“Matchless monst ers of the female sex”

Men committed most violent crimes in Tudor and Stuart England. But when women murdered, the press had a field day. Blessin Adams asks what drove society's gleeful fascination with its “angels of death”

“Cruel and barbarous news from Cheapside,” thundered the headline on a 1676 pamphlet. Read on, it invited, to be horrified by the tale of an “unhuman mistriss” who attempted to cook her apprentice alive on a spit. Another news piece from 1637, which was entitled “Natures Cruell StepDames: or, Matchlesse Monsters of the Female Sex”, grimly recounted the “unnaturall murthering” of two innocent children by their mothers. Such gruesome titles might not look so very out of place on today's newsstands and magazine racks. Like us, people in early modern Britain were fascinated by tales of true crime, murder and violent death. Pamphlets and broadside ballads describing the foul deeds of cold-blooded killers were hugely popular, and were sold on street corners, posted in public houses and even sung aloud…

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Bbc History (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2025

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