indeed, but “by reason of age, and also of the many shrewd brushes that
he met with in his younger days, grown so crazy and stiff in his joints,
that he can now do little more than sit in his cave’s mouth, grinning at
pilgrims as they go by, and biting his nails because he cannot come at
them.”
A sense of humour, or even a sense of proportion, might have counselled
to laugh at this impotent railing. But there was the temptation, always
present to governments, to appeal to the ignorance and fanaticism of the
mass. And behind and above all there was the question of the abbey lands:—
“The thief doth fear each bush an officer.”
So for the next hundred years it became the most pressing duty of
governments to tear out the bowels of men who acknowledged the Pope
as spiritual father; and when governments became slack in the work,
Parliament immediately set up a howl for blood.
=1571.= The execution of Dr. John Story is one of the horrors of Tyburn:
it is further memorable from the fact that, as we have seen (p. 64), the
triangular gallows, destined to become famous as the Triple Tree, first
came into use on this occasion.
Dr. Story was a bitter persecutor under Mary.
There is no more difficult question than that of determining how far
we must condemn, how far we may absolve those, on either side, who
used their power to inflict punishments on men who differed from them
in religion. In his “Prince” Machiavelli divides men of the ruling
class into three categories. There is, in the first place, the man who
understands of himself; next comes he who understands when a thing is
shown to him; last comes he who can neither generate a new idea, nor
comprehend it when put before him. The first, he says, is most excellent;
the second excellent; the third useless. But incapacity to generate new
ideas, inability to assimilate them, are things not criminal. The mass of
men will always be found in the third category. Dr. Story was not one of
those rare spirits who rise above the ideas current in their time.
In this matter of persecution it is impossible for us of to-day to place
ourselves in the position of men in the sixteenth century. Nothing could
be more false than to represent the reformers as advocates of religious
liberty. They made no such claim for themselves: they would have
regarded themselves as traitors to their trust if, when their opportunity
came, they did not in their turn send to the stake the obstinate heretics
who refused to yield to their arguments and rejected “the truth.” Latimer
could jest in the sermon he preached on the occasion of the burning of
Friar Forest.[174] Forest, it is true, was a Catholic. The reformers
persecuted others than Catholics, and here it is even more difficult to
acquit them. Claiming liberty to discard old beliefs, they persecuted
those who went further than they in the same direction. In 1549 was
appointed a Commission, and in 1551 another, with extended scope. Among
the Commissioners we find Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Coverdale—more than
thirty names of the brightest lights of the Reformation. They were
appointed to try heretics—Anabaptists and those who rejected the Book
of Common Prayer—to try, to condemn, and to hand over to the civil
power.[175] Latimer was earnest to persuade the hearers of one of his
great sermons that to go boldly to death did not prove that death
was suffered in a righteous cause. He jeered at the constancy of the
Anabaptists: “The Anabaptistes that were brente here in dyuers townes in
England, as I heard of credible menne (I saw them not my selfe) went to
their death euen _Intrepide_. As ye wyll saye, with out any feare in the
world chearfully. Well, let them go.”[176]
Without reckoning too nicely the allowances to be made for the difficulty
of achieving emancipation from the ideas of one’s age, posterity has
perhaps done rough justice in allowing subsequent martyrdom to atone for
the errors of those who persecuted. Catholics have beatified Story;
Protestants venerate the memory of those who suffered after having
enforced the new doctrines by the aid of the gallows and the stake.
After the accession of Elizabeth, Story had more than one narrow escape.
In 1563 he was imprisoned in the Marshalsea, whence he escaped, and, with
the aid of the chaplain of the Spanish Ambassador, fled to Flanders. The
Spanish Ambassador disclaimed knowledge of the matter, but it may well
be that the English Government was nettled, and readily lent itself to a
plan for capturing Story. In his adopted country he received a place in
the customs. On a certain day in August, 1570, he was invited to examine
a ship at Bergen-op-Zoom. While he was busy in the hold the hatches were
shut down on him, the sail was hoisted, and the ship sailed for Yarmouth
with Story on board. The capture was a great event. “The locks and bolts
of the Lollards’ Tower were broken off at the death of queen Mary, and
never since repaired. Now they were repaired for the reception of Dr.
Story.”[177] He was executed at Tyburn on June 1, 1571. He was the object
of general execration: care was probably taken that he should suffer all
the torments of the horrible sentence. He was let down from the gallows
alive, and while the executioner was “rifling among his bowels,” Story
rose and dealt him a blow.
