Category: Crime And Punishment

The Ravishment of Eleanor West: Part Two

16/8/2026

In my post The Ravishment of Eleanor West I wrote, ‘Clearly, circumstances had changed between petitions. I don’t know what happened...’ This sentence didn’t sit right with me; surely, I thought, there must have been more to it than my assumption that ‘perhaps it was time for all parties to think, to get things right…’ Well, indeed there was.

In 1382, Thomas Blount was commissioned to arrest Nicholas Clifton for his attack on the family of Thomas West. Initially, I thought the main concern was the ordeal Thomas’s daughter Eleanor endured; however, it appears the main focus of the arrest was solely the loss of goods - a horse, value 19l; a saddle, value 60s; a silver-gilt girdle, value 60s; pearls and other precious stones, value 13l. 6s. 8d., and linen and woollen clothes, value 6l. 13s. 4d. - the rape/abduction of their daughter was not mentioned at all; it was, in fact, only an addition to the text and Thomas West’s petition to Parliament three months later just focused on how the attack affected his wife! ‘the most evil affray to the said Alice’ and ‘Alice is ill and likely to die’. She is mentioned nine times, whereas poor Eleanor is mentioned just four times.

‘To the most honourable and dread lord the king of Castile and Leon, duke of Lancaster, Thomas West and Alice his wife humbly pray, that whereas Nicholas Clifton was lately with the retinue of the said Thomas on the last voyage to France and Brittany; and then the said Nicholas was familiar with the said Thomas for some time, until the Sunday after the feast of the translation of Saint Thomas [7 July] last past, on which day he came to the said Alice at her manor of Testwood in the county of Southampton, to ride with the said Alice to a certain place; and upon this the aforesaid Alice, with her son Thomas and her daughter Eleanor and others of their meinie, went towards this same place, by abetment and counsel of the said Nicholas, the said Alice hav ing faith in him; and the said Nicholas led the said Alice to a great wood in the New Forest, where the said Nicholas, who was armed, had several other men at arms and archers by his ordinance and arrangement in ambush with the intention of ravishing the said Eleanor; and he went and approached the said ambush, taking them with him, and they made assault upon the said Alice and Eleanor and their meinie with drawn swords, bows and arrows drawn back to the ear, and ravished the said Eleanor, with most evil affray to the said Alice and her company, who thought that the great and treacherous insurrection had been renewed; from which affray the said Alice has taken such illness that it is likely to be the cause of her death; for which they pray remedy.’(1)

Due to this petition, the Statute of Rapes was passed in October of 1382, ‘and although it does not specifically name the case of Eleanor West, scholars believe that it undoubtedly was passed because of her elopement.’(2)
The second petition (February of 1383) made directly to the king (3) finally mentions Eleanor’s rape, and where Thomas and Alice ask that the aforementioned statute be applied to her.

‘To our most gracious and dread lord the king, and to his lords of this present parliament, we your humble lieges Thomas West and Alice his wife pray, that whereas the said Thomas and Alice, at the last parliament held at Westminster the Monday after Michaelmas last past, showed how Nicholas Clifton, with others, lately made horrible assault upon the said Alice, at Malwood in the New Forest, and feloniously ravished and deflowered their daughter Eleanor, and because of their suit a statute was made in the said parliament for punishing severely such rapes in time to come: may it please your most gracious and dread lordship that, because this statute and the penalty therein com prised were ordained because of the said felonious rape and at the suit of the said Thomas and Alice, that the said Nicholas and Eleanor be especially included in the said statute, to bear the penalty of the aforesaid statute prompted by themselves, as the intent of our lords was thus in parliament, and that they be disabled from having any manner of estate in land or rent as regards Nicholas, and Eleanor if she [assent] at any time, and that her father, or any other of her blood, can have suit to attaint him according to the form of the statute, notwithstanding that the said Eleanor be now covet of the said Nicholas.’

