One afternoon in 1592, a wealthy Hampshire farmer took off his hat, got down on all fours, was fitted with a horse’s saddle and bridle, and allowed himself to be ridden like an animal between a chamber in his home and a holly tree in his garden three times over — under the command of a woman he had never laid eyes on before that day.
That woman was Judith Phillips, who had for some years been travelling the country as an itinerant fraudster, pretending to be a fortune teller who could divine any person’s future simply by studying the lines and wrinkles of their palms. The details of these early days in her deceitful trade are vague, but she would later confess to having been a part of a group of like-minded “Egyptians” — people who were, or pretended to be, Romani and would offer palmistry for a fee as they wandered the realm. A series of statutes was passed in the Tudor period to clamp down on this practice, and it was presumably under one of these that Phillips, according to her own testimony, was prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to hang — only dodging death at the gallows by the receipt of a pardon.
One might suspect that such a narrow escape would provoke in even the most cynically avaricious of minds at least a crumb of introspection to deter them from further criminality. But, as we shall discover, Phillips was a woman for whom the pecuniary effects of her deceits mattered only insomuch as they elevated what, in her mind, was not simply a scam but a spectacle. And so, after whatever period of incarceration she may have suffered, we find her shortly resuming her rotten business in a village in the county of Hampshire.
According to a subsequently printed news report, the “cunning and fine witted” Phillips heard of a wealthy farmer who lived just outside the village and “was somewhat fantasticall and given to beleeve every tale he heard”. She first gathered intelligence on the man, who was respected in the community but also miserly and embroiled in a lawsuit with a local gentleman over a piece of land. Then she travelled to the farmer’s house and, under the cover of nightfall, buried a gold coin and six pence under a small holly tree in his garden. Returning the following day, and spotting the farmer’s wife sat outside the door, her mission began.
Phillips stared curiously at the wife’s face, prompting the woman to approach her and enquire the cause. “Oh mistresse,” the fraudster replied, “you are the fortunatest woman I saw this many a day, for in your browes I see good fortune sit.” She proceeded to prophesy that there was a hidden store of treasure under the holly tree in the garden (which to the wife’s mind Phillips had no way of knowing even existed) and bid her to let her husband know. After flattering the farmer by promising him success in his pending lawsuit, Phillips took the couple to the holly tree and, sure enough, the gold coin and sixpence were retrieved.
Now entirely convinced that Phillips was a genuine fortune teller, the parsimonious farmer agreed to fork over £14 (about £2,000 today) to her in return for the discovery of even more riches hidden about his property. In order to acquire the rest, Phillips said, his largest chamber needed to be decorated with expensive linen and five candles, each sat atop a golden coin. Next, a saddle and bridle had to be fetched; these were to be worn by the farmer, whom she was to ride on three journeys between the chamber and the holly tree. This humiliating ordeal completed, the farmer and his wife were instructed to grovel on their bellies next to the holly tree while Phillips met with an important guest who would lead them to their fortune: The Queen of the Fairies.
By the end of the sixteenth century, belief in fairies was waning but far from extinct — and was much more popular in England’s rural villages and hamlets, where about 90% of the country’s population dwelt, surrounded by the woodland environs in which folklore held fairies to gather, than in its cities or larger towns. They could be merry or malevolent, bring great riches or chronic ill-health, and in most traditions formed a kingdom ruled by a king and queen.
These sprites occasionally invaded and occupied houses, startling (if perhaps not quite terrifying) occupants by making noises, and even producing light, at night; the astrologer-physician Richard Napier regularly treated patients “blasted” or “pinched” by fairies, which could cause painful swelling, temporary paralysis, and the sudden inability to speak; the mischievous fairy Robin Goodfellow, on whom Shakespeare based Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was so named because he was known to help with domestic tasks in return for a bowl of cream.
