Rank rogues and errant thieves: slander and defamation in the Isle of Ely

… ‘base beggarly rogue’, ‘false perjurer’, ‘knave and rascal’, ‘errant thief’, ‘pick-pocket, cheating whore and cut-purse’, ‘forsworn man’, ‘witch’, ‘night-walker’, ‘rank rogue’ …  At first glance the insults listed above may have been lifted directly from one of Shakespeare’s […]

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