So there we have it: two reasons for the change of circumstance - the ‘alleged’ elopement of Eleanor and the protection of the wealth of the family.(4)

I should not take sides; I know I said that this petition was a step forward in ‘establishing a framework to punish those who committed an act of rape and a significant event in the history of the Statute of Rape;’ of course it was; we must be grateful for that. I cannot help thinking, however, that the well-being of women in these cases was secondary.

Footnotes:

1 The Physicality of (non) consent: Secular Raptus Laws - Mariah L Cooper - JSTOR archives
2 JSTOR archives
3 6 Ric. II. Stat 2
4 “treating eloping couples as dead, to maintain the integrity of family estates.” - Ravishment of Women and the Statutes of Westminster

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The Ravishment of Eleanor West

2/8/2026

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The West, Clifton and Blount Families

On the 19th August 1382, Thomas Blount received his first royal commission; he was tasked with arresting and bringing to justice ‘those who had assaulted and robbed Alice West and her children’ and ‘ravished their daughter, Eleanor.’ For the Blounts, this was no ordinary order, for Alice West was the elder Thomas Blount’s step-daughter, and the half-sister of Thomas the younger. Eleanor, his niece, was just fifteen.

An account of the order states

‘Thomas Blount the elder, Thomas Blount the younger and John Butus- thorn to arrest and deliver to the gaol of Winchester Nicholas Clyfton, Philip Oldefrende, Richard Attefelde, servant of Nicholas Pauncefot, John Hobel- dod, Roger Bordeaux of London, tailor, John Kelfeld, John Skypton, Goucelyn, servant of Nicholas Clyfton, and William Parkere, who lately rose in insurrection with a great company at Lynhurst, co. Southampton, assaulted Alice the wife of Thomas West, knight, Thomas their son and Eleanor; their daughter, and others, at Mallewod in the New Forest, and robbed them of a horse, value 191., a saddle, value 60s., a silver-gilt girdle, value 60s., pearls and other precious stones, value 131. 6s. 8d., and linen and woollen cloths, value 6l. 13s. 4d. in addition to which Nicholas Clyfton ravished Eleanor.’ (1)

In the medieval world, the word ravishment was used to cover the crimes of abduction or ‘taking away with no sexual violation’; it could also mean the ‘carrying away of a woman to violate her sexually.’ Confusingly, the Latin word raptus/rape also means to seize.

Two petitions brought by Eleanor’s parents in October state.

‘ … Nicholas de Clyfton persuaded Alice West, her son, daughter and others of her household to ride out into the New Forest with him, and there he ambushed them with armed men, attacked them, and ravished their daughter Eleanor; because of this attack Alice is ill and likely to die. They request a remedy.’

This attack on Eleanor was one of 112 cases of rape and ravishment brought to court between 1382 and 1399.(2) In fact, it was probably the first case brought under Richard II’s amendments to Edward I's 1275 statute. (3) (4)

Thomas and Alice brought a second petition before Parliament three months later, referring to the outcome of the previous case - the punishment of those convicted of the rape.

‘Thomas West and Alice his wife, state that at the last parliament held at Westminster on the Monday after last Michaelmas, they complained that ‘Nicholas de Clifton at Malwood in the New Forest, and feloniously ravished their daughter, Eleanor, and because of the suit a state was made to punish such rapes in future.(5) They ask that the punishments included in that statute might be applied to Nicholas and Eleanor.’ The statute (6) mentioned in the text states: The penalties of the man and woman, where a woman ravished doth consent. In an appeal of rape the defendant shall not wage battle.’

Alice was clearly traumatised, and Eleanor - well, I cannot begin to imagine how she felt.