=1572.= The 11. day of February Kenelme Barney, and Edmond Mather were
drawne from the Tower of London: and Henry Rolfe from the Marshalsea
in Southwarke, all three to Tyborne, and there hanged, bowelled and
quartered for treason: Barney and Mather for conspiracie against some
of her maiesties priuie counsell, and Rolfe for counterfeiting the Q.
maiesties hand (Stow, p. 670).
=1572.= The 28. of Nouember, John Hall gentleman, and Oswald Wilkinson
late of Yorke, and gailor of Yorke castle (being before arraigned and
condemned of treason) were drawne from the Tower of London to Tiborne,
and there hanged and quartered (Stow, p. 673).
=1573.= The 16. of June, Thomas Woodhouse, a priest of Lincolnshire, who
had lien long prisoner in the Fleete, was arraigned in the Guild hall
of London, and there condemned of high treason, who had iudgement to be
hanged and quartered, and was executed at Tyborne the nine-teenth of June
(Stow, p. 676).
=1576.= The 30. of May, Tho. Greene goldsmith was drawne from Newgate of
Lond. to Tyborne, and there hanged, headed, and quartered, for clipping
of coine both gold and siluer (Stow, p. 680).
=1578.= The third of Februarie, early in the morning, Iohn Nelson, for
denying the Queenes supremacie, and such other traiterous words against
her maiestie, was drawne from Newgate to Tiborne, and there hanged,
bowelled and quartered (Stow, p. 684).
=1578.= The 7. of Februarie, one named Sherewood was drawne from the
Tower of London to Tyborne, and there hanged, bowelled and quartered
(Stow, p. 684).
Thomas Sherwood was a layman. In the Tower he was cruelly racked to make
him tell where he had heard mass.
=1581.= The 18. of July, Euerard Haunce [Hanse] a seminary priest, was
in the Sessions hall in the olde Baily arraigned, where he affirmed that
himselfe was subiect to the Pope in ecclesiasticall causes, and that
the Pope hath now the same authoritie here in England that hee had an
hundred yeeres past, with other trayterous speeches, for the which hee
was condemned to bee drawne, hanged, bowelled, and quartered, and was
executed accordingly on the last of July (Stow, p. 694).
=1581.= On the 20. of November, Edm. Champion [Campion] Jesuit, Ralfe
Sherwine, Lucas Kerbie, Edward Rishton, Thomas Coteham, Henrie Orton,
Robert Iohnson, and Iames Bosgraue, were brought to the high bar at
Westminster, where they were seuerally, and all together indicted vpon
high treason, for that contrary both to loue and dutie, they forsooke
their natiue countrey, to liue beyond the seas vnder the Popes obedience,
as at Rome, Rheimes, and diuerse other places, where (the pope hauing
with other princes practised the death and depriuation of our most
gracious princesse and vtter subuersion of her state and kingdome,
to aduance his most abhominable religion) these menne hauing vowed
their alleagiance to the pope, to obey him in all causes whatsoeuer,
being there, gaue their consent, to ayd him in this most trayterous
determination. And for this intent and purpose they were sent ouer to
seduce the harts of her maiesties louing subiects, and to conspire and
practise her graces death, as much as in them lay, against a great daie,
set & appoynted, when the generall hauocke should be made, those onely
reserued that ioyned with them. This laid to their charge, they boldly
denied, but by a iurie they were approoued guiltie, and had iudgement to
bee hanged, bowelled, and quartered (Stow, p. 694).
The account of the executions of some of these will follow. According
to Camden, Elizabeth did not at all believe them guilty of plotting the
destruction of the country; they were tried and executed to take away the
fear which had possessed many men’s minds that religion would be altered
if she married a foreign prince.
=1581.= The first of December, Edmond Champion [Campion] Jesuit, Ralfe
Sherwine, and Alexander Brian seminary priests, were drawne from the
tower of London to Tyborne, & there hanged, bowelled and quartered (Stow,
p. 694).
In writing of the illegal use of torture by Elizabeth’s Government, under
Elizabeth’s sanction, reference was made to a pamphlet, ascribed to Lord
Burghley, “A Declaration of the favourable Dealing,” &c., issued in 1583.
Here are two passages from the “Declaration” relating to Campion and
Brian (here called Briant): “That very Campion, I say … was never so
racked, but that he was presently able to walke, and to write.”
