Dr. Samuel Pegge, who is likely to be remembered by readers of the
article on the Revolution-house at Whittington, he having, on the day he
entered his eighty-fifth year, preached the centenary sermon to
commemorate the Revolution, was an eminent antiquary. He addressed a
paper to the Society of Antiquaries, on “the vulgar notion, though it
will not appear to be a vulgar error, that _thirteen-pence halfpenny_ is
the fee of the executioner in the common line of business at
Tyburn,[487] and that, therefore, it is called _hangman’s wages_.” It
is proposed from this paper to give an account of the origin of the
saying.
According to Dr. Pegge, the office of hangman was, in some parts of the
kingdom, annexed to other posts; for the porter of the city of
Canterbury was the executioner for the county of Kent, temporibus Hen.
II. and Hen. III.; for which he had an allowance from the sheriff, who
was reimbursed from the exchequer, of twenty shillings per annum.[488]
From the great and general disesteem wherein the office is held, the
sheriffs are much obliged to those who will undertake it, as otherwise
its unpleasant and painful duty must fall upon themselves. For, to them
the law looks for its completion, as they give a receipt to the gaoler
for the bodies of condemned criminals whom they are to punish, or cause
to be punished, according to their respective sentences. Sometimes in
the country, sheriffs have had much difficulty to procure an
executioner. In short, although, in the eyes of the people generally, a
stigma attaches to the hangman, yet, in fact, the hangman is the
sheriff’s immediate deputy in criminal matters, as his under-sheriff is
for civil purposes. The nature and dignity of the office in some
particulars, and the rank of the officer, called _Squire Ketch_, will be
found to be supportable, as well as the fee of office.
And first, as regards the sheriff himself. The sheriff is, by being so
styled in the king’s patent under the great seal, an esquire, which
raises him to that rank, unless he has previously had the title
adventitiously. None were anciently chosen sheriffs, but such
_gentlemen_ whose fortunes and stations would warrant it; so, on the
other hand, merchants, and other liberal branches of the lower order,
were admitted first into the rank of gentlemen, by a grant of arms, on
proper qualifications, from the earl marshal, and the kings of arms,
respectively, according to their provinces. After a negotiant has become
a gentleman, courtesy will very soon advance that rank, and give the
party the title of esquire; and so it happened with a worthy
_gentleman_, for so a _hangman_ will be proved to have been. This
remarkable case happened in the year 1616, in the manner following.
Ralph Brooke, whose real name was Brokesmouth, at that time “York
herald,” put a trick upon sir William Segar, “garter king of arms,”
which had very nearly cost both of them their places. Brooke employed a
person to carry a coat of arms ready drawn to garter, and to pretend it
belonged to one Gregory Brandon, a gentleman who had formerly lived in
London, but was then residing in Spain. The messenger was instructed to
desire garter to set his hand to this coat of arms: and to prevent
deliberation, he was further to pretend that the vessel, which was to
carry this confirmation into Spain, when it had received the seal of the
office and garter’s hand, was just ready to sail.[489] This being done,
and the fees paid, Brooke carried it to Thomas earl of Arundel, then one
of the commissioners for executing the office of earl marshal; and, in
order to vilify garter, and to represent him as a rapacious, negligent
officer, assured his lordship that those were the arms of Arragon, with
a canton for Brabant, and that Gregory Brandon was a mean and
inconsiderable person. This was true enough; for he was the common
hangman for London and Middlesex. Ralph Brooke afterwards confessed all
these circumstances to the commissioners who represented the earl
marshal; the consequence of which was, that, by order of the king, when
he heard the case, garter was committed to prison for negligence, and
the herald for treachery. There was this previous result, however, that
Gregory Brandon, the hangman, had become a _gentleman_; and, as the
Bastard says in King John, “could make any Joan a gentlewoman.”
Thus was this Gregory Brandon advanced, perhaps from the state of a
convict, to the rank of a gentleman; and though it was a personal honour
to himself, notwithstanding it was surreptitiously obtained by the
herald, of which _Gregory Brandon, gentleman_, was perhaps ignorant, yet
did it operate so much on his successors in office, that afterwards it
became transferred from the family to the officer for the time being;
and from Mr. Brandon’s popularity, though not of the most desirable
kind, the mobility soon improved his rank, and, with a jocular
complaisance, gave him the title of _esquire_, which remains to this
day.
