COURT REPORTER:I am the court reporter.
COURT REPORTER:Since 1674, every trial that's been played out between these walls at London's Old Bailey court, every single one of them, has been faithfully recorded by a reporter like me.
COURT REPORTER:I sat just here. I wrote down what was said by whom.
COURT REPORTER:'And now you, some while later can listen in.
COURT REPORTER:'You can put your ear to the walls and hear once again these voices from the past.'
COURT REPORTER:Now here's a case to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.
COURT REPORTER:'Here's a case that speaks to the dark heart of fear in every man.
COURT REPORTER:'A case, so shocking so gruesome that beyond these walls, there is much easy talk of it.' Bloody murder no less.
COURT REPORTER:'The year, is 1726.'
COURT REPORTER:Two young men Billings and Wood, have already been found guilty of their hands in this deadly deed.
COURT REPORTER:But today, the light will shine on the part played by another' who you might say is in some very deep water.
JUDGE:Silence in the court! Order!
COURT ANNOUNCER:Catherine Hayes is indicted for petty treason in being traitorously present, comforting and maintaining the said Thomas Billings in the murder of the said John Hayes, er husband.
COURT REPORTER:A murder? And a woman accused no less.
COURT REPORTER:And for a woman to dispose of her husband amounts to a crime more heinous than just plain murder. It's called petty treason.
COURT REPORTER:By definition, the betrayal of a master by his subordinate.
COURT REPORTER:Be a traitor to one's husband and face the punishment considered equal to the crime.
JUDGE:It has already been established that Thomas Billings and Thomas Woods were equal parties to the murder of John Hayes.
JUDGE:What we have to establish today is the part played by the said John Hayes' wife, Catherine Hayes who stands before you.
JUDGE:Catherine Hayes, How do you plea to the indictment set down before you?
CATHERINE HAYS:Not guilty, sir.
JUDGE:Speak up woman.
CATHERINE HAYS:Not guilty, sir.
CATHERINE HAYS:I did not do it, I–
PROSECUTOR:I will show without question how this wife, this mother, went to some pains to see to the demise of he who she should unquestioningly serve.
PROSECUTOR:Firstly, I will show how on the day in question, Hayes and her accomplices set out to inebriate Mr. Hayes. To dupe him in to drunkenness and render him unable to defend his own person.
PROSECUTOR:I call my first witness, Mr. John Blakesley.
JOHN BLAKESLEY:I swear by almighty god, that the evidence I give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
PROSECUTOR:John Blakesley. You are resident at The Braun's Head in New Bond Street.
JOHN BLAKESLEY:That's where I am sir yes.
PROSECUTOR:When did you see the accused?
JOHN BLAKESLEY:March the 1st last. Around four in the afternoon.
JOHN BLAKESLEY:'The prisoner and two of the men who pleaded guilty came into our house for six quarts of Mountain, which she paid for at the bar and then saw it put into bottles.
JOHN BLAKESLEY:'About nine, this same night, one of those two men, brought back the empty bottles and had another quart of wine away with him.'
PROSECUTOR:In your qualified opinion then, this is quite a quantity of wine, is it not?
JOHN BLAKESLEY:It is a fair quantity sir, yes by all accounts.
PROSECUTOR:Thank you, Mr. Blakesley. I should like to call upon the neighbour of Mr. Hayes, Mrs. Mary Springett.
PROSECUTOR:Can you tell us Mrs. Springett, in your own words exactly what you saw and heard on the day in question.
MRS SPRINGETT:Well I'd been out all day at work and returned about eight or nine at night. My husband told me there'd been great merry-making below. Drinking and dancing and singing.
MRS SPRINGETT:Well I was tired and I wanted to go to bed but I was willing first to know that their liquor was almost out
MRS SPRINGETT:'and so I came down and tapped at the door and asked her if they'd almost done drinking. "Aye child," says she. "I'm just not going to bed."
MRS SPRINGETT:'And so up I goes again. And not long after I heard the door open.
MRS SPRINGETT:'I called and asked who it was that went out. "Oh," says she, "tis my husband."'
CATHERINE HAYS:He's gone into the country with a charge of money. I'm frightened out of my wits that he should be murdered. I've never met such an obstinate man in all my life when he gets a little liquor.
CATHERINE HAYS:There was no persuading him to stay till morning.
CATHERINE HAYS:I fear he has been set upon by some wicked rogue or other who might have knocked him on the head for his money.
MRS SPRINGETT:I went into my own room but had not been there long before I heard something drawling along the floor.
