William Burridge is a strong, handsome young man from Northamptonshire who cannot be made to work. Raised by respectable parents and apprenticed to his father's trade as a carpenter, he throws it all aside for the thrill of admiration: winning wrestling bouts and cudgel matches at country fairs, basking in the cheers of strangers.
His restless hunger for praise carries him from petty theft to a man-of-war bound for Spain, where bravery in battle fills his head with a dangerous conviction: that he deserves more than honest labour can ever give him. It is one of old England's bleakest true crime trajectories: a man who mistakes applause for destiny.
Listen now to the story of William Burridge, and hear where that hunger finally leads him.
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FROM THE 1735 TEXT
He thought himself worthier of command than most of the officers on the ship.
Dark Lexicon: Old words. Dark meaning.
The past speaks its own dialect; here is what to listen for in this episode.
Cudgel-playing: a rough sport of old England in which two men beat each other with thick sticks until one drew blood from the other's head. It was a fair-ground entertainment, and prizes went to the last man standing.
Wakes: today a wake is a vigil for the dead, but in old England a wake was a parish festival: days of drinking, dancing and competitive violence that drew crowds from miles around.
Junketting: feasting and merrymaking, often with a sly undertone of illicit pleasure. When the text says Burridge was junketting with servant-wenches, it means exactly what you think it means.
Man-of-war: a warship belonging to a national navy. In old England, shipping aboard one was sometimes the last resort for a young man too wild for civilian life: a floating prison disguised as patriotic service.
Went upon the highway: turned to highway robbery. The phrase sounds almost casual, and in old England it was: robbing travellers on the road was so common it had its own shorthand.
Becoming evidence: turning informer against your accomplices in exchange for your own life. In old England, the law encouraged betrayal; a thief who gave up his partners could walk free while they swung.
Bay gelding: a castrated horse with a reddish-brown coat. Horse theft in old England was a capital crime: the animal's value made it a hanging matter, no different from murder in the eyes of the court.
Under sentence: condemned and awaiting execution. The days between verdict and scaffold were spent in a cell at Newgate, often visited by clergymen pressing for repentance and crowds paying a few coins to gawk.
About This Series
Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals (1735) is one of the earliest works of true crime in the English language. Each week this podcast retells one of its stories for today's listener, keeping the old book's most striking lines.
