Looking back down the long vista of six hundred years, we see an innumerable crowd faring to their death from the Tower of London or from the prison of Newgate to the chief of English Aceldamas, the field of blood known as Tyburn. Of this crowd there exists no census, we can but make a rough estimate of the number of those who suffered a violent death at Tyburn: a moderate computation would place the number at fifty thousand. It is composed of all sorts and conditions of men, of peers and populace, of priests and coiners, of murderers and of boys who have stolen a few pence, of clergymen and forgers—sometimes of men who in their person unite the two characters—of men versed in the literature of Greece and Rome, of men knowing no language but the jargon of thieves. Cheek by jowl are men convicted of the most hideous crimes—men whose only offence it is that they have refused to renounce their most cherished beliefs at the bidding of tyrant king or tyrant mob. As a final touch of grim humour the ex-hangman sometimes figures in the procession, on the way to be hanged by his successor. They fare along their Via Dolorosa in many ways. Some bound and laid on their back are dragged by It is for the most part a nameless, unrecorded crowd. For hundreds of years only a single figure emerges here and there from the throng. During a few decades only of the history of Tyburn do we see clearly and in detail the figures in these dismal processions. They go, in batches of ten, fifteen, twenty, laughing boys, women with children at the breast, highwaymen decked out in gay clothes for this last scene of glory; men and women drunk, cursing, praying. Some of the women are to be burnt alive; of the men, some are to be simply hanged; others, first half-hanged, are to have their bowels torn out and burnt before their eyes; some are to be swung aloft till famine cling them. The long road is thronged with spectators flocking in answer to the invitation of the State to attend these spectacles, designed to cleanse the heart by means of pity and terror. To-day Tyburn—what Tyburn means—is, in spite of the jurists, at its last gasp. After a struggle of a hundred years hanging is all but abolished. The State has renounced its attempt to improve our morals by the public spectacle of violent deaths. The knell of capital punishment was rung when Charles Dickens compelled the State to do its hanging in holes and corners. The “Histories of England” do not tell us much about Tyburn. “The far greater part of those books which are called ‘Histories of England,’” writes Cobbett, “are little better than romances. They treat of battles, negotiations, intrigues of courts, amours of kings, queens, and nobles; they contain the gossip and scandal of The story of Tyburn is one of the strangest, surely one also of the saddest, in the history of the people. To understand it, we must consider the social and legal conditions which found their outcome at Tyburn. WHOM TO EXECUTE? WHO IS TO EXECUTE? HOW TO EXECUTE?These questions have, after much experimenting, been so completely answered that it is to-day difficult to realise that each question has presented serious problems. We hang only those found guilty of murder, to the regret of jurists like Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, who thought that the punishment of death ought to be inflicted in many other cases. In old times the country swarmed with courts of inferior jurisdiction, each, however, with the power of hanging thieves. There is a satirical story telling how a man who had suffered shipwreck scrambled up a cliff, and, seeing a gallows, fell on his knees, and thanked God But one’s first surprise at the enormous number of gallows subsides when we consider the conditions of life in early times. The country was thickly wooded: immense forests gave shelter to robbers, thieves, to all under the ban of the law. One of the laws of Ina runs, “If a far-coming man, or a stranger, journey through a wood, out of the highway, and neither shout nor blow “THE STORY OF THE CHILTERN HUNDREDS. “This same abbat Leofstan, also called Plumstan, being a simple and pious man, full of compassion for all persons in peril, in order to make the roads safer for travellers, merchants and pilgrims faring to the church of the Blessed Alban, whether for the expiation of their sins, or for their worldly profit, caused to be cut down, chiefly along the royal road called Watling Street, the dense forests stretching from the border of Ciltria almost as far as to the north side of London: he also cleared the rough places, made bridges and levelled the way. For there were at that time all over Ciltria vast, dense forests, giving shelter to many different kinds of wild beasts, namely, wolves, wild boars, wild bulls, and stags, and, more dangerous still, to robbers, thieves by day and thieves by night, men banished from the realm, fugitives from justice. Wherefore abbat Leofstan—not to the loss, but to the good of this church—made over to a certain most stout and valiant knight, Turnot by name, and to two of his companions, Waldef and Thurman, the manor of Flamstude [Flamstead lies a little to the west of Watling Street], for which Turnot gave privately to the abbat five ounces of gold, a most beautiful palfrey, and a desirable greyhound. Which was done on these conditions—that the said Turnot, with his fellow-knights before named, and their followers, should protect the western parts, most haunted by robbers, and effectually guard the same, with the As the chronicler, who is supposed to have written before 1259, says nothing of any lapse of the agreement, it seems probable that it was still in force in his day, and that the wardenship has existed continuously from the eleventh century to our own days. About a century later matters had got from bad to worse:— About 1160. A kind of robbers not before heard of began to infest the country. Disguised as monks, these men joined travellers, and when they reached the spot where their fellows were lying in ambush, they gave a signal, and, turning on the deluded wayfarers, robbed and murdered them. Still a century later, in 1249, bitter complaints were made by certain merchants of Brabant of the unsafe state of the roads in the neighbourhood of Winchester. These merchants had been robbed of two hundred marks by men whose faces they had seen about the court. They threatened reprisals on the goods of English merchants in Brabant. The king, greatly moved, took strong The severe measures taken on this occasion did not cure the disease. Four years later, the king, acting on the advice of certain Savoyards, decreed that if any one was robbed or injured on a journey, compensation should be made, according to the custom of Savoy, by those responsible for the safety of the district. But the new plan came to nothing. On a calm review of the facts it is difficult to resist the conclusion that civilisation has been immeasurably more favourable to the predatory classes than to any other class whatsoever. The coarse, rude methods of early times have given place to vastly improved ways of “conveying” a neighbour’s goods. In the Paston Letters we read of nobles and great men laying siege with an armed force to a coveted house. The appropriation of “unearned increment” is at once more scientific and more productive. The arts of engraving and printing have been turned to the greatest advantage. A design, more or less elaborate, is produced, purporting to represent a certain value expressed by numerals, as L. 1, L. 50, or L. 100. Persons of high social position are found to assure the public that the pieces of paper on which these It must, in fairness, be admitted that the public finds its account in the new arts of relieving it of its money. Of old time Dunning, operating in the forests of Ciltria, too often took the life as well as the money of his victims. There is to-day no need of violence, and as all that a man has will he give for his life, the improvement of method is beneficial to the community generally. Thus all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Little could the pioneers foresee of the triumphs of their successors. “William the Sacrist,” if William it was who planned the robbery of the King’s treasury in 1303, perhaps the greatest burglary ever attempted, must have been a man of the highest genius. Had he lived in the nineteenth century he would have adopted more finished methods. He fell upon evil times, and his skin illustrates a door in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey (see p. 25). Yes, William, you and your like lived in cruel times! You were called harsh names, fures, latrones, vespiliones, The truth is that in the simple life of those days no One begins to understand the fury with which robbers and thieves were pursued. Mr. Freeman says most justly, “In our settled times we hardly understand how rigour, often barbarous rigour, against thieves and murderers, should have been looked on as the first merit of a governor, one which was always enough to cover a multitude of sins.” The insight into the state of the country in the late thirteenth century, given by the two publications of the Records Commission, Rotuli Hundredorum, and Placita de Quo Waranto, is so valuable that it may be permitted to glance at them. The preliminary to the first of these is the Act of the fourth of Edward I. (1276), the statute for assigning justices to the work. The statute, called “Rageman,” a term of doubtful etymology, enacted that justices should go through the land inquiring into, hearing, and determining all complaints and suits for