BENEATH THE TRIPLE TREE
Exactly the date at which the dreaded instrument at Tyburn assumed the
form of the “Triple Tree” cannot be told. As has already been said,
there is reason to believe that a permanent structure—“the common
gallows” of the time—was set up in the district known as Tyburn in the
closing years of the fourteenth century; and that the site was a little
more eastward, beyond the present area of the Park, than the later
place of execution.
What particular plan the earlier structure took can only be surmised.
One is inclined to think that the gallows, like other and better
inventions of civilisation, underwent stages of development; that from
the branch of the growing elm the old gibbet, with its single beam and
angle bar, was first devised, and that the two upright posts with the
crossbeam followed. In all probability the gallows was then built high,
so that the victim who paid the last penalty of the law swung clear
above the heads of the crowd gathered to witness the execution.
No doubt this gruesome spectacle was intended to strike awe into the
hearts of the beholders. But human nature, being a thing perverse,
is not always understood. Its most disastrous result on the manners
of the time was rather to glorify crime and criminal. A fitting end
at Tyburn gave distinction to many a poor rogue who otherwise would
have left the world unhonoured and forgotten. Four centuries of
Tyburn’s rough justice did less for the suppression of crime than more
enlightened and humane efforts have done in the course of comparatively
few years.
The triangular plan had already been adopted in Shakespeare’s time, and
probably long before, as references to it imply a common knowledge. In
_Love’s Labour Lost_, one of his earlier plays, he has Biron saying:
“Thou makest the triumviry the corner cap of Society,
The shape of Love’s Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.”
In an old quarto of 1589 occurs the passage:[2]
“Then let me be put on Tyburn, that hath but three quarters.”
Only thirteen years earlier, Gascoigne, strangely enough, speaks of
“Tyborne Cross.”
The gallows where so many highwaymen of the late seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries were, in the phrase of the day, “turned off,” is
shown in the drawings of Hogarth and a host of others, as well as in
maps of contemporary date. At each of the three corners of a triangle
a stout upright post was set in the ground. In some cases two cross
beams are seen fastened to the tops of these posts, in others three,
forming a sort of triangular enclosure. It was quite low, rising not
more than twelve feet from the ground, and giving just enough room for
the malefactor’s cart to pass beneath.
So thorough have been the measures taken to sweep Tyburn and all its
associations out of the Metropolis, since the fashionable area of
the town extended westward, that the particular spot on which stood
the “Triple Tree” is also left uncertain. It can, however, be pretty
closely approximated. It was never actually within the Royal Park, but
was just beyond its northern boundary, standing back from the high
road to Uxbridge, about a hundred yards west of the Marble Arch. A
house near the corner of Connaught Square is believed to be built on
the actual site of Tyburn gallows, which originally stood on the rise,
where the ground was open to the Park. The “Triple Tree” was, however,
moved to the triangular space now forming the entrance to the Edgware
Road, early in the eighteenth century.
I do not know if ghosts are ever seen about Connaught Square. I can
find no trace of spectral visitors disturbing the well-to-do people
who pass their lives agreeably in this now fashionable quarter. But if
there be any truth in psychical phenomena,—if, indeed, it be a fact
that the unsubstantial shades of men love in the stillness of the
night to revisit the scenes where they met a violent end,—surely they
should marshal here, not singly nor in groups, but in whole battalions,
creeping between the motor broughams which noiselessly come and go, or
the busier traffic which runs along by Park Lane and Oxford Street.
When King Charles II. came back “to his own” in 1660, the triangular
gallows at Tyburn was evidently a structure of respectable antiquity.
Already it was known to all the populace by its nickname of the “Triple
Tree,” which it kept for more than a century. Death was a common state
at Tyburn; it was, however, reserved for this strange, easy-going,
good-natured voluptuary to hang men who were already dead there.
Amid all the horrible scenes enacted at Tyburn, none are more ghastly
than the stupid, purposeless indignities wreaked by Charles and his
licentious Parliament, a year after his restoration, on the bodies of
the regicides, whom death had withdrawn from his active vengeance.
The story is briefly told in the little weekly sheet which served the
purpose of a newspaper in those days:[3]
“This day, Jan. 30, (we need say no more but name the day of the
Moneth) was doubly observed, not onely by a Solemn Fast, Sermons and
Prayers at every Parish Church, for the precious of our late pious
Sovereign King Charles the First of ever glorious Memory; but also
by publick dragging those odious carcasses of Oliver Cromwel, Henry
Ireton, and John Bradshaw, to Tyburne. On Monday night, Cromwel
and Ireton were drawn to Holborn from Westminster, where they were
digged up on Saturday last, and the next morning Bradshaw. To-day
they were drawn upon Sledges to Tyburne; all the way (as before from
Westminster) the universal out-cry and curses of the people went along
with them. When these three carcasses were at Tyburn, they were pull’d
out of their Coffins, and hang’d at the several angles of that Triple
Tree, where they hung till the Sun was set; after which, they were
taken down, their heads cut off, and their loathsome trunks thrown into
a deep hole under the gallows.”
So the mutilated corpses of Cromwell, of Ireton, his statesmanlike
general and brother-in-law, and Bradshaw, the president at the trial
of Charles I., drawn in their shrouds from their tombs in the quiet
of Henry the Seventh’s Chapel at the Abbey, gibbeted until sundown as
objects for the ridicule and derision of a demoralised mob, and then
decapitated, were flung “into a deep hole under the gallows.” And
there they may remain until this day. Who knows? The cemetery for the
unnamed dead, which extended from the fatal tree towards the Marble
Arch, was dug up when hangings ceased on this spot, and it is probable
that the unrecognised bones of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were in
that process swept into oblivion. The heads had been spiked on poles in
front of Westminster Hall.
The grave has gone; the remains have perished. No vestige of the
honoured dead survives; in spite of Cromwell’s gorgeous funeral, his
remains are not even located.