In this new petition, Alice and Thomas asked that Eleanor be included in said punishment. Clearly, circumstances had changed between the petitions. I don’t know what happened; perhaps it was time for all parties to think, to get things right. For Alice and Thomas, it was not just the fate of other young girls, but they had the future of their own daughter to consider. Poor Eleanor’s fate was to marry Nicholas Clifton. (7) Traditionally, the marriage of the man concerned and the victim after the offence was often seen as the best solution - virginity, being a sign of virtue, while losing your virginity before marriage was a sign of disgrace. So, Eleanor became Lady Clifton, and by 1395 she had two sons. I have to wonder what life was like for her, for the Cliftons had a history of violence and insurrection.

Nicholas’s father was William Clifton of Clifton, Westby and Goosnargh. In 1337, he was accused of ‘taking possession’ of twenty marks belonging to the Abbot of Vale Royal, and ‘forcibly obstructing the rector in the collecting of tithes within his manors.’ He is also stated as ‘inflicting certain injuries upon the hunting palfrey’ of the same rector.

Nicholas Clifton, described by Froissart as a ‘young knight’, came into his inheritance in 1365. From 1389 to 1392, Clifton was a lieutenant of John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon, probably holding the post of Governor of the Castle of Ham in Picardy (8) and where he may have met Thomas Talbot, who in 1393 led a rebellion in the north because of threatened loss of Richard II’s claim to the throne of France. Whether Clifton was part of this I haven’t discovered; however, he certainly led a rebellion of his own. His antics were suspiciously troubling for an order to ‘bring him before the king and council in the chancery, as he had disregarded a previous summons.’

Nicholas Clifton was a man to whom violence came easily; that probably started way before he met the family of Thomas West. He must have been a sweet talker too; how else did he persuade Alice to venture into the New Forest? Clifton’s actions were certainly made with malice aforethought.

Thomas and Alice’s petition was a step forward in establishing a framework to punish those who committed an act of rape - a significant event in the history of the Statute of Rape.

This episode in the life of my Blount family was not a one-off. Alice Blount was kept indoors by her mother for fear of abduction following the death of her first husband; and they would have known of the abduction of Margaret Audley by her husband’s uncle.

How very frightened must these women have been.

1
Calendar Patent Rolls 1381-1385
2
Emma Hawkes: Preliminary Notes on Consent in the 1382 Rape and Ravishment Laws of Richard II
3
Rape Act 1275
4
The suggested punishment for these heinous acts in the 11th century was castration and blinding; this was later changed to imprisonment and a fine.
5
The petition highlights the ‘legal and social context of the time, as well as the efforts to address the issue of sexual violence. It is a testament to the concerns of the time regarding the protection of women and children from sexual assault and the desire for legal action to ensure justice.’ Thomas West and the Statute of Rapes, 1382. Oxford University Press.
6 Ric. II. Stat 2

7 I bequethe to Sir Nichot *Cliston knyght, and to Alianore his wif, my doughter, and to Thomas Clistofi here sone - The will of Lady Alice West of Hampshire 1395
8
History of the Fylde of Lancashire

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The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals

19/3/2015

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We have sayings today that supposedly fit with the character of an animal, sly as a fox, lazy as a pig. We see wolves as vicious, snakes as scheming and rats as sneaky dirty little creatures. With all these negative traits its not surprising that, in days gone by, many of these animals found themselves in front of a human jury.

I hear you laughing but animal trials did happen.

Offences alleged against animals ranged from murder to criminal damage and their trials took place in church and secular courts. Animals were provided with lawyers, human witnesses were often brought, those who had witnessed the crime and others who spoke of the good character of the animal. These trials took place in Europe between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries. In 1906, over a hundred accounts of animal trials were collected by historian Edward Evans for his book, The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals, the cover of the book is seen here. This barbaric scene shows a pig, dressed in jacket and trousers, being strung up on the gallows while the fourteenth century inhabitants of a Normandy village watch. In Evan's book, its states that the pig had been sentenced to be “mangled and maimed in the head and forelegs then dressed and hung" for its crime of having torn the face and arms of a baby in its cradle.

An eye for an eye it seems!