trespasses within twenty-five years last past, as well by the king’s bailiffs as by all other persons whomsoever. These commissioners did their work with a thoroughness amazing when we consider the difficulty of travel in the times. The results are recorded in the Rotuli Hundredorum. On the evidence furnished by the Rotuli Hundredorum was passed the statute of Gloucester, in the sixth of Edward I. (1278). This Act put the burden of proof of lawful claim to franchises on the persons exercising them. The statute enacts that whereas prelates, earls, barons, and others of the kingdom claim to have divers franchises, persons may continue to exercise these franchises without prejudice to the king’s rights until the next coming of the king into the county, or the next coming of the justices in Eyre, or until the king otherwise order. The sheriffs are to make proclamation that all who claim to have any franchise by charter or otherwise shall come at a certain day to a place assigned, to state what franchises they claim and by what title. In 1281 was issued, according to the annals of Waverley, a mandate “called by the people Quo Waranto, directed to certain justices, for inquiring respecting lands, tenements, rents, alleged to be alienated from the king, as well as regarding franchises held from him: by reason of which mandate archbishops, bishops, abbats, priors, earls, barons, and others holding franchises, as well religious as others, were subjected to trouble and expense, although the king got little profit thereby.” The statements found in the presentments of jurors in the Rotuli Hundredorum are, as might be surmised, somewhat in the nature of hearsay. They have not the value, as material for investigating the social condition of the time, of the more formal charges contained in the Placita de Quo Waranto. Thus we find, in the Rotuli Hundredorum, that the abbat of Westminster was presented by the jurors of three several wards of the City of London as having gallows at Tyburn: in other cases gallows are mentioned as erected by the abbat in Middlesex, two places only being specified. But when we come to the Placita de Quo Waranto, we find that the abbat had gallows in fifteen places in Middlesex in addition to one in the ville of Westminster. These places were, Eye (a district of Westminster), Teddington, Knightsbridge, Greenford, Chelsea, Brentford, Paddington, This inquisition is not to be confounded with another, singularly called “Trailbaston,” relating to criminal matters, as the other related to civil affairs. “Trailbaston,” which may be rendered “Bludgeon-men,” has sometimes been supposed to be so called from the justices themselves; but it is more probable that, as we find the word in the earliest mention of the subject, the bludgeon-men were those against whom operations were directed, just as we might to-day speak of a “hooligan Act” if an Act were specially devoted to these gentry. The first official mention of Trailbaston is found in Rotuli Parliamentorum, under date 1305, when it already bore the nickname “Ordination de Trailbastons.” Justices were then assigned to inquire as to murders and felonies committed during the last eight years. In 1306 the inquisition, as would seem, had not got to work, as the king ordered that if the justices assigned are not sufficient for the duty, “a parfaire les busoignes qe touchent les pledz de Traillebaston,” more are to be assigned to the work. Five days later he sent a list of twenty-one justices, and the thirty-eight counties allotted to them severally. The inquisition of Trailbaston was found to work mainly as a great engine of oppression. In 1377 the Commons petitioned that there may be no manner of Trailbaston held in the realm during the war nor for twenty years. It is alleged that both civil and criminal inquisitions had for object to bring money into the exchequer by means of fines. To return to the subject of the multiplicity of courts. It is to be supposed that, in the circumstances, there were frequently conflicts between courts as to their In the twelfth century the district near Dunstable, where Watling Street meets Icknield Street, was so infested by robbers that hardly could “a lawful man” pass that way. The chronicler, whose etymology is not above suspicion, states that Dunstable came by its name from one Dunning, a famous robber who haunted the region. Henry I., towards the end of his reign—say Another instance. In 1290 Bogo de Knowill, the king’s bailiff of Montgomery, complained to our lord the king that Edmund Mortimer had laid hands upon a king’s man who had committed murder, had imprisoned him, in spite of the bailiff’s demands, had refused to give him up, had tried him in his own court, and hanged him, to the hurt of the franchise of the town of Montgomery, and against the crown and its dignity, etc. The king declared that Mortimer had forfeited his franchise of Wygemore, but agreed to restore it on payment of a fine. But, in addition, Mortimer must hand over to Bogo, the bailiff, an effigy, in the name and place of the man who had been hanged, the bailiff to hang the effigy, and to let it hang as long as may be. After a while, Mortimer complained that the bailiff unjustly retained the franchise in the king’s hand. Whereunto Bogo replied that the effigy had not been handed over to him, wherefore he held the franchise aforesaid until, etc. And the king ordered that the franchise should be held till the effigy should be handed over. This is the last heard of Bogo, Mortimer, and the effigy. In such cases more was touched than the dignity of the lord of the franchise. The concession of a franchise to hang generally included the right to “catalla felonum,” the goods of felons and of fugitives. “These courts,” says Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, “were a regular source of income to the lord of the franchise.” Irregularities and How to execute? Even in regard to the way of mere hanging, the problem presented difficulties. In France, a rigid etiquette guarded the method of hanging. A franchise might give the right to hang upon trees only. But hanging was one only out of numerous methods of carrying out a capital sentence: ingenuity seems to have exhausted itself in devising ways of putting a man to death. A law of Æthelstan decrees, “Let him be smitten so that his neck break.” In his “Description of England,” forming part of Holinshed’s Chronicle, Harrison tells of ways of execution in practice when he wrote, about 1580: “He that poisoneth a man is to be boiled to death in water or lead, although the party die not of the practise.” Harrison is here mistaken. The enactment of boiling to death was due to one malefactor, who achieved the rare distinction of having an Act of Parliament directed against himself. The Act, 22 Henry VIII. (1530-1) c. 9, tells the story. It begins by stating that the crime of poisoning has in this realm been most rare, and continues thus:— “And now in the tyme of this presente parliament, that is to saye in the xviij?? daye of Februarye in the xxij yere of his moste victorious reygn, one Richarde Roose late of Rouchester in the Countie of Kente coke, otherwyse called Richarde Coke, of his moste wyked and dampnable dysposicyon dyd caste a certeyne venym or poyson into a vessell replenysshed with yeste or barme stondyng in the Kechyn of the Reverende Father in God John Bysshopp of Rochester at his place in Lamehyth Marsshe, wyth whych Yeste or Barme and other thynges convenyent porrage or gruell was forthwyth made for his famylye there beyng, whereby nat only the nombre of xvij persons of his said famylie whych dyd eate of that porrage were mortally enfected and poysoned and one of them that is to say, Benett Curwen gentylman thereof ys decessed, but also certeyne pore people which resorted to the sayde Bysshops place and were there charytably fedde with the remayne of the saide porrage and other vytayles, were in lyke wyse infected, and one pore Woman of them that is to saye, Alyce Tryppytt wydowe is also thereof nowe deceased: Our Sayde Sovereign Lorde the Kynge of hys blessed disposicion inwardly abhorryng all such abhomynable offences because that in no maner no persone can lyve in suretye out of daunger of death by that meane yf practyse thereof shulde not be exchued, hath ordeyned and enacted by auctorytie of thys presente parlyament that the sayde poysonyng be adjudged and demed as high treason, And that the sayde Richarde Roose for the sayd murder and poysonynge of the sayde two persons as is aforesayde by auctorite of thys presente parlyament shall stande and be attaynted of highe treason: And by cause that detestable offence nowe newly practysed and commytted requyreth condigne punysshemente for the same: It is ordeyned and enacted by auctoritie of this presente parliament that the said Richard Roose The Act goes on to declare that in future murder by poisoning shall be deemed to be high treason, punishable by boiling to death. This was the sequel:— “1531. The 5. of Aprill one Richard Rose a cooke, was boiled in Smithfielde, for poisoning of diuers persons, to the number of 16, or more, at y? bishop of Rochesters place, amongst the which Benet Curwine Gentleman was one, and hee intended to haue poisoned the Bishop himselfe but hee eate no pottage that day whereby hee escaped: marie the poore people that eate of them, many of them died” (Stow’s Annals, ed. 1615, p. 559). Stow records another case in 1542, March 17, when Margaret Davy, a maid-servant, was boiled in Smithfield for poisoning three households in which she had lived. To continue with Harrison: If one “be conuicted of wilfull murther, doone either vpon pretended malice, or in anie notable robberie, he is either hanged aliue in chaines neere the place where the fact was committed (or else vpon compassion taken first strangled with a rope) and so continueth till his bones consume to nothing.” “Such as hauing wals and banks neere vnto the sea, and doo suffer the same to decaie (after conuenient admonition) whereby the water entereth and drowneth vp the countrie, are by a certeine custome apprehended, condemned, and staken in the breach, where they remaine for euer as parcell of the foundation of the new wall that is to be made vpon them, as I haue heard reported.” “There is and hath beene of ancient time a law or rather a custome in Halifax, that who soeuer dooth commit anie fellonie, and is taken with the same, or confesse the fact vpon examination: if it be valued by foure constables to amount to the sum of thirteene pence halfe penie, he is foorthwith beheaded upon one of the next market daies.