That is just where history awakens us from musings to the unexpected
reality of things. Of all the vanities of life, assuredly the love
of funeral pomp and show is the most vain; and that strange vanity
Cromwell—hard, narrow, cold though he might be—seems to have shared to
an extravagant degree. He had arranged for himself a gorgeous funeral,
and one glances with amazement at the documents of the year 1658, when
the burial of the Protector had to be put off from 9th November to
23rd November (he died on 3rd September) as the elaborate arrangements
for the event could not be completed by the earlier date. During the
short Protectorate of Richard Cromwell, sums were voted to the amount
of £18,600 for expenses and mourning, and so many claims were brought
forward for settlement, that nearly a year later, on 4th July 1659, a
Committee was appointed to inquire into the money still owing. They
reported that £19,303, 0s. 11d. was the properly audited account, and
this merely for baize, cloth, velvet, and fringes. This sum represents
about £80,000 of our present money; so that an estimate of £150,000 can
hardly be too large for the expenses of Oliver Cromwell’s funeral.
Apart from these outrages on the dead, Tyburn witnessed the final
scenes in the lives of two military officers, Hacker and Axtele, who
had guarded Charles I., and of at least three of the judges, Okey,
Barkstead, and Corbet, who had pronounced sentence upon him. Others
of the regicides were done to death at Charing Cross, with all the
barbarous additions of drawing, decapitating, and quartering. It seems
singular that these revolting scenes, relics of an earlier and, one
would have thought, a more brutal age, occasioned no condemnation
from the finer spirits of the day. Old Pepys, amiable and gossipy
on whatever subject passed under his notice, was only led by the
executions to a pious and somewhat inapposite reflection, “Wonderful
are the ways of Providence!” And the courtly Evelyn, who had the grace
to secretly disapprove of them, contents himself with writing in his
Diary:
“I saw not the executions, but met their quarters, mangled, cut, and
reeking, as they were brought from the gallows on a hurdle.”
In 1908 one of the former victims of Tyburn was canonised, a fact that
brings the past and to-day into close proximity. The history of Oliver
Plunket—a name well known in Ireland—is both romantic and sad.
Celebrated as a high-minded and high-living Archbishop of Armagh,
Oliver Plunket ended his days at Tyburn in 1681, a victim of the
“Popish Plot.” After spending more than two and a half years in
dungeons, first in Dublin and then in Newgate, he was hanged, drawn,
and quartered. His body was buried in St. Giles’s-in-the-Fields by
Father Corker, who had been his companion in Newgate. His head was
sent to Rome to Cardinal Howard, and brought back to Ireland in
1722, and is preserved in the Convent of Drogheda, which was founded
by his great-niece. In fact, all honour was paid to his remains as
relics. When Father Corker buried the body he cut off the arms, one of
which was long preserved in Herefordshire, and one in the Franciscan
Convent at Taunton. This priest afterwards sent the body to Germany,
but when the English monks were expelled from that country in 1803,
Plunket’s body was brought back to England, and buried at St. Gregory’s
Monastery, Downside, Bath.
Truly a tragic history, and one fraught with so much valour and
strength of character, that the Irish must feel proud of the dignity of
canonisation now bestowed on their hero.
The Rye House Plot against the lives of Charles II. and his brother,
then James, Duke of York, was the means of another distinguished
man, Sir Thomas Armstrong, suffering an ignominious end on Tyburn’s
fatal tree. Later, a further victim was claimed in Elizabeth Gaunt,
who had sheltered one of the conspirators. After the failure of the
plot Armstrong fled to Holland, but was seized at Leyden in 1684, and
conveyed to England, swearing his innocence. He was taken before Judge
Jefferies, and when again he insisted on his innocence, protested
against the perjured evidence, and asked for nothing but the free
course of the law, Jefferies said “he should have it to the full”; and
so ordered his execution within six days. Like a common malefactor,
the knight was dragged through the streets to Tyburn on a hurdle, and
was there hanged and quartered. Bishop Burnett says that one of the
quarters was sent to Stafford, which place Armstrong represented in
Parliament.
The execution of Elizabeth Gaunt was a still more shameless affair, and
bears witness to the degeneracy and brutal inhumanity of the times. She
was then an old woman, well known for her good works in helping the
afflicted and visiting the prisoners. Among those who took part in the
Rye House Plot was one James Burton, for whose apprehension a reward
was offered. Chance led him in the way of Elizabeth Gaunt, who assisted
him to the utmost of her power, and sent him in a boat to Gravesend,
whence he escaped to Amsterdam. He was supplied with a large sum of
money by his benefactress. On Monmouth’s landing in England to raise
the standard of rebellion in 1685, Burton came among his following,
fought in the hopeless fight at Sedgemoor, and after the rout fled to
London, where he took refuge in the house of John Fernley, a barber in
Whitechapel.
Fernley was poor, and his creditors were troubling him. Yet, though he
knew the Government were offering £100 for Burton, he would not betray
him. The wretch, whom he was thus sheltering, had no such scruples.
Finding that James II. was dealing out punishment more severely to
those who sheltered rebels, than to the rebels themselves, he gave
himself up to the Government, and tendered information against both
Fernley and Elizabeth Gaunt.
They were brought to trial, and Burton was the chief witness against
them. Of Burton’s fate we learn nothing. Fernley was hanged, and for
Elizabeth Gaunt was reserved the more dreadful end of death by fire.
William Penn, the famous Quaker, who lies buried at Jordans, near
Beaconsfield, and who during his life travelled far afield and founded
Pennsylvania, went to Tyburn to witness the execution. He afterwards
related that, when this poor woman had calmly disposed the straw
about her in such a manner as to hasten the blaze and so shorten her
sufferings, all the bystanders burst into tears.
Elizabeth Gaunt was the last woman who suffered death in England for a
political offence.
Tyburn, however, enjoys such reputation—if that is the word—as still
clings to the name, less from its nobler victims than from those
darlings of the populace, the highwaymen of a later day, whose exploits
were deservedly cut short by the hangman’s noose; and we must hurry
on. One more State plot in the reign of William III. (Mary had been
dead a year) had its sequel under the Triple Tree, and the affair is
worth mention, because it throws a weird light on public manners so
late as two centuries ago. This was the Assassination Plot, for alleged
participation in which, Sir William Parkyns and Sir John Friend, a
non-juror, were condemned to die.
