_To close the scene of all his actions he
Was brought from Newgate to the fatal tree;
And there his life resigned, his race is run,
And Tyburn ends what wickedness begun._
If there be a haunted spot in London it must surely be a few square
yards that lie a little west of the Marble Arch, for in the long course
of some six centuries over fifty thousand felons, traitors and martyrs
took there a last farewell of a world they were too bad or too good to
live in. From remote antiquity, when the seditious were taken _ad furcas
Tyburnam_, until that November day in 1783 when John Austin closed the
long list, the gallows were kept ever busy, and during the first half of
the eighteenth century, with which this book deals, every Newgate
sessions sent thither its thieves, highwaymen and coiners by the score.
There has been some discussion as to the exact site of Tyburn gallows,
but there can be little doubt that the great permanent three-beamed
erection--the Triple Tree--stood where now the Edgware Road joins Oxford
Street and Bayswater Road. A triangular stone let into the roadway
indicates the site of one of its uprights. In 1759 the sinister beams
were pulled down, a moveable gibbet being brought in a cart when there
was occasion to use it. The moveable gallows was in use until 1783, when
the place of execution was transferred to Newgate; the beams of the old
structure being sawn up and converted to a more genial use as stands for
beer-butts in a neighbouring public-house.
The original gallows probably consisted of two uprights with a
cross-piece, but when Elizabeth's government felt that more adequate
means must be provided to strengthen its subjects' faith and enforce the
penal laws against Catholics, a new type of gibbet was sought. So in
1571 the triangular one was erected, with accommodation for eight such
miscreants on each beam, or a grand total of twenty-four at a
stringing. It was first used for the learned Dr. John Story, who, upon
June 1st, "was drawn upon a hurdle from the Tower of London unto Tyburn,
where was prepared for him a new pair of gallows made in triangular
manner". There is rather a gruesome tale of how, when in pursuance of
the sentence the executioner had cut him down and was "rifling among his
bowels", the doctor arose and dealt him a shrewd blow on the head.
Doctor Story was followed by a long line of priests, monks, laymen and
others who died for their faith to the number of some three thousand.
And the Triple Tree, the Three-Legged Mare, or Deadly Never-green, as
the gallows were called with grim familiarity, flourished for another
two hundred years.
In the early eighteenth century it appears to have been the usual custom
to reserving sentencing until the end of the sessions, but as soon as
the jury's verdict of guilty was known steps were taken to procure a
pardon by the condemned man's friends. They had, indeed, much more
likelihood of success in those times when the Law was so severe than in
later days when capital punishment was reserved for the most heinous
crimes. On several occasions in the following pages mention is made of
felons urging their friends to bribe or make interest in the right
quarters for obtaining a pardon, or commutation of the sentence to one
of transportation. It was not until the arrival of the death warrant
that the condemned man felt that the "Tyburn tippet" was really being
drawn about his neck.
No better description can be given of the ride to Tyburn tree, from
Newgate and along Holborn, than that furnished by one of the _Familiar
Letters_ written by Samuel Richardson in 1741:
I mounted my horse and accompanied the melancholy cavalcade from
Newgate to the fatal Tree. The criminals were five in number. I was
much disappointed at the unconcern and carelessness that appeared in
the faces of three of the unhappy wretches; the countenance of the
other two were spread with that horror and despair which is not to
be wondered at in men whose period of life is so near, with the
terrible aggravation of its being hastened by their own voluntary
indiscretion and misdeeds. The exhortation spoken by the Bell-man,
from the wall of St. Sepulchre's churchyard is well intended; but
the noise of the officers and the mob was so great, and the silly
curiosity of people climbing into the cart to take leave of the
criminals made such a confused noise that I could not hear the
words of the exhortation when spoken, though they are as follows:
All good people pray heartily to God for these poor sinners, who are
now going to their deaths; for whom this great bell doth toll.
You that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable tears. Ask
mercy of the Lord for the salvation of your own souls through the
merits, death and passion of Jesus Christ, Who now sits at the right
hand of God, to make intercession for as many of you as penitently
return unto Him.
Lord, have mercy upon you! Christ have mercy upon you!
Which last words the Bell-man repeats three times.