… The engine wherewith the execution is doone, is a square block of wood of the length of foure foote and an halfe, which dooth ride vp and downe in a slot, rabet, or regall betweene two peeces of timber, that are framed and set vpright of fiue yardes in height. In the neather end of the sliding blocke is an ax keied or fastened with an iron into the wood, which being drawne vp to the top of the frame is there fastned by a wooden pin (with a notch made into the same after the manner of a Samsons post) vnto the middest of which pin also there is a long rope fastened that commeth downe among the people, so that when the offendor hath made his confession, and hath laid his necke ouer the neathermost blocke, euerie man there present dooth either take hold of the rope (or putteth foorth his arme so neere to the same as he can get, in token that he is willing to see true iustice executed) and pulling out the pin in this maner, the head blocke wherein the ax is fastened dooth fall downe with such a violence, that if the necke of the transgressor were so big as that of a bull, it should be cut in sunder at a stroke, and roll from the bodie by an huge distance. If it be so that the offendor be apprehended for an ox, oxen, sheepe, kine, horsse, or anie such cattell: the selfe beast or other of the same kind shall haue the end of the rope tied somewhere vnto them, so that they being driuen doo draw out the pin wherby the offendor is executed.” Harrison says that “we have vse neither of the wheele A favourite story of the Middle Ages is that of the unjust judge, Sisamnes, flayed alive by order of Cambyses. This punishment is one not likely to have been overlooked. In the “Laws of Henry I.” (so called), we find scalping and flaying mentioned as punishments (comacio and excoriacio In 1303 was successfully carried out a burglary which after six centuries remains the greatest burglary on record, the amount involved being £100,000, equal to £2,000,000 in money of the present day. The palace of the king at Westminster was contiguous to the abbey. In the King’s treasury were lodged at the time in question not only the regalia, but a large sum of money destined to the carrying on of the war in Scotland. Edward I. left Westminster on March 14th and travelled towards Scotland, reaching Newcastle on May 6th. Shortly before this date the treasury was broken into and its treasure carried off. The robbery being discovered, forty-one friars and thirty-four monks were committed to the Tower. The burglary had been skilfully planned. Early in the spring the cemetery—the plot enclosed by the cloisters—was sown with hemp, so that the hemp should grow high enough by the time fixed for the robbery to hide the treasure. Mr. Joseph Burtt, who has told the story at length, came to the conclusion that Ten monks and one cleric were arraigned, but, refusing to be tried by secular judges, were remanded to the Tower. But the judges “condemned the sacrist of Westminster for receiving and concealing jewels of our lord the king.” Strangely enough, there is no record of his sentence. Here is the record of a punishment, the only one of its kind I have found recorded:— “1222. A Prouinciall councell was holden at Oxforde, by Stephen Langton Archbyshoppe of Canterburie, and his suffragane bishops and others.… There was also a young man and two women brought before them, the yoong man would not come in any church, nor be partaker of the Sacraments, but had suffered himselfe to be crucified, in whom the scars of all y? wounds were to be seene, in his hands, head, side and feete, and he reioyced to bee called Jesus of these women and other. One of the women being olde, was accused for bewitching the young man vnto such madnes, and also (altering her owne name) procured her selfe to bee called Mary the mother of Christ: They being conuict of these crimes and other, were adiudged to bee closed vp betweene two walles of stone, There is another story, of about the same time, telling of a religious maniac, done to death in an abnormal way:— “A man that faynyd hym selfe Cryste at Oxynforde, he was cursyde at Aldermanbery at London, the yere of oure Lorde M?ccxxij.” So we read in Gregory’s Chronicle. In the Grey Friars’ Chronicle we find this:— “A man of Oxenford faynyd hym to be Cryst, and was crucified at Addurbury.” This explains the meaning of “cursyde” in the other chronicle. The Chronicle of London (1827) says:— “A man of Alderbery feynd hym Cryst, whiche was brought to Oxon’ and there he was crucifyed” (p. 11). Capgrave, who wrote much later, but no doubt had before him some old writer, tells of a similar case of religious mania:— “1221. There was accused eke a carl that procured men to nayle him on a crosse: for in handis and feet were seyn the woundes of the nayles, and in his side a wound eke: and in his fonnednesse he wold sey that he was so arayed for savacion of the world. He was put in prison for evyr, and nevyr to have othir repast but bread and watir.” It will be seen that these cases occurred about the same time. DRAWN, HANGED, AND QUARTERED.There has been much confusion as to the punishment of “drawing,” forming down to times comparatively recent a portion of the punishment awarded to those found guilty of high treason. The correct order of the several punishments in such cases is drawing, hanging, and quartering. But to-day every one inverts the order, putting hanging first. Even the old chroniclers sometimes make this mistake. The proper order is inverted by Capgrave, the Grey Friars’ Chronicler, and by Latimer in his third sermon. Owing to this mistake it has not infrequently been assumed that drawing was a process following hanging, and consisted in drawing out the bowels of the victim. In fact, drawing meant dragging along the ground. There were three kinds of drawing. In the vast majority of cases drawing means dragging to the place of execution, where hanging, disembowelling and quartering followed. But drawing sometimes means dragging till the sufferer died of the mere dragging. In some cases drawing means tugging by horses in opposite directions till the sufferer was torn to pieces. It is not in all cases easy to say what punishment is indicated by the chroniclers, who use indifferently the words “tractus,” “detractus,” and “distractus.” Examples of the first kind of drawing, dragging to the foot of the gallows, for execution, are superabundant. In 1295 Tuberville was drawn on a fresh ox-hide (sur un quir de bof fres), and one of the chroniclers expressly states that he was so drawn that he might not die too quickly. Whether owing to compassion or to the ferocity of judges who had discovered that the drawing as at first practised rendered a victim insensible to the spectacle of the burning of his own bowels, it is certain that the ox-hide became an established institution, for in a case later than Turberville we hear of “the common ox-hide.” This in its turn gave place to the hurdle, and this to the sledge—no doubt to the infinite disgust of judges like Shard. The following is a case in which drawing was carried out till the death of the sufferers from mere dragging:— There were frequent and bitter disputes between the citizens of Norwich and the prior. These disputes came to a head in 1271, when, in a quarrel at the gates of the priory, two citizens were killed. The townsmen flew to arms. The men of the priory retreated within the walls and prepared for a siege. The citizens, unable to force the gates of the priory, tore down the doors of the church. The prior threatened excommunication: the citizens demanded redress for the killing of two of their number. Finally, the prior put in execution his threat of excommunication: the citizens retorted by seizing provisions on their way to the priory. The prior now disposed his men in the belfry, and fighting went on for some days. At last the citizens set fire to the belfry: the fire spread till almost all the conventual buildings were destroyed. The citizens rushed in, killing all, monks and laymen, they could find; they destroyed everything on which they could lay hands. The bishop and other priests gathered together outside Norwich, excommunicated nine men by name, and all others who had taken part in the matter. The case was grave: the king came down, and spent twelve days in investigating the case, with the aid of his The chroniclers record only, I think, one case in which it is made clear the victim was actually dragged to pieces, as we see in old pictures of the martyrdom of St. Hippolytus:— “In 1238, King Henry III., being at Woodstock, a certain learned squire came to the court. He feigned madness, and demanded of the king that he should give up the crown. The king’s attendants sought to drive him away, but the king forbade this. In the middle of the night the man came again, bearing an open knife. He made his way into the king’s bed-chamber, but the king was not there, being with the queen. But one of the queen’s maids, Margaret Bisseth, was awake, and, sitting by the light of a candle, sang psalms (for she was a holy maid, and one devoted to the service of God). Margaret gave the alarm, and the man was secured. He declared that he had been sent by William Marsh on purpose to kill the king. On learning this, the king ordered that, as one guilty of an attempt to kill the king’s majesty, he should be torn by horses limb from limb, a terrible example, and a lamentable spectacle to all who should dare to plot such crimes. In the first place he was drawn asunder, then beheaded, and his body was divided into three parts, each of which was dragged through one of the greatest cities of England, and afterwards hung on the robbers’ gibbet.” We come now to the question of the punishment for high treason, regarded as the greatest of all crimes, one therefore to be punished with all possible severity. Treason was elaborately defined by 25 Edward III., “1. That the aforesaid … be drawn to the gallows of … 2. He is there to be hanged by the neck, and let down alive. 