Even at the advent of Elizabeth I’s reign, Goodfellow and his fairy compatriots were consigned to “a store of mythology rather than a corpus of living beliefs, but […] still sometimes accepted literally”, according to historian Keith Thomas. By 1613, one poet felt it safe to assume that, for his relatively-educated urban readers, “Robin’s gone,/He and his night-mates are to us uknowne”.
Phillips seems to have hit the jackpot with this Hampshire farmer, who was wealthy enough to be worth stealing from, miserly enough to desire even more money, and sufficiently gullible to fall for a ruse which most Elizabethans would have rejected on its face. But the fraudster was not done yet; after leaving the farmer and his wife in their garden, she fashioned a makeshift disguise out of the white linen decorating the chamber and re-appeared briefly to the couple as the Fairy Queen herself, prancing about before vanishing back inside. Her final course of action was the simplest: grab the linen, pocket the gold coins, and run away.
A more efficient thief might simply have told the farmer and his wife to wait outside without taking the opportunity to ride him as their steed. Nor would they have flouted the goods they were about to steal as part of a Fairy Queen costume worn for what can only be described as a miniature and momentary dramatic performance. A theatrical criminal is quite the paradox, since felons rarely desire an audience of witnesses to their misdeeds.
Phillips’ decision to mount the rich farmer in Hampshire may have been inspired by the popular medieval tale of Aristotle and Phyllis — in which the Greek philosopher warns his pupil, the future Alexander the Great, to stay away from a seductive young woman, but himself falls in love with her. Spurned and angry at the famous polymath, Phyllis gets revenge by promising to entertain his romantic interest under the condition that he puts on a saddle and bridle and lets her ride him around the garden. Aristotle agrees and, unbeknownst to him, is witnessed by Alexander — proof that the greatest of minds could be bewitched by a woman’s charms.
It took some convincing, but the farmer eventually begrudgingly admitted his humiliation to neighbours and raised the alarm, leading to Phillips’ arrest in nearby Winchester. Appearing before a judge, she gave a simple explanation for her saddling of the miser: “Only to see how like an Asse he lookt.”
The precise punishment has been lost to time — possibly involving the pillory, a fine, or even a stint in prison — but it clearly had little rehabilitative effect. Phillips had, as one chronicler later put it, “drowned herselfe in the sea of all vices, and the gulphe of all outragious mischief” and not only refused to cease or scale down her criminal operations, but actually joined forces with two men. They went by the names Peter and Vaughan, one pretending to be a lawyer and the other a country gentleman.
In 1595, the trio set their sights on the heist of their disillustrious careers: an extremely wealthy London widow who was searching for a new husband. Ms Mascall was a successful seller of tripe (animal guts) based in St. Nicholas Shambles who was swarmed with suitors, most eager for a share of her wealth, and regularly sought the advice of a trusted friend in Essex.
The strategy, therefore, was three-pronged: Peter posed as a suitor and obtained detailed information about the widow, including that she had recently sent a wealthy admirer dwelling on London Bridge a diamond ring, which he had returned to her after some falling out. Vaughan, meanwhile, forged a letter from the friend in Essex, wherein he sent word that there was a fortune teller in town who could help her find a match. That clairvoyant soothsayer was, of course, Judith Phillips.
As was her modus operandi, Phillips gained the trust of Ms Mascall by appearing to divine facts — about her diamond ring and a rumoured assault by a previous suitor — which a credulous (and perhaps romantically desperate) mind would ascribe to supernatural power. Not only could a suitable match be found for the widow, Phillips promised, but there was also a huge trove of treasure hidden about her house by fairies which had recently inhabited it. These sprites, the pretend prognosticator added, were the cause of rumbling and other strange noises that the widow admitted she had been hearing at night. (The real cause, in fact, was Peter and Vaughan banging on her door.)
