THE WAYSIDE GIBBETS
_The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto
the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts
of the earth._—PSALM lxxix. 2.
The highwaymen were not specifically servants of the Lord, and
certainly never numbered a saint in their ranks; but the point to be
made here is that, after all, they were human beings, who lived in
a supposedly civilised country, and were entitled to be turned off
in a gentlemanly way; and, their crimes being thus expiated, to be
buried decently and allowed to rest. For a murderer, it may readily be
conceded, nothing could be too severe in the way of punishment. Let the
bodies of those who profane God's temple be themselves profaned with
every offensive circumstance. But for mere robbery upon the highway the
methods of the law were too drastic.
When it was considered more than usually desirable to convey a warning
to evil-doers in general, and highwaymen in particular, that Justice
was still vigilant and ready to punish crime, the bodies of executed
malefactors were occasionally set up along the roads on tall gallows
and hanged, or "gibbeted," there in chains or in an especially
constructed iron framework, so that they might remain for a length of
time, to preach an eloquent sermon to some classes of the passers-by,
and to disgust others.
Among the features of the country to which the old map-makers
especially devoted their attention, the gibbets and the beacons along
the roads are most prominent. Ogilby, in his _Britannia_ of 1675, shows
a startlingly large "gallows," like a football goal, a mile and a half
on the London side of Croydon, and on the Tarporley-Chester Road shows
a "Gibbit," two miles and a half from Chester.
[Illustration: THE ROAD NEAR CHESTER, 1675.]
There was never any lack of subjects for gibbeting purposes, but
it was generally desired to preserve the criminal's body as long as
possible, to avoid the trouble and expense of replacing him with a
fresh subject; and to that end the practice was either to place the
body in a copperful of boiling pitch, or to pour pitch over it. So
treated, it would last an almost incredibly long time: always supposing
the relatives of that public exhibit did not come by stealth and make
away with it.
There are still a few gibbets to be found in England: but rarely, or
never, the original posts. A sentiment which we are not quite prepared
to declare a perverted one, but which is certainly a sufficiently
gruesome manifestation of antiquarian enthusiasm, has led to the old
gibbet-posts being renewed from time to time in several places; and
there they stand, on hill-tops or by roadsides, reminders of those
fearful old times when such things as these could be.
In these pages we are concerned only with those that bear upon the
subject of the highwaymen. Among these Caxton Gibbet is prominent,
standing as it does on the North Road, between Royston and Alconbury
Hill. The particular spot where the gibbet stands is an exceedingly
lonely, and, to some minds dismal, stretch of road that winds in
the flat, featureless lands, with never a house in sight but the
neighbouring wayside alehouse, the "Gibbet" Inn. Only one mile distant
is the village of Caxton, but to all appearances the spot might be
many miles remote from even a hamlet.
Caxton, according to Cobbett, resembles a Picardy village; "certainly
nothing English," he savagely continued, "except some of the rascally
rotten boroughs in Cornwall and Devonshire, on which a just Providence
seems to have entailed its curse. The land just about here does seem to
be really bad. The face of the country is naked. The few scrubbed trees
that now and then meet the eye, and even the quick-sets, are covered
with a yellow moss. All is bleak and comfortless; and just on the most
dreary part of this most dreary scene, stands almost opportunely,
'Caxton Gibbet,' tendering its friendly one arm to the passers-by.
It has recently been fresh painted, and written on in conspicuous
characters."
[Illustration: CAXTON GIBBET.]
And so it remains to-day.
Among the criminals gibbeted on the original Caxton Gibbet was George
Atkins, who in 1671 had murdered Richard Foster and his wife and child
in the adjoining parish of Bourne. He remained at large for seven
years, and was then captured and hanged; his body being afterwards
exhibited here. But the most pitiful story connected with it is that
of the younger of the two sons of Mrs. Gatward, a widow, who for many
years kept the "Red Lion" Inn at Royston. She was assisted by her two
sons in the coaching and posting business attached to the inn; but the
younger took a sudden fancy to become a highwayman; probably from a
mere love of excitement, or dared to do it by companions of his own
age. Whatever the compelling cause, he went out and waylaid the postboy
carrying the mails between Royston and Huntingdon, and robbed the bags.