3. His bowels are to be taken out, 4. And, he being alive, to be burnt. 5. His head is to be cut off. 6. His body is to be divided into four parts, 7. And his head and quarters are to be placed where our lord the king shall direct.” There is no doubt that, originally, the prisoner was drawn to the gallows immediately after trial, but later, the first clause was made to run that the prisoner should be taken from the court to the place whence he came (the prison), and from thence to the place of execution. The sentence is given in this later form by Sir William Stanford in his work, “Les Plees del Coron.” 1560, fols. 182, 182b. It is difficult to say when the sentence, as given above, was first carried out. In relating the execution in 1283 of David, Prince of Wales, the chroniclers give the several punishments in this order: drawing, hanging, beheading, disembowelling, quartering. In 1305 we come to the condemnation and execution of Sir William Wallace. The sentence, in a highly rhetorical form, states the punishments in the order in which they are given in the case of Prince David, making beheading precede disembowelling. But accounts of the execution given by chroniclers leave no doubt that the punishments followed in what became the usual order, namely, that Wallace, being let down alive, was first disembowelled, beheading following, not preceding this. It will be observed that the execution of Wallace (see footnote), included ementulation (abscisis genitalibus) which was not prescribed by the sentence. There is a mystery about this clause. It does not appear in the form of sentence as given by Coke in his “Institutes,” yet in passing sentence in 1615 on John Owen, alias Collins, he expressly includes ementulation, and gives elaborate reasons why this should form part of the sentence. Again, taking a group of sentences passed in connection with the Popish Plot, we find that ementulation forms part of the sentence in the cases of Ireland, Pickering, and Grove, the “Five Jesuits” and Langhorn, It would seem that a Scot was the first on whom this horrible series of punishments is recorded to have been inflicted. Scots were the last to suffer the penalties of high treason, inflicted in their greatest rigour: these were the men condemned for the Rebellion of 1745. In July, 1746, seventeen were sentenced according to the usual form: of these, eight were reprieved, the other nine being executed on Kennington Common on July 30th. One of these was Townley:— “After he had hung six minutes, he was cut down, and, having life in him, as he lay upon the block to be quartered, the executioner gave him several blows on his breast, which not having the effect designed, he immediately cut his throat: after which he took his head off: then ripped him open, and took out his bowels and heart, and threw them into a fire which consumed them: then he slashed his four quarters, and put them with the head into a coffin, and they were carried to the new gaol in Southwark, where they were deposited till Saturday, August 2, when his head was put on Temple Bar, and his body and limbs suffered to be buried.” The last exhibition of this kind was in 1820, when Thistlewood and four others, some of them victims of a TORTURE AND PEINE FORTE ET DURE.Sir Thomas Smith (1513-77), Secretary of State to Elizabeth, wrote a book, “De Republica Anglorum,” not published till 1583. In it the author says: “Torment or question, which is vsed by the order of the ciuill lawe and custome of other countries, to put a malefactor to excessiue paine, to make him confesse of him selfe, or of his fellowes or complices, is not vsed in England, it is taken for seruile.… The nature of our nation is free, stout, haulte, prodigall of life and bloud: but contumelie, beatings, seruitude, and seruile torment and punishment it will not abide.” The statement that torture was not used in England is amazing, as it is beyond doubt that Smith himself racked prisoners in 1571. It would be idle to speculate as to the amount of alleviation the reflection that torture was illegal may have brought to Southwell, for instance, who was racked ten several times. A kind of torture, not however applied for the purpose of extracting confessions, was recognised by the law. This was the Peine Forte et Dure, “one of the most singular circumstances,” writes Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, “in the whole of the criminal law.” It certainly is this: it is moreover, a practice as to which even writers on our criminal law have gone astray, not excepting Sir James himself. It is a most remarkable example of judge-made law; the successive stages of its growth can in some measure be traced. Its very name betrays the change made in the “It is provided also, That notorious Felons, which openly be of evil name, and will not put themselves in Enquests of Felonies that Men shall charge them with before the Justices at the King’s suit, shall have strong and hard Imprisonment (prison forte et dure), as they which refuse to stand to the common Law of the Land: But this is not to be understood of such prisoners as be taken of light suspicion.” Britton, supposed to have written about sixteen years later than the statute, in 1291 or 1292, thus states the punishment:— “And if they will not put themselves upon their acquittal, let them be put to their penance until they pray to do it: and let their penance be this, that they be barefooted, ungirt and bareheaded, in the worst place in the prison, upon the bare ground continually, night and day; that they eat only bread made of barley or bran, and that they drink not the day they eat, nor eat the day they drink, nor drink anything but water, and that they be put in irons.” “Fleta,” written about the same time, contains similar details, expressly stating that the punishment is to continue till those who refuse the law “seek what they before contemned.” An actual case, not mentioned in the law books, is recorded in the Chronicle of Bartholomew Cotton. In 1293, for the murder of some Dutch sailors at Sniterleye, thirteen persons were hanged, and the bailiff of the hundred, because he would not put himself upon the inquest (se supponere inquisitioni), was sentenced to prison in this form, viz., that on the day when he ate he should not drink, and the bread which he had should be the worst bread, and the drink that he should have should That the “penance” was intended not to kill, but to induce the prisoner to plead, is shown by cases in the Year Book of Edward I. In 1302 one condemned to “the great penance” brought his charter of pardon into court, by means of his friends, ten days after the judgment. In a case recorded in the Year Book of Henry IV. (1406) the court ordered that, in addition to the punishment of being fed on the worst bread and stagnant water, two thieves condemned to penance for standing mute should have put upon them as great a weight as they could bear and more, and should so remain till they were dead. But as Chief Justice Gascoigne, who passed the sentence, afterwards said that the prisoners might live for many years, the words “more than they can bear” cannot be supposed to mean that the prisoners were to be pressed to death. The punishment reached its most terrible form in the reign of Elizabeth. Harrison, in his “Description of England,” says:— “Such fellons as stand mute and speake not at their arraignement are pressed to death by huge weights laid vpon a boord, that lieth ouer their brest, and a sharpe stone vnder their backs, and these commonlie hold their peace, thereby to saue their goods vnto their wiues and children, which if they were condemned should be confiscated to the prince.” Here is another addition, the sharp stone under the back. Harrison’s account is confirmed by two recorded cases. In 1586 Margaret Clitherow was indicted at York for harbouring or relieving priests, a capital offence. Refusing to plead, she was condemned by the judge to the peine forte et dure, “so to continue for three days,” without food or drink except barley bread and puddle water, “and a sharp stone under your back.” The execution of the sentence is thus described: Her hands and feet were tied to posts so that her body and arms made a