Sir John Friend, whom Lord Macaulay describes as “a man who had made a
very large fortune by brewing, and who spent it freely in sedition,”
thought the whole thing so rash that he refused to join it from the
first. Sir William Parkyns, old and gouty as he was, amassed arms at
his country house sufficient for a troop of cavalry.
It was first suggested to assassinate William III. just as the royal
coach was passing from Hyde Park, where Apsley House now stands, into
the Green Park, but afterwards it was agreed to murder him when he was
going to hunt at Richmond. The secret leaked out; the chase was given
up at the last moment, and the chiefs of the conspiracy were sought
for. Parkyns was found concealed in a garret in the Temple, and Friend
at the house of a Quaker, where he had taken refuge. Lord Macaulay
describes the final scene, which had some dramatic moments.
“The execution of the two knights was eagerly expected by the
population of London. The States General were informed by their
correspondent that of all the sights, that in which the English most
delighted was a hanging, and that of all hangings within the memory of
the oldest man, that of Friend and Parkyns had excited the greatest
interest. The multitude had been incensed against Friend by reports
touching the exceeding badness of the beer he had brewed. It was even
rumoured that he had, in his zeal for the Jacobite cause, poisoned all
the casks which he had furnished to the Navy. An innumerable crowd
accordingly assembled at Tyburn.”
Scaffolding had been put up for the hanging, and an amphitheatre was
formed around the gallows. It was known that a fashionable throng would
assemble, and therefore everything was done to make them happy and
comfortable, and to give them an opportunity of thoroughly enjoying the
show. On these benches the wealthier spectators stood, row above row.
When expectation was at its height, it was announced that the hanging
was deferred. Rough words passed, and rougher actions followed. The
mob broke up in bad humour, and not without many fights and broken
noses between those who had given money for their places, and those who
refused to return it.
“The cause of this severe disappointment was a resolution passed in
the Commons ... that a Committee should be sent to the Tower to examine
the prisoners, holding out the hope that if they gave full and frank
confession the House would intercede for them.
“Friend and Parkyns were again interrogated, but to no purpose. They
had, after sentence had been passed on them, shown instances of
weakness, and Parkyns’ daughter exhorted him not to give way.
“In a few hours the crowd again assembled at Tyburn; and this time
the sightseers were not defrauded of their amusement. They saw,
indeed, one sight which they had not expected, and which produced a
greater sensation than the execution itself. Jeremy Collier and two
other non-juring divines of less celebrity, named Cook and Snatt, had
attended the prisoners in Newgate, and were with them in the cart
under the gallows. When the prayers were said, and just before the
hangman did his office, the three schismatical priests stood up and
laid their hands on the heads of the dying men, who continued to kneel.
Collier pronounced a form of absolution taken from the Service for the
Visitation of the Sick, and his brethren exclaimed “Amen!” Collier was
outlawed for this action, and his two colleagues suffered imprisonment.”
So in the closing years of the seventeenth century the love of
witnessing a gruesome spectacle was more rife than ever, and a public
hanging still formed quite a fashionable entertainment; in fact, it
became more and more so, until in Horace Walpole’s time it was the
smart thing to visit the prisoners in Newgate and to be present at
executions.
Newgate, which ultimately replaced Tyburn, and within whose walls
the last hanging in the actual City of London took place, was only
demolished in 1904. I well remember, not long before that, going over
this gruesome and historical old pile. Many of the cells were just as
they had been for centuries, but the most terrible of all were the
dungeons. Our modern coal cellars are far preferable, for at least
their walls are whitewashed and they are drained to frustrate the damp.
These terrible dungeons at Newgate, with slanting floors, slanting
walls, and slanting roofs, and almost without light and ventilation,
had contained dozens of human beings, who were literally herded
together, to live or die as chance might ordain. Plague and pestilence
swept through those loathsome dens, and after seeing them on the eve
of their destruction, one realised how easy it was to start the great
plague of London from them alone.
The prisoners in Newgate in the eighteenth century were allowed to
spend the money given them as they liked; and they often rigged
themselves out in the height of fashion, in which practice their
distinguished visitors encouraged them.
On the Sunday before their execution, the victims were permitted to
receive visits from all their friends, who brought special gifts for
the journey to Tyburn: a white cap with black ribbons, a prayer-book, a
nosegay; and always an orange to hold in the hand as they sat on their
own coffin, trundling along in the cart to the scaffold.
These same friends often lingered at the foot of the Triple Tree, when,
the three-mile journey over, the sentence was carried out, in order
to be at hand to hang on to the legs of the condemned and thus put a
speedy end to his sufferings. Not so friendly was the purpose of the
respectably-dressed women in deep mourning, who, professing to be the
nearest of kin to the deceased, mingled in the crowd in the hope of
securing the body for some anatomist.
In the beginning of the eighteenth century people began to travel
farther afield. They were richer, more numerous, and more enterprising;
they made journeys by coach to Bath and Cheltenham to drink the waters,
or went out for the evening to Vauxhall Gardens to dine and gamble,
dance and make merry. Fine clothes, costly jewels, and gambling gains
were spoils easily disposed of, and highwaymen and footpads quickly
followed in their wake. Naturally, places near the Metropolis were
the most lucrative. If nothing of value was secured from the coach
belonging to Lord A——, another coach owned by the Marquis of B—— soon
passed by, and loot might be forthcoming; if not, the highwaymen waited
for Mr. C——.
Outlying districts of London became unsafe at night, and Highgate,
Hampstead, Richmond, Hounslow, and Shooter’s Hill were all hot-beds of
robbery by these “gentlemen of the road.” Hyde Park and Knightsbridge
came in for a share of petty larcenies and assaults by the meaner
footpads and outlaws who lurked at many a dark corner, and few persons
thought of going home by night except under escort, and with torches
to light the gloom of the streets. It was a short life, if a desperate
and at times a merry one. Of all the famous highwaymen who dangled on
Tyburn gibbet, one finds few who lived to see the age of thirty.