He was arrested, condemned to death, and hanged, and his body was
gibbeted here.
The story of this amateur highwayman is to be met with in the
manuscript history of Cambridgeshire, written by Cole, a diligent
eighteenth-century antiquary: "About 1753-54, the son of Mrs. Gatward,
who kept the 'Red Lion' at Royston, being convicted of robbing the
mail, was hanged in chains on the Great Road. I saw him hanging in a
scarlet coat, and after he had hung about two or three months it is
supposed that the screw was filed which supported him and that he fell
in the first high wind after. Mr. Lord, of Trinity, passed by as he
lay on the ground, and, trying to open his breast to see what state
his body was in, not being offensive but quite dry, a button of brass
came off, which he preserves to this day.... It was a great grief to
his mother, who bore a good character, and kept the inn for many years
after."
The story goes that the mother had the body secretly conveyed to the
inn, and gave it decent, if unconsecrated, burial in the cellar.
It is easy to find the excuse that society had to be protected at all
costs, to condone the savagery of those who permitted gibbeting for
what we in our own age would consider a minor crime; but if we pause a
moment, and strive to realise the feelings of the surviving relatives
by imagining one of our own belongings so shamefully exposed like
carrion, for the ravens and the crows to feed upon, we shall not so
readily find excuse for that fearful procedure.
The story of Mrs. Gatward's son very nearly fits that which suggested
to Tennyson his gloomy and pitiful poem, "Rizpah"; but the original
motive for that poem is usually said to have been a gibbet on the downs
between Brighton and Worthing. In that case also, the victim was a lad
who had robbed the mail for a mere freak. There was no mercy for him.
They killed him, they
Kill'd him for robbing the mail,
They hanged him in chains for a show.
There was no consideration for amateurs in that dreadful eighteenth
century in which many writers have found a specious glamour of
romance, because men and women wore powder and patches and sported
silken clothes of amazing colours and styles. Who shall admire the
embroidered waistcoat if no feeling heart beats beneath it, and what
are manners or deportment if they but mask the tiger.
Rizpah, whose name forms the title of Tennyson's poem, was the
concubine of King Saul and mother of Armoni and Mephibosheth, who
were hanged and gibbeted, together with the five sons of Michal, on
the sacred hill of Gibeah. There they remained from the early days of
barley harvest until October. "And Rizpah ... took sackcloth and spread
it upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped
upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to
rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night."—2 SAMUEL
xxii. 10.
The poor old woman of the poem is a sadder figure than Rizpah, for
she is nearer, in time and place, to ourselves, and is represented as
gathering up the bones of her only son, as they drop from the gibbet.
Hers is a figure of terror and for pity:
Wailing, wailing, wailing, the wind over land and sea—
And Willy's voice in the wind, "O mother, come out to me."
Why should he call me to-night, when he knows that I cannot go?
For the downs are as bright as day, and the full moon stares at
the snow.
We should be seen, my dear; they would spy us out of the town.
The loud black nights for us, and the storm rushing over the down,
When I cannot see my own hand, but am led by the creak of the chain,
And grovel and grope for my son, till I find myself drenched
with the rain.
Anything fallen again? Nay—what was there left to fall?
I have taken them home, I have number'd the bones, I have hidden
them all.
They would scratch him up—they would hang him again on the
cursed tree.
Sin? O yes—we are sinners, I know—let all that be,
And read me a Bible verse of the Lord's good-will towards men—
"Full of compassion and mercy, the Lord"—let me hear it again;
"Full of compassion and mercy—long-suffering." Yes, O yes!
For the lawyer is born but to murder—the Saviour lives but
to bless.
Robbers of His Majesty's mails had always been hanged on conviction,
but this severity had proved no deterrent, and it was not until the
Earl of Leicester, Postmaster-General in 1753, prevailed upon the
Government to have their bodies afterwards hung in chains, that any
diminution of mail-robberies took place. Highwaymen, it is curious to
reflect, did not so much mind being hanged, but had the greatest horror
of their bodies being afterwards exposed. It is a weakness not readily
to be understood, this horror, not of death, but of the desecration of
the senseless body after death; but it was a very useful feeling to
play upon, by way of deterrent.