Sufficiently gaslit, and covetous of even greater wealth than she had already accrued, the widow handed over a whopping £100 in coins, gold, and jewellery — roughly £14,000 today, and about five times the annual salary of an ordinary labourer. All of this was put in a purse which was then wrapped in yarn. Phillips secretly swapped this for an identical ball of yarn weighed down by two stones. She promised that in three days she would return and lead the widow to her new-found riches, but firstly had to meet with the Queen of the Fairies — and to this purpose also required a turkey and a chicken, which were to serve as a gift. Phillips shared the lucrative haul with her co-conspirators, taking half the value for herself while Peter and Vaughan shared the rest. Ever the thief, she had secretly pocketed a few valuables beforehand.
Naturally, the trio were curious how much more they could steal from the gullible Ms Mascall. But when Phillips returned, supposedly to help find the widow an affluent husband, she met the cold reception of a parish constable and was carted away to Newgate Prison. Suspicious and impatient, the widow had unwrapped the yarn and uncovered the deception. Phillips and her oblivious husband, an honest gun-maker, were interrogated by a sergeant, who characterised the woman as a “notable cozener”. Her arrest, imprisonment, and trial would begin to direct attention her way.
On 14 February 1595, Judith Phillips was publicly whipped through London while tied to a horse-drawn cart. This was one of the most humiliating and degrading forms of punishment available, though perhaps fitting for a criminal who had not only defrauded but also embarrassed her victims. At the same time, Phillips’ exploits were spread far and wide in street chatter, printed broadside ballads, and sensational pamphlet reports. A rumour was also emerging that she had not only stolen money from the wealthy widow, but also cut off some of her pubic hair under the bizarre pretence that it would increase her odds of finding a good husband.
The most definitive contemporary account of Phillips’ crimes was The Brideling, Sadling and Ryding of a rich Churle in Hampshire (1595) — which does not mention such alleged impropriety, but included a rather suggestive woodcut. By the time it was put up for sale, Phillips’ alleged treatment of the widow was the talk of the town, and it did not require a salacious mind to interpret the image’s innuendo; the widow can be seen pointing towards her crotch while Phillips clasps a pair of scissors.
It may be that the publisher wanted to allude to the depraved treatment of the widow — described euphemistically as “unwomanly” on the title page — without having it set down in words which could have his report banned and himself prosecuted on account of their vulgarity.
What the authorities could not control were the coarse ballads, slanderous songs, and popular rumour which had spread across the city and were making their way into the countryside. Printed ballads were pasted onto the walls of alehouses, where intoxicated patrons roared the lyrics and gossiped about the humiliation of Phillips’ victims. Bawdy jigs on the topic were sung in the streets, at market, and possibly even on some of London’s stages. An illustration of the Hampshire farmer’s saddling was commissioned by a popular news publisher, so that even the illiterate could laugh along. Some historians think a budding playwright called Ben Jonson would go on to recall the event when writing The Alchemist (1610), in which a male character is humiliated and made to grovel while a female trickster disguises herself as the Fairy Queen. For a brief period, Phillips was the most famous criminal in the country.
In theory, ordinary people should have despised Phillips, a long-time criminal who would happily have swindled any one of them if given the opportunity. But the printed accounts which survive, and allusions to the gossip that went with them, suggest her reputation was far more complex. In outwitting a wealthy male farmer she had exercised female superiority at a time when misogyny was rife — and had probably earned the respect of London’s women. The author of The Brideling (1595), while condemning her crimes, cannot help but credit her ingenuity and cunning. Who could possibly hear of her mounting a foolish miser and not smile? Or keep a straight face while reading about the widow handing over a turkey and chicken as a gift for fairy royalty? In pulling off these absurd stunts, Phillips was to some extent an entertainer. And people love little more than to be entertained.
Judith Phillips disappears from the historical record after 1595. Her cozenages were undoubtedly amusing but threatened very severe legal repercussions; it may be that the looming threat of execution forced her to take up an ordinary and unrecorded life. We do not know if the Hampshire farmer ever came into contact with the pamphlet in which his shameful ordeal had been detailed and its image stamped. It must have been humiliating for his wife, whose husband had been emasculated and who had herself initially invited Phillips in, believing her to be a fortune teller. How much she must have regretted ever encountering that mysterious woman with the curious gaze.