“A horrible matter is also made of the starving of one Alexander Briant;
how he should eat clay out of the walles, gathered water to drinke from
the droppings of houses, with such other false ostentations of immanitie;
where the trueth is this: that whatsoever Briant suffered, in want of
foode, he suffered the same wilfully, and of extreme impudent obstinacie,
against the minde and liking of those that dealt with him.” His gaolers
wished to have a specimen of his handwriting, and as he refused to write,
“then was it commaunded to his keeper to give unto him such meate,
drinke, and other convenient necessaries, as he woulde write for; and to
forbeare to give him anything for which he woulde not write. But Briant,
being thereof advertised, and oft moved to write persisting so in his
curst heart, by almost two dayes and two nightes, made choise rather to
lacke foode, then to write for the sustenance, which he might readely
have had for writing, and which he had, indede, readely and plentifully,
so soone as he wrote.” Thus the Government, or the Government’s
apologist. This was the best case to be made out.
=1582.= On the 28. day of May, Thomas Ford, Iohn Shert, & Robert Iohnson,
priests, hauing bin before indicted, arraigned, and condemned for high
treason intended, as yee haue heard of Champion and other, were drawne
from the Tower to Tiborne, and there hanged, bowelled, and quartered.
And on the 30. Luke Kirby, William Filby, Thomas Cottam, and Laurence
Richardson, were for the like treason in the same place likewise executed
(Stow, p. 694).
=1584.= _January 11._ On the 10. of January at a sessions holden in the
Justice hall in the Old baily of London, for goale deliuery of Newgate,
Willi. Carter of the Cittie of London, was there indicted, arraigned
and condemned of high treason, for printing a seditious and trayterous
booke in English, entituled, A treatise of schisme: and was for the same
(according to sentence pronounced against him) on the next morrowe drawne
from Newgate to Tyborne, and there hanged, bowelled, and quartered.
And forthwith against slanderous reports spread abroad in seditious
bookes, letters, and libels, therby to inflame our countrey-men, & her
maiesties subiectes, a booke was published, entituled, A declaration of
the fauourable dealing of her maiesties commissioners, &c. (Stow, p.
698).[178]
=1584.= _February 12._ The 7. of February, were arraygned at Westminster
Iohn Fen [James Fenn], George Haddocke [Haydock], Iohn Munden, Iohn
Nutter, and Thomas Hemerford, all fiue found guiltie of high treason, in
being made priestes beyond the seas, and by the Popes authoritie, since a
statute made in _Anno primo_ of her maiesties raygne, and hadde iudgement
to be hanged, bowelled, & quartered: which were all executed at Tyborne
on the 12. of February (Stow, p. 698).
=1584.= The 21. of May, Francis Throckmorton Esquire was arraygned in
the Guild hall of the cittie of London, where being found guiltie of
high Treason, hee was condemned, & had iudgement to be drawne, hanged,
bowelled, & quartered. The 10. of July next following, the same Francis
Throckmorton was conveyed by water from the Tower of London, to the
Blacke fryers stayres, and from thence by land to the sessions hall in
the Olde baily without Newgate, where hee was deliuered to the sheriffes
of London, laid on a hurdle, drawne to Tyborne, & there executed
according to his iudgement. A discouery of whose treasons, practised
and attempted against the Queenes maiestie and the realme, were in the
moneth of June published and printed in a booke intituled, A true and
perfect Declaration of the treasons practised and attempted by Francis
Throckmorton, &c.[179] (Stow, p. 628).
=1585.= _July 6._ The fift of July, Thomas Aufield [Alfield], a seminarie
priest, and Thomas Welley [Webley] diar, were arraygned at the sessions
hall in the Old baily, found guiltie, condemned and had iudgement,
as felons to be hanged: for publishing of books containing false,
seditious, and slaunderous matter, to the defamation of our Soueraygne
lady the Queene, these were on the next morrow executed at Tyborne
accordingly[180] (Stow, p. 708).
=1586.= The 19. of January, Nicholas Deuorox [Nicholas Wheeler, Woodfen,
or Devereux] was condemned for treason, in being made a Seminarie priest
at Rhemes in Fraunce, since the feast of Saynt Iohn Baptist in Anno
primo of her Maiesties raygne, and in remaining here after the term of
fortie dayes after the session of the last parliament. Also Edmond Barbar
[Edward Strancham] being made a priest as aforesayd, and comming into
this realme after the sayd terme of fortie dayes, was likewise condemned
of treason, and both drawne to Tyborne, and there hanged, bowelled, and
quartered on the 21. of January (Stow, p. 718).
=1586.= The 18. of Aprill, in the assises holden at London in the Justice
hall, Willi. Thomson _alias_ Blackborne made priest at Rhemes, and
Richard Lea _alias_ Long [his real name was Sergeant] made priest at
Lyons in France, and remainging here contrarie to the statute, were both
condemned, and on the twentith day of Aprill drawne to Tiborne, and there
hanged, bowelled, and quartered (Stow, p. 719).
