Hence, as we have seen, gradually arose, side by side with the capital punishment of hanging on the gallows in its simplicity—which may be almost said to be as old as the world itself—the custom of publicly exposing human bodies upon gibbets as warnings to others.

We gather from the “Vocabulary of Archbishop Alfric,” of the tenth century, and from early illuminated MSS., that the gallows (galga) was the usual mode of capital punishment with the Anglo-Saxons. It can hardly be doubted that in certain cases, as with the Romans, the body of the “fordemed”—in the case of decapitation the “heafedleas bodi”—remained in terrorem upon the gibbet, as Robert of Gloucester, circa 1280, has it, referring to his own times:—

“In gibet hii were an honge,”

though not necessarily as part of the sentence, as appears always to have been the case in England. An obscure poet, Robert Brunne, has:—

In the numerous enactments concerning the administration of the criminal law, from the “Statute of Westminster the First,” in 1277, to the Act of George II. in 1752, no cognizance is taken of the hanging of bodies of criminals in chains. Such a treatment of the carcass was, like the rack, rather an engine of state than of law.

In Chauncy’s “History of Hertfordshire” it is stated:—

“Soon after the King came to Easthampstead, to recreate himself with hunting, where he heard that the bodies which were hanged here were taken down from the gallowes, and removed a great way from the same; this so incensed the King that he sent a writ, tested the 3rd of August, Anno 1381, to the bailiffs of this borrough, commanding them upon sight thereof, to cause chains to be made, and to hang the bodies in them upon the same gallowes, there to remain so long as one piece might stick to another, according to the judgement; but the townsmen, not daring to disobey the King’s command, hanged the dead bodies of their neighbours again, to their great shame and reproach, when they could not get any other for any wages to come near the stinking carcasses, but they themselves were compelled to do so vile an office.”

This is an early record of a judgment to hang in terrorem, and of chains for the purpose.[22]

Gower, a contemporary poet, says:—

Again, during the second Northern Rising, in 1536, the Duke of Norfolk hung and quartered, as the usual punishment for high treason, seventy-four men at Carlisle, but the bodies of Sir Robert Constable and Ashe were hung in chains at Hull and York respectively, as special cases. And the Duke blames the Earl of Cumberland for not having hung certain persons in chains, as he had directed; he airily adds, speaking of other examples in Yorkshire, that “they all hang still in chains, notwithstanding that I have had no small intercession for many of them.”[23]

We gather from these items that, although the public exposure of the body entire formed no legal part of the punishment for high treason, it was sometimes added to it for the increase of the shame. Whether the ensanguined, quivering quarter of a man, uplifted high on a gateway, had a more deterrent effect than a whole body slowly wasting away in chains, we are, fortunately, not now called upon curiously to determine.

It may here be mentioned that the punishment for high treason differs in one important particular from that for murder. The head must be severed from the body after the hanging. The man must be drawn to the gallows, and may not walk; he must be cut down alive; his entrails taken out and burnt before his face. Then the head cut off—“headed,” and finally the body quartered, and the head and quarters remaining at the king’s disposal. This was the English law, as finally settled by the Statute of Treason of 25 Edward III. (1351). Such a sentence had been first carried out, as it appears, upon a pirate named William Marise, in 1241. Notable examples are those of Wallace, 1305;[24] the elder and the younger Despencers, 1326;[25] Hotspur, 1403;[26] and they are notable examples of shocking barbarity; and not least memorable though, happily, last, the executions after “the —45,” in exact accordance with the ancient statute of four centuries before. It is recorded that one of these last victims struggled for a few moments with William Stout of Hexham, the fiend who, for twenty guineas and the clothes, did the bloody business, when he opened his bosom and plucked out his heart.[27] It is a dreadful subject, which one almost shrinks from touching; but it may be added that none of the thirty-two sufferers at Carlisle for “the —45” were hung in chains; they died the ferocious death for high treason.[28]

As a curiously mitigated example we may mention the case of the five gentlemen attached to the Duke of Gloucester, who were arraigned and condemned for treason in 1447. They were hung and immediately cut down alive, stripped naked, their bodies marked for quartering, and then, no doubt very much to their surprise, pardoned.

In Jersey, during the administration of the Duke of Somerset, uncle of Edward VI., two pirates were condemned and hung in chains, as appears from the following extract from the registers of the island:—

“Placita Catallia cum justicia reallis ten’ die xviij^o Mensis Januarii An’o Domini Mille^o quinm^o l^o coram Ballj in p’na Clement Lemp’re, Jo’his de Carteret, Ricardi Dumaresq, Nicoll’ Lemp’re, Jo’his Lemp’re, Edwardii Dumaresq, Edwardii de Carteret, Laurentii Hamptoune, Georgii de Carteret, Jo’his de Soullemont.

“John Wyte, BernabÉ Le Quesne, SÉbastian Alexandre, criminels pour leur dÉmÉrites de cas de crime pirates et larons de mer accordant leur confessions sont condampnÉs À estre pendus et estranglÉs de cy a ce que mort en ensuyve savoir est ledit John Wyte sur une potence hault eslevÉe À la pointe de devers S^te Katherine et ledit Bernabey Le Quesne sur une potence hault ÉlevÉe p’eillement sur le bec et pointe de Noirmont aux lieux les plus eminens desdites Montaignes et la leurs corps demeurer enchÂinÉs po^r y estre consumÉs et pourrys, et le dit Sebastien est respitÉ par certaines considerations prises et considÉrÉes en Justice, et to^s leurs biens meubles et hÉritages confisquÉs en la maison du Roi ou des Seigneurs aux q’ls il app’tiennent” (Cour du Catel).[29]

In Hakluyt’s “Voyages” we find the following:—“Hereupon the souldiers besought me not to hang them, but rather let them be shot throw, and then afterwards, if I thought good, their bodies might be hanged upon gibbets along the haven’s mouth.”[30]

The numerous allusions to gibbets by Shakespeare show how common they were in his day.

It will have been observed in the foregoing remarks that the words “gallows” and “gibbet” have been used indifferently in the quotations both for hanging a man from, and for exposing him upon. It would appear that, at least with us at the present day, gallows is the thing upon which men suffer, and gibbet the object upon which they are set forth. Hence the expression to gibbet a man by calling attention publicly to nefarious deeds, and, as the one thing has given us the verb, so the other furnishes the language with an adjective equally expressive, and a person by his “gallous” conduct stands a fair chance of reaching the gallows at last. A gallows may by particular use become a gibbet, but not contrariwise, and the same remark may be said to apply to Potence and Gibbet.