Telling the tale of 16th century murder in Plymouth

How a Devon teenager, Eulalia Glanvill, arranged the murder of her husband and was executed for her deadly crime is the focus of a new arts and drama project at The Box, as William Telford reports

- William Telford reports

ONE of the most infamous and grisly murders in Plymouth’s history is to become the centre of a new arts and drama project in the city.

The tale of teenager Eulalia Glanvill and how she arranged the murder of her husband, Master Page, who was older that her, in 1591 will be explored through events from this autumn and into next year.

Eulalia had been forced into a marriage to the Plymouth merchant, but she already had a sweetheart and, together, they plotted to have her husband killed in his bed. They were tried and executed for the murder in Barnstaple. It is thought she was burned at the stake.

The crime and trial caught the national imagination and has been retold and shaped in various forms down the ages. It became the subject of a “lost” play by the literary great, Ben Jonson, and was performed at The Rose playhouse, in London, in 1599.

The play, Page of Plymouth, is the oldest piece of known literature set in the city of Plymouth. The murder of Master Page was made infamous in the ballads and the popular pamphlets of the time.

One pamphlet, preserved in the Lambeth Palace Library, is headlined: “Sundrye strange and inhumane murthers lately committed” and revealed the details of how “master Page of Plymouth” was “murthered by the consent of his owne wife”.

It said: “Wherin is described the odiousness of murther, with the vengeance which God inflicteth on murtherers”.

Another pamphlet from the time, also in the Lambeth Palace Library, shows an image of a woman being burned at the stake, and said it is because she murdered her husband, in a separate case to the one in Plymouth. But it is believed Eulalia met the same fate.