download this issue as a PDF

present what to do with himself.’ (sad and bloody newes, pp. 7-8) John Stone then went to the barn and hanged
himself.
Not all murders which took place within beds were so strongly related to the abuse of domestic power
relations. Some were burglaries which went wrong; others were the inevitable consequences of living with
lodgers who were strangers, and even sharing a bed with them, if the cold weather made it necessary. One
widow named Elizabeth Fairbank met a gruesome end in her bed. Elizabeth was described as living in a cellar,
and therefore in relative poverty, but she did own several objects of value, including rings and plates. Her body
was discovered by the lodger who lived in the room above: ‘[she was] found dead, with her Legs tyed, hanging
down on the side of the Bed, the other part of her Body on the Bed, her Neck was broke, and she was bruised in
several Places a bloody Handkerchief found near her supposed to have been thrust into her Mouth, and so
forcibly that two of her Teeth were struck in with it, which is thought might occasion the Blood.’ 45 The widow’s
bed provided the setting for the murder, which no one was aware of, until a neighbour found Elizabeth a few
days later. The murder was charged to one John Wise, who presumably robbed the widow for her things of
value, but offered no explanation as to the barbaric nature of the murder on her bed. The decision to kill her on
the bed may reflect a sadistic abuse of gender control and the fear of rape, or, as a poor widow, the bed may
have been the only immoveable item of furniture by which John Wise could restrain Elizabeth, within her home.
This final barbaric act draws this section on the criminality and invasion of the bed to a close. In nearly all of the
cases which have been examined, the private dimensions of the bed allowed the invasions and inversions to
take place with greater ease: either because of the enclosed walls, which prevented others seeing, the bedclothes
which smothered and prevented others from hearing, or because of the vulnerable, defenceless state of
the occupants. These were not common occurrences, even within London, but they do illuminate what
happened when the safest of domestic places was thrown into disorder. In examining the bed, we can better
understand the dynamics of the early-modern household, as a busy multifunctional area of many different
people; and we can better understand the bed as an enclosed area of safety and privacy. However, the throughroutes
and multi-person nature of households also created opportunity for crime, and as the bed was that
private haven, it is unsurprising that criminals, who needed relative privacy to perpetrate their crimes, used the
space.
The bed and the themes of this paper have coincided with a significant movement in academia, toward a new
approach and understanding of the domestic sphere. The domestic sphere has been transformed from a
textually-based flat subject, to one which in recent years, has become a materially constructed space. 46 It is now
viewed as an area with walls and fabrics, all of which were constructed with meaning and intent. Consequently,
the history of a material object, located within the domestic sphere, is part of current scholarly debate. Despite
the bed providing the setting for some of the most extraordinary and moving episodes of early modern life, it
has not been the focus of study. Lawrence Wright noted that there is a gap in scholarly discourse; ‘about eight
hours in every day.’ 47
69