That the highwaymen and the murderers were not always dissuaded from
their crimes by the prospect of this post-mortem indignity is of course
to be readily supposed. There was always the chance of their not being
discovered. Thus, although mail-robberies were probably much fewer than
they would have been, except for the gibbeting order, they still
were a feature of the highwaymen's enterprises: and the midnight roads
continued to be awful with pendant bodies, creaking in the wind in
their rusted irons.
It is not difficult to mentally reconstruct those times and those
wayside incidents, and I can imagine the solitary highwayman proceeding
to his shy business. There comes a horseman along the road; he can be
heard half a mile away, in the hush of the night when, with the setting
of the sun, the cattle have ceased lowing and a distant church clock
alone helps to break the stillness. He is in no hurry, this belated
cavalier, for the click-clock of his horse's hoofs is measured and he
is long in passing.
He is gone, pacing slowly up the hill to where the great road goes by
the end of the lane, and as he goes we hear him, under his breath,
cursing the rising moon for a false jade. By favour of her light we
have seen him as he goes, with a crape mask over his face and pistols
in his holsters; and recognise him as Hotposset Dick, the highwayman,
whose nickname comes from his fondness for mulled port. They say he
always has a tankard for his mare as well as for himself when starting
out to speak with the mail at Five-ways Cross.
Five-ways Cross is not a cheerful place for Dick just now, and his
mulled port is useful for other purposes than keeping out the cold. It
is a spot which most people would find lonely, but Dick has company up
there; company of a silent kind, which is apt rather to get on the
nerves, unless a man is well primed. It is a friend of Dick's, who used
to go shares with him in the risks of robbing on the highway and in
the profits of their trade. He was caught ignominiously, when carrying
too much liquor; hanged, and gibbeted at the Cross afterwards. There
he swings by the roadside in his cage, in a contemplative attitude,
as though pondering on the mysteries of life and death. Six months'
hanging there has not improved either his manly beauty or his clothes,
and although the spot is generally shunned by the villagers, some one,
for purposes of evil sorcery, has made away with one of the dead man's
hands and most of his hair, to make a Hand of Glory.
[Illustration: "THERE HE SWINGS BY THE ROADSIDE, IN HIS CAGE, IN A
CONTEMPLATIVE ATTITUDE, AS THOUGH PONDERING ON THE MYSTERIES OF LIFE
AND DEATH."]
A complete set of gibbet irons is nowadays a somewhat rare and curious
object. Their pattern varied according to local taste and fancy. There
exists a set in the museum at Warrington, Lancashire, which enclosed
the body of Edward Miles, who was executed in 1788 for robbing the
mail and for murdering the postboy. He was gibbeted near the Twystes,
on the road to Manchester, and the iron frame in which he swung for
years was buried at the foot of the gibbet-post. When it was found, in
1845, it had become an antiquity bearing upon the obsolete customs of
our forefathers, and was carefully preserved. The shape of it quite
clearly indicates the outline of a man's body, and there is even a kind
of ghastly smartness about the framework that suggests a military
bearing, which must have made the awful object a terribly dramatic
sight.
[Illustration: MILES'S IRONS.]
In the same neighbourhood in 1796 James Price and Thomas Brown were
gibbeted together on Trafford Green, three miles from Chester, for
robbing the postboy of the mails; and a pamphlet recounting their trial
and execution goes so far as to include a map of the road, and a neat
little view of the double gibbet, with Messrs. Price and Brown dangling
from it.
The execution of the two brothers, Robert and William Drewett, in 1799,
for robbing the Portsmouth mail near Midhurst, was a late example of
Post-Office ferocity, and is saddened by the tradition that the younger
prisoner was innocent, and that he refused to clear himself because by
so doing he would incriminate his father. The bodies were gibbeted on
North Heath Common.
The last person to be gibbeted in England was Cook, who had committed a
peculiarly atrocious murder at Leicester[4] in 1832. Two years later,
the practice was abolished by statute.