_Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1736. On July 26 one Reynolds, a turnpike
leveller,[205] was hanged and cut down in the usual course. But as the
coffin was being fastened down, Reynolds thrust back the lid, whereupon
the executioner was for tying him up again. This however the mob would
not suffer. Reynolds was carried to a house where he vomited a quantity
of blood, but he died after being made to drink a glass of wine.
On September 23rd two men were hanged at Bristol, cut down and put into
coffins, when both revived. One died later in the day; what befel the
other is not told.
The _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1767 (p. 90) records the execution at
Cork, on January 24th, of Patrick Redmond who hung for twenty-eight
minutes. “The mob carried off the body to a place appointed, where he
was, after five or six hours actually recovered by a surgeon who made the
incision in his windpipe called bronchotomy. The poor fellow has since
received his pardon, and a genteel collection has been made for him.”
More interesting than any of these cases is an earlier one fully recorded
in a little book published in 1651, “Newes from the Dead, or a true and
exact narration of the miraculous deliverance of Anne Greene, who being
executed at Oxford, December 14, 1650, afterwards revived, and by the
care of certain Physitians there is now perfectly recovered. Together
with the manner of her suffering, and the particular means used for her
recovery. Written by a Scholler in Oxford for the satisfaction of a
friend who desired to be informed concerning the truth of the businesse.
Whereunto are prefixed certain Poems casually written upon that subject.”
One of the poems is by “Chris. Wren, Gent. Com. of Wad. Coll.”
Anne Greene was convicted of killing her newly-born child, but it is open
to doubt whether the child was born alive. This is the account of the
execution: “She was turned off the ladder,[206] hanging by the neck for
the space of almost half an houre, some of her friends in the meantime
thumping her on the breast, others hanging with all their weight upon
her legs, sometimes lifting her up, and then pulling her doune again
with a sudden jerk, thereby the sooner to despatch her out of her pain;
insomuch that the Under-sheriff fearing lest thereby they should break
the rope forbad them to do so any longer.”
The body was carried in a coffin into a private house, and showing signs
of life, “a lusty fellow that stood by (thinking to do an act of charity
in ridding her out of the small reliques of a painfull life) stamped
several times on her breast and stomach with all the force he could.”
Dr. Petty, the Professor of Anatomy, coming in with another, they set
themselves to recover her. They bled her freely, and put her into bed
with another woman. After about two hours she could speak “many words
intelligible.” On the 19th (having been hanged on the 14th) she was up;
within a month she was recovered, and went to her friends in the country,
taking her coffin with her.
On June 19, 1728, Margaret Dickenson was hanged at Edinburgh. After
hanging for the usual time, the body was cut down, put into a coffin, and
so into a cart for carriage to the place of interment. The man in charge
of the cart stopped in a village to drink, and while so engaged, saw the
lid of the coffin move: at last the woman sat up in her coffin. Most of
those present fled in terror, but a gardener, who happened to be there,
opened a vein. Within an hour Margaret was put to bed, and on the next
day walked home. The story is told in the “Newgate Calendar” of 1774,
with a picture of Margaret sitting up in her coffin.
These cases, astounding as they are, are eclipsed by one known only by
the barest statement of the fact. In the 28th of Henry III. (1264) a
woman, Ivetta de Balsham, was, for some felony, hanged at three o’clock
one afternoon. She was let down from the gallows at sunrise the next
morning, and found to be alive. A pardon was granted to her. The date of
the pardon is August 16th, and the execution must have taken place some
time before this date. But even if Ivetta was hanged on midsummer day
she must have been hanging twelve long hours.[207]
=1712.= _December 23._ Richard Town was executed at Tyburn. Being
bankrupt, he absconded, and was apprehended, having twenty guineas and
other money in his possession (Montague, “The Old Bailey Chronicle,” i.
69-70).
Sir James Fitzjames Stephen says that setting in the pillory for
fraudulent concealment of goods to the value of £20 “continued to be the
statutory penalty for fraudulent bankruptcy from 21 James I. (1623) c.
19, s. 7 till the year 1732.”[208] The reference is to the Act 5 George
II. c. 30. Sir James appears, however, to have overlooked a previous
Act, 4 & 5 Anne (1705), c. 4, s. 1 of which made fraudulent bankruptcy
a felony without benefit of clergy. It is said that there were but few
executions for this offence. The most remarkable case is that of John
Perrott, who was executed at Smithfield (not at Tyburn) on November 11,
1761. The story, of singular interest, is told in great detail in the
_Gentleman’s Magazine_ for the year, xxxi. 585-92.