It seems too as if this office had once, like many other important
offices of state, been hereditary. Shakspeare has this passage in
Coriolanus, act ii. sc. 1.--
“_Menenius._--Marcius, in a cheap estimation, is worth all your
predecessors, since Deucalion; though, peradventure, some of the best
of them were hereditary hangmen.”
This looks as if the office of executioner had run in some family for a
generation or two, at the time when Shakspeare wrote; and that it was a
circumstance well understood, and would be well relished, at least by
the galleries. This might, indeed, with regard to time, point at the
ancestors of Mr. Brandon himself; for it was in the reign of king James
I. that this person was brought within the pale of gentility. Nay, more,
we are told by Dr. Grey, in his Notes on Shakspeare,[490] that from this
gentleman, the hangmen, his successors, bore for a considerable time his
Christian name of _Gregory_, though not his arms, they being a personal
honour, till a greater man arose, viz. _Jack Ketch_, who entailed the
present official name on all who have hitherto followed him.[491]
Whether the name of _Ketch_ be not the provincial pronunciation of
_Catch_ among the cockneys, may be doubted, notwithstanding that learned
and laborious compiler, B. E., gent., the editor of the “Canting
Dictionary,” says that _Jack Kitch_, for so he spells it, was the real
name of a hangman, which has become that of all his successors.
So much for the office. It now remains to consider the emoluments which
appertain to it, and assign a reason why _thirteen-pence halfpenny_
should be esteemed its standard fee for inflicting the last stroke of
the law.
Before proceeding to matters of a pecuniary nature, it may be allowed,
perhaps, to illustrate a Yorkshire saying. It was occasioned by a truly
unfortunate man, whose guilt was doubtful, and yet suffered the sentence
of the law at York. This person was a saddler at Bawtry, and hence the
saying among the lower people to a man who quits his friends too early,
and will not stay to finish his bottle:--“He will be hanged for leaving
his liquor, like the saddler of Bawtry.” The case was this:--There was
formerly an ale-house, which house to this day is called “The Gallows
House,” situate between the city of York and their Tyburn; at this house
the cart used always to stop, and there the convict and the other
parties were refreshed with liquors; but the rash and precipitate
saddler of Bawtry, on his road to the fatal tree, refused this little
regale, and hastened on to the place of execution; where, but not until
after he had been turned off, and it was too late, a reprieve arrived.
Had he stopped, as was usual, at the gallows house, the time consumed
there would have been the means of saving his life. He was hanged, as
truly as unhappily, for leaving his liquor.
Similar means of refreshment were anciently allowed to convicts, on
their passage to Tyburn, at St. Giles’s hospital; for we are told by
Stowe, that they were there presented with a bowl of ale, called “_St.
Giles’s bowl_; thereof to drink at their pleasure, as their last
refreshing in this life.” Tyburn was the established scene of executions
in common cases so long ago as the first year of king Henry IV.;
Smithfield and St. Giles’s Field being reserved for persons of higher
rank, and for crimes of uncommon magnitude, such as treason and heresy.
In the last of these, sir John Oldcastle, lord Cobham, was burnt, or
rather roasted, alive; having been hanged up over the fire by a chain
which went round his waist.[492]
The executioner of the duke of Monmouth (in July, 1685) was peculiarly
unsuccessful in the operation. The duke said to him, “Here are six
guineas for you: pray do your business well; do not serve me as you did
my lord Russell: I have heard you struck him three or four times. Here,
(to his servant,) take these remaining guineas, and give them to him if
he does his work well.”
_Executioner._--“I hope I shall.”
_Monmouth._--“If you strike me twice, I cannot promise you not to stir.
Pr’ythee let me feel the axe.” He felt the edge, and said, “I fear it is
not sharp enough.”
_Executioner._--“It is sharp enough, and heavy enough.”