On the whole it was the domestic animal, as we have seen with the pig, that commonly found themselves facing trial, cows and horses and even insects were tried too! Rats and cats were often brought to trial as familiars as they lived in the homes of women who were suspected as being witches.

The pig execution mentioned previously, was the earliest recorded animal trial and execution, centuries later, in 1457, a female pig and her piglets were said to have been tried for the murder of a child, the end result of which was the piglets being acquitted but the mother being found guilty. No doubt the sow was put to death as was the norm for a guilty verdict, or if the judges were lenient, there was the option of exile.

A more extreme 'animal' the werewolf, were often tried, but in recorded cases the werewolf itself was never present only its alter ego, the human.

A trial in the town of Basel in Switzerland in 1474, a rooster was put on trial for "the heinous and unnatural crime of laying an egg." The townspeople thought that the rooster was the creation of the devil and that an egg he had laid contained a two-legged dragon with a rooster's head known as a Cockatrice. Other eggs laid by the rooster all lacked yolks which also was considered unnatural and this added more weight to the prosecuting councils case. The defense suggested that it was not the the roosters fault that it happened to lay eggs, but the judge found the bird guilty of witchcraft and it was immediately burned at the stake "with as great solemnity as would have been observed in consigning a heretic to the flames" and like the pig years earlier the execution was witnessed by a large crowd.

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Blackbeard the Pirate

11/3/2015

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On the 22nd November 1718, Edward Teach, buccaneer and scourge of the seas met his death.

Teach was more famously known to us as the flamboyant and fearless Blackbeard the Pirate, who is said to have been born in Bristol and surprisingly known to be
'amiable, forgiving and generous.'

It wasn't until he was in his thirties that much is known of him, but it is more than likely that his early years were spent at sea as a mariner.

By 1716, Teach was known to be captaining a ship belonging to one Benjamin Hornigold, an English pirate who turned pirate hunter. The following year Hornigold and Teach went their separate ways, but Teach kept Hornigolds ship the Revenge. It was with this ship he attacked a French merchant vessel, La Concorde, which was carrying a cargo of slaves. Teach abandoned the Revenge replacing it with the La Concorde renaming her Queen Anne's Revenge. The following year, Teach attacked another merchant ship captained by Henry Bostock and it is from Bostock that we get the first description of Teach as a

"tall spare man with a very black beard which he wore very long"

it is from Bostock's account that Teach gets his name Blackbeard. Later descriptions say that his

'thick black beard was braided into pigtails, sometimes tied in with small coloured ribbons.'

Captain Jack Sparrow do you think?

Teaches reputation soon spread, and he used his new name to his advantage. He wore several pistols and cutlass at his waist and let his hair and his beard grow even longer, he was known to have put a lit, slow burning hemp cord under his hat so that would smoke and envelop him which added his menacing appearance.

Teach spent much of the next year attacking ships and taking what he wanted, but his days were numbered, for he was being pursued by the HMS Pearl, whose captain was Lieutenant Robert Maynard.

Maynard eventually found Teaches ship anchored at Ocracoke Island, North Carolina and a battle, the sort that we see in the swashbuckling, peg-legged, sword fighting Hollywood movies, ensued. This battle left ten of Teaches pirates and and eleven of Maynard's men dead, also killed in the skirmish was Teach himself. Blackbeard the Pirate had twenty cuts and fives bullet holes in his body, later his decapitated remains were thrown into the sea and his head was suspended from the front of the Maynard's ship the Pearl.

Blackbeard has been portrayed many times in films, my favourite is the 1952 Blackbeard the Pirate where Teach is played by veteran actor Robert Newton. Blackbeard's most recent appearance was in 2011 in the fourth film in the Pirates of the Caribbean series entitled, On Stranger Tides where Teach is played by Ian McShane.

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The Ravishment of Eleanor West: Part Two

The Ravishment of Eleanor West

The West, Clifton and Blount Families

The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals

Blackbeard the Pirate

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