Jack Sheppard, though not the romantic figure of the moonlit heath, but
a meaner thief, must, I suppose, take pride of place. Never was there
a more dare-devil character hanged at Hyde Park. Fielding and Harrison
Ainsworth have glorified his career, and some of the facts of his
life are told in a pamphlet published by Daniel Defoe at the request
of Sheppard himself, containing a _Narrative of all the Robberies,
Escapes, etc., of John Sheppard_. This, he declares, was “written by
himselfe during his confinement in the Middle Stone Room” at Newgate.
Says Jack:
“I was born in Stepney Parish, the Year Queen Anne came to the Crown;
my Father a Carpenter by Trade, and an honest industrious character,
and my Mother bore and deserved the same. She being left a Widow in
the early Part of my Life, continued the Business, and kept myselfe,
together with another unfortunate son, and a daughter at Mr. Garrett’s
School near Great St. Hellen’s in Bishopsgate Parish, till Mr.
Kneebone, a Woollen draper in the Strand, an Acquaintance ... being
desirous to settle me to a Trade, ... agreed with Mr. Owen Wood a
Carpenter of Drury-Lane to take me an Apprentice for Seven Years.”
[Illustration: JACK SHEPPARD.
_From an Old Print._]
Sheppard describes Mr. and Mrs. Wood as “strict observers of the
Sabbath,” which he thought fit to spend in his own manner, and he
fell into evil ways. For this he blamed Joseph Hind, who kept the
“Black Lyon Alehouse in Drury-Lane.” Here he met Bess Lyon, who was his
ruin, and for whose benefit most of his robberies were committed.
He asserts that his first crime was stealing two silver spoons from the
Rummer Tavern in Charing Cross. In 1723 he describes being sent to the
house of a Mr. Bains to do some carpentering, where he stole a roll of
fustian (24 yards) from amongst others, and offered it for sale at 12d.
per yard, but having no offers, he concealed it in his master’s house.
In the following August he was making some shutters for Mr. Bains, and
in the night entered by the cellar window, taking £14 worth of goods,
and £7 in money. When he went next day he found the shop shut, and the
Bains family in much trouble, in which he greatly sympathised. A fellow
apprentice saw the fustian and told Mr. Wood, so Sheppard broke into
Wood’s house in the night and took it away again, but the Bains family
followed him up, and in spite of his own and his brother’s assertions
of innocence, he was compelled to restore what remained.
From that time such a number of thefts and burglaries were committed
that Jack Sheppard soon made a reputation. The _Tyburn Chronicle_,
writing of this part of his life, says:
“Jack was now so eminent, that there was not a blackguard in St.
Giles’s but thought it an honour, as well as an advantage, to be
admitted to his company.”
Later he made his headquarters in the Hampstead district, and
committed a robbery in the Hampstead Road.
His clever escapes, when in prison for his many offences, stimulated
the interest and admiration of the people. Confined in St. Giles’s
Round House, he made a hole in the roof, from which he flung a cartload
of stones on the people in the street below. Later, Bess Lyon was
committed to the St. Anne’s Round House. Sheppard went to see her, and
was promptly shut up there as an accomplice. He wrenched the bars from
the window, and tying the blanket and sheet together, first let her
down, and then followed himself.
Joseph Blake, alias Blueskin, and his brother Tom Sheppard decided
to hire a stable at the Horse Ferry at Westminster, and there store
their stolen goods until they could dispose of them. They took a man
named Field, who had been indicted for felony and burglary (and found
receiving a safer business), to see these goods, hoping he would buy
them, but he only betrayed them to Jonathan Wild. Jack Sheppard, in
his _Narrative_, says that Field broke into the stable, and stole some
cloth he had himself stolen from Mr. Kneebone. Sheppard and Blueskin
were arrested, and condemned to death. Sheppard managed to again
escape, by breaking off a spike at the hatch where the prisoners came
to speak with their friends. In the evening two acquaintances came to
see him, and as he thrust his head and shoulders through the opening
they managed to pull him out.
After this he went to Northampton to some relations, who did not give
him a warm welcome. Committing more robberies, he then retired to
Finchley. There he was again found, and brought to Newgate. He was
put in the “Castle,” the strongest part; but his last escape had made
such a commotion that crowds came to see him in gaol. However, the
prison-breaker was so closely watched that they could not bring him an
implement of any kind, but there were few who went away without giving
him money.
On the 15th October 1724, immediately after his keeper had brought him
dinner, Sheppard began to prepare for his flight. This he effected by
making a hole in the chimney, and having wrenched the chain between his
fetters, he was able with the broken links to pull an iron bar away.
Making another hole in the chimney, he gained access by its means to
the Red Room over the “Castle,” which had not been opened for seven
years. Sheppard, however, pulled off the lock, and entered the Chapel.
There fresh difficulties beset him. The doors resisted his efforts, and
St. Sepulchre’s bells struck eight before he reached the leads. Looking
round for means of descent, he found the house adjoining Newgate was
the most suitable, but the leap was too dangerous, so he returned to
the “Castle” and fetched a blanket, fixed it to the wall, and sliding
down dropped to the leads as the clock struck nine. The garret door was
open, but people were moving in the house until midnight, when he went
downstairs and so into the street.
Two days after, he personally left at the house of Mr. Applebee, in
Blackfriars (a printer), a letter saying that as he had cheated him
out of the account of his execution, which would be a loss to his
journal, Applebee might make what use he liked of the letter Jack
Sheppard was then leaving.
He continued committing burglaries in London, one of which was in the
house of Mr. Rawlins, a pawnbroker in Drury Lane. Mr. Rawlins realised
there was somebody in the house. Sheppard, hearing him move, made a
great noise and scuffling, and shouted, “Fire at the first man that
comes!” All the time his accomplices were imaginary, as he was alone.