cross. A door was laid upon her. “After this they laid weight upon her, which when she first felt, she said ‘Jesu! Jesu! Jesu! have mercy upon me!’ which were the last words she was heard to speak. She was in dying one quarter of an hour. A sharp stone, as much as a man’s fist, put under her back: upon her was laid to the quantity of seven or eight hundredweight at the least, which, breaking her ribs, caused them to burst forth of the skin.” The other case is that of Major Strangewayes, indicted at the Old Bailey on February 24, 1658-9, for the murder of his brother-in-law. He refused to plead, and was sentenced to the peine forte et dure in the usual terms. The press employed on this occasion was triangular in form, the acute angle resting above the region of the heart. “He was prohibited that usuall Favour in that kind, to have a sharp piece of Timber layed under his From these two narratives and Harrison’s statement, in agreement with them, it is clear that the punishment of peine forte et dure, originally severe imprisonment, inflicted to induce a prisoner to plead, had in the hands of the judges become a sentence of death far more painful than hanging, so that one standing mute was more severely punished than if he had been found guilty of the crime for which he was indicted. The clauses of the sentence show a disordered growth in this severity. If a man was to have laid upon him as great a weight as he could bear “and more,” it was superfluous to make provision in the sentence for feeding on alternate days a person who was destined to be pressed to death in a few minutes. Sir William Staunforde, or Stanford, indeed, whose book, “Les Plees del Coron,” was published in 1560, expressly contends that the punishment was to continue, not until the prisoner would plead, but till he was dead. It appears from the cases recorded and from the passage quoted from Harrison, that standing mute was a practice not uncommon. What was the motive for refusing to plead? It is here that those who have written on the subject have been mistaken. It has been generally assumed that the object was to save the forfeiture of goods which would have followed on a condemnation. This is incorrect. It is true that by standing mute the accused could escape corruption of blood and forfeiture of lands, but he did not thus avert Where the accused was not possessed of land, the practice can be explained by either of two suppositions: either the prisoner refused to recognise the authority of the tribunal, or he desired to save his family from the reproach of a public execution of one of its members. This was the reason alleged to the ordinary of Newgate by Spiggott. A few years earlier, in 1721, Nathaniel Hawes, a highwayman, refused to plead because a handsome suit of clothes had been taken from him, and he was resolved not to go to the gallows in a shabby suit. He gave in when he had borne a weight of 250 lbs. for about seven minutes. Spiggott, as has been said, bore 350 lbs. for half an hour, and gave way when a further weight of 50 lbs. was put upon him. These cases show that the judges had reverted to the old view that the punishment was inflicted for the purpose of inducing the prisoner to plead. Another milder form of torture was practised in connection with the peine forte et dure. It is first revealed in the report of a case which was tried at the Newgate Sessions in 1663:— “At the same Sessions, George Thorely, being indicted for Robbery, refused to plead, and his two Thumbs were tyed together with Whipcord, that the pain of that might compel him to Plead, and he was sent away so tyed, and a Minister perswaded to go to him to perswade him: And an Hour after he was brought again and pleaded. And this was said to be the constant practice at Newgate.” There was no legal authority whatsoever for this punishment. By 12 George III. (1772), c. 20, it was enacted that persons thereafter arraigned for felony or piracy, standing mute, should be convicted of the crime charged against them. Such a case occurred in 1777. Francis Mercier was arraigned at the Old Bailey sessions, beginning on December 3, 1777, for the murder of David Samuel Moudrey. He stood mute. A jury was immediately impannelled by the sheriff to inquire whether he stood mute fraudulently, wilfully, and obstinately, or by the providence and act of God. This jury found that he stood mute fraudulently, upon which Mr. Justice Aston (in the absence of the Recorder) at once passed sentence upon him that he should be executed and his body be afterwards dissected and anatomised. He was hanged at the end of Princes By 7 and 8 George IV. (1827), c. 28, it was enacted that if a prisoner refused to plead, the court might order a plea of “Not Guilty” to be entered. It had taken five and a half centuries to discover this simple solution of the difficulty. THE HANGMAN.Something must be said about that useful public servant, the executioner. Selected by the State to carry out its decrees, it would seem that he should have been invested with a dignity but little inferior to that of the judges who pronounced the sentence carried out by him in co-partnership. Without the practical assistance of the executioner, the solemn sentence of the robed, ermined, and full-bottom-wigged judge would be of no effect. Nevertheless, this officer of the State, practically inculcating on the scaffold the great truths of morality impressed on the public from the bench, this great public officer has never received the homage due to him. In France the executioner is—or was—“the executor of high works,” with us he has always been merely “the common hangman.” Of the many instances of public ingratitude, this is perhaps the most scandalous. Nor have posthumous honours in the smallest degree compensated for want of respect during life. The statues of London are, with few exceptions, and these recent, almost wholly devoted to royal personages, to soldiers, and to ground landlords. Among them we seek in vain monuments to the executive officer, without whose aid law and order would have been mere empty names. That great work, the Dictionary of National Biography, has done something to redeem this neglect by recording such rare facts as may be discovered in the biographies of hangmen. For this we may be grateful: it is at least a beginning. Cunningham, in his “Handbook of London,” a compilation displaying marvellous industry, says that “the earliest hangman whose name is known was called Derrick.” This is a mistake. There are two, or perhaps three, predecessors whose names have been recorded. Of these predecessors of Derrick, the first is Cratwell, whose execution was witnessed by the chronicler Hall in 1538. Then comes an officer whose name a careless country has omitted to preserve, “the hangman with the stump-leg,” who, alas! was also hanged, reaching this end to his career in 1556. “The bulls which by the practice of you and your Catiline, the lively image of your heart, should by loud lowing, have called all his calves together with a preparation to band against our sovereign, at the first break of day, and to have cropped those sweet olive-buds that environ the regal seat, did more good than hurt, as it happened, by calling in a third bull, which was Bull the hangman, to make a speedy riddance and dispatch of this forlorn fellowship.” Bull is also mentioned in “Tarlton’s Jests.” Either before or after Bull came Derrick, hangman in the reign of James I. He is mentioned in Dekker’s “Bellman of London,” 1608, and was famous; for half a century later his name was a term of abuse. According to the Dictionary of National Biography, Derrick was succeeded by Gregory Brandon. When January, 1617. “York Herald played a trick on Garter King-at-Arms, by sending him a coat of arms drawn up for Gregory Brandon, said to be a merchant of London, and well-descended, which Garter subscribed, and then found that Brandon was the hangman; Garter and York are both imprisoned, one for foolery, the other for knavery.” Gregory was succeeded by his son Richard, famous as the executioner of Charles I. After him came Lowen, an obscure hangman, known only by mention in the account of an execution. Later came Edward Dun, known as “Esquire Dun,” mentioned in Butler’s “Hudibras” (pt. iii. c. ii. l. 1534). He was followed by the most famous of all the hangmen of Tyburn, Jack Ketch, hangman from about 1663 to 1686. In January of this year he was for a time superseded by Pascha Rose, a butcher, who was hanged at Tyburn, on May 28th, when Ketch resumed office. Ketch is twice mentioned in Dryden, in the epilogue to the Duke of Guise:— “Jack Ketch, says I’s, an excellent physician,” and again in “The Original and Progress of Satire”:— “A man may be capable, as Jack Ketch’s wife said of his servant, of a plain piece of work, a bare hanging: but to make a malefactor die sweetly, was only belonging to her husband.” Dr. Murray’s Dictionary attributes something of Ketch’s fame to his introduction into the “puppet-play of Punchinello introduced from Italy shortly after his “He sayd to the executioner, ‘Here are six guinies for you. Pray doe your business well: don’t serue me as you did my Lord Russell. I haue heard you strooke him three or fower tymes. Here (to his seruant), take these remaininge guinies, and giue them to him if he does his worke well.’ And to the executioner he sayd, ‘If you strike me twice I cannot promise you not to stirr.’ Then he lay downe, and soone after raised himselfe vpon his elbowe, and sayd to the executioner, ‘Prithee, let me feele the ax.’ He felt the edge, and sayd, ‘I feare it is not sharpe enough.’ Then he lay downe, the Diuines prayinge earnestly for the acceptance of his repentance, his imperfect repentance, and commended to God his soule and spirit. Soe the executioner did his work: but I heare he had fiue blowes. Soe he died.” As recorded in the Annals, John Price, the Tyburn hangman, was executed in Bunhill-Fields for murder in 1718. In August, 1721, John Meff was executed at Tyburn. At a previous date, not mentioned, he had been condemned to death for housebreaking, but, as he was going to Tyburn, the hangman, bearing the generic name of “Jack Ketch,” was arrested. What became of him is not told, but he probably came to a bad end. In May, 1736, “Jack Ketch,” on his return from doing his office at Tyburn, robbed a woman of 3s. 6d., for which he was committed to Newgate. History is silent as to his fate. In 1750, the hangman, John Thrift, was condemned In 1780, Edward Dennis, the hangman, was condemned for taking part in the No Popery riots. He was respited. Dickens has introduced Dennis as a personage in his story of “Barnaby Rudge.” It will be seen that out of the few hangmen of Tyburn whose names have come down to us, several ended their useful lives on the gallows, having failed to profit personally by the lessons they were employed by the State to teach. There was a strange superstition connected with the gallows: what it was will be understood from the following:— A man having been hanged at Tyburn, on May 4, 1767, “a young woman, with a wen upon her neck, was lifted up while he was hanging, and had the wen rubbed with the dead man’s hand, from a superstitious notion that it would effect a cure.” This case is not the only one of its kind on record. Tyburn is responsible for a few slang expressions. “A Tyburn ticket” was a certificate exempting from parish duties the successful prosecutor of a malefactor. “A Tyburn blossom” was a young pickpocket. “A Tyburn check” was a rope. “A Tyburn tippet” was a halter. Latimer did not disdain to use this word in his great sermons. The gallows was known as “Deadly Never-green,” the “Three-legged Mare,” the “Three-legged Stool.” AFTER TYBURN.What became of the bodies of those done to death at Tyburn? Some were quartered, parboiled, and stuck up on the gates of the city or elsewhere, as the king might direct. These would be but few out of the great total. For two centuries there was regular provision for the decent burial of executed persons, in the circumstances mentioned by Stow. Stow tells how, in 1348, Ralph Stratford, Bishop of London, bought a piece of ground, called “No Man’s Land,” which he enclosed with a wall of brick, and dedicated for burial of the dead: this was Pardon churchyard. In the following year Sir Walter Manny bought thirteen acres of land adjoining, and here were buried more than fifty thousand persons who died of the frightful pestilence then raging, known as the Black Death. In 1371 Sir Walter founded here the Charterhouse, giving to the monastery the thirteen acres, and also the three acres adjoining, which “remained till our time by the name of Pardon churchyard, and served for burying of such as desperately ended their lives, or were executed for felonies, who were fetched thither usually in a close cart, bailed over and covered with black, having a plain white cross thwarting, and at the fore end a St. John’s cross without, and within a bell ringing by shaking of the cart, whereby the same might be heard when it passed: and this was called the friary cart, which belonged to St. John’s, and had the privilege of sanctuary.” “It remained till our time,” says Stow, and this is one of those passages telling what Stow had seen—passages that give so vivid an interest to his story of London. In the Grey Friars’ Chronicle we find an instance of the burial in Pardon churchyard of persons executed at Tyburn:— “1537. Also this yere the xxv day of Marche the Lyncolnechere men that was with bishoppe Makerelle was browte owte of Newgate vn-to the yelde-halle [Guildhall] in roppys, and there had their jugment to be drawne, hongyd, and heddyd, and qwarterd, and soo was the xxix of Marche after, the wyche was on Maundy Thursdaye, and alle their qwarteres with their heddes was burryd at Pardone churche-yerde in the frary.” From Stow’s account of the execution, quoted in the Annals, we learn that the number of Lincolnshire men executed on this occasion was twelve. The priory of St. John’s was dissolved in 1540, and with it went the friary cart. After this, and also before the suppression of the friary cart, bodies were brought back by friends for interment in the parish churchyard. Here is a case in which a body so brought back was refused burial:— One Awfield had been condemned and executed at Tyburn for “sparcing abrood certen lewed, sedicious, and traytorous bookes. His body was brought into St. Pulchers to be buryed, but the parishioners would not suffer a Traytor’s corpes to be layed in the earthe where theire parents, wyeffs, chyldren, kynred, maisters, and old neighbors did rest: and so his carcase was retourned to the buryall grounde neere Tyborne, and there I leave yt.” But many of the poor wretches hanged had no friends who would be at the charge of interment. The demands of the surgeons would be soon satisfied; with how little ceremony the residue would be treated we may learn We read of two priests and sixteen felons executed at the same time, in 1610, being all thrown together into a pit. The stories of bones found in the neighbourhood of the gallows may probably be referred to forgotten burial places or to pits into which, after a busy day’s work, a score of bodies would be tumbled. Strype, in his edition of Stow’s “Survey,” has a weird story of the finding of four embalmed heads in Blackfriars, in clearing away rubbish after the Great Fire of 1666:— “They came to an old Wall in a Cellar, of great thickness, where appeared a kind of Cupboard. Which being opened, there were found in it four Pots or Cases of fine Pewter, thick, with Covers of the same, and Rings fastened on the top to take up or put down at pleasure. The Cases were flat before, and rounding behind. And in each of them were reposited four humane Heads [he means one in each case; the margin has “Four Heads”], unconsumed, reserved as it seems, by Art; with their Teeth and Hair, the Flesh of a tawny Colour, wrap’d up in black Silk, almost consumed. And a certain Substance, of a blackish Colour, crumbled into Dust, lying at the bottom of the Pots. “One of these Pots, with the Head in it, I saw in October, 1703, being in the Custody of Mr. Presbury, then Sope-maker in Smithfield. Which Pot had inscribed in the inside of the Cover, in a scrawling Character (which might be used in the times of Henry VIII) J. Cornelius. This Head was without any Neck, having short red Hair upon it, thick, and that would not be pulled off; and yellow Hair upon the Temples; a little bald on the top (perhaps a Tonsure) the forepart of the Nose sunk, the Mouth gaping, ten sound Teeth, others had been plucked out; the skin like tanned Leather, the Features of the Face visible. There was one Body found near it buried, and without an Head; but no other Bodies found. The other three Heads had some of the Necks joined to them, and had a broader and plainer Razure: which shewed them Priests. These three Heads are now dispersed. One was given to an Apothecary; Another was intrusted with the Parish Clerk; who it is thought got Money by shewing of it. It is probable they were at last “Who these were, there is no Record, as I know of; nor had any of them Names inscribed but one. To me they seem to have been some zealous Priests or Friers, executed for Treason; whereof there were many in the Rebellion in Lincolnshire, An. 1538, or for denying the King’s Supremacy, And here privately deposited by these Black Friers” (book iii. p. 191). Through the later researches of Dr. Challoner, we now know the story relating to one of these heads. John Cornelius, or Mohun, was born of Irish parents in Bodmin. He studied at Oxford, but not adopting the new religion, went afterwards to Rheims, and later to Rome. He was sent upon the English mission, in which he laboured for about ten years. He was apprehended in April, 1594, in the house of the widow of Sir John Arundel, on the information of a servant of the house. Mr. Bosgrave, a kinsman of Sir John Arundel, seeing him hurried away without a hat, put his own hat on the priest’s head; for this he was arrested. Two servants of the family, Terence Carey and Patrick Salmon, were also arrested. Cornelius was sent to London, and there racked to make him give up the names of Catholics who had harboured him. Refusing to make any discovery, he was sent back into the country, tried, and, with his three companions, executed at Dorchester on July 2, 1594. The three were simply hanged: Cornelius, as guilty of high treason, was drawn, hanged, and quartered. His head was nailed to the gallows, but afterwards removed at the instance of the town. His quarters were buried together with the bodies of his companions. Dr. Challoner does not tell how the head of Cornelius was recovered by friends, nor does he say anything more of the others. It is probable that the three other heads of Strype’s account were those of the companions of Cornelius (“Memoirs of Missionary Priests,” part i., pp. 157-60). The Times of May 9, 1860, contained a letter from Mr. A. J. Beresford Hope, living in the house at the south-west corner of Edgware Road, stating that in the course of excavations made close to the foot-pavement along the garden of his house, “numerous human bones” were