Ashford v Thornton (1818) 106 ER 149 is an English criminal case in the Court of King's Bench which upheld the right of the defendant to trial by battle on a private appeal from an acquittal for murder.
In 1817, Abraham Thornton was charged with the murder of Mary Ashford. Thornton had met Ashford at a dance and had walked with her from the event. The next morning, she was found drowned in a pit with little evidence of violence. Public opinion was heavily against Thornton, but the jury quickly acquitted him of both murder and rape.
Mary's brother William Ashford launched an appeal, and Thornton was rearrested. Thornton claimed the right to trial by battle, a medieval usage that had never been abolished by Parliament. Ashford argued that the evidence against Thornton was overwhelming and that he was thus ineligible to wage battle.
The court decided that the evidence against Thornton was not overwhelming, and that therefore trial by battle was a permissible option under law. William Ashford declined the offer of battle, however, and Thornton was freed from custody in April 1818. Appeals such as Ashford's were abolished by statute in 1819, and with them the right to trial by battle.
Background Legal
Trial by battle was a procedure which had been brought to Britain by the Normans; it was not present in Saxon law. It was authorised in "appeals of murder", retrials by private prosecution following an acquittal for murder. If the deceased's next of kin requested such a retrial, the defendant could respond with the "wager of battle", requiring the plaintiff to settle the matter by combat with the outcome to be ordained by God. Such an offer of battle could also take place following an acquittal for treason or another felony. Appeals of murder were uncommon, had to be brought within a year and a day of the death, and were generally tried by jury. An appeal of murder was brought in Dublin in O'Reilly v Clancy in 1815, three years before Ashford v Thornton, and the defendant demanded the wager of battle. Chief Judge William Downes (later Lord Downes) asked:
No combat took place in Ireland; Clancy agreed to plead guilty and was transported for life.
It is uncertain when the last trial by battle actually took place in Britain. Some references speak of such a trial being held in 1631, but records indicate that King Charles I intervened to prevent the battle. A 1638 case is less clear; while no surviving record details the outcome of the case, the King again stepped in and judges acted to delay proceedings, and no contemporaneous account says the trial by battle actually took place. The last verified judicial battle in Britain was in Scotland in 1597, when Adam Bruntfield accused James Carmichael of murder and then killed him in battle. The last one in England occurred in 1446 when a servant accused his master of treason. The master drank much wine before the battle and was slain by the servant.
The wager of battle was not always available to the defendant in an appeal of murder. The defendant could not make the challenge if he was taken in the mainour (in the act of committing his crime), if he attempted to escape from prison, or if there was such strong evidence of guilt that there could be no effective denial. Similarly, a female plaintiff could decline the challenge, as could a plaintiff above 60 years of age, a minor plaintiff, or one who was lame or blind. Peers of the realm, priests, and citizens of the City of London could also decline the challenge to battle. In any of these cases, the trial's outcome would be determined by a jury. If the battle took place, it would occur in judicial lists, square, after taking oaths against witchcraft and sorcery. If the defendant was defeated but still alive, he was to be hanged on the spot; not even the King could pardon him from the divine judgment against him. He would go free, however, if he defeated his opponent or if he fended him off from sunrise to sunset. If the plaintiff said the word craven ("I am vanquished") and gave up the fight, he was to be declared infamous, deprived of the privileges of a freeman, and held liable for damages to his opponent.
Proposals were made in the 17th and 18th centuries to abolish trial by battle, but they were unsuccessful. In 1774, Parliament considered a bill which would have abolished appeals of murder and trials by battle in the American colonies as part of the legislative response to the Boston Tea Party. It was successfully opposed by MP John Dunning, who called the appeal of murder "that great pillar of the Constitution". Writer and MP Edmund Burke supported the abolition, calling the appeal and wager "superstitious and barbarous to the last degree".
Death of Mary Ashford
Mary Ashford was about 20 years old, working as a general servant and housekeeper to her uncle who was a farmer at Langley Heath, Warwickshire, between Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield. Her father was a gardener near Erdington. She worked as usual on 26 May 1817 and planned to attend a party that evening at The Three Tuns, a public house more commonly known as the Tyburn House. The party was an "annual club-feast and dance" which attracted a large attendance. She met her friend Hannah Cox, left her work clothes at Cox's house in Erdington (after having obtained nicer clothes from her mother's house in the same village), and journeyed to the Tyburn House, arriving there at 7:30 to find the dancing already begun.
Among those attending at the Tyburn House was Abraham Thornton, the son of a builder from Castle Bromwich. He was about 24 years old and heavyset; descriptions of him range from "well-looking young fellow" to "of repulsive appearance". When he saw Ashford, he asked someone who she was; that person later alleged that Thornton stated that he had been intimate with her sister three times, and would also be intimate with Mary Ashford or die for it. Thornton later denied this statement, which was a major source of the public animus towards him following his arrest. During the course of the evening, he was very attentive to her, and she appeared to enjoy his company.
