Oxford Inscriptions: Inside Old County Hall (the Black Assize of 1577)
Near this Spot stood the ancient
Shire Hall.
unhappily famous in History as the Scene in
July 1577,
of the BLACK ASSIZE,
when a malignant disease, known as the Gaol fever,
caused the death, within forty days, of
THE LORD CHIEF BARON (SIR ROBERT BELL)
THE HIGH SHERIFF (SIR ROBERT DOYLY
of Merton),
and about three hundred more.
The Malady from the stench of the Prisoners developed
itself during the Trial of one Rowland Jenkes, a saucy
foul mouthed Bookseller, for scandalous words uttered
against the Queen.
—————
Anno 1875
J.M.D.
pie posuit
John Marriott Davenport (J.M.D), Clerk of the Peace for the County of Oxford, piously erected (“pie posuit”) this plaque in the year 1875 on the wall of County Hall (now known as Old County Hall) in New Road. Jackson's Oxford Journal on 11 December 1875 reported that the plaque, erected a few weeks earlier, originally had the wrong date (1575) and had to be relettered.
The “Black Assize” at Shire Hall in July 1577 killed the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Sir Robert Bell, and the Lord High Sheriff Sir Robert D'Oyly of Merton, who was a descendant of Robert D'Oyly who built Oxford Castle. Hollinshed, however, refers to “Sir Robert de Olie” and “Master de Olie, high shiriffe” as both having died, so it is possible that the two have been conflated in the above inscription.
Gaol fever is now understood to be typhus. (There were however rumours that Jenkes had poisoned the assembly.)
Until 1577 the courts met in the Shire Hall which was also in the castle yard, but that building was abandoned after this catastrophic event. Assizes and county quarter sessions moved to the town hall, where they remained until the [Old] County Hall opened in 1841.
- Wikipedia: Black Assize of Oxford 1577
- An account of the Black Assize at Oxford from the Register of Merton College (first part in Latin)
Rowland Jenkes (sometimes Jenks, Jencks or Jenckes)
Jenkes was an Oxford bookseller & stationer and is likely to be the Rowlandus Jenkes who married Alicia Ford at All Saints Church in Oxford on 29 June 1572.
He spoke out against the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I with his "seditious toong” and also sold Roman Catholic literature, for which he was sentenced at the Black Assize of 1577 to have his ears nailed to the stocks (from which he was at liberty to cut himself free).
Campion Hall shows on this page a copy of the Rationes Decem now at Winchester, one of 400 copies that Jenkes stab-stiched in Oxford in 1581. This shows that he was still in Oxford four years after his conviction.
It appears that he was back in gaol in Oxford in 1588, and when released he went to the English College at Douai, where he died there in 1610.
Contemporary accounts of the Black Assize
14 May 1577 (from the Privy Council Registers):
A lettre to Mr. Attorney and Sollicitor Generall that whereas there is one Jenks, a stationer of Oxford, there detected for matters conteyned in certen articles wch they shall receve wth his and other his accusers examinacions. They are required to examyne him anew upon the said articles, and as they shall finde him culpable to to procede against him, according to the lawes of the realme provided in that behalf.
4 July–17 August 1577 (from Wood's Annals):
Rowland Jencks, a stationer of Oxford, was taken and conveyed away, his house searched for bulls, libels, and such like things against the Queen and the religion now established, and all his goods seized on. But after he had been examined at London, he was sent to Oxford again to be committed to prison, and stand to a trial the next Assizes following, and receive that punishment or doom which the Judge should think equal to his crimes.
The Assizes therefore being come, which began the 4th July, and continued two days after in the court-house at the Castle-yard, the said Jencks was arraigned and condemned in the presence of a great number of people to lose his ears. Judgment being passed and the prisoner taken away, there arose such infectious damp or breath among the people, that many there present, to the apprehensions of most men, were then smothered, and others so deeply infected that they lived not many hours after. Of which passages here I pray what death partly says in a doleful ditty that was published about this time:—
“Thinke you on the solemne Sizes past
How sodenly in Oxfordshire
I came and made the judges all agast,
And justices that did appear;
And took both Bell and Baram away,
And many a worthy man that day,
And all their bodies brought to clay.”The persons that then died were infected by the said damp, when sentence was passed, were Sir Robert Bell, Baron of the Exchequer, Sir Nich. Barham, Serjeant at Law, both stiff enemies to the R. Cath. Religion; Sir Rob. Doiley, Wenman, Danvers, Fettiplace, and Harcourt, Justices of the Peace; Kerle, Greenwood, Nash, and Forster, gentlemen; besides most of the Jury, with many others, that died with a day or two after. Above 600 sickened in one night, as a physician that now lived in Oxford attesteth; and the day after, the infectious air being carried into the next villages, sickend there an hundred more.
The 15, 16, and 17 day of July sickend also above 300 persons, and within 12 days space died an hundred scholars, besides many citizens. The number of persons that died in five weeks space, namely from the 6 of July to the 12 of Aug. (for no longer this violent infection) were 300 in Oxford, and 200 and odd in other places; so that the whole number that died in that time were 510 persons, of whom many bled till they expired.
4, 5, & 6 July 1577: Raphael Holinshed's account of the Black Assize ((Chronicles, iii, p. 1270):
The fourth, fift, and sixt day of Julie, the assises being holden at Oxford, there was arreigned and condemned one Rowland Jenkes for his seditious toong, at which time there arose amidst the people such a dampe that almost all were smouldered, verie few escaping that were not taken at the instant: iurors died presentlie, shortlie after died Sir Robert Bell, lord chiefe baron; Sir Robert de Olie; Sir William Babington; Master de Olie, high shiriffe; Master Davers, Masster Hercombe, Master Kirle, Master Phetipace, Master Greenewood, Master Foster, Master Nash, Sergeant Baram, Master Stephens, &c. There died in the Town of Oxford three hundred persons, and sickened there but died in other places two hundred and od from the sixt of Julie to the twelve of August, after which daie died not one of that sickness, for one of them infected not an other, nor anie one woman or child died thereof.
4 August 1577: Extract of a letter from Lord Burghley to the Earl of Shrewsbury:
My very good Lord,
I have received nothing of any moment from the courte at this tyme, otherwise than this of the mortalitie happened in Oxfordshire; wher ther are deade Sr Robert Doyly, and an uncle of his, Mr. Danvers, of Banbury, Mr. Wayneman, and the most parte of all the freehoulders that were at the Assises in Oxford; fiftie schollers and twenty townesmen are deade.