=1715.= _December 7._ Nine adherents of the Pretender were executed at
Tyburn.
There followed other executions:—
=1716.= _May 14._ Colonel Oxburgh.
_May 25._ Richard Gascoign.
_July 18._ Rev. William Paul and John Hall.
In his account of the execution of Paul and Hall, Mr. Lorrain, the
ordinary of Newgate, says: “The cart being drawn away, and they being
turned off, the People gave a mighty shout, and with loud Acclamations
said, God save King George. To which I say, Amen.”
As mention has been made of Mr. Lorrain, it may be not amiss to say
something about him. The Rev. Paul Lorrain, probably of Huguenot
extraction, was the ordinary of Newgate from 1698 to 1719. The British
Museum possesses nearly fifty of the broadsheets issued by him, giving
accounts of the behaviour, last speeches, and execution of the criminals
who came under his care in Newgate. The worthy ordinary was perhaps
inclined to estimate too highly the effect of his ministrations on these
criminals. His representations of their penitent attitude procured for
them the name of “Paul Lorrain’s Saints” (_Tatler_, No. 63). There is a
good-humoured reference to this weakness in the _Spectator_, No. 338.
=1718.= _March 17._ Execution of Ferdinando Marquis de Palleotti.
The Duke of Shrewsbury, being at Rome, fell in love with Palleotti’s
sister, and upon the lady’s conversion to Protestantism, married her.
Ferdinando visited his sister in England. He was addicted to gambling,
and made such demands upon his sister’s purse that at length she refused
further supplies. He was arrested for debt, and liberated by her. Walking
in the street one day, he ordered his servant to call upon a gentleman
in the neighbourhood, and ask for a loan. The servant showing reluctance
to fulfil the order, the marquis drew his sword and ran him through the
body. According to the ordinary, the marquis thought it a great hardship
that he should die for so small a matter as killing his servant (James
Mountague, “The Old Bailey Chronicle,” i. 185-8).
A few hours after the execution of the marquis, James Shepherd, an
adherent of the Pretender, was drawn to Tyburn and there hanged and
quartered.
=1718.= _May 31._ The hangman of Tyburn, John Price, known by the common
name Jack Ketch, was hanged, for murder, near the scene of the crime, in
Bunhill-Fields.
=1721.= _February 8._ On this day were executed at Tyburn four men, one
of whom had undergone the peine forte et dure.
Four men were indicted for highway robberies. Two refusing to plead, the
court gave orders to read the judgment appointed to be executed on such
as stand mute or refuse to plead to their indictment.
“That the prisoner shall be sent to the prison from whence he came, and
put into a mean room, stopped from the light, and shall there be laid on
the bare ground without any litter, straw, or other covering, and without
any garment about him except something about his middle. He shall lie
upon his back, his head shall be covered and his feet shall be bare. One
of his arms shall be drawn with a cord to the side of the room, and the
other arm to the other side, and his legs shall be served in the like
manner. Then there shall be laid upon his body as much iron or stone
as he can bear, and more. And the first day after he shall have three
morsels of barley bread, without any drink, and the second day he shall
be allowed to drink as much as he can, at three times, of the water that
is next the prison door, except running water, without any bread; and
this shall be his diet till he dies: and he against whom the judgment
shall be given forfeits his goods to the King.
“This having no effect on the prisoners, the executioner (as is usual in
such cases) was ordered to tie their thumbs together, and draw the cord
as tight as he was able, which was immediately done; neither this, nor
all the admonitions of the court being sufficient to bring them to plead,
they were sentenced to be pressed to death. They were carried back to
Newgate. As soon as they entered the press-room, Phillips desired that he
might return to the bar and plead, but Spiggott continuing obstinate was
put under the press. He bore three hundred and fifty pounds weight for
half an hour, but then fifty more being added,[209] he begged that he
might be carried back to plead, which favour was granted.”
After the treatment he was very faint and almost speechless for two days.
