![*](images/icon-portbooks.png)
That after and since the said marriage solemnised betwixt the said Thomas Hough and the said Anne his wife the said Thomas Hough hath given himself to immoderate and excessive drinking and hath been often distempered with drink and then as well in his drunkenness as at other times hath often inhumanely beaten the said Anne his wife and by reason of his cruelty hath forced her to run naked and without clothes forth of her bed and to shelter and hide herself from him in a neighbours house where the said Thomas followed her with a pikell and searched for her in her said neighbour’s house and touching and poking with his pikell under a bed and in other places where he conceived she should be… intending thereby as his neighbours conceived to have killed wounded or maimed his wife if he could then have met with her… That in the months of November and December in the year our Lord God 1630 or in one of the said Months the said Thomas Hough did strike and beat the said Anne his wife with a pair of iron fire tongs in such fierce cruel and inhumane manner that by reason of his sore and long continued beating of her most part of her arms, sides, back, thighs and legs were and are bruised and made black and blue, and her child then being in her arms she could not save herself but rather submitted herself to his violence than to endanger the life of her child.