"Natheless, three did escape," said the king, "and ye will do well to publish it and set justice upon their track, for these
murthered the baron and fired the house."
"By my hilt!" cried Aylward, as the yellow flame flickered up, "it is indeed young master Ford, and I think that this seneschal is a black villain, who dare not face us in the day but would
murther us in our sleep.
He that hangs himself is a virgin; virginity
murthers itself, and should be buried in highways out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate offendress against nature.
Cawley and Barry Gaines, eds., "Two Most Unnaturall and Bloodie
Murthers," in A Yorkshire Tragedy, The Revels Plays (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986), line 56.
They killed "fifteen or sixteen" Indians, destroyed their village and crops, and killed the sachem's children "by throwing them overboard and shooting out their brains in the water." (100) After Pequot Indians in Connecticut allegedly committed a series of "cruell
murthers" in the 1630s, Puritan officials pledged to "revenge the blood of our countrimen." (101) Colonial militia and their Indian allies surrounded the Pequot camp at Mystic and shot or burned alive between 700 to 800 inhabitants.
(46) The authors (probably Greene and a collaborator) leave little doubt about the drama's selling-point: if the play is well received, they promise in the epilogue that 'The second part shall greater
murthers tell' (7).
He wrote of the "
murthers, robberies and other disorders committed on the Indian inhabitants on the coast of Labrador" and described the source of the problem as "a Banditti Lawless People resorting thither from the Plantations, particularly those from New England and the winter inhabitants from Newfoundland" (CO 194/27, f.
The Charter of New England granted in 1620 by James I to the Plymouth Company, after having noted that within "late Yeares there hath by God's Visitation raigned a wonderfull Plague, together with many horrible Slaughters, and
Murthers" which had greatly reduced the native population of the area to be settled, continued:
I cannot say, but that some such
Murthers were committed, and I think two were sent to Prison for it, but died before they could be try'd; and I have heard that three others, at several Times, were excused for
Murthers of that kind; but I must say I believe nothing of its being so common a Crime, as some have since been pleas'd to say, nor did it seem to be so rational, where the People were brought so low as not to be able to help themselves, for such seldom recovered, and there was no Temptation to commit a Murder, at least, none equal to the Fact where they were sure Persons would die in so short a Time; and could not live.
Which godly Martyrs as they could not abide beyng aliue, so neither can they now suffer their memories to lyue after their death, least the acts of them beyng knowne, might bring perhaps their wicked acts and cruell
murthers to detestation: and therfore spurne they so vehemently against this booke of histories, with all kind of contumelies and vprores, railing and wondering vpon it.
And Keep their King in fetters." There traitors trampled the law and "
Murthers Justice" and make "Truth a Lie." Desperate for any hope, Elencticus's author looked to divine intervention for the Royalist cause: he had to, for there was no earthly help.