  • Susan Newell (c.1893–1923)
  • Ruth Ellis (1926–1955)
• Conclusion
• Bibliography