When Isabelle, widow of Richard Vergeons, commissioned the
writing of a bill of complaint to Chancery at the end of the fifteenth
century, she was clearly at the end of her tether. Six months before the
writing of the petition, the wife of Thomas Hyll, a wire monger of London,
approached the petitioner’s husband, begging for ‘‘secour and saufgarde of
her lyf.’’ She was driven to this request only after ‘‘dyvers variantes and
discordes betwene her and the seid Thomas her husbond and for grette fere
and inpartye that the seid Thomas put to her of her lyf.’’ When Richard
happened upon her she was being chased by Thomas, who was wielding a
dagger. Seeing ‘‘the ungoodly and hasty disposition of the seid Thomas
and the greate fere of his seid wife,’’ Richard decided to take matters into
his own hands. He received Thomas’s wife into his home and then
confronted Thomas about his actions, hoping to reason with him and
convince him to treat his wife appropriately. This soon proved to be a fatal
error.