According to Holinshed, Davie was indeed "boyled in Smithfield for
poisoning of her mistres with whom she dwelt."  The boiling, I
believe, is directly connected to why murder by poisoning became an
act of high treason in the 1530s.

In 1531, a cook named Richard Roose whipped up a poisonous broth,
intended for John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester.  Though Fisher, by
chance, had foregone the meal, two of his servants (and several
beggars) died from it.  Roose was arrested, racked, etc., before being
attained of high treason and boiled alive in April of that year -- a
punishment clearly intended to enact some kind of poetic justice.
(Boil the cook!!)

Because Fisher, the intended target, was an opponent of the divorce
(and had resisted the decade's first wave of anti-clerical
legislation), Henry was put in an awkward position -- Chapuys, in
fact, reported that some suspected the King (or at least the Boleyn
party) had orchestrated the attempt on Fisher's life. Henry, it
follows, had some rhetorical reasons for coming down particularly
harshly on Roose.  (Not to mention, other sources suggest that Henry
himself was intensely paranoid about being poisoned.)

Interestingly, poisoning was not a crime of high treason when Roose
committed the act.  (Though because he intended to murder his master,
it could have been deemed petty treason.)  The Roose attainder (22
Hen. VIII, c. 9) is actually *what* codified murder by poison as an
act of high treason -- that is, Roose was convicted under a law that
only came into existence by virtue of him committing the crime that it
subsequently punished.  There are only two other instances in the
reign when treason statutes expanded in this bizarre manner: in 1536,
when Lord Thomas Howard contracted an unauthorized marriage with
Henry's niece, and in 1541, when Queen Catherine came to Henry's bed
unchaste.  Roose is thus quite important in the history of Henrician
treason legislation -- and his particular punishment established the
tradition that poisoners were boiled.

Or at least that's how I understand it.  It doesn't shed much light on
Davie herself, but I think Roose helps explain why Davie was convicted
of treason, and certainly why she was boiled.

For more on this, see Stacy's "Richard Roose and the Use of
Parliamentary Attainder in the reign of Henry VIII," Historical
Journal 29 (1986).

All best,
Brad



On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 3:59 PM, Scott Lucas <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Was Margaret Davie boiled alive for her crime?  I read through several of
> the early Elizabethan editions of John Stow's Summary of English Chronicles
> last year while writing on Henry VIII, and I remember Stow writing at length
> (well, relative length given the summary form of his chronicle) about a
> poisoner in Henry's reign who was boiled alive for his transgression.  Stow
> was obviously horrified at the ferocity of the punishment.  I'm not sure if
> that savage penalty held throughout the entirety of Henry's reign or not; I
> believe the execution of the male cook took place in the 1530s.
>
> Scott
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 3:45 PM, Consuelo Concepcion <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>>
>> I looked through through the Statutes of the Realm, as murder was consider
>> a form of treason in 1542, but I had no luck in finding anything
>> specifically related to her.  It would have not been a star chamber case,
>> since most of those cases would be be to settle property disputes or other
>> civil cases.  Wish I could have been of more help.  It is a good question,
>> so I may try and do a little more digging.
>> Consuelo M. Concepcion
>> 3/1
>> 11 Hastie St
>> Glasgow, G3 8AE
>> Scotland, UK
>> [log in to unmask]
>> [log in to unmask]
>> 011 44 (0)141 334 7620 (Home)
>> 011 44 (0)141 (0)7591099261 (Mobile)
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: ANNE PRESCOTT <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Sent: Wed, 12 January, 2011 17:39:00
>> Subject: Re: Query: Margaret Davie (ey?), d. 1542
>>
>> Hi, Rob. I'd also mention, and way beyond the limits of my knowledge,
>> which is a whole lot less than Colin Burrow's, and even without giving it a
>> memory-refreshing glance, Randall Martin's collection of texts on women and
>> crime in the Ashgate facsimile series. My fave moment: the illustration of a
>> half-undressed murderess burning in the flames, presumably of lust and
>> hatred--but the image is identical to one from I think Foxe in which we see
>> a half-undressed Protestant martyr burning in Mary Tudor's fire and perhaps
>> in her own flames of faith. Funny, in a grim way. These Ashgate books are
>> obscenely expensive, but if you need me to look anything up in my copy (as
>> co-editor I get little money but I do get free copies), just ask and I'll
>> look for it. In any case, Randall Martin is the guy to ask. Anne.
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 5:29 PM, Colin Burrow
>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>> I don’t think there is very much in print about her apart from the
>>> reference in T.I.’s A World of Wonders, A Masse of Murders  (1595) sigs
>>> F1r-v. I imagine you have already come across Randall Martin’s Women, Murder
>>> and Equity in Early Modern England (Routledge, 2008) which mentions the case
>>> and other examples of female poisoners. T.I.’s inclusion of her case along
>>> with a catalogue of monstrous births, witches, and miscellaneous world
>>> events is (taxonomically) interesting, and I’m sure something could be said
>>> about early modern representations of female criminals in that connection.
>>> She tends in later works just to be listed in surveys of punishments for
>>> treason and in histories of poisoning. Many of the C19th and early C20th
>>> references seem to go back to Wriothesley’s Chronicle (unsurprisingly, since
>>> the Camden Soc edition dates from 1875), which gives details of where one of
>>> her set of victims lived (Coleman Street, where Justice Clement had his pad,
>>> so pretty up-market; hence I would imagine the public excitement: servants
>>> who kill rich people are clearly more exciting than servants who kill less
>>> rich people; why else do newspapers today keep telling us about the nannies
>>> of the wealthy and their wrongdoings?). Presumably T.I. worked from some
>>> source similar to Wriothesley. The inclusion of crimes in chronicles is not
>>> surprising, since executions were significant civic events; but this
>>> particular one seems to have stuck in the head. I’d imagine that if one was
>>> clever enough to work out which court she was tried in there might be some
>>> kind of early documentary record out there somewhere (and Wriothesley gives
>>> the date of her execution as 17th March 1542, which would narrow the search
>>> down) but I think I am at or beyond the limits of my expertise already.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Colin Burrow,
>>>
>>> Senior Research Fellow,
>>>
>>> All Souls College,
>>>
>>> Oxford
>>>
>>> OX1 4AL
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List
>>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stillman, Robert E
>>> Sent: 12 January 2011 21:16
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Query: Margaret Davie (ey?), d. 1542
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Dear Sidney-Spenser Group,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> This is a little off the beaten path, especially for me, but I am hoping
>>> that someone might be able to help me locate more information about a
>>> certain Margaret Davie (or Davey), who was executed as a murderer in 1542
>>>  apparently for the crime of treason, since she had poisoned her victim.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Any and all leads would be much appreciated.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks, Rob Stillman
>
>