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customs, rituals and interactions throughout the period. 23 This was followed by Craig Koslofky’s book, in which
he claimed nocturnalisation was an early modern phenomenon: where new public spheres ‘challenged the
invisible world of ghosts and witches.’ 24 Both arguments have validity. However, the bed was considered a
supernatural, ritualistic and revered space. Diarists recorded strange and disturbing dreams, which given the
relative wealth of the writers, usually took place within their oak-framed beds. 25 Coupled with this, Lucinda
Becker noted that when a person was on their deathbed, it was not uncommon for those present (usually
women) to claim to see ghosts in the chamber and around the bed. (Becker, p. 33) Even if there were challenges
to the supernatural aspect of the bed space and of night, as noted by Koslofky, these frightening associations
continued to linger in the mind-set of people. When criminals invaded the bed space, vulnerable people were
thrown into complete terror, as the oak walls and damask curtains became a space which concealed crimes,
and prevented escape. By using records from the Old Bailey in London, we are able to understand how people
reacted when this happened.
Burglary was one means by which a criminal could violate the bed space, intruding into a private sphere,
dragging a barbaric, criminal and public element into the domestic refuge. Amanda Vickery has noted that there
was a recognised cultural distinction between ‘robberies’ which took place during the day and ‘burglaries’
which happened at night. The definition of burglary was also to do with forcibly breaking into a private sphere
(and a privately owned one). 26 So the definition was to do with the hour of the day, the ‘breaking in’ and the
intrusion of a dwelling, where people were residing. The perpetrators were considered to be of a more vile and
immoral character than their counterparts who stole from market stalls, and the punishment for burglary was
often death, rather than branding or whipping. 27 To assault the owners of the house, who had been sleeping in
their beds, clearly took the magnitude of stealing one step further. 28 For example, on 29 April 1674, one
Thomas Mullinex, with a group of unnamed men, broke into the home of a Walter Carey. 29 Walter and his wife
were sleeping in their bed, when Mulllinex ‘claping a Pistol to his [Walter’s] breast as he lay in his bed… forced
him to lie still, and caused his Lady to rise to shew the rest of his Comrades where her mony lay, with the
manner of their taking.’ The thieves made off with the money, although they were later apprehended. This type
of invasive criminality violated the domestic tranquillity of the bed space. In Middlesex, Mrs Haris was burgled
in 1679: ‘between one and two in the morning where in the company of three more entering, surprised the
Woman and Children in her bed, and roaled them up in the Bed-cloaths, till some of them [the thieves]
ransacked the Houses… who approaching her bed side with dark Lanthorn [lanter] and two strings, bound her
Hand and Foot.’ 30 The binding of the widow’s hands and feet, beside her young children, transformed the family
sphere into a terrifying, sinister place. A second court document, pertaining to the same crime, described how
the criminals had secured the family by ‘almost smothering her and her children with the Bed-clothes.’ 31 This
alerts us to a particular fear which was reserved purely for the bed: smothering or suffocation. Bed-clothes and
fabrics were intimate objects, intended to bring warmth, comfort and relaxation. To use them as potential
murder weapons was to invert their purpose. Both of these crimes were doubtlessly terrifying experiences: the
intrusion of the bed space by a thief, particularly when the occupants were in the bed, was deemed much worse
than stealing from an empty bed (which harsh sentences attest to).
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