discovered. He says: “These are obviously the relics of the unhappy persons buried under the gallows.” If this was so, they must have been the bones of Cromwell, Ireton, or Bradshaw, buried under the gallows. ORIGIN AND SITE OF THE TYBURN GALLOWSAs has already been said, the earliest mention of Tyburn in connection with executions is in 1196, when William FitzOsbert, known as “Longbeard,” was hanged here: with probability we can refer to the site an execution taking place a few years earlier. How far back can we, in the absence of records, conjecturally place the dedication of Tyburn to executions? We can say, with a high degree of probability, that Tyburn was not established till after the Conquest, and, further, not till after the death of the Conqueror. Hanging was not greatly in favour with those whom we must, in spite of objections, call the Anglo-Saxons. Various fanciful definitions of Time have been given. According to Goethe, it is on the roaring loom of Time that the Earth-Spirit weaves the living garments of God. According to Carlyle, Time is the outer veil of Eternity. These poetical definitions seem to have little or no practical value. They would convey nothing, for instance, to the time-keeper of a wharf or great warehouse. It has been reserved for our race to give a definition of real solid value: “Time is money.” The phrase, revealing in three words the soul of a people, has gone the round of the world in its native tongue, hailed from pole to pole as the final definition of Time. We might look with confidence to find in the origins of a people alone capable of making this supreme discovery instances of this practical outlook on the universe. We shall not be “If the arm-shanks be both broken, the bot is xxx shillings. If the thumb be struck off, for that shall be xxx shillings as bot. If the nail be struck off, for that shall be v shillings as bot. If the shooting (i.e., fore-) finger be struck off, the bot is xv shillings: for its nail it is iv shillings. If the middlemost finger be struck off, the bot is xii shillings, and its nail’s bot is ii shillings. If the gold (i.e., ring-) finger be struck off, for that shall be xvii shillings as bot, and for its nail iv shillings as bot. If the little finger be struck off, for that shall be as bot ix shillings, and for its nail one shilling, if that be struck off.” The authors of a code so thoroughly commercial in spirit naturally regarded theft as the worst of crimes, and hanging was probably common for this offence, if the thief could not redeem himself. Thus we read in the laws of Æthelstan: “That no thief be spared over xii pence, and no person over xii years, who we learn, according to folk-right, that he is guilty, and can make no denial: that we slay him and take all that he has.” William the Conqueror abolished capital punishment. For this he has been highly eulogised by Mr. J. R. Green, who writes of “strange touches of a humanity far in advance of his age,” of “his aversion to shed blood by process of law.” But he omits to tell us that for the punishment of death William substituted punishments which, as Mr. Freeman justly says, “according to modern ideas were worse than death.” It is indeed “a strange touch of humanity” which prescribed the tearing out of a man’s eyes and the lopping off of his limbs. A terrible picture of a land haunted by sightless and maimed trunks is conjured up by the words of William’s law, “so that the trunk may remain alive as a sign of its crimes.” The penalty for breach of this law, confiscation of all the offender’s property, was so severe that we may well believe that capital punishment was actually abolished during the reign of William. It appears that capital punishment was re-instituted by Henry I. in 1108, and there seems no reason for doubting “The English king, Henry, established his peace and settled law, by which, if any one was taken in theft or robbery, he should be hanged.” The institution of the gallows of Tyburn probably dates from this time. The origin of Tyburn is certainly Norman; its early name, “The Elms,” testifies to this, for among the Normans the elm was the tree of justice. Here is the record of a symbolic elm so famous that its fall awakened an echo in the distant scriptorium of Peterborough:— “A.D. 1188. In this year, Philip, king of France, cut down an Elm in his dominions, between Gisors and Trie, where frequently conferences had been held in virtue of an ancient custom instituted by his predecessors, between them and the Dukes of Normandy.” Something of this symbolical character was retained by the elm in France long after the name “The Elms” had been forgotten here. Rabelais (1483?-1553) speaks of “juges sous l’orme,” and, later, Loyseau (1556-1627) has a great deal to say of these “judges under the elm-tree.” “The Elms” of Smithfield came by the name in the same way, as, there is little doubt, did also “The Elms,” It would not be surprising to find more of such names, in form more or less corrupt, in connection with places in the precincts of old monastic foundations. It may even be hoped that some of the gallows of the abbat of Westminster, in addition to the gallows of “Westburn,” have bequeathed place-names still surviving. Before introducing further evidence as to the establishment of gallows at Tyburn, reference must be made to the confusion existing between “The Elms” of Tyburn and “The Elms” of Smithfield. Maitland, and after him Parton, The confusion will cease if we keep firm hold of the fact that Smithfield was within the liberty of the city, and that the civic gallows was here erected. There is not, so far as I know, any evidence as to the suppression of the civic gallows at Smithfield. There were in late times executions here, but so there were in many other places. Smithfield comes into notice in the second year of the fifteenth century as the place of execution, by burning, for heresy, a character which it retained so long as the punishment was inflicted. It is not at all probable that the first execution recorded as having taken place at Tyburn in 1196 was actually the first execution there. I have ventured to allot to Tyburn The order refers to “the place where gallows were formerly erected, namely, the Elms.” It must be taken to be an order to replace decayed gallows. We may safely allow a life of at least fifty years to the old gallows, and it results that gallows had been here from at least as early as 1170. There is no need to follow further in this place the course of executions at Tyburn. We come now to the question of the site of the gallows. In one of the most recent books in which reference is made to the site we find this: “It was customary to vary the position of the gallows of Tyburn from time to time, The first information of the site of the gallows other than the vague indication “Tyburn” is found in one of the old chronicles, which tells that, in 1330, Mortimer was executed at “The Elms, about a league outside the city.” At first sight it may seem strange that a site so remote from the prisons of Newgate and the Tower should have been chosen. But it was usual, for a reason which will appear, to place the gallows at a considerable distance from the town. The gallows for the county of Surrey was at St. Thomas-a-Waterings, near the second milestone on the Kent Road. Loyseau shows that while the “Waving with the weather while their neck will hold.” PART OF A MAP OF MIDDLESEX, 1607, WITH THE FIRST KNOWN REPRESENTATION OF THE TRIPLE TREE. In a lease granted by the Prior of the Knights Hospitallers mention is made of Great Gibbet Field and Little Gibbet Field, parcel of the manor of Lilleston. Thus there must have been an accumulation of bodies swinging from the gibbets of Tyburn and poisoning the air. The French have always been more lavish in public monuments than we. The great gibbet of Montfaucon in the outskirts of Paris was a solid stone structure, with provision for hanging thereon—if we may trust the pictures given of it—at least sixty bodies; it is said that the bodies not unfrequently numbered from sixty to eighty. Under cover of the pestilential air, MaÎtre FranÇois Villon, poet of the gibbet, and the cut-purses, his friends, rioted in security from intrusion. There is very good reason to suppose that a single gallows would not be sufficient for the work to be done at Tyburn. A gallows in the ordinary form, two uprights and a cross-beam, could hardly take more than ten victims at a time. We must suppose that the equipment of Tyburn demanded at least two such gallows. We have seen that in 1220 the king ordered two gallows. But in 1571, just in time for Elizabeth’s penal laws, “The first daye of June [1571] the saide Story was drawn upon an herdell from the Tower of London unto Tiborn, wher was prepared for him a newe payre of gallowes made in triangular maner.” There is no earlier account of a triangular gallows. My friend, Mr. P. A. Daniel, tells me that he knows of no reference in the old drama to the triangular form of the gallows of date prior to 1571. The earliest allusion to this form seems to be in 1589:— “Theres one with a lame wit, which will not weare a foure cornerd cap, then let him put on Tiburne, that hath but three corners.” Of about the same date is an allusion in Tarlton’s “Newes out of Purgatorie,” 1590:— “It was made like the shape of Tiborne, three square.” THE TRIPLE TREE ABOUT 1614. (In the uppermost lozenge on the left.) A third reference is found in Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labour Lost,” one of his early plays:— “Thou mak’st the triumviry, the corner-cap of society, The shape