The last speech and confession of Sarah Elestone at the place of execution who was burned for killing her husband, April 24. 1678. With her deportment in prison since her condemnation. With allowance. Elestone, Sarah, d. 1678. 1678 Approx. 8 KB of XML-encoded text transcribed from 7 1-bit group-IV TIFF page images. Text Creation Partnership, Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) : 2004-11 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1). A49649 Wing L504F ESTC R216652 99828377 99828377 32804 This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal . The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Early English books online. (EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A49649) Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 32804) Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 1953:4) The last speech and confession of Sarah Elestone at the place of execution who was burned for killing her husband, April 24. 1678. With her deportment in prison since her condemnation. With allowance. Elestone, Sarah, d. 1678. [2], 5, [1] p. : ill. Printed for T.D., [London] : 1678. Place of publication from Wing. Reproduction of the original in Dr. Williams's Library. Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford. Re-processed by University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. Gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. EEBO-TCP is a partnership between the Universities of Michigan and Oxford and the publisher ProQuest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by ProQuest via their Early English Books Online (EEBO) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). The general aim of EEBO-TCP is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic English-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in EEBO. EEBO-TCP aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the Text Encoding Initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). The EEBO-TCP project was divided into two phases. The 25,363 texts created during Phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 January 2015. Anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. Users should be aware of the process of creating the TCP texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. Text selection was based on the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (NCBEL). If an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in NCBEL, then their works are eligible for inclusion. Selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. In general, first editions of a works in English were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably Latin and Welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. Image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. Quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in Oxford and Michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet QA standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. After proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. Any remaining illegibles were encoded as s. Understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of TCP data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. Users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a TCP editor. The texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the TEI in Libraries guidelines. Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements). Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site . eng Elestone, Sarah, d. 1678 -- Early works to 1800. Last words -- Early works to 1800. Executions and executioners -- Early works to 1800. Murder -- England -- Early works to 1800. 2004-06 TCP Assigned for keying and markup 2004-06 Apex CoVantage Keyed and coded from ProQuest page images 2004-07 Mona Logarbo Sampled and proofread 2004-07 Mona Logarbo Text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-10 pfs Batch review (QC) and XML conversion THE LAST Speech and Confession OF Sarah Elestone At the place of Execution : Who was BURNED FOR Killing her Husband , April 24. 1678. With her Deportment in Prison since her Condemnation . With Allowance . Printed for T. D. 1678. THE Last Speech and Confession of Sarah Elstone , & , DId we not make our selves miserable , God is so merciful to us , as he would make us happy ; but when we with high and presumptions hands , violate the laws of nature and Grace , of Earth and Heaven , in murthering those whom through duty and affection we are bound to obey , honour , cherish and preserve : Then we need not marvel because we first forsook God that he afterwards abandoneth us to our selves and sins , and to the fruits thereof , misery , Infamy , and Pardition : And that we may see humane cruelty to be justly met with and punished by Gods upright and divine justice . A terrible instance we have here before us ; we see a wretched Wife guilty of the death of her own Husband . A sad and execrable Fact , for the which we see her rewarded with condign punishment , and with a sharp and infamous death , but not so deplorable as deserved : It is so bitter , unhumane , and bloody a Fact , that it must needs draw tears from our eyes if we have any room for pity or piety . IN Three-Faulken-Court , over against St. Margarets-hill , in Southwark , lately lived one Sarah Elestone , the late Wife of Thomas Elestone , a Felt-maker : a man very laborious in his calling , aged about forty years , and his Wife forty-six years old : they lived many years very contentedly , she assisting him in his calling in what she was able : till such time as falling into the acquaintance of some lewd women , she was drawn to commit that filthy sin of drunkenness ▪ which after a little practising of it , she became harden'd in it , and learn'd to swear by her Maker and to prophain the Lords Day , and hate good men ; such an alteration there was perceived in her , that several of her Husbands acquaintance desired him to do all that he could to reclaim her , telling him also that it was his duty , to which he answered , That he hoped God would turn her from these evil courses , but he for his part could do no good with her , for she was so obstinate , that the more he said to her the worse she was : so that seeing he could not prevail by fair means , he sought some other way , as keeping her bare of money , but then she run him in debt , and took up money at the Tally-shops , he having notice of it , told them if they trusted her any more he would not pay them : upon which she resolved of another way , which was to sell her goods , which she did by degrees , till they had scarce a Chair to sit on , or a bed to lye on . This so perplexed her Husband , that he resolved to beat her out of this wicked course , and to that end did sometimes chastize her with blows , which she was not wanting to repay : so much was their fury sometimes , that their neighbours hath been forced to part them at all hours in the night . In this like manner they lived for some years , which so troubled and disturbed the patience of the man ; that oft he hath been heard to wish himself dead , or that he had been buried alive that day he was married to her , and she wicked and graceless soul would many times in cold blood threaten him , that at one time or other she would kill him ; which proved to be too true , for she having been out with her Gossips , and having got a cup too much as it was thought , comes and finds her husband at work ; she demands some money of him , and withall tells him , That if he will not give her some presently she would be the Death of him ; he seeing her in that condition , took her and thrusts her down stairs , and shuts the door , and to work again ; within a little time after when he thought her heat was over , he goes down in his shift as he was at work , intending to drink ; she meets him at the stairs foot , and with one side of a pair of sheers gave him a mortal wound on the breast , of which he immediately dyed , upon which she presently fled : Her Husband being quickly found , Hue and Cry was made after her , and that night about twelve a clock she was taken by the Old-street Watch , to whom she confessed the fact , she had her Tryal at the Marshalses at the Assizes , beginning on the 22 day of March , last past , where she was condemned by Law to be burn'd to ashes for this horrid and bloody crime : After sentence was past , she begged some time to sit and prepare her self , which was granted , as also to two other Malefactors . Dureing her imprisonment she hath had several Ministers to visit her who laid open the haniousness of her sins , especially that of Murther : She for the most part seemed but little concerned , many times talking of other things when they prayed for her , but a day or two before her Execution it pleased God to awaken her and to discover her sins unto her , and the need she stood in of an interest in the Lord Jesus : often Remembring that saying in Gen. 9. Chapter . 6. Verse ▪ Whoso sheddeth Mans Blood , by Man shall his Blood be shed : for in the Image of God made he Man : And Numbers the 35. Chapter , and 33 Verse . Ye shall not pollute the Land wherein you are , for blood it defileth the Land : and the Land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein , but by the blood of them that shed it . Which made her the willinger to dye , finding that it was according both to the Law of God and Man : and hoping that the Lord Jesus would have mercy on her poor sinful Soul : Now she loved good men , good discourse , and often cryed out what should she do to be saved : when she came to the place of Execution and beheld the Fagots , she cryed , O Lord for Jesus sake let this be my last burning : O that God would give me an assurance of the pardon of my sins , and blot out the black lines of my sins with the Red lines of Christs blood . Her last words were to exhort all good people to fear God , to keep the Sabbath-day , to refrain idle company , to have a care how they take the Name of the Lord in vain . Thus with a few Ejaculatory Prayers , she concluded with that saying in Galatians the 5. Chapter , and the 26 Verse . Let us not be desirous of vain glory , provoking one another , envying one another . Having thus said , the Executioner doing his Office , stopped the Atropos of her Speech , and her body was consumed to ashes in the Flames . FINIS .