About the year 1800 a man named Watson was executed at Lynn for the
murder of his wife and child. The body was taken to Bradenham Heath,
and there gibbeted in irons. Some few years ago the gibbet was still
standing, and at the foot of it Mr. H. Rider Haggard and his brother
found, imbedded in the sod, the upper portion of the iron framing,
including the headpiece, with a portion of the skull remaining in it.
So it had been withdrawn from sight by kindly nature, in her pitying
mood, and covered by the greensward. A lady of that neighbourhood, who
died a few years ago, aged ninety-four, used to relate, that when she
was a girl, she once crossed the gibbet common, and noticed that a
starling had built her nest in the man’s ribs; later on some lovers of
nature came from Shipdam and stole away the young birds. The remains
of Watson’s irons are now deposited in the Norwich Gaol, among a very
interesting collection of chains, gyves, irons, gang-chains, and
burning girths for the “pale martyrs in their shirts of fire.”
A noteworthy feature in this case was, as in that of John Whitfield,
before mentioned, that it got about, in latter days, in the
neighbourhood, that the man had been hung up alive, and watched till
he died. Similarly, we have a story from Durham, showing that one
Andrew Mills, gibbeted alive in 1684, for murdering his master’s three
children, was kept in existence for some time by his sweetheart (of
course), who, until she was prevented, gave him milk in a sponge at the
end of a stick.[81]
These kind of stories usually fall to pieces when they are examined,
and it so happens that on the tombstone of the three unfortunate
little children, in Merrington churchyard, are the words:--“He was
executed and afterwards hung in chains”; but “_executed and_” have been
nearly obliterated by deep chisel marks,[82] thus forming at once both
the _post hoc_ and the _propter hoc_ of the story. As to the milk,
and the sweetheart, this part of the fable is nothing but a free
rendering--necessary under the circumstances--of the classical legends
of Euphrasia and Evander, of Xantippe and Cimonos.[83] Tradition often
does, but just as often--or oftener does not justify itself.[84]
This suggests a few words upon the question of hanging alive in chains.
Hollingshed, in his “Description of England”[85] says:--“In wilful
murder done upon pretended (premeditated) malice, or in anie notable
robbery,” the criminal “is either hanged alive in chains near the
place where the fact was committed, or else, upon compassion taken,
first strangled with a rope, and so continueth till his bones come
to nothing.” Chettle, in “England’s Mourning Garment,”[86] speaking
of the clemency of Elizabeth, says:--“Where-as before time there was
extraordinary torture, as hanging wilfull murderers alive in chaines;
she having compassion ... said their death satisfied for death.”
These, and many other similar arbitrary statements, might seem
conclusive evidence; but, on the other hand, the “Statutes at Large”
may be vainly searched to find one directing the punishment of
gibbeting alive. And when we recall the calm language in which persons
are directed by statute to be boiled, disembowelled, or burnt alive, we
may be quite sure that, if the English law had ever contemplated the
infliction upon a subject of such lingering torture as gibbeting alive,
it would have been as coldly and legally set forth, and, by this time,
as legally repealed,--which is perhaps, more to the point still. And,
further, it is difficult to believe that any English official would, at
any time,--whether under the pressure of the hardening influences of
religious intolerance, or politics,--have taken upon himself so serious
a responsibility, or that any section of the English people would have
suffered such wanton barbarity. The conclusion we are happily driven
to is that both Hollingshed, Chettle, and all the old and modern
hare-brained irresponsible chatterers have been carried away by a
superstitious belief in a poor, vulgar fiction, “a vain thing fondly
imagined,” and to which the multitude of to-day still appear to cling
with a fatuous devotion which, probably, no amount of education or
refutation will ever entirely eradicate. This shows the strong vitality
of fiction.
With regard to the punishment of hanging and boiling, alluded to
above, a single example will suffice. After the suppression of the
Northern Rising the king attacked the Friars. Their popularity and
poverty alike had saved them when the lesser monasteries fell; but
their independence and boldness, in preaching against the Marriage
question and the Supremacy, proved their ruin. Those who had not
fled the country were treated with the utmost harshness. Thus Father
Stone, an Austin Friar of Canterbury, for obstinately maintaining his
opinion that the king may not be head of the Church of England, was
hung, cut down, and his body boiled and quartered, as appears from the
following very curious document preserved among the records of the city
of Canterbury:--“A.D. 1538-9. Paid for half a ton of timber to make a
pair of gallaces to hang Father Stone. For a carpenter for making the
same gallows and the dray. For a labourer who digged the holes. To four
men who helped to set up the gallows. For drink to them. For carriage
of the timber from stable gate to the dungeon.[87] For a hurdle. For
a load of wood, and for a horse to draw him to the dungeon. For two
men who set the kettle and parboiled him. To two men who carried his
quarters to the gate and set them up. For a halter to hang him. For two
half-penny halters. For Sandwich cord. For straw. To the women that
scoured the kettle. To him that did execution.”[88]
An obliging correspondent tells us that he remembers riding with his
father, in 1819, under a gibbet near Evesham, and the creaking of the
irons as they were swayed by the wind.