One of his reasons given to the ordinary of Newgate for enduring the
press was that none might reproach his children by telling them their
father was hanged. Before he was taken out of the press, he was in a kind
of slumber and had hardly any sense of pain left.[210]
=1721.= _July 5._ Barbara Spencer was burnt at Tyburn for coining. At
the stake “she was very desirous of praying, and complained of the
dirt and stones thrown by the mob behind her, which prevented her
thinking sedately on futurity. One time she was quite beat down by them”
(Villette, i. 32-6).
=1721.= _December 22._ Nathaniel Hawes, a young man of 20, had been out
of prison but a few days when he robbed a man on the highway of 4s. He
refused to plead, because a handsome suit of clothes had been taken from
him, and he was resolved not to go to the gallows in a shabby suit. The
court ordered that his thumbs should be tied together. The cord was
pulled by two officers till it broke, and this was repeated several
times without effect. He was then put in the press, and gave in when he
had borne a weight of 250 lbs. for about seven minutes. (Reference has
already been made to this case on p. 41 in treating of the peine forte et
dure).
[Illustration: THE PEINE FORTE ET DURE, 1721.]
=1724.= _November 16._ John, or Jack Sheppard, for burglary.
Jack Sheppard does not seem to have committed any crime worse than
burglary: his hands were not stained with blood. He was famed for several
remarkable escapes from prison. He had once escaped from Newgate and
being again arrested, unusual care was taken of him. But he once more and
for the last time escaped, being soon after captured while drunk. For
better security he was lodged in a strong room called the Castle, where
he was hand-cuffed, loaded with a heavy pair of irons, and chained to
a staple in the floor. The Sessions at the Old Bailey began on October
14th, and Jack, knowing that the keepers would be busy in attending the
court, thought that this would be the only time to make a push for his
liberty.
“The next day, about two in the afternoon, one of the keepers carried
Jack his dinner, examined his irons, and found all fast. Jack then went
to work. He got off his hand-cuffs, and with a crooked nail he found
on the floor, opened the great padlock that fastened his chain to the
staple. Next he twisted asunder a small link of the chain between his
legs, and drawing up his feet-locks as high as he could, he made them
fast with his garters. He attempted to get up the chimney, but had not
advanced far before his progress was stopped by an iron bar that went
across within-side, and therefore being descended, he went to work on the
outside, and with a piece of his broken chain picked out the mortar, and
removing a small stone or two about six feet from the floor, he got out
the iron bar, an inch square and near a yard long, and this proved of
great service to him. He presently made so large a breach, that he got
into the Red-Room over the Castle, there he found a great nail, which was
another very useful implement. The door of his room had not been opened
for seven years past; but in less than seven minutes he wrenched off the
lock, and got into the entry leading to the Chapel. Here he found a door
bolted on the other side, upon which he broke a hole through the wall,
and pushed the bolt back. Coming now to the chapel-door, he broke off
one of the iron spikes, which he kept for further use, and so got into
an entry between the chapel and the lower leads. The door of this entry
was very strong, and fastened with a great lock, and what was worse, the
night had overtaken him, and he was forced to work in the dark. However,
in half an hour, by the help of the great nail, the chapel spike, and the
iron bar, he forced off the box of the lock, and opened the door, which
led him to another yet more difficult, for it was not only locked, but
barred and bolted. When he had tried in vain to make this lock and box
give way, he wrenched the fillet from the main post of the door, and the
box and staples came off with it: and now St. Sepulchre’s chimes went
eight. There was yet another door betwixt him and the lower leads; but it
being only bolted within-side, he opened it easily, and mounting to the
top of it, he got over the wall, and so to the upper leads.
“His next consideration was, how to get down; for which purpose looking
round him, and finding the top of the Turner’s house adjoining to
Newgate, was the most convenient place to alight upon, he resolved to
descend thither; but as it would have been a dangerous leap, he went back
to the Castle the same way he came, and fetched a blanket he used to lie
on. This he made fast to the wall of Newgate, with the spike he stole out
of the Chapel, and so sliding down, dropped upon the Turner’s leads, and
then the clock struck nine. Luckily for him, the Turner’s garret-door
on the leads happened to be open. He went in, and crept softly down one
pair of stairs, when he heard company talking in a room below. His irons
giving a clink, a woman started, and said, ‘Lord! What noise is that?’