MRS SPRINGETT:'I looked out and I saw the two men that was with her go out at the door.
MRS SPRINGETT:'In a little time, I heard another bustling below.
MRS SPRINGETT:'I heard the men going out again and I stepped to the stair bed and looked down.'
MRS SPRINGETT:The next day which was Thursday I saw Wood, go out with a bundle and turn down Swallow Street.
MRS SPRINGETT:Well I asked her, what that bundle was. "Why," says she, "tis a suit of clothes."
MRS SPRINGETT:Oh pray Mistress Hayes, tell me what is the matter?
CATHERINE HAYS:Nothing Mrs. Springett, I beg you, make yourself easy.
PROSECUTOR:Gentlemen. I will show that this account is consistent with what occurred next.
PROSECUTOR:The very next day, there was an horrific discovery.
PROSECUTOR:'Some poor soul, came upon a head, found floating close to the shore of the river Thames, quite separated from the body to which it was once attached.
PROSECUTOR:'This head, gentlemen, was raised on a spike and stood in the church yard of St. Margaret's that anyone recognising the features might give some account of the person.
PROSECUTOR:'Later, the arms thighs and legs of a man cut asunder were found wrapped in a blanket in a pond by Marylebone.'
PROSECUTOR:Mrs. Springett, what did you know of the head that was found?
MRS SPRINGETT:The head that was thrown into the Thames at Millbank and the pail that it was carried in was both brought to me at the gatehouse to see if I knew them,
MRS SPRINGETT:and I did know that the head was Mr. Hayes' and that the pail, was his pail.
PROSECUTOR:This being the said pail, Mrs. Springett?
MRS SPRINGETT:Yes sir, that pail sir.
PROSECUTOR:Gentlemen, the heart of this case is dark indeed.
PROSECUTOR:What you have seen and heard so far, you will have noted, is entirely circumstantial.
PROSECUTOR:And yet, the woman who stands before you has herself, in her own words, given a clear confession nd account of her hand in the murder of her husband.
PROSECUTOR:I call my next witness Mr. Watkins.
PROSECUTOR:Mr. Watkins. You made a visit to the prisoner after she was taken to Newgate, did you not?
MR WATKINS:-I went to visit her several times.
MR WATKINS:"For god's sake," says I, "what could put it into your head "to commit such a barbarous murder on your own husband?"
MR WATKINS:"Why," says she, "I can't account
MR WATKINS:"but that the devil put it into my head."
CATHERINE HAYS:The devil put itself in here and I couldn't get it out. John Hayes was never the best of husbands for I have been half starved ever since I was married
CATHERINE HAYS:but I do not repent for anything that I have done. Only for drawing those two poor men into this misfortune.
PROSECUTOR:And what account did she give of the night in question?
MR WATKINS:-What she said was this. "My husband was made so drunk "that he fell out of his chair–"
CATHERINE HAYS:and Billings and Wood carried him into the back room and laid him on the bed.
CATHERINE HAYS:'They told me that Billings, struck him over the head twice with a pole axe and Wood cut his throat.'
CATHERINE HAYS:When he was dead, I went into the room and held the candle and Wood cut his head quite off.'
CATHERINE HAYS:And then afterwards, they cut off his legs and his arms.
MR WATKINS:And why did you use your husband in such an inhumane manner?
CATHERINE HAYS:Because we wanted to get him into an old chest
CATHERINE HAYS:but he was too long and too big.
CATHERINE HAYS:We thought we could do it by cutting off his head and his legs,
CATHERINE HAYS:and then we was forced to cut off his arms, and his thighs, but the chest wouldn't hold them all.
CATHERINE HAYS:So the body and the limbs were wrapped in blankets and thrown into a pond.
MR WATKINS:"And what," says I, "can you say for yourself when you come before the judge"
CATHERINE HAYS:I'll hold up my hand and say that I am guilty, for nothing can save me nobody can forgive me.
PROSECUTOR:So she clean confessed it?
PROSECUTOR:Mr. Watkins, you saw the prisoner again soon after, did you not? And the account she gave of herself had altered, I believe?
MR WATKINS:-"I am glad you come." Says she–
CATHERINE HAYS:For the men that did the murder have been taken. They have confessed it.
CATHERINE HAYS:For I was not with them, see, the night that they did it. For I was sat upon a stool by the fire but I heard the first blow being given, and I heard somebody stamp.
MR WATKINS:And why did not you cry out?
