ABSTRACT
The murder of Sir John Tindall caused a great stir in 1616. After losing a lawsuit in the notoriously slow and disreputable Court of Chancery, septuagenarian John Barterham (elsewhere his name is spelled “Bertram”) determined to murder the master who decided the case against him on the grounds that he was ridding England of a corrupt official who was prone to bribery and bias. The murder quickly came to the attention of Sir Francis Bacon, the attorney general, who was so alarmed at the murder of one of the king’s judges that he interrogated Barterham personally. There is some evidence that Bacon commissioned this chapbook to send a clear message to readers about how disputes of this nature should be handled. Even though Barterham lost his suit in Chancery, which the author admits might well have been a result of corruption or bribery, the unhappy litigant had the opportunity to petition the king’s privy council for better treatment at law, or to appeal to the king, who was the fount of justice and the ultimate arbiter of the law. Magistrates were subject to human frailties, made errors in law, and were sometimes corrupt, but instead of resorting to the mechanisms that existed to resolve his dispute and showing patience and forbearance, Barterham took the law into his own hands and then took his own life, rather than showing the “selfsame stoutness of mind” and “masculine fortitude” to “defend his act” in court and die with “his former courage”. The author makes it clear that no amount of judicial error or corruption authorized Barterham (or anybody reading this story) to take the law into his own hands. Yet, the chapbook was also a warning to those who adjudge legal matters that they must avoid bias, corruption, or bribery because they held a sacred trust and might end up the same way as Sir John.
