Robert Foulkes(baptised 19 March 1633/34 – executed 31 January 1678/79) was aWelsh-bornEnglishChurch of Englandclericandmurderer.
Early life
editAlthough long presumed to have been a native ofShropshirein England, Foulkes was born and baptised atMallwyd,Wales, son of namesake Robert Foulkes and is known to have had an older brother, John, with whom he attendedShrewsbury Schoolin 1648–49.[1]
Priesthood
editFoulkes, according toAnthony à Wood,"became aservitorofChrist Church, Oxford,in Michaelmas term 1651, where he continued more than four years, under the tuition and government ofPresbyteriansand independents. Afterwards entering into thesacredfunction he became apreacher,and at lengthvicarofStanton Lacyin his own county ofShropshire,and took to him a wife. "[2]
Three years before his induction as vicar at Stanton Lacy on 12 September 1660, Foulkes married on 7 September 1657 atLudlow parish church,Isabella, daughter of Thomas Colbatch (died 1637), a deceased former rector of the same parish.[3]The couple had four children, born between 1665 and 1673.[4]
Isabella had been brought up in the home of Stanton Lacy's previous vicar, Thomas Atkinson (died 1657).[5]Among other children, Atkinson left a daughter, Ann (born about 1650), with whom Foulkes began a relationship rumoured to be going on as early as 1669.[6]Foulkes, who had been a zealous preacher in the early years of his incumbency, was reportedly seen publicly misbehaving with Ann and became a heavy drinker at local alehouses.
There was speculation when Ann was sent away from the parish to give birth atWest Feltonto an illegitimate baby girl, born in or about May 1674, held to have been sent for fostering by a wet-nurse elsewhere; the child'spaternitywas never firmly proved but was allegedly Foulkes's.[7]
In the summer of 1676, Foulkes was admonished by theBishop of Hereford,Herbert Croft,after complaints about the relationship and other misbehaviour were brought before aconsistory courtin Ludlow,[8]and he also reportedly beat his wife and a churchwarden who tried to intervene at his rectory house on the same night, after drinking at abowlingmatch.[9]
Murder and conviction
editHeseducedthe young lady who resided with him, took a lodging for her in York Buildings in theStrand,and there made away with the child that was born on 11 December 1678, by stabbing it in the throat with a knife and disposing of the body down a privy emptying into theRiver Thames.[10]Contrary to popular assertion, given in two contemporary pamphlets, the child was not strangled by him.[11]The next morning, he returned to Shropshire. When the body was found "by a Strange Providence",[12]Atkinson eventually made a fullconfession.
Foulkes wastriedandconvictedat theOld Baileysessions,16 January 1678–9. After receivingsentencehe manifested greatpenitence,and was visited by several eminent divines, among whom wasGilbert Burnet.William Lloyd,dean of Bangor, who came to him the very evening after his condemnation, managed to obtain for him, through Compton,Bishop of London,a few days' reprieve, which he employed in writing forty pages of cant, entitled "An Alarme for Sinners: containing theConfession,Prayers,Letters, andLast Wordsof Robert Foulkes,… with an Account of his Life. Published from the Original, Written with his own hand,… and sent by him at his Death to Doctor Lloyd ", quarto, London 1679. He speaks of his unfortunate companion with ill-concealed malignity. On the morning of 31 January 1678–9 he wasexecutedatTyburn,"not with other commonfelons,but by himself ", and was buried by night atSt. Giles-in-the-Fields.
References
edit- ^Klein, Peter (2005).The Temptation and Downfall of the Vicar of Stanton Lacy.Merlin Unwin Books. pp. 27–28.ISBN1-873674-71-6.
- ^Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 1195
- ^The Temptation and Downfall of the Vicar of Stanton Lacy.p. 29.
- ^The Temptation and Downfall of the Vicar of Stanton Lacy.p. 115.
- ^The Temptation and Downfall of the Vicar of Stanton Lacy.pp. 25, 29.
- ^The Temptation and Downfall of the Vicar of Stanton Lacy.p. 114.
- ^The Temptation and Downfall of the Vicar of Stanton Lacy.pp. 38–43.
- ^The Temptation and Downfall of the Vicar of Stanton Lacy.pp. 43–46.
- ^The Temptation and Downfall of the Vicar of Stanton Lacy.pp. 47–50.
- ^The Temptation and Downfall of the Vicar of Stanton Lacy.pp. 100–102.
- ^The Temptation and Downfall of the Vicar of Stanton Lacy.p. 189.
- ^The Temptation and Downfall of the Vicar of Stanton Lacy.p. 103.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:"Foulkes, Robert".Dictionary of National Biography.London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.