of Love’s Tyburn, that hangs up simplicity.” These references are followed at a short distance in date by a delineation showing not only the triangular form of the gallows but, roughly, its position. This is in a map of Middlesex, engraved by John Norden for Camden’s “Britannia.” It was first given in the folio edition of 1607, and reappears in the editions of 1610 and 1637. In this last it bears the number 17 in the left-hand corner. In the edition of 1695, Norden’s map is replaced by one by Robert Morden. In the three maps of the respective editions of 1607, 1610, and 1637, the triangular gallows is shown impinging on the north-east corner of Hyde Park, with the word “Tyborne” against it. Here, then, we have evidence that thirty-six years after the introduction of the triangular gallows it still remained here, clearly a permanent structure, probably the very gallows erected in 1571. The next piece of evidence is furnished by a representation of the gallows given in the frontispiece of “The Life and Death of Edmund Geninges” published in 1614. Twelve years later, in 1626, we find evidence fixing for the first time the exact site of the gallows. On June 26th of this year, Henrietta Maria, after a day spent in devotion, went with her attendants through St. James’s Park to Hyde Park. Whether by accident or design she went towards Tyburn. Charles hated the Queen’s French suite, secured to her by treaty. Within six months of the marriage he had resolved to be rid of them. The courtiers made the most of the visit to Tyburn; it was averred that the Queen’s confessor had made her walk barefoot to the gallows, “thereby to honour the saint of the day in visiting that holy place, where so many Marshal de Bassompierre replied with remarkable frankness: “I know of a surety,” he said, “that you do not believe that which you publish to others.” He declared that the Queen had not been within fifty paces of the gallows. He repeats the description of the place as at the entrance of a high road. It is not necessary to follow the discussion further. THE RUINS OF FARLEIGH CASTLE. [p. 124. THE TRIPLE TREE IN 1712. The words “the entrance of a high road” fix definitely the spot indicated, approximately, by Norden’s map. Even without the map, then unknown to me, I felt abundantly justified in writing that the words applied to a road leading out of the road bounding Hyde Park: “This can be no other than the road now known as Edgeware Road: along the whole length of the park there is no other road to which the words could apply.” In 1626 we have also the mention of “the three wooden stilts” of Tyburn, in Shirley’s “The Wedding,” published in 1629. In 1649, in an account of the hanging of a batch of twenty-four persons, it is said that eight were hanged “unto each Triangle.” In 1660 the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were “hanged at the several angles of the Triple-tree.” 1680. Seller’s map of Middlesex shows the gallows, its form not recognisable, near the angle formed by the junction of the roads. 1697. Defoe, in his Essay upon Projects, refers to Watling Street: “The same High Way or Street called Watling Street … went on West to that spot where Tyburn now stands, and there turn’d North-West … to St. Alban’s.” 1712. Beginning with this date the accounts published by Lorrain, the Ordinary of Newgate, of the behaviour of condemned criminals, show the prison of Newgate at the 1725. In this year a large map of the newly constituted parish of St. George, Hanover Square, was drawn by John Mackay. We have in it the first exact location of the gallows, shown as a triangular structure. In detailed notes on the map, describing the first “beating the bounds” of the parish on Ascension Day, 1725, it is stated that the parish boundary to the west was marked “on the S.E. Leg of Tyburn,” fully proving the permanence of the structure. The map was reproduced on a small scale in the Builder of July 6, 1901, and was described by Mr. Herbert Sieveking in the Daily Graphic of March 11, 1908. 1746 to 1757. In 1746 was published Rocque’s beautiful map of London in twenty-four sheets; this was followed by his maps of Middlesex in 1754 and 1757. In all the gallows is shown in the open space formed by the junction of the roads near the Marble Arch. 1747. In the last plate of Hogarth’s series of “Industry and Idleness,” is shown an execution at Tyburn. The gallows, a triangular structure, is in the same position (approximately) as in Rocque’s maps. 1756. In Seale’s map, published this year, the triangular gallows is shown in the same position as in Rocque’s maps. THE TRIPLE TREE IN 1746, FROM ROCQUE’S MAP OF LONDON. Tyburn had ceased to be “emmy les champs”; the advance of the town is shown by the inclusion of Tyburn in maps of London. So early as 1719 it was proposed to move the gallows to Stamford Hill:— “We hear the famous and ancient Engine of Justice called Tyburn is going to be demolished: and we hear the Place of Execution is to be removed to Stamford-Hill, beyond Newington, on the way to Ware: the Reason given is said to be, because of the great Buildings that are going to be erected in Maribone-Fields.” Strype, in his edition of Stow’s “Survey” (book iv. p. 120) mentions another report, but Tyburn defied these threats for many years to come. “Yesterday morning, about Half an Hour after Nine o’clock, the four malefactors were carried in two carts from Newgate, and executed on the new Moving Gallows at Tyburn.… The Gallows, after the Bodies were cut down, was carried off in a cart.” The same account is given in other newspapers. The Gentleman’s Magazine states that “the gallows, which is a movable one, was carried there before them and fixed up for that purpose.” The removal of the gallows was followed by the occupation of its site by the toll-house of the turnpike, shifted from the east corner of Park Lane, then called Tyburn Lane, to the corner of Edgeware Road. The new movable gallows was ordinarily fixed near the corner of Bryanston Street and Edgeware Road (Thomas Smith, “A Topographical and Historical Account of the Parish of St. Marylebone,” 1833); but the place of erection was not always exactly the same. Thus we read in the Gentleman’s Magazine under date August 29, 1783, “The gallows was fixed about 50 yards nearer the Park wall than usual.” Tyburn ceased to be the place of execution in 1783, the last execution here taking place on November 7th of that year. When the turnpike was in its turn removed, its position was recorded by a monument placed on the south side of the road, somewhat to the west of the Marble Arch. It is a slab of cast iron, with a gable top, bearing on both sides the words, “Here Stood Tyburn Gate 1829,” that being the date of the abolition of the turnpike. This monument correctly indicated the position of the gate, which stretched across the road: it was not intended to show the position of the gallows, which, however, it did indicate approximately. It was necessarily removed in the improvements carried out near the Marble Arch in the spring of 1908. THE SITE OF TYBURN TREE, FROM THE ORDNANCE MAP OF 1895. It may be well, at the risk of repetition, to summarise the foregoing account in the form of— THE CHRONOLOGY OF TYBURN.1108. Earliest date to which the establishment of Tyburn as a place of execution can with probability be assigned. 1177. First record of an execution in London, probably at Tyburn. 1196. First record of an execution, Tyburn being named as the place. 1220. Two new gallows ordered for Tyburn. 1222-1570. Executions at Tyburn recorded at the following dates: 1222, 1242, 1305, 1330 (position indicated, “about a league outside the City of London”), 1386, 1388, 1399, 1400, 1402, 1404, 1424, 1427, 1437, 1441, 1446, 1447, 1455, 1467, 1468, 1483, 1495, 1497, 1499, 1502, 1523, 1525, 1531, 1534, 1535, 1536,* 1537, and each year to 1544, 1549, 1550, 1552, and each year to 1557, 1560,* 1561,* 1562,* 1563,* 1569,* 1570. (The list shows how continuous were executions here.) The years marked * will not be found in the Annals following this. The records are uninteresting and have therefore been omitted. Tyburn is mentioned as to 1536 in Wriothesley’s Chronicle, as to 1560, 1, 2, and 3, in Machyn’s Diary. Stow mentions Tyburn in 1569. 1571. Erection of the permanent triangular gallows. 1607. Site of triangular gallows shown by map to be to the N. of the N.E. corner of Hyde Park. 1614. Representation of the triangular gallows. 1626. Exact site of gallows proved by accounts of the visit of Henrietta Maria. To the same year must be referred mention of “the three wooden stilts” in Shirley’s “The Wedding,” printed in 1629. 1649. Eight persons hanged on each of the three beams. 1660. Bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw “hanged at the several angles of the Triple-tree.” 1680. Seller’s map of Middlesex shows the gallows (form not recognisable) near the angle formed by the junction of the roads E., W., and N. 1697. “Watling Street … went on West to that spot where Tyburn now stands, and there turned North-West.” (Defoe.) 1712. Triangular gallows figured in Lorrain’s broadsheet. 1725. Triangular gallows shown in Mackay’s map, in the space formed by the junction of the roads. 1746-1757. Triangular gallows shown in the same position in Rocque’s maps, London, 1746, Middlesex, 1754, and 1757. 1747. Triangular gallows shown in the same position (approximately) in the last plate of Hogarth’s “Industry and Idleness.” 1756. Triangular gallows shown as in Rocque’s maps, in Seale’s map. 1759. Triangular gallows gives place to movable gallows. 1783. Last execution at Tyburn. |