All the way up to Holborn the crowd was so great as at every twenty
or thirty yards to obstruct the passage; and wine, notwithstanding a
late good order against this practice, was brought to the
malefactors, who drank greedily of it, which I thought did not suit
well with their deplorable circumstances. After this the three
thoughtless young men, who at first seemed not enough concerned,
grew most shamefully wanton and daring, behaving, themselves in a
manner that would have been ridiculous in men in any circumstances
whatever. They swore, laughed, and talked obscenely, and wished
their wicked companions good luck with as much assurance as if their
employment had been the most lawful.
At the place of execution the scene grew still more shocking, and
the clergyman who attended was more the subject of ridicule than of
their serious attention. The Psalm was sung amidst the curses and
quarrelling of hundreds of the most abandoned and profligate of
mankind, upon them (so stupid are they to any sense of decency) all
the preparation of the unhappy wretches seems to serve only for
subject of a barbarous kind of mirth, altogether inconsistent with
humanity. And as soon as the poor creatures were half dead, I was
much surprised to see the populace fall to hauling and pulling the
carcasses with so much earnestness as to occasion several warm
rencounters and broken heads. These, I was told, were the friends of
the persons executed, or such as, for the sake of to-night, chose to
appear so: as well as some persons sent by private surgeons to
obtain bodies for dissection. The contests between these were fierce
and bloody, and frightful to look at; so I made the best of my way
out of the crowd, and with some difficulty rode back among the large
number of people who had been upon the same errand as myself. The
face of every one spoke a kind of mirth, as if the spectacle they
had beheld had afforded pleasure instead of pain, which I am wholly
unable to account for....
One of the bodies was carried to the lodging of his wife, who not
being in the way to receive it, they immediately hawked it about to
every surgeon they could think of; and when none would buy it they
rubbed tar all over it, and left it in a field scarcely covered with
earth.
In a few words, too, Swift draws a vivid picture of a rogue on his last
journey through the London streets:
His waistcoat, and stockings, and breeches were white;
His cap had a new cherry ribbon to tie't.
The maids to the doors and the balconies ran,
And said, "Lack-a-day, he's a proper young man!"
But as from the windows the ladies he spied,
Like a beau in a box, he bow'd low on each side.
Execution day, or Tyburn Fair, as it was jocularly called, was not
only a holiday for the ragamuffins and idlers of London; folk of all
classes made their way thither to indulge a morbid desire of seeing
the dying agonies of a fellow being, criminal or not. There were
grand stands and scaffoldings from which the more favoured could
view the proceedings in comfort, and every inch of window space and
room on the neighbouring roofs was worth a pretty penny to the
owners. In his last scene of the career of the Idle Apprentice
Hogarth drew a picture of Tyburn Tree which no description can
amplify.
As the procession drew near the hangman clambered to the cross-piece
of the gallows and lolled there, pipe in mouth, until the first cart
drew up beneath him. Then he would reach down, or one of his
assistants would pass up, one after the other, the loose ends of the
halters which the condemned men had had placed round their necks
before leaving Newgate. When all were made fast Jack Ketch climbed
down and kicked his heels until the sheriff, or maybe the felons
themselves, gave him the sign to drive away the cart and leave its
occupants dangling in mid-air. The dead men's clothes were his
perquisite, and now was his time to claim them. There is a graphic
description of how, on one occasion, when the murderer "flung down
his handkerchief for the signal for the cart to move on, Jack Ketch,
instead of instantly whipping on the horse, jumped on the other side
of him to snatch up the handkerchief, lest he should lose his
rights. He then returned to the head of the cart and jehu'd him out
of the world".
As the cart drew away a few carrier pigeons, which were released
from the galleries, flew off City-ward to bear the tidings to
Newgate.
Perhaps as good a description of the actual event as can be obtained is
contained in a letter from Anthony Storer to his friend George Selwyn, a
morbid cynic whose cruel and tasteless bon-mots were hailed as wit by
Horace Walpole and his cronies. The execution was that of Dr. Dodd, the
"macaroni parson", whose unfortunate vanity led him to forgery and
Tyburn. The date--June 27, 1777--is considerably after the period of our
book, but the description applies as well as if it had been written
expressly for it.
