der zeal for the
same, considering that man's life above all things is chiefly to be
favoured, and voluntary murders most highly to be detested and abhorred;
and specially all kinds of murders by poisoning, which in this realm
hitherto, our Lord be thanked, hath been most rare and seldom committed or
practised: and now, in the time of this present parliament, that is to say,
on the eighteenth day of February, in the twenty-second year of his most
victorious reign, one Richard Rouse, late of Rochester, in the county of
Kent, cook, otherwise called Richard Cook, of his most wicked and damnable
disposition, did cast a certain venom or poison into a vessel replenished
with yeast or barm, standing in the kitchen of the reverend father in God,
John Bishop of Rochester, at his place in Lambeth Marsh; with which yeast
or barm, and other things convenient, porridge or gruel was forthwith made
for his family there being; whereby not only the number of seventeen
persons of his said family, which did eat of that porridge, were mortally
infected or poisoned, and one of them, that is to say, Bennet Curwan,
gentleman, is thereof deceased; but also certain poor people which resorted
to the said bishop's place, and were there charitably fed with the remains
of the said porridge and other victuals; were in like wise infected; and
one poor woman of them, that is to say, Alice Tryppitt, widow, is also
thereof now deceased: Our said sovereign lord the king, of his blessed
disposition inwardly abhorring all such abominable offences, because that
in manner no person can live in surety out of danger of death by that
means, if practices thereof should not be eschewed, hath ordained and
enacted by authority of this present parliament, that the said poisoning be
adjudged and deemed as high treason; and that the said Richard, for the
said murder and poisoning of the said two persons, shall stand and be
attainted of high treason.

"And because that detestable offence, now newly practised and committed,
requireth condign punishment for the same, it is ordained and enacted by
authority of this present parliament that the said Richard Rouse shall be
therefore boiled to death, without having any advantage of his clergy; and
that from henceforth every wilful murder of any person or persons hereafter
to be committed or done by means or way of poisoning, shall be reputed,
deemed, and judged in the law to be high treason; and that all and every
person or pe