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Elizabeth Lybbe's Account
of The Judicial Murder of Dame Alice Lisle

The first we knew of Alice was this piece in NOTE II of the family bible, "Passages from The Diaries of Mrs Philip Lybbe Powys", edited by Emily J Climenson and published by Longmans Green in 1899. EJC wrote:

   Elizabeth Lybbe, who married J. Merrick, M.D., of Reading, and was mother of James Merrick, poet and author, left an interesting note about Dame Alice Lisle, of Moyles Court, Hants, who was condemned to death by the infamous Judge Jeffreys for sheltering and hiding two fugitives, a divine and a lawyer, from the field of Sedgemoor on the evening of July 28, 1685.
   Lady Lisle was the widow of John Lisle, who sat in the Long Parliament and in the High Court of Justice, was made a peer by Cromwell in 1658, therefore not in favour with the Stuart line. Dame Alice, of a kindly heart, is said to have sheltered Royalists, as well as Roundheads, in their need. She was three times acquitted by the jury, yet condemned, and executed on September 2, 1685, at Winchester, and lies buried at Ellingham, near her home, Moyles Court.
   This is the note of Elizabeth Lybbe, whose mother was Sophia Tipping, married to Richard Lybbe, of Hardwick House, Oxon:--
And this is Elizabeth Lybbe's note:
   "Lady Tipping, my grandfather's wife, was sister and co-heiress with Alice, wife of Lord de Lisle; her title I think the Government acknowledge. The severe sentence of taking off her [Alice's] head was pronounced on account of her suffering Hix, a traitor, to take shelter in her house, which her woman discovered. My aunt Lisle was much older than my grandmother, and from age and quiet conscience slept at her trial, as she did the night before she suffered when my pious aunt Tipping slept with her.
   "The day of her execution was September 2, 1685. She had many daughters, but one son who left his estate to L'Isle, Esquire of Crooks Eason, Hants.
   "My grandmother (Lady Tipping) was a most remarkable woman for strict piety, sedateness of temper, and good conduct; my grandfather leaving it much to her to care to manage the family. They had sixteen children, six sons only."

I wonder if Elizabeth Lybbe's "pious aunt Tipping" who slept with Alice Lisle was not her "pious grandmother Tipping", particularly in view of the last paragraph?


EJC ends this note with:

   Dame Lisle was over seventy years of age when she was executed. Her mother was Lady Beckonshaw, daughter of William Bond, of a well known Dorset family of the Isle of Purbeck.

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