From the stony horrors of Paris, and the serio-grotesque doings of the
Batavians, it will be a relief to turn to the imagery of the “Inspired
Dreamer”:--
“Now I saw in my dream, that they went on until they were come to the
place that Simple, and Sloth, and Presumption, lay and slept in, when
Christian went by on pilgrimage: and behold they were hanged up in
irons, a little way off on the other side.”
This was written between 1660 and 1670. It is to be observed that the
expression is “irons,” and not _chains_, and that the fact is mentioned
in a simple, natural way, as if the mode of punishment was quite usual
for grave offences. Christiana says--“They should never be bewailed
by me; they have but what they deserve: and I think it well that they
stand so near the highway, that others may see and take warning.” And
she suggests that their crimes should be engraved on an iron or brass
plate, and left “for a caution to other bad men,” which Greatheart told
her had already been done. But Mercy, with a lack of tenderness which
her name and fine earnest character do not bespeak, cries out, “No,
no, let them hang, and their names rot, and their crimes live for ever
against them!”
The crimes in question were combination against the truth, and
opposition unto holiness, figuratively deserving the highest punishment
that could be awarded.
In that strange, shameful, and scarce book, “Le Moyen de Parvenir,”
by Beroalde de Verville, it is recorded that when Charles V. made his
entry into Douai, the inhabitants set up triumphal arches and like
embellishments. At the last moment they bethought themselves of a
wretch who was gibbeted hard by the gate of the principal entrance.
Him they therefore dressed in a clean white shirt, to do honour to the
emperor.[43] It will be noticed that they did not take the body away,
which would have been easier; that would have been illegal.
Before proceeding further it must be stated, as it were to clear the
ground, that there were certain treasonable offences for which women
might be convicted, and it is to the credit of the English law that
the solemn and terrible sentence was not carried out upon them in
its fulness, so that, both for high treason and petit treason, the
sentence ordered merely drawing to the gallows and burning alive. This
sentence was modified in 30 George III. (1791) to drawing, hanging, and
dissecting. It is similarly to the credit of humanity that the bodies
of women were not publicly exposed on gibbets in irons and chains.
In France the same feelings of respect and propriety prevented the
hanging of women at the “fourches patibulaires.” The sentence for grave
offences was that of “la fosse,” or burying alive, usually in front of
the gibbet.
It will be convenient now to give a variety of examples further
illustrating the subject specially under our notice.
We learn from the parish registers of Bourne, in Cambridgeshire,
that Richard Foster, his wife, and his child, were buried on Shrove
Wednesday, 1671. All three were murdered on the preceding Sunday by a
miscreant named George Atkins. He evaded the law for seven years, but
was finally captured, hung, and gibbeted on Caxton Common, adjoining
Bourne.
In 1674 Thomas Jackson, a notorious highwayman, was executed for the
murder of Henry Miller. He was hung in chains on a gibbet set up
between two elm trees on Hampstead Heath, one of which still remains,
known as “Gallows Tree.” Jackson left a “Recantation,” which was
printed in quarto form immediately after his death. In this rare
tract “is truly discovered the whole mystery of that Wicked and Fatal
Profession of Padding in the Road.”
In 1687 a person named Bunbury was barbarously murdered by one Loseby,
who was caught almost red-handed, executed, and hung in chains on
the top of a tumulus on the Watling Street Road, about four miles
from Rugby. The spot is marked in Beighton’s map of Warwickshire,
from a survey made in 1725, as “Loseby’s Gibbet.” The tumulus was
demolished--as so many others unfortunately have been--in the latter
part of the last century, on the making of a turnpike road between
Daintry and Lutterworth.[44] In modern maps the site of the tumulus is
forgotten, and the spot being now known as “Gibbet Hill,” the ancient
history is wiped out, or, perhaps, to put it more justly, one kind of
history replaces another, as it ever has done, in the revolutions of
time, and an entirely new train of thoughts is called up.
In 1690 one William Barwick, while out walking with his wife at Cawood,
a few miles south of York, threw her into a pond, drowned her, drew
her out, and buried her then and there, in her clothes. Barwick’s
brother-in-law’s suspicions arose, and inquiries were set about; the
man confessed, and was duly tried, condemned, and executed at York, and
hung in chains by the side of the fatal pond. The curious part of this
case was that Barwick’s brother-in-law was urged to move in the matter
in consequence of his having seen, or fancied he saw--it was all the
same in, and long after, the time of Matthew Hopkins[45]--a few days
after the murder, the ghost of his sister, by the side of the water, at
twelve o’clock in the daytime! And his deposition to that effect was
taken before the Lord Mayor on the day preceding the trial.[46]
Probably if Barwick had not confessed, his case, in those times,
against such evidence as this, would have been quite hopeless.
When the convicted man mounted the gallows he naïvely told the hangman
that he hoped the rope was strong enough, because, he said, if it broke
with his weight, he would fall to the ground, and become a cripple
for life. His apprehensions were quieted by the hangman’s assurance
that he might venture upon the rope with perfect confidence. And so it
turned out, for it was, as American speculators would say, a “spot”
transaction.
For examples in the early years of the eighteenth century, the
following will suffice; they show how thick the gibbets were near
London.
Edward Tooll, executed on Finchley Common, Feb., 1700, and afterwards
hung in chains.--Michael Von Berghem, and another, executed at the
Hartshorne Brewery, June, 1700, and hung in chains, between Mile End
and Bow.--William Elby, executed at Fulham, in the town, Aug., 1707,
and hung in chains there.--Hermann Brian, executed in St. James’s
Street, near St. James’s House, Oct., 1707, and hung in chains at
Acton Gravel Pits.--Richard Keele, and William Lowther, executed on
Clerkenwell Green, 1713, conveyed to Holloway, and there hung in
chains.--John Tomkins, executed at Tyburn, Feb., 1717, with fourteen
other malefactors, and hung in chains.--Joseph Still, executed on
Stamford Hill Road, and hung in chains in the Kingsland Road.--John
Price, executed in Bunhill Fields, and hung in chains near Holloway,
1717.[47]