Upon the whole, the piece was not very full of events. The doctor,
to all appearances, was rendered perfectly stupid from despair. His
hat was flapped all round, and pulled over his eyes, which were
never directed to any object around, nor even raised, except now and
then lifted up in the course of his prayers. He came in a coach, and
a very heavy shower of rain fell just upon his entering the
executioner's cart, and another just at his putting on his nightcap.
During the shower an umbrella was held over his head, which Gilly
Williams, who was present, observed was quite unnecessary, as the
doctor was going to a place where he might be dried.
He was a considerable time in praying, which some people standing
about seemed rather tired with; they rather wished for a more
interesting part of the tragedy. The wind, which was high, blew off
his hat, which rather embarrassed him, and discovered to us his
countenance, which we could scarcely see before. His hat, however,
was soon restored to him, and he went on with his prayers. There
were two clergymen attending on him, one of whom seemed very much
affected. The other, I suppose, was the Ordinary of Newgate, as he
was perfectly indifferent and unfeeling in everything he did and
said.
The executioner took both the hat and wig off at the same time. Why
he put on his wig again I do not know, but he did; and the doctor
took off his wig a second time, and then tied on the nightcap which
did not fit him; but whether he stretched that or took another, I
did not perceive. He then put on his nightcap himself, and upon his
taking it he certainly had a smile on his countenance, and very soon
afterwards there was an end of all his hopes and fears on this side
of the grave. He never moved from the place he first took in the
cart; seemed absorbed in despair and utterly dejected; without any
other sign of animation but in praying. I stayed until he was cut
down and put in the hearse.
But the hangman's work was not always done when he had turned off his
man. The full sentence for high treason, for example, provided him with
much more occupation. In the first place, the criminal was drawn to the
gallows and not carried or allowed to walk. Common humanity had
mitigated this sentence to being drawn upon a hurdle or sledge, which
preserved him from the horrors of being dragged over the stones. Having
been hanged, the traitor was then cut down alive, and Jack Ketch set
about disembowelling him and burning his entrails before he died. The
head was then completely severed, the body quartered and the dismembered
pieces taken away for exhibition at Temple Bar and other prominent
places.
Here is the account of one such execution. "After the traitor 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 then threw them into a fire which consumed
them. Then he slashed his four quarters and put them with the head into
a coffin.... His head was put on Temple Bar and his body and limbs
suffered to be buried."
Such proceedings were exceptional, however. In the majority of
executions the body was taken down when life was considered to be
extinct, and carried away to Surgeon's Hall for dissection. Sometimes
the relatives used their influence to have the corpse handed over to
them (often not even in a coffin) and they then carried it away in a
coach for decent burial, or to try resuscitation. Occasionally, indeed,
hanged men came to life again. In 1740 one Duel, or Dewell, was hanged
for a rape, and his body taken to Surgeons' Hall in the ordinary
routine. As one of the attendants was washing it he perceived signs of
life. Steps were taken immediately and Duel was brought to, and
eventually taken away in triumph by the mob, who had got wind of the
affair and refused to allow the Law to re-hang their man. A little
earlier something of the same sort had happened to John Smith, who had
been hanging for five minutes and a quarter, during which time the
hangman "pulled him by the legs and used other means to put a speedy
period to his life", when a reprieve arrived and he was cut down. He was
hurried away to a neighbouring tavern where restoratives were given,
blood was let, and after a time he came to himself, "to the great
admiration of the spectators". According to his own account of the
affair, he felt a terrible pain when first the cart drew away and left
him dangling, but that ceased almost at once, his last sensation being
that of a light glimmering fitfully before his eyes. Yet all his
previous agony was surpassed when he was being brought to, and the blood
began to circulate freely again. A last ignominy, and one strangely
dreaded by some of the most hardened criminals, was hanging in irons.
When life was extinct the corpse was placed in a sort of iron cage and
thus suspended from a gibbet, usually by the highway or near the place
where the crime had been committed. There it hung until it fell to
pieces from the effects of Time and the weather, and only a few hideous
bones and scraps of dried flesh remained as evidence of the strong hand
of the Law.
With the exception of minor alterations in punctuation and spellings
this book is a complete reprint of three volumes printed and sold by
John Osborn, at the Golden Ball, in Paternoster Row, 1735.