The executioner proceeded to do his office; but the note says, “it was
under such distraction of mind, that he fell into the very error which
the duke had so earnestly cautioned him to avoid; wounding him so
slightly, that he lifted up his head, and looked him in the face, as if
to upbraid him for making his death painful; but said nothing. He then
prostrated himself again, and received two other ineffectual blows; upon
which the executioner threw down his axe in a fit of horror; crying
out, ‘he could not finish his work:’ but, on being brought to himself by
the threats of the sheriffs, took up the fatal weapon again, and at two
other strokes made a shift to separate the head from the body.”[493]
As to the fee itself, “thirteen-pence half-penny--hangman’s wages,” it
appears to have been of Scottish extraction. The Scottish mark (not
ideal or nominal money, like our mark) was a silver coin, in value
_thirteen-pence halfpenny_ and two placks, or two-thirds of a penny;
which plack is likewise a coin. This, their mark, bears the same
proportion to their pound, which is twenty-pence, as our mark does to
our pound, or twenty shillings, being two-thirds of it. By these
divisions and sub-divisions of their penny (for they have a still
smaller piece, called a bodel or half a plack) they can reckon with the
greatest minuteness, and buy much less quantities of any article than we
can.[494] This Scottish mark was, upon the union of the two crowns in
the person of king James I., made current in England at the value of
thirteen-pence halfpenny, (without regarding the fraction,) by
proclamation, in the first year of that king; where it is said, that
“the coin of silver, called the mark piece, shall be from henceforth
current within the said kingdom of England, at the value of
thirteen-pence halfpenny.”[495] This, probably, was a revolution in the
current money in favour of the hangman, whose fee before was perhaps no
more than a shilling. There is, however, very good reason to conclude,
from the singularity of the sum, that the odious title of “hangman’s
wages” became at this time, or soon after, applicable to the sum of
_thirteen-pence halfpenny_. Though it was contingent, yet it was then
very considerable pay; when one shilling per day was a standing annual
stipend to many respectable officers of various kinds.
Nothing can well vary more than the perquisites of this office; for it
is well known that Jack Ketch has a _post-obit_ interest in the convict,
being entitled to his clothes, or to a composition for them; though, on
the other hand, they must very frequently be such garments that, as
Shakspeare says, “a hangman would bury with those who wore them.”[496]
This emolument is of no modern date, and has an affinity to other
_droits_ on very dissimilar occasions, which will be mentioned
presently. The executioner’s perquisite is at least as old as Henry
VIII.; for sir Thomas More, on the morning of his execution, put on his
best gown, which was of silk camlet, sent him as a present while he was
in the Tower by a citizen of Lucca, with whom he had been in
correspondence; but the lieutenant of the Tower was of opinion that a
worse gown would be good enough for the person who was to have it,
meaning the executioner, and prevailed upon sir Thomas to change it,
which he did for one made of frize.[497] Thus the antiquity of this
obitual emolument, so well known in Shakspeare’s time, seems well
established; and, as to its nature, has a strong resemblance to a fee of
a much longer standing, and formerly received by officers of very great
respectability. For anciently “garter king of arms” had specifically the
gown of the party on the creation of a peer; and again, when
archbishops, bishops, abbots, and priors, did homage to the king, their
upper garment was the perquisite even of the lord chamberlain of the
household. The fee in the latter case was always compounded for, though
garter’s was often formerly received in kind, inasmuch as the statute
which gives this fee to the lord chamberlain directs the composition,
because, as the words are, “it is more convenient that religious men
should fine for their upper garment, than to be stripped.”[498] The same
delicate necessity does not operate in the hangman’s case, and his fee
extends much farther than either of them, he being entitled to _all_ the
sufferer’s garments, having first rendered them useless to the party.
Besides this perquisite, there has always been a pecuniary compliment,
where it could possibly be afforded, given by the sufferer to the
executioner, to induce him to be speedy and dexterous in the operation.
These outward gifts may likewise be understood as tokens of inward
forgiveness.
“Upon the whole,” says Dr. Pegge, “I conceive that what I have offered
above, though with much enlargement, is the meaning of the ignominious
term affixed to the sum of thirteen-pence halfpenny, and I cannot but
commiserate those for whom it is to be paid.”[499]
[487] “The executions, on ordinary occasions, were removed from this
memorable place, and were performed in the street of the Old Bailey,
at the door of Newgate. This was first practised on the 9th of
December, 1783. See the printed account. Every of these executions I
was told by Mr. Reed, 1785, is attended with an expense of upwards of
nine pounds. Twenty persons were hanged at once in February,
1785.”--Dr. Pegge.
