Roguery and Redemption in 'Stanleyes Remedy' (1646)

In the summer of 1642, the tide of rebellion swept across the British Isles to mark the start of the First English Civil War. While Royalist and Parliamentarian forces waged violent warfare, some of its fiercest contests had taken place not on the battlefield, but in dimly lit printing shops under a cover of soot, smoke, and sweat. In these confined spaces, compositors arranged tiny rectangular metal characters—one letter at a time—until words became lines and lines turned into ballads, sermons, proclamations, newsbooks, and other prints tied to the ongoing conflict. During the Civil War, texts could stir souls as surely as armies moved bodies.

In this war of words, both sides maligned the other as “rogues,” “thieves,” “vagabonds,” and “sturdy beggars,” thus using criminal tropes in print campaigns to shape popular perceptions and fuel discord. At a time when military conflict had deepened the privation already experienced by many subjects, few readers would have considered it hyperbolic to portray the political opposition as having robbed the nation.

In the spring of 1646, Parliament’s New Model Army defeated the remaining Royalist forces, temporarily ending military hostilities after four long years. Although peace proved short-lived, there was initially some hope for reconciliation. In that vision not yet foreclosed, how might the victors attempt to transform adversaries into allies? Somewhat ironically, the rogue trope was as effective an instrument in mending differences as it was in creating them. 

Preserved in the Folger Library’s collection of rare early modern English texts, Stanleyes remedy: Or, the Way how to reform wandring beggers, theeves, high-way robbers and pick-pockets (1646) underscores the rogue’s dual potential as an object of social deviance and civic redemption. This slim, six-page pamphlet presents Stanley’s life as a cautionary tale. Once a respectable barrister, Stanley fell into “lewd company.” True to genre conventions, criminal activity followed shortly thereafter. The rebel’s path toward destruction was nearly complete when Stanley, facing execution after being convicted of highway robbery, received a royal pardon. Saved just before it was too late, Stanley resolved to prevent others from following the same “wicked course of life.” To that end, calling upon his experiences, he set down his remedies to cleanse the realm. 

Read in the context of the English Civil War, Stanley’s redemption mirrors the nation’s hope for postwar unity. The process by which Royalists could be reintegrated into civil society was personified through the rogue’s recovery. At the same time, the unrepentant rogue, or the irreconcilable monarchist, serves as a common adversary onto which both Royalists and Parliamentarians could project their animosities. 

In Stanleyes remedy, roguery was an essence imbued into the “three sorts” of “wickedness” identified by the author: vagabonds, thieves, and owners of “bawderie” houses.

That “wandering” was listed as misconduct alongside crimes with direct victims, such as theft, underscores how early modern society viewed both behaviors as similarly disruptive, stretching the definition of criminality beyond conventional boundaries. The text also targets enablers of crime, like owners of homes that “maintaine bawderie,” suggesting that facilitating crime was regarded as no less serious than committing it. This text presented all offenders as representatives of a common threat to the nation. In doing so, the rogue became a symbol capable of transcending political divisions.  

Another example of wickedness featured in the pamphlet was that of the “counterfeit” beggar who feigned disability. The woodcut image of the beggar—notably the only figure illustrated in Stanleyes remedy—depicts the man barefoot and dressed in tattered garments, seemingly moving toward an undisclosed destination, alluding to the suspicion that this man’s disability might be fraudulent. The image is one example of how notions of criminality came to be visually reinforced in popular literature, shaping public perceptions of vagrants and rogues claiming disability as morally suspect figures in society. 

Foreshadowing the threefold disciplinary approach of incarceration, transportation, and enslavement that was becoming central to the imperial vision of Great Britain, Stanleyes remedy advocated for the establishment of “work-houses, and houses of correction in every Countie.” And if such idlers refused to work? They were to be “sent either to sea” or “sold to the “English Plantations, to see whether God will turne their hearts and amend their lives…” If successful, there was “hope they may return to their Countrey againe with joy” (3). 

This raises the question, then: what criteria determined someone’s eligibility for redemption?  

Central to the narrative was Stanley’s transformation, which granted him the authority to propose his remedy. For pardoned offenders like Stanley, it was commonly required to give “assurances” that they would henceforth live lawfully. In offering a “Recantation” and “Conversion,” Stanley’s promise was more than a perfunctory act. Rather, its wording signified a fundamental change that resonated with the political climate, where oaths and allegiances were regularly interrogated. The narrative frames Stanley not simply as a pardoned offender, but as a model of redemptive eligibility. Stanley was deemed worthy of a royal pardon largely because of his former life as a barrister and gentleman. Education, wealth, and political influence helped strengthen a person’s plea for redemption by demonstrating that, if granted a second chance, they could still contribute positively to the commonwealth. In contrast, less esteemed offenders were often denied such charitable assessments of their prospects. 

Within this framework, criminal status was determined less by physical acts formally defined as infractions under codified law than by everyday appraisals of supposedly dubious characters. Government authorities and laypersons alike evaluated an individual’s potential criminality by interpreting otherwise lawful behaviors as suspicious through prejudicial readings of dress, comportment, reputation, and social ties. These culturally informed assessments measured not only perceived deviance, but also an individual’s presumed capacity for redemption.  

Over time, the rogue—though still a fixture in the early modern lexicon—gave way to other criminalized allegories that reflected the shifting anxieties of the British Atlantic world. Heretics and Quakers, unruly women and rebellious Africans, hostile Indians and quarrelsome sailors each emerged as symbolic figures onto whom the English projected anxieties over social deviancy. The rogue figure was not an invention of 1646, or even of the seventeenth century. Yet roguery, like criminality, resists static definitions and portrayals. Although laws and doctrines might lend authority to criminal categories, Stanleyes remedy is a good reminder that roguery—and all its meanings—was a mirage shaped by political imperatives.