=1586.= The 18. of June, Henry Elks clearke and batchelor of art,
for counterfeiting the queens signe manuel to the presentation of
the parsonage of Alsaints in Hastings, directed to the Archbishop of
Canterburie, or to his commissarie generall (the dioces of Chichester
being voyd) that he might be instituted parson there, was drawne to
Tyborne, and there hanged, bowelled, and quartered (Stow, p. 719).
The 8. of October … I. Low [John Lowe], I. Adams [John Adams], and
Richard Dibdale, being before condemned for treason, in being made
Priests by authority of the Bishop of Rome, were drawne to Tyborne, and
there hanged, bowelled, and quartered (Stow, p. 740).
=1588.= _August._ The 26. of August, at the sessions hal without Newgate
of London, were condemned 6. persons, for being made priests beyond the
seas, & remaining in this realme contrary to a statute thereof made, 4.
temporall men for being reconciled to the Romane Church; & 4. other for
releeuing & abetting the others. And on the 28. W. Deane, & H. Webley,
were hanged at yᵉ Miles end. W. Gunter at the Theater, R. Moorton &
Hugh Moore at Lincolnes Inne fields, Tho. Acton [Thomas Holford] at
Clarkenwell, Tho. Felton & Iames Clarkson [Claxton] betweene Brainford
& Hounslow. And on the 30. of August, R. Flower, Ed. Shelley, R. Leigh,
R. Martine, I. Roch, & Margaret Ward gentlewoman (which Margaret hadde
conueyed a cord to a priest in Bridewell, whereby he let himself downe &
escaped) were hanged at Tiborne (Stow, p. 749-50).
=1590.= The 11. of July, 16. fellons hanged at Tyborn (Stow, “Summary,”
p. 427).
=1591.= The 10. of December 3. Seminary priests for being in this realm
contrary to the statute and 4. other, for relieuing them, were executed,
two of them, to wit, a Seminary named Ironmonger [Edmund Genings], and
Swithen Wels, gentleman, in Grayes Inne field, Blaston [Polydore Plasden]
and White, Seminaries, and three other their abbettors at Tyborne (Stow,
p. 764). [The names of these three others were, Bryan Lacy, Sydney
Hodson, and John Mason]. In “The Life and Death of Mr. Edmund Geninges
Priest, Crowned with Martyrdome at London the 10. day of November (_sic_)
in the yeare MDXCI. S. Omers, 1614,” is an account of the trial and
execution. Wells on returning to London found his house shut up, and
was told that his wife was in Newgate. He went to Justice Yonge to ask
for restitution of wife and keys, when he was at once sent to Newgate.
He pleaded that he was not aware of the doings in his house. “Then the
Justice … told him in playne termes, he came time inough to taste of the
sauce, although he were ignorant how the meate sauoured.” The manner of
the execution of Edmund Genings is thus told:—
He being ripped vp, & his bowelles cast into the fire, if credit may be
giuen to hundreds of People standing by, and to the Hangman himselfe, the
blessed Martyr vttered (his hart being in the Executioners hand) these
words, _Sancte Gregori ora pro me_, which the Hangman hearing, with open
mouth swore this damnable oath; Gods woundes, See his hart is in my hand,
and yet _Gregory_ in his mouth; ô egregious Papist!
[Illustration: DRAWING ON HURDLES TO TYBURN, _temp._ ELIZABETH.]
=1592.= _January 22._ William Patenson, condemned as a priest, drawn,
hanged, and quartered at Tyburn. (Challoner’s Memoirs pt. i. p. 147).
_June 23._ Roger Ashton executed at Tyburn for procuring from Rome a
dispensation to enable him to marry his cousin (Challoner’s Memoirs, pt.
i. p. 148).
=1593.= The 21. of March, Henry Barrow, gentleman, Iohn Greenewood
clarke, Daniel Studley girdler, Saxio Billot, gentleman, Robert Bowley,
Fishmonger, were indicted of Felony at the sessions hall without Newgate
beefore the Maior, the two lord Chiefe Justices of both benches, and
sundry of the Judges & other commissioners of Oyer and determiner; the
sayd Barrow and Greenwood for writing sundry seditious bookes, tending to
the slaunder of the Queene and state; Studley, Billot, and Bowley, for
publishing and setting foorth the same Bookes, and on the 23. they were
all arraygned at Newgate, found guiltie, and had iudgement. On the last
of March Henry Barrow and Iohn Greenwood were brought to Tyborne in a
carre, and there fastened to the Gallowes, but being stayde and returned
for the time, they were there hanged on the sixt of Aprill (Stow, p.
764-5).
