Martin
The church courts in fact didn’t have the power to inflict physical harm in cases of heresy, again the aim always was to get them to recant, to get them to repent, and get them to renounce their errors. But if they didn’t then the church excommunicated them, and handed them over to the secular powers.

Bettany
Agnes’s trial was held at Knowle House in Sevenoaks, one of the Archbishop William Waring’s private residences. It was here in 1511, deep within the palace, that Agnes’s fate was decided.

Bettany
So, the court proceedings took over a year, but this is where the trial itself took place?

Rob
Yes that’s right. This is the chapel at the Archbishop’s residence, the Palace of Knowle. And you can imagine these individuals being brought out of prison somewhere else in the palace, brought through the corridors of the palace, into this chapel. To stand perhaps roughly where we’re standing, and to face the Archbishop and his officials, to be questioned regarding their heresy.

Bettany
What happened to Agnes?

Rob
Well she is brought here, to the chapel, on 2nd May to be sentenced and the wording of the sentence in the register is very interesting: "We relinquish the said heretics and each one of them, to your Royal Highness, and your secular arms". And the relinquishment here included another two individuals, William Carder, and Robert Harrison, who were handed over to the secular authorities, handed over to Henry VIII, to the State, to be punished.

Bettany
And how do we pick up Agnes’s trial from here?

Rob
Well we can’t pick up Agnes’s trail as such but we think we know what happened to William Carder. The first penance that was imposed on John Grabble and his two sons, and some other individuals, was that item "quad eant advidendum Carder, ignem pasorem procte, suam incorigabilitate", that is that they go to watch William Carder being burnt, on account of his incorrigibility. So, we know that Carder was burnt and if Carder was burnt then there is a good chance that poor Agnes was too.

Bettany
At the London Metropolitan archives, Derrick and Mary have made a find. Charlotte’s marriage to her uncle is safely stored on microfilm.

Derrick
We need every 1803 still in January. There it is - John James Alexander McCarthy of this parish, and he is a bachelor, marrying Charlotte Gertrude McCarthy of the same parish, and there is their actual signatures.

Mary
They were so close in age Derrick.

Derrick
And presumably they thought they were cousins.

Bettany
They then went to look at the House of Lords record of Charlotte’s case. Her claim rested on her descent from one Anne Howard in the 1600s. When Anne married she stated in the Marriage Register that she was a daughter of the Earl of Stafford. Charlotte’s rival for the peerage, the Gerninghams, said Anne’s marriage records were fakes and they tried to brow beat a priest into saying that his register had been recently tampered with.

Derrick
They get the priest down and they bully him, bully him and bully him because they want him to say that a McCarthy, he visited the church to look at the registers, had the opportunity in fact to insert this particular item. Now the priest is very adamant, repeatedly he says that he was the one who found the entry first.

Mary
I just feel that the attorney general was predisposed to awarding the title to the Gerningham family from the beginning.

Derrick
Yes, in fact there was something said right at the start.

Mary
And what we need to do now is go down to Worcester and Evesham and look at the registers.

Derrick
Next stop Evesham and Worcester.

Bettany
Heresy, divorce, defamation, adultery, fornication - the church courts seem to have had an eye on everyone’s most private concerns. Their influence across the country must have been huge. Of course things did change over the years, as the state took over large parts of the church’s legal authority, and as time went on the courts seemed more like a money making scheme than a system of justice.

Church courts have always provided a service and by the 1800s they were making good money out of it. Proving the validity of wills turned out to be exceptionally profitable. A job which they hung onto until 1858. As Charles Dickens said, it was a light and lucrative business.

Even in the tough times, like the Civil War, when the church courts were technically abolished, they clung onto wills. To get a feel for that lucrative business in the 1700s and early 1800s, I joined historian Jane Cox in the City of London. This is where the church courts used to stand, but unfortunately all the buildings are gone and so are the records. To the Public Record Office, at Kew.

Bettany
If the Fire of London destroyed so many church court records, how many are left here at the Public Record Office?

Jane Cox
Well there are said to be 84 tonnes.

Bettany
84 tonnes!

Jane
Yes, 84 tonnes.

Bettany
If you died leaving an estate valued at £5, £10 if you lived in London, the prerogative court of Canterbury had the job of verifying the will. And if there wasn’t a will, it was the church court that decided who was the rightful inheritor.

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