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Rape was a horrific invasion of the comforting functions of the bed space, although the act did not have to take
place within the bed to produce the same terrifying, damaging and horrific experience for a victim. In fact, a
woman who claimed to be raped in a bed, particularly if it was by her husband, was more unlikely to win her
case, than a woman who was raped elsewhere. The jury asked; why had a woman gone into a chamber with a
man? Why had she clambered into a cupboard bed without being a willing partner? When one word was
against another, the man’s voice was likely to win, except when there was overwhelming evidence. In 1680, one
‘priest of the prison house’ was brought before the courts for ‘the spoiling of a girl of nine years.’ 32 After
sexually abusing the child, the priest, who was named Dowdel ‘threw her upon his Bed (having made his Door
fast with a Stick) fell upon her, pull'd up her Coats; and hurt her with something, insomuch that she cryed out;
but he stopt her mouth with the Bed-cloaths.’ During the court case it emerged that Dowdel had abused the girl
several times within his bed chamber. As with the cases of burglaries, bed clothes were used to silence the
victim. Dowdel’s sentence was not recorded in the document. Similarly, a Turk named Mustapha Pochowachett,
was brought before the court for buggery with a boy of about fourteen. The two shared a bed (as master and
apprentice, which was not unusual) and one night the Turk forced himself upon the young boy as they lay in
bed: ‘upon which the Boy cried out, to prevent which he [Pochowachett] stopt his Mouth with the Pillow. 33
Pochowachett was found guilty of buggery (with or without consent) and sentenced to death.
Silencing the victim with bed clothes may have prevented immediate discovery, but it was important in terms
of consent too. If a rape victim did not cry out from the bed, then consent was called into question. 34 Therefore
the bed clothes or pillows could be instrumental in rape cases. For example, in 1677, a ‘lusty man’ was brought
before the court for the rape of a ‘certain woman.’ She described how he ‘sudden flung her on the bed, and there
by violence against her consent had his will of her.’ 35 The woman’s word was called into question when she
failed to explain why she did not cry out, and the man was found not guilty. On another occasion, a young
female servant, named Sarah Paine, claimed that her mistress’s son, William Woodbridge ‘crept through a Hole
that had been formerly made in the Wall, and surprising her in Bed, by Violence obtained his Will on her; She
being asked, Why she did not cry out? replyed, That he stopt her mouth, and threatned to knock her Brains out
if she did.’ 36
Those types of murder which occurred within beds typically reflect a deliberate abuse of domestic power
relations. The clearest examples of this are cases of infanticide. The mother’s bed was frequently the area in
which murder took place, or where the body was concealed. In 1677, one woman was ‘delivered of a Bastardchilde,
made shift, by her wickedness, to deprive the poor Infant of that life she had contributed to by her
wantonness. She pretended it came by its untimely end, by falling from her body on the floor whilst she
unhumanely went from the bed towards the door; but she concealing it above a week under her Pillow.’ 37
Infanticide within the bed and the hiding of the body within the bedding were rare occurrences but not
unheard of. In 1687, one Margaret Dine committed the same crime: ‘Condemned for murthering her Bastard-
Childe, which she most unnaturally kill'd and hid in her bed for some days.’ 38 In 1677, another unnamed
woman ‘did at last take out of the Bed a cold naked dead Child, which had, as appeared, been wrapt up in a
Cloth, and seemed to have [dead] been a day or two.’ 39 One final example tells the same story, this time of a
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