THE April lecture entitled “A Traitor’s Death: The Mystery of the Hanged Drawn and Quartered Man from Hulton Abbey, Staffordshire” given by Mary Lewis, of Reading University, provided an attentive audience with an opportunity to learn something of the study of human skeletal remains and of the grisly medieval punishment of being hung, drawn and quartered.

She described how a disarticulated skeleton found in the 1970s, minus skull, a thighbone and some vertebrae has been identified with near certainty as that of Sir Hugh Despenser, who was a relatively minor aristocrat executed for treason in 1326 at the age of 40.

His downfall followed the deposition of Edward II during whose reign he had risen to exercise great influence over matters of state, unscrupulously accumulate a vast fortune partly by disinheriting his high ranking brothers-in-law and make many powerful enemies in the process. Identification was made possible by radio-carbon dating of the skeletal remains of a mature male to the period 1050 to 1385 and by cut marks associated with beheading, systematic dismemberment and a stab wound to the stomach. The hands were also missing, indicating the deceased was regarded as a thief which, in a sense, he probably was.

Marriage links with the Audley family of Hadleigh, who had patronised Hulton Abbey, suggest their responsibility for the burial. Finally, Tewkesbury Abbey, of which Despenser was a generous patron, confirmed the skeletal remains in his tomb, brought there in 1330 following the accession of Edward III, include a skull and a thighbone. Interestingly, the medieval Despenser family are ancestors of the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

Excavations scheduled to take place at Basing House in May have been cancelled but work continued over Easter at the Bronze Age site on the Wessex Downs and with the concluding phases of the woodland archaeology project undertaken in March. Research continues on Basingstoke Talking History and with transcribing records for the new Victoria County History of Hampshire.

The society’s next meeting will take place at Church Cottage at 7.30pm on Thursday, May 12, when the lecture will be given by Tim Mason on the subject of “Edward Jenner and the Smallpox Virus.” Non-members are welcome – admission £2.