By this ruse he got away. Soon after he appeared in his old haunts and
amongst his old comrades, dressed in the height of fashion. On 31st
October he dined with two friends, one of them Bess Lyon, and sent for
his mother, who begged him to be cautious. This was his last piece of
bravado. He had been drinking heavily, and, continuing his visits to
ale-houses, was given up by a bar-keeper and removed to Newgate.
Famous beyond all his contemporaries, his visitors were even more
numerous than before. Many people of high degree crowded to see him in
his fetters. Sheppard entertained them with stories of his exploits.
Even to the end he had hoped that his friends would rescue him. When he
left the prison for Tyburn on the 16th November 1724, an open penknife
was concealed in his pocket. Apparently, he intended to cut the rope
that bound his hands, on his way to the gallows, and then throw himself
over into the crowd and escape. But the penknife was discovered as he
was leaving Newgate. He was too closely guarded for a rescue to be
possible. He died “with much difficulty, and with uncommon pity from
all spectators.”
_The British Journal_ of 21st November 1724 records that a bailiff
in Long Acre having procured Sheppard’s body for the purpose of
dissection, the friends of the young desperado caused a great riot in
Long Acre, and Justices of the Peace being summoned, they sent to the
Savoy (then a Royal Palace) with a request that a party of Footguards
might be despatched. The chief promoters were seized, and the body
handed to a gentleman who asked that he might be permitted to see to
its proper burial. The mob had fought over the corpse at Tyburn, where
a man was waiting with a hearse to take it decently to a grave already
prepared in St. Sepulchre’s. But the bailiff above mentioned had
reported that he was employed by surgeons, and pretended to rescue the
body from them.
Thus ended the famous Jack Sheppard.
Of a different stamp to Jack Sheppard, and a much greater ruffian, was
his little less notorious contemporary Jonathan Wild. This man was a
product of the age and of the extraordinary remissness of the law,
which made his operations both possible and profitable. The smallest
thefts, if only of the value of one shilling, were punishable then, and
long afterwards, by death. Nothing shows more strikingly, how remote we
of this twentieth century are from the cruelty and harshness of only a
century ago, than the short extracts which it is the custom of some of
the older London newspapers, _The Times_ and _The Observer_ among them,
to reprint from their issues of a hundred years back. Time after time
you read, packed away in a few lines, as though of little concern, the
proceedings at the Old Bailey Sessions, thus: “Joseph Bailey, convicted
of the theft of spoons. Death.” Again, “Henry Trudwick, convicted of
the theft of an embroidered waistcoat. Death.” Even the abstraction of
a pocket-handkerchief has sufficed to bring a lad to the gallows.
Every Sunday morning in sessions, the box for the condemned in Newgate
prison chapel was crowded with wretches, who were to die on the morrow.
Looking over the galleries and shouting down encouragement to them,
with many oaths and much blasphemy, was another group, equally large.
These were awaiting trial and sentence, and were soon to fill the
empty places. Executions were so common that the few newspapers of
the eighteenth century took no trouble to record them, save when the
harvest of death was unusually large, or some picturesque villain by
his dashing exploits filled the public eye, and a far-spreading crowd
gathered to see his exit from the stage.
The rigour with which capital punishment was applied to almost every
crime sent troops of victims to Tyburn’s “triple tree.” Also it became
responsible for many ill-favoured ruffians escaping penalty of any
kind. But while the criminal code was remorseless in its treatment of
the meaner offender, it took no account of the man who was responsible
for inciting and abetting him, the “fence,” or receiver of stolen
goods. It made no attempt to reach him. That finer subtlety of the
law, the “compounding of a felony,” was a much later abstraction; and
a feature of the newspapers of the day was the list of advertisements
from people whose property had been stolen, and who were quite willing
to pay handsomely for its return. Some of them are quaint reading, as
this from _The Postman_ (from Tuesday, 25th June, to Thursday, 27th
June 1706):
“Stoln, June 17th instant, from Crum-House, on Black Heath, near
Greenwich, 6 Knives, 5 Spoons, 5 Forks, 2 Salts, 1 Soop spoon or Ladle,
1 Snuff Pan and 1 pair of Snuffers, in all about 100 oz. of Plate,
having for Arms 3 Stags upon a Bend, Crest the Eagle and Child or an
Earl’s Coronet. 1 Indian Chinks Quilt of many colours, the border a
yellowish colour with red, green and flesh colour in the figures, the
other side a dark grownd with yellow flowers, bordered with a light
colour, 1 other Indian Chinks quilt, the grownd bluish with large
flowers. If any of the above-mentioned goods are offer’d to be sold
or pawn’d, all persons are desired to stop the same, and give speedy
notice to Mr. Peter Haraches, Goldsmith, in Suffolk-street, who is to
give £10 Reward for the whole or proportionable for any part.”
Another in the _Daily Courant_, 10th September 1706, runs thus:
“Whereas between Monday Night (the 2nd Instant) and Tuesday Morning,
there was taken from the House of Mr. Tovey at Blacklands near Chelsea,
the Goods following: viz. 1 Silver Skillet mark’d with a short
Ringhandle, a Crest of a Faunes Head graved in an Emboss’d Escuchion,
the Motto Fuimus, 5 large Silver Spoons mark’d C.T., and a Crest of a
Griffin sedant; 6 little old Sweetmeat Spoons with Forks at the Ends,
mark’d C.T. on the Bowles: 1 little Cup crack’d in the Brim near the
Handle; an ovil Silver Tobacco Box without a Mark; a Common Prayer Book
garded with Silver engrav’d, but 1 Clasp on, mark’d on the inside W, a
small Child’s Spoon mark’d A.K., an old Beavor Hat, a pair of Coffee
colour Gloves stitch’d with White Silk, and a fine Muslin neckcloth. If
these or any of these are profer’d to be sold or pawn’d, it is desir’d
the Party may be stop’d; or if already sold or pawn’d that Notice may
be giv’n to the said Mr. Tovey at the Golden Horse Shooe in the Strand
near old Round Court, as speedy as may be. For which trouble shall be a
handsome reward.”