[488] Madox’s History of the Exchequer, ii. p. 373.
[489] These arms actually appear in Edmondson’s Body of Heraldry,
annexed to the name of _Brandon_, viz. the arms of Arragon with a
difference, and the arms of Brabant in a canton.
[490] Vol. ii, p. 163.
[491] The hangman was known by the name of _Gregory_ in the year 1642,
as we learn from the Mercurius Aulicus, p. 553.
[492] Rapin. See also Bale’s Life and Trial of Sir John Oldcastle. St.
Giles’s was then an independent village, and is still called St.
Giles’s in the Fields, to distinguish it from St. Giles’s,
Cripplegate; being both in the same diocese.
[493] Lord Somers’s Tracts, vol. i. pp. 219, 220; the note taken from
the Review of the reigns of Charles and James, p. 885.
[494] Mr. Ray, in his Itinerary, gives the fractional parts of the
Scottish penny.
[495] The proclamation may be seen in Strype’s Annals, vol. iv. p.
384, where the mark-piece is valued exactly at thirteen-pence
halfpenny.
[496] Coriolanus, act. i. sc. 8.
[497] More’s Life of sir Thomas More, p. 271.
[498] Stat. 13 Edward I.
[499] Pegge’s Curialia Miscellanea.
Vol. II.--50.
[Illustration: ~The Running Horse at Merrow, Surrey.~]
The first point of peculiarity that strikes the traveller on approaching
the “Running Horse” is the pictorial anomaly on the front of the
house--the sign represents a race-horse with a rider on its back; but
the painter has given us a horse _standing_ as still as most horses
would be glad to do after having been _running horses_ for more than
half a century. Our “Running Horse” then, _stands_ hard by the church in
the village of Merrow, (_olim_ Merewe,) about two miles from Guildford,
in Surrey, on the road leading from the latter place to London by way of
Epsom. It is at the intersection of the high roads leading to Epsom, to
Guildford, to Stoke, and to Albury, Shere, and Dorking. The latter road
passes over Merrow Downs, upon which, at the distance of a quarter of a
mile from our hostel, is the course whereon Guildford races are annually
held.
Guildford races formerly attracted a very numerous assemblage of
spectators. The elderly inhabitants of the above-named ancient borough
relate that, such was the influx of company, not a bed was to be had in
Guildford unless secured some weeks before the sports commenced. From
some cause, the nature of which the good people of Guildford have never
been able satisfactorily to ascertain, the races have, for several
years, gradually declined in celebrity and importance, and at present
they are too often but thinly attended. The _programme_ of the sports,
which annually issues from the Guildford press, is embellished with a
wood-cut, an impression I believe of the same block that has been used
for the last century. The course is not considered by sportsmen a good
one, but its situation, and the views it commands, are delightful.
When king George the First was at lord Onslow’s at Clandon, (the
adjoining parish,) he gave a plate of one hundred guineas to be run for;
and this is now the principal attraction to the proprietors of horses.
The members for the borough of Guildford also give a plate of fifty
pounds, and there is generally a subscription plate besides.
Our hostel, the “Running Horse” at Merrow, is the place of rendezvous
for all the “running horses.” Its stable doors bear highly
characteristic and interesting trophies of the honours obtained by
their former temporary inmates. The best formed _pumps_ that ever trod
the floors of Almack’s or the saloons of Carlton palace, are not more
delicately turned than the shoes, (albeit they are of iron,) which,
having done their duty on the course, and brought their high-mettled
wearers first to the winning-post, are now securely nailed against the
honoured portals, as memorials of his success. They are placed heel to
heel, and within the oval is carved, in rude characters, the name of the
horse, with the day on which he won for his master the purse of gold.
