The Poisoner’s Art
February 20, 2010, 5:04 pm
The Sydney Morning Herald this morning uses the recent case of London’s “Curry Killer” to introduce in a brief history of the poisoner’s art. Although many of their examples are familiar, I had not been aware that in 1531 Britain’s Henry VIII* established the Poysoning Acte, ruling that all convicted poisoners be boiled alive. For a more complete history of poisoning through the ages, see this from the BBC.
*Correction (Feb. 22, 2010): The original post inadvertently repeated an error in the Sydney Morning Herald piece. It was Henry VIII, not Henry VII, who established the Poysoning Acte in 1531. See comment below.
Robin Gleaves Says:
Interesting stuff. There is a minor mistake in the SMH article taken from the Telegraph’s article* It wasn’t Henry VII, he died in 1509, but his more famous son, Henry VIII.
* http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/7231018/Poison-An-alarming-revival-of-a-dying-art.html#postComment
February 22nd, 2010
Leon Says:
Robin: Thanks for pointing out that correction. It was indeed Henry VIII, who ruled from 1509- 1547.
February 22nd, 2010
Robin Gleaves Says:
Leon
I am keen to avoid my post being seen like that xkcd comic:
http://xkcd.com/386/
So I must explain that I am a bit of a Henry VII fan and when I saw the story I was interested to find another new fact about him. I quickly realised the date error when I clicked through.
HVII is so often overshadowed by HVIII and consequently he is not as widely known about. For example, he turned down Columbus’ brother Bartholomew’s request to fund ‘that’ expedition, long before funding Cabot. He had to fight off rebellion and two pretenders, was the first British monarch to issue gold sovereigns, amongst many other things. To top it off, Francis Bacon wrote his biography.
March 6th, 2010
Robin Gleaves Says:
Back again, just spotted (whilst looking for something else) that the Poisoning Act was in 1530 not 1531.
This year also saw, inter alia, the Aliens Act, the Bridges Act, the Butchers Act and the Egyptians Act!
See:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:List_of_Acts_of_Parliament_of_the_English_Parliament#1531_.2823_Hen._VIII.29
April 9th, 2010