An advertisement from _The Postman_ of the date before given strikes at
higher game:
“Whereas a Highway Man on a bright Grey Horse in a blue close Bodied
Coat with black Buttons, and a loose dark colour’d Coat over it, took
from some Passengers in the Oxford Coach going to the Bath on Saturday
the 20th of this instant July, between Cirencester and Detmarton an
Amathist Ring, the Stone of a fine purple colour, and well set in
gold: together with a middle siz’d Pendulum Watch made by Jarret of
London, in a Terroise-shell Case studded with Silver, a Squirrel eating
Nuts, and several Butterflies being represented in it. If the said
Ring or Watch be offer’d to be pawn’d or sold the Person to whom they
are so offer’d are desir’d to stop ’em and give notice to Mr. Tonson,
Bookseller, under Grey’s Inn Gate in Grey’s Inn Lane, or Mr. Scot at
the Dolphin Tavern in Tower street, London, and they shall be well
rewarded, and if they are already pawn’d or sold they shall receive
their money again with content.”
There is suppressed agony in this plaint of a tradesman in the
_Mercurius Politicus_ (Thursday, 21st October, to Thursday, 28th
October 1658):
“Daniel Neech, alias Carlton (supposed to be about the City) of tall
stature, long-visag’d, a down look, black hollow-eyed, sad brown hair,
somewhat short and curled, a little stooping at shoulders, about 26
year old, of a pale complexion, in a new grey Sute and Coat with black
ribbon, a ruff black Hat, who is run from his Master with several sums
of Money. Make stay of him, and give notice to Mr. Richard Lightfoot,
next to the Miter Tavern in Wood street, and you shall be well paid for
your pains.”
Jonathan Wild did a flourishing business as a receiver and restorer—for
reward—of stolen goods to their proper owner. A system that existed
of giving certain rewards for information concerning various offences
provided him with a lucrative profession. For instance:
Information of Highway robbery was rewarded by £40, the horse, arms,
furniture, and money belonging to the robber; and a Tyburn Ticket,
which he could transfer for the sum of £25 or £30.
Particulars of a burglary gained the informant £40 and a Tyburn Ticket.
Information of horse-stealing was rewarded by a Tyburn Ticket.
Of cattle-stealing, £10.
Wild’s transactions, in fact, became so great a menace to the public
safety that they were the cause of the first Act directed against
thieves’ “fences” being placed on the Statute Book. In his case, the
temptation of doing a little thieving on his own account proved too
strong, and it was this, after a nefarious career only too protracted,
that brought him eventually to the gallows at Tyburn.
One story told of him is that a lady went in her sedan-chair to pay a
visit in Piccadilly. The chairmen left the beautiful _verni martin_
painted coach at the door, and waited for her return at a neighbouring
alehouse. While they were drinking, the chair, with the velvet seat
and furniture, was carried off. The chairmen immediately applied to
Wild, and after taking his usual fee of a crown, he told them he would
consider the matter, and desired them to call in a day or two. They
went at the time appointed, when Wild insisted upon a considerable
reward, which they paid him. Then he bade them be sure to attend the
prayers of Lincoln’s Inn Chapel the next morning. They went there
accordingly, and were equally surprised and pleased to find their
lady’s chair under the piazzas of the Chapel, with the seats and
furniture in the same condition as when it was stolen.
[Illustration: Jonathan Wild pelted by the mob on his way to Tyburn.
_From Print in the “Tyburn Chronicle.”_]
Even after sentence Wild hoped that he would be freed. As a
circumstance in his favour he mentioned that he had himself handed
over forty criminals to justice. This did him no good, but incensed
the populace against him. While awaiting execution he took laudanum in
his cell with the hope of suicide, and was still under its influence
on arriving at Tyburn. The hangman told him to prepare himself, and
left him sitting in the cart. But the mob became so unmanageable at
the delay, that the hangman was obliged hurriedly to carry out his
office. Jonathan Wild was executed 25th May 1725, and was buried at two
o’clock the next morning at St. Pancras Churchyard, but his body was
afterwards removed for dissection.
The _London Journal_, Saturday, 29th May 1725, says:
“Never was there a greater crowd assembled on any occasion, than to
see this unhappy Person; and so outrageous were the Mob in their Joy
to behold him on the Road to the Gallows, who had been the cause of
sending so many thither, that they huzza’d him along to the Triple
Tree, and show’d a Temper very uncommon on such a melancholy Occasion,
for they threw Stones at him; with some of which his head was broke,
and the two malefactors, Sperry and Sandford, between whom he sate in
the Cart, were hurt: Nay, even in his last moments they did not cease
their insults.”
Other adventurers who paid the penalty to outraged justice at Tyburn
were Henry Simms, who declared he had swallowed the rings he had stolen
“wrapped in the skin of a duck’s leg, well buttered”; “Sixteen String
Jack,” or more correctly, John Rann; Jack Hall, the chimney-sweeper;
John Smith, who, waiting about at Paddington hoping to steal something,
felt his heart fail him when he saw the gallows at Tyburn, but his
accomplice kept him to his purpose; and Kingsmill, Perin, and Fairall,
the smugglers. Perin was ordered only to be hanged and afterwards
buried, and Kingsmill and Fairall to be hung in chains,—a gruesome
adjunct to that sentence being that the bodies first received a
coating of black pitch. Perin was saying to his companions that he
lamented their cases, when Fairall smilingly replied:
“We shall be hanging in the sweet air, when you are rotting in your
grave.”
These gangs of highwaymen, footpads, burglars, and common thieves
had a curious dialect of their own, a few words of which and their
equivalents may be taken from the vocabulary given in the _Tyburn
Chronicle_:
The Rumbo or Whit Newgate.
The Spinning Ken Bridewell.
The Dancers Stairs.
The Mount London Bridge.
The Glaze The Window.
A Ken House.
A Bridle-Call A Highwayman.
A Cruiser Beggar.
The Cull gigs The man looks.
Pops Pistols.
A Glim Candle.
Darbies Fetters.
