Alice Brigantine married Thomas Arden and settled in Faversham Abbey in the Civil Parish of Faversham, Kent, England. It was not a very happy marriage and even though they had at least one daughter, Alice soon began an affair with a man named Richard Mosbye. Alice and Richard carried out their Affair rather openly and her husband turned a blind eye. She was very unhappy with Thomas and decided he had to go. Her first attempt was to mix poison and milk and serve it to him for breakfast, but she'd failed to realize that the poison tasted very strongly and Thomas could not to finish his meal because it tasted so bad. She came to the conclusion that she needed help. She gathered quite a crew to assist her in the assassination of her husband. Along with Richard there was John Green, George Bradshaw, and Black Will. Green had a past with Thomas. Once he had tried to claim some land behind Faversham Abbey and Thomas shut him down. The two men even fought at one point, so Green, who considered Thomas and enemy, was happy to join the murderous plot. Black Will was an old Soldier who was mainly their muscle but had experience with murder. Another attempt was made one night while Thomas was walking near St. Paul's Cathedral, but the conspirators could not find the right time to make their move. Yet another time they waited for their prey and again failed to find the opportunity to murder him. Finally Alice decided that she would have to murder them in their own house away from public eyes. She found even more accomplices,Richard's sister and even two of Thomas's servants were quick to join in. On February 15th, 1551 it finally happened. After dinner, with Black Will hiding in a closet, Thomas sat down to play a game with Richard. Will snuck out and threw a napkin over his face and began to strangle him. Then Richard stepped up and hit him with a pressing iron on his head, cracking his skull then he withdrew a knife and cut his throat. Alice stepped up to make sure he was dead and stabbed him seven or eight times. They then dragged the body into a closet, paid Black Will and eventually brought the body to a meadow behind the abbey. There are two separate accounts as to what happened next, one says Alice waited till the next morning to alert the town and the other says that she started that night too show fear and terror at the thought of her husband not coming home. A search was conducted and when the body was finally discovered people began to doubt the sincerity of Alice. The body was only dressed in a nightgown and slippers and it was such a cold snowy night it was very unlikely he was just going about his business when he was murdered. Also the snow had preserved several footprints between the body and the house of the Ardens, making it pretty obvious that it had been brought from the abbey. Alice of course denied any knowledge of the crime, but the townspeople conducted an investigation and found hair, blood, the bloody knife and a bloody cloth near Alice's house. She was arrested and forced to confess her guilt and also named all of her associates. Everyone involved was arrested. Alice was found guilty of murder and in front of a very large and excited crowd she was burnt at the stake in Canterbury. Brutally, reports from the time to suggest that she survived on the stake for over an hour before finally succumbing to the flames. Her accomplices were also executed by various methods, one was drawn and hanged, one was burned at the stake, two were hanged, and one was hanged up in chains at Canterbury. John Green was hung in Faversham although he evaded arrest for many years. As for Blackwell he was the only person found innocent of murder because there was no direct evidence between him and the crime. He escaped for many years but eventually he was arrested for something else and executed in Flushing, a city in the southwestern region of the Netherlands. Pictured above: a depiction of the murder, a flyer for a play about the crime, Faversham Abbey in the 1500s and as it is today and lastly a plaque about the murder.