CATHERINE HAYS:Because I was afraid they'd kill me too.
MR WATKINS:"At what," said I, "was the first occasion of you contriving to do this." "Why," she says "my husband came home drunk "and he beat me."
CATHERINE HAYS:Billings said "This fellow deserves to be killed."
CATHERINE HAYS:Woods said he'd be his butcher for a penny and I told them that they might do as they would.
CATHERINE HAYS:So they made a contrivance to kill him.
MR WATKINS:Why did you not tell you husband of this design to murder him?
CATHERINE HAYS:Because I was afraid he might beat me again.
MR WATKINS:She spoke much of Mr. Hayes
MR WATKINS:beating and mortifying her
MR WATKINS:and sometimes breaking her ribs and bones
MR WATKINS:and of him having murdered two new-born children of hers.
PROSECUTOR:-Thank you Mr. Watkins. That will be all.
PROSECUTOR:May I remind you gentlemen that the woman hath confessed it. And then she tried to confess it again in a manner that might lessen her part but her guilt in this matter is plain to see. She importuned Wood and Billings to do her bidding.
PROSECUTOR:She stood watch whilst one of them struck him with an axe and the other took a knife to his throat.
PROSECUTOR:And then for a final indignity she held a candle close whilst they cut off the unfortunate's head.
JUDGE:Gentlemen.
JUDGE:You must do your duty and decide the defendant's part. Bearing in mind all that you have heard in cool assessment of the facts before you.
COURT REPORTER:So now they must decide the fate of a woman who stands accused of the charge of petty treason.
COURT REPORTER:They never take long. A few hushed whispers and the matter will be settled.
JUDGE:Have you reached your verdict?
JUROR:On the charge of petty treason we find the defendant, Catherine Hayes - guilty.
JUDGE:Catherine Hayes, I sentence you to be burnt at the stake.
COURT REPORTER:Catherine Hayes will face a grizzly fate. Burnt to death at the stake.
COURT REPORTER:Her story might remain untold -
COURT REPORTER:how she came to such a place
COURT REPORTER:but her name will be remembered though be it a sombre epitaph.
COURT REPORTER:Catherine Hayes will be the last woman ever to be burnt at the stake for the crime of petty treason.
A historic trial, dramatised from the Old Bailey archives, exploring the case of Catherine Hays, on trial for murdering her husband in 1726.
A severed head is found floating in the Thames. It is the husband of Catherine Hays.
Witness accounts, and Hays’ own testimony, reveal that she persuaded and helped others to kill him, but they also reveal how he abused her.
The court shows no mercy and Catherine Hays is sentenced to be burnt at the stake.
The case is played out in the court room with dramatic flashbacks to illustrate the crime. The court reporter sets the scene and offers insight and context.
Contains scenes some viewers may find disturbing. Teacher review recommended before viewing.
This film is from the series Tales from the Old Bailey.
Teacher Notes
This sensational court case should immediately hook the interest of pupils.
They could consider why murder by a woman was so shocking at the time and the extent to which it might still be so in the present day.
Pupils could consider how modern forensics might have added to the evidence presented in the case and decide whether the prosecution actually had enough evidence to convict Catherine Hays. They could debate the relative fairness or otherwise of the trial procedure.
Pupils could be asked to suggest a possible defence for Catherine Hays and to write and perform speeches summarising their thinking.
Details of the sentence could be deliberately withheld so that pupils can be asked to guess what it might be. Once it is known, references can be made to the kinds of past crimes usually associated with the sentence, for example heresy and witchcraft.
Pupils could also consider why the term 'petty treason' may no longer be used in law but the term 'treason' itself still is.
This film could become an object of study in itself as historical interpretation. Pupils could consider the likely accuracy of the film, what can be inferred from it and what further information might be researched about this case or the period. For example, they could consider how much of the original source material, on which the film is based, may have been included and how much might have been edited out or altered and why. (The language may have been simplified for a school audience.)
Curriculum Notes
These clips are relevant for teaching history at Key Stage 2 and Second level, particularly when studying the Georgians.
More Tales from the Old Bailey
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The Grave Robber. video
After a grave in the churchyard is found empty, the vicar and his surgeon son are both put on trial for body-snatching.
The Suffragettes. video
Emmeline Pankhurst, a leading suffragette, is on trial for inciting others to commit criminal acts during the campaign for women's right to vote.
The Thief Taker General. video
The Thief Taker General, Jonathan Wild, is on trial for organising robberies and then benefiting from returning the stolen goods to the victims.