To be Topped or Scragged Hanged.
Feeders A Bit or Truff.
A Peter Purse.
A Jacob Ladder.
A Rum Fam Ring.
A Tumbler Cart.
A Rattler Coach.
Ridge Gold.
Wedge Silver.
The Tatler is up The moon shines.
A Twang A Bully.
The highwayman struck at big game, and persons of the highest
“quality”—to adopt the phrase of the day—did not consider it in any
way derogatory to display the keenest interest in him. The darling of
the lower orders needed only a dashing exploit or two to his credit,
and a hair’s-breadth escape from the armed men sent to track him down,
to make him equally the darling of the drawing-room. Fine ladies
went to see him in chains at Newgate, often to condole with him, and
give him money. Horace Walpole grows quite enthusiastic over MᶜLean,
a former grocer of Welbeck Street, who took to the road, and in the
course of his depredations relieved Walpole of his watch and sword. The
circumstances of the robbery are told in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ of
1749:
“The Hon. Horatio Walpole, brother to the Earl of Orford, who was
robbed by two men on the 7th (of Nov.) in Hyde Park, when a pistol
going off shot through the coach, and scorched his face, received a
letter from the robbers, intimating their concern for the accident, and
their apprehension of the consequences at that time; and that, if he
would send, to a place named, a person would be there to deliver his
watch, sword, and coachman’s watch, if he would, on his honour, send
40 guineas in less than an hour to the same place, with threats of
destruction if he did not. But he did not comply, though he afterwards
offered 20, the sum they fell to in a second letter.”
Horace Walpole writes in 1750 to Horace Mann:
“I have been in town for a day or two, and heard no conversation
but about MᶜLean, a fashionable highwayman, who is just taken, and
who robbed me among others; as Lord Eglinton, Sir Thomas Robinson of
Vienna, Mrs. Talbot, etc. He took an odd booty from the Scotch Earl, a
blunderbuss, which lies very formidably upon the justice’s table. He
was taken by selling a laced waistcoat to a pawnbroker, who happened
to carry it to the very man who had just sold the lace. His history is
very particular, for he confesses every thing, and is so little of a
hero, that he cries and begs, and I believe, if Lord Eglinton had been
in any luck, might have been robbed of his own blunderbuss. His father
was an Irish Dean; his brother is a Calvinist minister in great esteem
at the Hague. He himself was a grocer, but, losing a wife that he loved
extremely about two years ago ... he quitted his business with two
hundred pounds in his pocket, which he soon spent, and then took to the
road with only one companion, Plunket, a journeyman apothecary, whom he
has impeached but [who] has not been taken.
“MᶜLean had a lodging in St. James’s Street, over against White’s,
and another at Chelsea.... There was a wardrobe of clothes, three and
twenty purses, and the celebrated blunderbuss found at his lodgings....
“As I conclude he will suffer, and wish him no ill, I don’t care to
have his idea, and am almost single in not having been to see him. Lord
Mountford at the head of half White’s, went the first day: his Aunt
was crying over him; as soon as they were withdrawn, she said to him,
knowing they were of White’s, ‘My dear, what did the lords say to you?
have you ever been concerned with any of them?’ Was it not admirable?
What a favourable idea people must have of White’s! and what if White’s
should not deserve a much better! But the chief personages who have
been to comfort and weep over this fallen hero are Lady Caroline
Petersham and Miss Ashe.”
Walpole a few days later writes to the same correspondent:
“My friend MᶜLean is still the fashion; have not I reason to call
him friend? He says, if the pistol had shot me, he had another for
himself. Can I do less than say I will be hanged if he is? They have
made a print, a very dull one, of what I think I said to Lady Caroline
Petersham about him.
“Thus I stand like the Turk with his doxies round.
* * * * *
“MᶜLean is condemned, and will hang. I am honourably mentioned in a
Grub ballad for not having contributed to his sentence. There are
as many prints and pamphlets about him as about the earthquake. His
profession grows no joke; I was sitting in my own dining-room on Sunday
night, the clock had not struck eleven, when I heard a loud cry of
‘Stop thief!’ A highwayman had attacked a post-chaise in Piccadilly,
within fifty yards of this house: the fellow was pursued, rode over the
watchman, almost killed him, and escaped.
* * * * *
“Robbing is the only thing that goes on with any vivacity, though my
friend Mr. MᶜLean is hanged. The first Sunday after his condemnation,
three thousand people went to see him; he fainted away twice with the
heat of his cell. You can’t conceive the ridiculous rage there is of
going to Newgate.”
Even children were not exempt. A girl of fourteen, convicted for
white-washing farthings to make them appear like sixpences, was
condemned to be burnt, and was only reprieved when she was actually at
the stake.
Never was more stir created about the fate of a malefactor at Tyburn
than in the celebrated case of Dr. Dodd. A preacher of remarkable
eloquence, who attracted crowds to listen to him, a man who moved in
the highest Society and was known to everybody, he lived, like so
many others of his day, far above his means, and was constantly in
pecuniary embarrassment. The episode which brought him to the gallows
was the forgery of the name of the Earl of Chesterfield—the godson and
successor of the old beau—to a bond for about £4000.
Dodd needed the money badly, and had, as subsequent events showed,
every expectation of receiving it before the bill became due. He
flattered himself in the belief that the transaction would be safely
closed, and the bond returned and destroyed before the forged signature
could come to the knowledge of the Earl. It was only the Earl’s credit,
which was better than his own, that he was borrowing. However, some
evil mischance—perhaps the largeness of the amount—led the discounter
to pursue inquiries, in the course of which he called on Lord
Chesterfield. The signature was immediately disavowed, and Dr. Dodd
clapt into Newgate.
He promised restitution; and, in fact, all but a few insignificant
hundreds were paid. Society was in arms. Chesterfield was blamed for
prosecuting. Horace Walpole speaks of Dr. Dodd’s eloquence, and pities
his fate. Dr. Johnson wrote in his favour. No subject was ever more
enthusiastically discussed by the fashionable throng in Hyde Park.