Somebody answered, ‘The dog or the cat’; and thereupon Sheppard returned
up to the garret, and having continued there above two hours, he ventured
down a second time, when he heard a gentleman take leave of the company,
and saw the maid light him down stairs. As soon as the maid came back,
and had shut the chamber door, he made the best of his way to the street
door, unlocked it, and so made his escape about twelve at night.”
But on October 31st Jack made merry at a public-house in Newgate Street,
with two ladies of his acquaintance, afterwards treated his mother in
Clare Market with three quarterns of brandy, and in a word got so drunk
that he forgot all caution and was once more apprehended.
He still had schemes for eluding justice. He had got hold of a penknife;
with this on the road to Tyburn he would cut the cords binding his hands,
jump from the cart into the crowd and run through Little Turnstile,
where the mounted officers could not follow him, and he reckoned on the
sympathy of the mob to help him to make good his escape. But he was
searched, and the knife was taken from him. He had one last hope; he
urged his friends to get possession of his body as soon as cut down, and
put it into a warm bed; so he thought, and precedents were not wanting,
his life might be prolonged. This, too, came to naught (Villette, i.
261-6).
In the twenty-third year of his age “died with great difficulty, and much
pitied by the mob,” the prince of prison-breakers.
Villette says: “I don’t remember any felon in this kingdom, whose
adventures have made so much noise as Sheppard’s.” Six or more stories of
his life appeared: among his biographers was Defoe. Sir James Thornhill
painted his portrait, reproduced in a mezzotint engraving. The _British
Journal_ of November 28, 1724, contained verses on this portrait:—
Thornhill, ’tis thine to gild with fame
Th’ obscure, and raise the humble name:
To make the form elude the grave,
And Sheppard from oblivion save.
…
Apelles Alexander drew,
Cæsar is to Aurellius due,
Cromwell in Lilly’s works doth shine,
And Sheppard, Thornhill, lives in thine.
Nor did the pulpit disdain to draw a moral from Sheppard’s career:—
“O that ye were all like Jack Sheppard! Mistake me not, my brethren,
I don’t mean in a carnal, but in a spiritual sense, for I purpose to
spiritualise these things.… Let me exhort ye then, to open the Locks of
your Hearts with the Nail of Repentance: burst asunder the Fetters of
your beloved Lusts: mount the Chimney of Hope, take from thence the Bar
of good Resolution, break through the Stone-wall of Despair, fix the
blanket of Faith with the Spike of the Church. Let yourselves down to the
Turner’s House of Resignation, and descend the Stairs of Humility; so
shall you come to the Door of Deliverance from the Prison of Iniquity,
and escape from the Clutches of that old Executioner, the Devil”
(Villette, i. 253-72).
A few days before, on November 11, Joseph Black, better known as
“Blueskin,” a companion of Jack Sheppard, had been hanged at Tyburn.[211]
=1725.= _May 24._ Jonathan Wild, “the thief-taker.”
Jonathan Wild, whose exploits were celebrated by Fielding in “Jonathan
Wild, the Great,” invented a new method which may be described as running
with the hare and riding with the hounds. He was in league with great
numbers of thieves of all kinds, from highwaymen downwards. This body
was described as “a corporation of thieves of which Wild was the head
or director.” He divided the country into districts, assigning gangs
for the working of each. These gangs accounted to him for the proceeds
of their robberies. He selected by preference convicts returned from
transportation, because, in case of accident, they could not give
legal evidence against him; moreover, they were in his power, and if
any rebelled he could hang them. For fifteen years he carried on this
system. His depredations were on a large scale: he had in his pay several
artists to alter watches, rings, and other objects of value, so as not
to be recognised by their owners.
At his trial he circulated among the jury a list of persons apprehended
and convicted by his means: 35 for highway robbery, 22 for burglary, 10
for returning from transportation. It would be too tedious, he said, to
give a list of minor cases. Written in his name is an elegy, of which
these are a few lines:—
Ye Britons! curs’d with an unthankful mind,
For ever to exalted merit blind,
Is thus your constant benefactor spurn’d?
Are thus his faithful services return’d?
This dungeon his reward for labours past?
And Tyburn his full recompence at last?
On the way to Tyburn he was cursed and pelted. The rest of the batch
being tied up, the executioner told Wild he might have any reasonable
time to prepare himself. This so incensed the mob that they threatened to
knock the hangman on the head if he did not at once perform the duties of
his office. The body was buried in the churchyard of Old St. Pancras, but
was afterwards removed, by surgeons as was supposed.
