A man appears in court after breaking into a house - his defence is that his father told him to do it in a dream. Another man is charged with ringing a doorbell violently. And Queen Victoria is confronted by an assassin.

More Victorian crime and scandal. A jealous woman wreaks revenge on a man who promised to marry her but changed his mind. And another criminal goes around convincing children to steal from their parents. But, in one of the most astounding stories we’ve ever seen, a husband sells his wife at an auction (and he’s not the first to do this in Victorian times).

Grave robbers were still very much at work in 1870, busy robbing the dead. A local community sets out to thwart them. In other news, when a monkey steals your baby, how do you get it back? A gardener, minding his own business, is shot by his assistant, in a seemingly random attack. And a woman walking over Westminster Bridge had no idea she was about to end up in the River Thames.

When a police office encounters a man dressed in women’s clothes, he knows something is up and arrests the fellow. Meanwhile, a dentist tries to cover up the fact that he’s put one of his patients in the family way. And the fashion for ladies to squeeze into tight dresses brings about fatal consequences.

This week in criminal Victorian England, a wife is put in an iron mask by her husband, another wife is driven insane by her husband tickling her feet, and an estranged husband is so jealous of his wife’s new life that he plans to blow up the house in which she’s living.

An actress is so annoyed with a newspaper critic that she challenges him to a duel with pistols. In another story, a man is attacked by a mob when he tries to take his sweetheart away from the clutches of her possessive family. And a man tries to hide the fact that he’s thrown somebody into a huge pot of boiling water.

When a man’s reputation is dragged through the gutter, he seeks restitution with a duel. But has he found the right man to challenge to this duel? In another story, a thief comes to a sticky end. And another man finds himself in court accused of seduction.

Is “because he didn’t do his work” a reasonable excuse to shoot somebody dead? In another case - did somebody actually try to poison a tea party? A church hall full of people stampedes because they think so. Another court has to decide whether a person committed the unlawful act of trying to commit suicide in the street.

How can a wedding go so wrong that the couple want the marriage annulled the very next day? The answer is one of the biggest deceptions ever to take place at the altar. Meanwhile, a fortune teller promises a man she can make him rich and very popular with the girls. And a court is in uproar over a handful of wheat.

A fire in France is not the accident it at first seems, but a shocking murder involving a woman’s servants. In another case, a man who assaults a lady walking with her husband gives the strangest reason ever given in court. And a prize fight between women (yes, they did take place back then) exposes Victorian attitudes to boxing and women.