What an association of ideas does the simple record convey! Here, on a
fine warm evening in June, the evening preceding
-----------“the great, th’ important day,
Big with the fate of jockey and of horse,”
arrived the majestic “Cydnus.” His fine proportions were hid from vulgar
gaze, by cloths of purest white. As he walked slowly up the village
street ridden by his jockey, a stripling of sixteen, his approach was
hailed by the acclamations of the village boys, and the calmer
admiration of the men, all looking forward to their holiday on the
succeeding day. “Here, I say; here, here;--here comes one of the
racers!--There’s a _purty_ creatur! _law_--look at his long legs--_law_,
Jem, I say, look what long steps he _do_ take--fancy how he must
_gallop_, if he walks _so_--_purty fellur!_--I’m sure he’ll win--mind if
he don’t now!” Meanwhile the noble animal arrives at the inn door--high
breeding, whether in biped or quadruped, is not to be kept waiting--out
comes the host in an important bustle, with the bright key of the stable
door swinging upon his finger. He shows the way to the best stall, and
then takes his station at the door to keep out the inquisitive gazers,
while the jockey and trainer commence their tender offices of cleaning
and refreshing the horse after his unusual exercise of walking the
public road. This done, he is fed, clothed, and left to his repose upon
as soft a bed as clean straw will make, while the jockey and trainer
adjourn to the house, the admiration of the knot of idlers who are there
assembled to hear the pedigree, birth, parentage, education, and merits
of “the favourite.” Other horses soon arrive, and the conversation takes
a more scientific turn, while the jockies make their own bets, and
descant learnedly upon those of their masters, till they betake
themselves to rest, “perchance to dream” of the important event of the
succeeding day.
Long before the dew has left the short herbage on the neighbouring
downs, the jockies are busily engaged in the stables; and before the
sun’s heat has exceeded that of an April noon, they are mounted, and
gently cantering over the turf, with the double object of airing their
horses and showing them the course over which, in a few hours, they are
urged, at their utmost speed, in the presence of admiring thousands.
What an elating thought for the youthful rider of “the favourite;” with
what delight does he look forward to the hour when the horse and his
rider will be the objects of attraction to hundreds of fair one’s eyes
glancing upon _him_ with looks of admiration and interest; while, in his
dapper silk jacket and cap of sky-blue and white, he rides slowly to the
weighing-place, surrounded by lords and gentlemen “of high degree.”
Within a short space the vision is realized--more than realized--for he
has won the first heat “by a length.” In the next heat he comes in
second, but only “half a neck” behind, and his horse is still fresh. The
bell rings again for saddling; and the good steed is snuffing the air,
and preparing for renewed exertions, while his rider “hails in his heart
the triumph yet to come.” The bell rings for starting--“They are off,”
cry a hundred voices at once. Blue and white soon takes the lead. “Three
to one”--“five to one”--“seven to one”--are the odds in his favour;
while at the first rise in the ground he gives ample proof to the
admiring “cognoscenti” that he “_must_ win.” A few minutes more, and a
general hum of anxious voices announces that the horses are again in
sight. “Which is first?”--“Oh, blue and white still.”--“I knew it; I was
sure of it.” Here comes the clerk of the course flogging out the
intruders within the rails, and here comes the gallant bay--full two
lengths before the only horse that, during the whole circuit of four
miles, has been once within speaking distance of him. He keeps the lead,
and wins the race without once feeling the whip. Here is a moment of
triumph for his rider! he is weighed again, and receives from his
master’s hand the well-earned reward of his “excellent riding.” The
horse is carefully reclothed, and led back to his stable, where his feet
are relieved from the shoes which are destined to assist in recording,
to successive generations of jockies, the gallant _feats_, performed by
“Hearts that then beat high for praise,
But feel that pulse no more.”
Our hostel, however, must not be thus quitted.--The date inscribed
within the circle above the centre window is, I think, 1617. (I have a
memorandum of it somewhere, but have mislaid it.) The house is plastered
and washed with yellow; but its gables, Elizabethan chimnies, and
projecting _bay_ window, (a very proper kind of window for a “running
horse,”) render it a much more picturesque building than I have been
able to represent it on the small scale of my drawing. In front of it,
at about the distance of thirty yards, there was formerly a well of more
than a hundred feet in depth; the landlord used to repair this well,
receiving a contribution from all who made use of it; but other wells
have of late years been dug in the neighbourhood, and the use of this
has subsequently been confined to the inmates of the public-house.
The church of Merrow, of which there is a glimpse in the background, is
worthy of further notice than I have the means of affording in the
present communication.