=1726.= _May 9._ Catherine Hays and Thomas Billings, executed for
the murder of John Hays, the husband of Catherine. Thomas Wood, also
condemned for the murder, died on May 4 in the “Condemned-Hold.”
Hays’s body was cut up by the murderers, and the head thrown into the
Thames, but it was recovered and set up on a pole in the churchyard of
St. Margaret’s, Westminster. This led to identification and discovery
of the criminals. Catherine Hays was drawn on a sledge to Tyburn. Here
she was chained to a stake and faggots were piled around her. A rope
round her neck was passed through a hole in the stake. When the fire had
got well alight and had reached the woman, the executioner pulled the
rope, intending to strangle her, but, the fire reaching his hands, he
was forced to desist. More faggots were then piled on the woman, and
in about three or four hours she was reduced to ashes. Billings was put
in irons as he was hanging on the gallows, his body was then cut down,
carried to a gibbet about a hundred yards distant, and there suspended in
chains (Villette i. 394-428).
Thackeray’s “Catherine, A Story,” originally published in _Fraser’s
Magazine_, is based on this case, much as Fielding’s “Jonathan Wild the
Great” is based upon the career of that worthy.
=1732.= _October 9._ Thirteen executed at Tyburn.
=1733.= _January 29._ Twelve malefactors, condemned in the three
preceding sessions, executed at Tyburn.
=1733.= _May 28._ John Davis, feigning sickness, begged that he might
not be tied in the cart. When he came to the Tree, he jumped from the
cart and ran across two fields. A countyman knocked him down, and he was
brought back and hanged.
=1733.= _December 19._ Thirteen executed at Tyburn. Among them were a
man and a woman condemned for coining. They were, as usual, drawn in a
sledge: the man, after being hanged, was slashed across the body. The
woman, chained to a stake, was first strangled and then burnt.
=1737.= _March 12._ Twelve malefactors executed at Tyburn.
=1738.= _January 18._ Thirteen, convicted in October and December,
executed at Tyburn.
=1738.= _November 8._ Eleven executed at Tyburn.
=1739.= _March 14._ Eleven executed at Tyburn. _December 20._ Eleven
executed at Tyburn.
=1741.= We are so fortunate as to possess an account of an execution
written at this time by Samuel Richardson, the first great English
novelist. It is found in a volume, printed without the author’s name; a
kind of Polite Letter Writer, bearing this portentous title:—
“Letters written to and for particular friends on the most important
occasions. Directing not only the requisite style and forms to be
observed in writing familiar letters; but how to think and act justly and
prudently in the common concerns of Human Life, containing one hundred
and seventy-three letters, none of which were ever before published.”
Letter CLX. (p. 239), is as follows:—
From a Country Gentleman in Town to his Brother in the Country,
describing a publick Execution in London.
DEAR BROTHER,—I have this day been satisfying a Curiosity I believe
natural to most People, by seeing an Execution at Tyburn. The Sight
has had an extraordinary Effect upon me, which is more owing to the
unexpected Oddness of the scene, than the affecting Concern which is
unavoidable in a thinking Person, at a Spectacle so awful, and so
interesting, to all who consider themselves of the same Species with the
unhappy Sufferer.
That I might the better view the Prisoners, and escape the Pressure of
the Mob, which is prodigious, nay, almost incredible, if we consider the
Frequency of these Executions in London, which is once a Month; I mounted
my Horse, and accompanied the melancholy Cavalcade from Newgate to the
fatal Tree. The Criminals were Five in Number. I was much disappointed at
the Unconcern and Carelessness that appeared in the Faces of Three of the
unhappy Wretches: The countenances of the other Two were spread with that
Horror and Despair which is not to be wonder’d at in Men whose Period of
Life is so near, with the terrible Aggravation of its being hasten’d by
their own voluntary Indiscretion and Misdeeds. The Exhortation spoken
by the Bell-man, from the Wall of St. Sepulchre’s Church-yard, is well
intended; but the Noise of the Officers, and the Mob, was so great, and
the silly Curiosity of People climbing into the Cart to take leave of the
Criminals, made such a confused Noise, that I could not hear the Words
of the Exhortation when spoken, though they are as follow:
All good People, pray heartily to GOD for these poor Sinners, who are now
going to their Deaths: for whom this great Bell doth toll.