At about 11 p.m., Cox began urging Ashford to leave. When they did, it was with Thornton, who accompanied Ashford closely, while Cox walked behind them. Instead of returning to Erdington, Ashford announced that she would go to her grandfather's house, stating that it was closer to work. This was true, but it ignored the fact that she would have to return to Erdington to obtain her working clothes in the morning. Cox journeyed to Erdington, while Ashford and Thornton went off together. At about 2:45, a labourer saw Thornton leaving a friend's house with a woman; he greeted Thornton, but the woman held her head down. Just before 4 a.m., Cox was awakened by Ashford seeking her working clothes. Ashford changed and hurried off, stating that she needed to be home before her uncle left for market. A reveller returning from Tyburn House saw her walking quickly; he was the last person known to see her alive.
At around 6 a.m., a passing labourer saw women's items near a water-filled pit. One of the items was a woman's shoe with blood on it. He raised the alarm, then he and others used a rake to find Mary Ashford's body in the pit. Two workers from a nearby factory found a series of footprints on the newly harrowed field near the pit, showing that a man and a woman had travelled together almost up to the pit, and that the man returned alone. The local mill owner went to Tyburn House to discover who had left the party with Ashford. Daniel Clarke, the landlord, began to ride towards Castle Bromwich to locate Thornton, and encountered him almost at once. He told Thornton of Ashford's death, and Thornton stated that he was with her until 4 a.m., and he went with Clarke to Tyburn.
Assistant constable Thomas Dales from Birmingham interrogated Thornton, and soon arrested him. However, Dales did not keep any notes and later proved unable to remember much of what the prisoner told him. Thornton was then examined by magistrate William Bedford, who ordered him to be searched. The search revealed that Thornton was wearing underclothing with bloodstains, and Thornton admitted having sexual intercourse with Ashford the previous night. The prisoner's shoes were removed, and the factory workers compared them with the footprints in the field; they testified at trial that they matched. A post-mortem examination revealed that Ashford died from drowning, and that the only marks on her body were two lacerations in the genital area. The examination concluded that she had been a virgin prior to the sexual act which caused the bleeding. She was menstruating at the time of her death.
Trial
An inquest was held on 30 May 1817, and was presided over by Francis Hacket, a Warwickshire magistrate who by virtue of his position as Warden of Sutton Coldfield was coroner ex officio. Thornton attended in custody, and was permitted to cross-examine witnesses through his solicitor. At the end of the proceedings, a verdict of "Wilful Murder" was returned, and Thornton was committed for trial at the next assizes in Warwick on the Coroner's Warrant. Thornton was held in the county jail pending the trial.
Local opinion was heavily against Thornton. Pamphlets were sold purporting to show Thornton's guilt, and poems were composed with the same theme. The defendant's solicitor complained of these, alleging it made it hard to find an unbiased jury. On 8 August 1817, people filled the street in front of County Hall in Warwick, where the trial was to take place. When the judge, Sir George Sowley Holroyd (a justice of the Court of King's Bench) began proceedings at 8 a.m., people rushed to fill the available seating, and the public benches remained full throughout the one-day trial. Because of the nature of the evidence, women were not permitted to witness the trial.
The prosecution's theory of the case, as told in its opening statement to the jury, was that Thornton, having failed in his attempt to seduce Ashford, lay in wait for her in the field near the pit. He knew she would have to cross the field on her return from Erdington. On perceiving him, she attempted to elude him, but he caught her and got her to accompany him into the next field. There, he threw her down and ravished her. The post-mortem showed that she had not eaten in 24 hours, and according to the prosecuting counsel, she was unable to resist and fainted. Fearing the consequences were he to be caught with an unconscious woman whom he had treated in such a manner, Thornton threw her into the pit, where she drowned. At that time, defence counsel were not permitted to address the jury, and the matter proceeded with the prosecution's case.
A number of witnesses, including Hannah Cox, testified to the events of the evening of 26 May and of the following morning. The first witnesses to attract significant cross-examination by William Reader, Thornton's barrister, were the two factory workers, William Lavell and Joseph Bird, who had matched Thornton's shoes to the footprints in the harrowed field. Under cross-examination, both admitted that it had rained heavily between the time the footprints were made and the time they attempted to match the prints. Constable Dales told the jury that Thornton admitted having sex with Ashford before he was searched: that is, before his bloodstained clothing came to light. Mr Freer, a Birmingham surgeon who conducted the post-mortem, testified as to its results, and stated that except for the vaginal lacerations, there were no signs of violence on Ashford's person, and that those cuts could have been caused by consensual sexual relations. Freer's testimony concluded the prosecution's case, and as the defendant declined to exercise his right to himself make a statement to the court, the defence began calling witnesses.