=1594.= The 18. of February, [William] Harington, a seminarie priest,
was drawne from Newgate to Tyborne, & there hanged, cut downe aliue,
struggled with the hang-man, but was bowelled & quartered (Stow, p. 766).
=1594.= The last of February, Rodericke Loppez, a Portingale (as it was
said) professing physicke, was arraygned in the Guild hall of London,
found guiltie, and had iudgement as of high treason, for conspiring her
Maiesties destruction by poyson.
The 7. of June, Rodericke Loppez, with the other two Portingales … were
conuayd by water from Westminster to the Bishoppe of Winchesters staires
in Southwarke, from thence to the K. bench, there laid on hurdles, and
conuayd by the Sheriffes of London ouer the bridge, vp to Leaden hall,
and so to Tyborne, & there hanged, cut downe aliue, holden downe by
strength of men, dismembred, bowelled, headed & quartered, their quarters
set on the gates of the cittie (Stow, p. 766, 768).
Camden’s account of this affair (greatly abbreviated) is that certain
Spaniards prevailed on Roderigo Lopez, a Portuguese Jew, the Queen’s
physician, Stephen Ferreira Gama, and Emanuel Loisie, both Portuguese,
to poison the Queen. The convictions were obtained on the strength of
confessions. “How far,” says Lingard, “these confessions made in the
Tower, and probably on the rack, are deserving of credit, may be doubted”
(ed. 1849, vol. vi. p. 554).
It is a strange feature in the case that while Camden, like Stow, speaks
of the execution of all three, Lingard shows that Ferreira was saved.
The probability seems to be that Lopez fell a victim to the rivalry
between Essex and the Cecils, each eager to prove greater zeal in the
Queen’s service.[181]
Arising out of similar plots, real or pretended, were at this time other
executions:—
On March 2, 1594, an Irish fencing master was hanged and quartered at
Tyburn for a design to kill the Queen (Camden: Stow, “Summary,” p. 439),
and “in less than two months from the beginning” of 1595, Edmund Yorke
and Richard Williams were for the same reason executed at Tyburn (Camden,
in Kennett’s “Complete History,” ii. p. 532).
[Illustration: EXECUTIONS AT TYBURN, _temp._ ELIZABETH.]
=1595.= The 20. of February, Robert Southwell, a Jesuit, was arraygned
at the Kinges Bench barre, and the next day executed at Tyborne (Stow, p.
768).
Southwell was not only a Jesuit and martyr, but a poet of whom Ben Jonson
said that he would willingly have destroyed many of his own poems could
he have claimed the authorship of Southwell’s “Burning Babe.”
Southwell was ordained priest in 1584. With a full knowledge of the
danger he incurred, he desired to go to England as a missionary priest.
He landed in England in 1588. After many narrow escapes he was at last
arrested by Topcliffe, the English Torquemada, in 1592, kept in prison
for more than two years, and so brutally tortured and ill-used that
his father petitioned Elizabeth that he might at once suffer death if
guilty, or be better treated. Southwell had inspired sympathy, for at his
execution the bystanders prevailed on the executioner to let him hang
till dead.
=1598.= The 25. of January, one named Ainger was hanged at Tyborne, for
wilfully and secretly murthering of his owne father a Gentleman and
Counsellor of the Law at Graies Inne, in his chamber there (Stow, p. 786).
About the middle of November, 1597, a body was found floating on the
Thames, and was identified as that of Richard Ainger, Anger, or Aunger,
“a double reader” of Gray’s Inn, who had been missing for some time. On
view of the body the surgeons gave it as their opinion that Ainger had
met his death, not by drowning, but by suffocation, and that the body had
been thrown into the river after death. Suspicion attached to one of his
sons, Richard, and to Edward Ingram, a porter of the Inn.
The Privy Council addressed a letter to Mr. Recorder of London, Mr.
Topcliffe, Nicholas Fuller, William Gerrard, and Mr. Altham, requiring
them to examine strictly the two suspected persons, “and yf by those
persuasions and other meanes you shall use you shall not be able to
bring them to confesse the truthe of this horrible facte, then we require
you to put them both or either of them to the manacles in Bridewell, that
by compulsory meanes the truthe of this wicked murther may be discovered,
and who were complices and privy to this confederacy and fact” (“Acts of
the Privy Council,” New Series, xxviii. 187). The case is interesting as
showing that torture was at this time used in ordinary criminal cases.
All the dictionaries speak of manacles as instruments of restraint
merely. In the present case they were evidently an instrument of torture.
Its nature must have been well known to Shakespeare’s audiences, for in
“The Tempest,” referred to the year 1610, Prospero says:—
“I’ll manacle thy neck and feet together”
(Act I., sc. 2).