The populace were in his favour, for it was felt that the money in
repayment was extorted by false pretences. Hanging after restitution
was considered too much for the crime.
Letters appeared in the newspapers. A special petition from the
inhabitants of the City of Westminster was drawn up for presentation
to the King, which measured thirty-six yards, and contained 23,000
signatures, seeking the pardon of the unfortunate man. None of the
great contemporary correspondences omits a discussion of the trial and
sentence.
But all these efforts were of no avail. George III. obstinately
refused a pardon. If the heavens should fall, Dr. Dodd should still
hang; and, deaf to all appeals, he sent him to his doom. The execution
was carried out on the morning of 27th June 1777. Dr. Dodd’s friends
procured a mourning-coach, in which the condemned man was allowed to
drive to Tyburn in place of the usual cart. The _Morning Post and Daily
Advertiser_ says of the last scene:
“The populace seemed universally affected at his fate, and even
_Jack Ketch_ himself was in tears.... The concourse of people who
attended the execution of the two malefactors yesterday at Tyburn was
incredible; it is conjectured that no less than 500,000 people were
assembled on the occasion, between Newgate and the place of execution.”
Horace Walpole mentions the fact that two thousand soldiers were kept
at drill in Hyde Park during the execution, in case of an attempt at
rescue. It is related that Dr. Dodd prayed fervently, that twice he
changed his cap when standing beneath the beam, and that the long
delay, before he was sent into eternity, incensed the baser part of the
ghouls, gathered round to take their delight in seeing a man hang.
What cheerful times those were!
Another class of criminal of earlier date was Mrs. Catherine Hayes,
who in 1726 murdered her husband in circumstances of the grossest
brutality. His head was hacked off, the body cut up, and efforts
made to hide all traces of the crime by burying the mangled remains
in a pond at Marylebone. They were discovered, and the woman’s two
accomplices were hanged. A more dreadful fate was reserved for herself.
She was conveyed to Tyburn, and was there burnt alive at the stake.
[Illustration: Execution of Catherine Hayes at Tyburn.
_From a Print in the “Tyburn Chronicle.”_]
According to the law of the period, those committed for murder and
“petty treason” were to be hanged and afterwards burnt at the gallows.
The hangman did his work, but the mob of ruffians which surged around
got out of all control, and so timoured the officer of the law that
the wretched woman was cut down while still alive and conscious, and
taken to the stake. The people yelled and shrieked, and tried to force
their way towards the blazing pile, and generally behaved in such an
uproarious manner that the horrors of death were rendered a hundredfold
more hideous by their frantic conduct.
The most astounding thing about this revolting scene is, that the
burning alive of a woman at the stake took place in the presumedly
civilised days of George the First, and in the last year of his reign.
Society at the commencement of the eighteenth century still read
little, and ignorance fed and thrived on the thrilling details of the
careers of daring highwaymen. Persons of decent reputation vied with
one another to have the latest chat with the manacled prisoners. “His
Last Dying Speech and Confession” was shouted about the streets, and
the broadside sold in thousands. People still flocked to an execution
as to an entertaining show.
It is just as well not to have lived in those gross times. How
different has public sympathy and sentiment grown in the comparatively
short space of a century. Thackeray was right when he wrote of Tyburn:
“Were a man brought to die there now, the windows would be closed, and
the inhabitants would keep their houses in sickening horror. A hundred
years ago people crowded there to see the last act of a highwayman’s
life, and made jokes of it. Swift laughed at him, cruelly advised him
to provide a holland shirt and a white cap, crowned with a crimson or
black ribbon, for his exit, to mount the cart cheerfully, shaking hands
with the hangman, and so farewell; or Gay wrote his most delightful
ballads, and then made merry over his hero.”
The last man hanged at Tyburn was John Austin on 7th November 1783,
for robbery and unlawful wounding, and on the following 9th December,
the first public execution outside Newgate took place. The _Morning
Chronicle_ of that day, in relating the event, added the remark:
“The saving to the State and to individuals from the new method of
executing criminals is immense. Many indigent families will feel
the good effects of preventing the loss of a day. No longer will
thoughtless youth neglect their employment to attend Tyburn executions,
where too many have become converts to bad practices.”
Indeed, the rascality attending these scenes almost passes belief.
A Tyburn execution, especially if a “fashionable” one, at which the
better—or at least wealthier—class gathered, was an occasion for the
assembling of all the pickpockets, watch-snatchers, and bad characters
of the town, who plied their skill busily while attention was directed
upon the expiring struggles and groans of the poor wretch swinging
from the tree. One Francis Grey, as he stood on the scaffold, actually
exhorted the crowd around him to give up their evil ways, for he saw
many bad men there, and bad deeds had never brought him happiness.
In closing the ghastly story of Tyburn Tree, it is interesting to note
that _The Times_ of 9th May 1860 printed a letter from Mr. A. J. B.
Beresford-Hope, relating that outside the garden of Arklow House, at
the extreme angle of Edgware Road, a pipe was being repaired, and many
human bones were dug up, doubtless relics of the bodies buried near
the Tyburn gallows. Earlier in the nineteenth century, when digging
foundations for houses in Connaught Place, workmen had come on human
remains, a whole cartload having been removed. Lady Battersea tells
me no trace, whatever, of a burial place was found under their house
opposite the Marble Arch when digging the drains about 1880.
In the later executions, the scaffold, the site of which had been
changed, was a movable erection, consisting of two uprights and a
cross beam. It was only put up on the morning of execution across the
roadway, opposite the house at the corner of Upper Bryanston Street and
the Edgware Road, wherein the gibbet was kept when not in use.
It is said that the timber of the famous gallows, beneath which so many
hundreds—one might almost say thousands—of malefactors made a painful
exit from this world, was sold to a carpenter, and used by him in
making stands for beer-butts for the cellars of an alehouse hard by.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] _Pappe with a Hatchet._
[3] _The Kingdomes Intelligencer of the Affairs now in agitation in
England._ From Monday, 28th January, to Monday, 4th Feb. 1661.