Chapter 5
Hanging, drawing, and quartering, with their attendant horrors, have been termed "godly butchery," on account of the divine authority which was adduced to support their continuance. Lord Coke finds in the Bible a countenance for each of the horrid details of the punishment. We see that the texts supposed to bear upon the subject are raked from all parts of the Scriptures with great ingenuity, but with, in our modern eyes, not much of either humanity or probability of there being anything more than a forced reference. The sentence on traitors was pronounced as follows: "That the traitor is to be taken from the prison and laid upon a sledge or hurdle [in earlier days he was to be dragged along the surface of the ground, tied to the tail of a horse], and drawn to the gallows or place of execution, and then hanged by the neck until he be half dead, and then cut down; and his entrails to be cut out of his body and burnt by the executioner; then his head is to be cut off, his body to be divided into quarters, and afterwards his head and quarters to be set up in some open places directed." The headsman, or hangman, commonly sliced open the chest and cut thence the heart, plucking it forth and holding it up to the populace, saying, "Behold the heart of a traitor." The members were disposed on the gates of the cities, and in London on London Bridge, or upon Westminster Hall.
It is asserted that this mode of capital punishment was first inflicted in 1241, on William Marise, pirate, and the son of a nobleman.
For a long period this disgusting punishment was the penalty for high treason. A late instance, and the last in the provinces, occurred at Derby in 1817. At this period distress prevailed to an alarming extent in many parts of the country, but no where was it more keenly felt than in the Midland counties. At the instigation of paid government spies, the poor, suffering people were urged to overthrow the Parliament. The plot was planned in a public house called the White Horse, at Pentrich, Derbyshire. A few half-starved labouring men took part in the rising, being assured by the perjured spies that it would simultaneously occur throughout the breadth and length of the land, and that success must crown their efforts. The deluded men had not advanced far before they were scattered by the Yeomanry, and the chief movers taken prisoners. It was the object of the government to terrify the public and cripple all attempts at obtaining reform. Four judges were sent to Derby to try the poor peasants for rebellion, and commenced their duties on the 15th and ended them on October 25th. Three of the ringleaders, Jeremiah Brandreth, William Turner, and Isaac Ludlam, were found guilty of high treason, and the capital sentence passed upon them; the greater part of the other prisoners were condemned to transportation. Little time was lost in carrying out the sentence; the death warrant for the execution was signed on November 1st by the Prince Regent, and it remitted only quartering, and directed that the three men be hung, drawn, and beheaded. It appears that the High Sheriff, after consultation with the surgeon of the prison and other officials, proposed taking off the heads of the unfortunate men with a knife, and the operation to be performed by a person skilled in anatomy. On this being brought under the notice of the authorities in London, it was, however, decided that the execution should be carried out according to old usage with the axe. Bamford, a blacksmith, of Derby, was entrusted with an order for two axes, to be made similar to the one used at the Tower. They measured eight and a half inches across the edge and were one foot long. On the morning of November 7th, before execution, the three men received Sacrament. The town blacksmith knocked off the irons by which they were loaded, and substituted others that were fitted with locks, so that they might easily be removed. A simply made hurdle was then brought in the prison-yard, and on it they were pulled by a horse to the gallows. It was so roughly constructed that the poor fellows had to be held to keep them on it. "On mounting the scaffold in front of the gaol," says Dr. Cox, to whom we are indebted for many details in this chapter, "Brandreth exclaimed, 'It is all Oliver and Castlereagh;' Turner, following him, also called out, 'This is all Oliver and the Government; the Lord have mercy on my soul.' They hung from the gallows for half-an-hour. On the platform, in front of the gallows, was placed the block and two sacks of sawdust, and on a bench two axes, two sharp knives, and a basket. The block was a long piece of timber supported at each end by pieces a foot high, and having a small batten nailed across the upper end for the neck to rest upon. The body of Brandreth was first taken down from the gallows, and placed face downwards on the block. The executioner, a muscular Derbyshire coal miner, selected by the sheriff for his proficiency in wielding the pick, was masked, and his name kept a profound secret. Brandreth's neck received only one stroke, but it was not clean done, and the assistant (also masked) finished it off with a knife. Then the executioner laid hold of the head by the hair, and holding it at arm's length, to the left, to the right, and in front of the scaffold, called out three times--'Behold the head of the traitor, Jeremiah Brandreth.' The other two were served in like manner. Turner's neck received one blow and the knife had to be applied, but Ludlam's head fell at once. The scaffold was surrounded by a great force of cavalry with drawn swords, and several companies of infantry were also present. The space in front of the gaol was densely packed with spectators."[19] "When the first stroke of the axe was heard," says an eye-witness, "there was a burst of horror from the crowd, and the instant the head was exhibited, there was a terrifying shriek set up, and the multitude ran violently in all directions, as if under the influence of a sudden frenzy."[20]
The poet Shelley is said to have witnessed the painful spectacle. On the previous day had passed away in childbirth the Princess Charlotte. The two circumstances formed the subject of an able pamphlet, drawing a contrast between the deaths, and furnishing a description of the scene within and without the prison at Derby. "When Edward Turner (one of those transported)," says Shelley, "saw his brother dragged along upon the hurdle, he shrieked horribly, and fell in a fit, and was carried away like a corpse by two men. How fearful must have been their agony sitting in solitude that day when the tempestuous voice of horror from the crowd told them that the head so dear to them was severed from the body! Yes, they listened to the maddening shriek which burst from the multitude; they heard the rush of ten thousand terror-stricken feet, the groans and hootings which told them that the mangled and distorted head was then lifted in the air." The title of Shelley's pamphlet is "We pity the Plumage, but forget the Dying Bird. An Address to the People on the Death of the Princess Charlotte. By the Hermit of Marlow."
On the same night the three executed men were buried without any religious service in one grave in the churchyard of St. Werburgh, Derby.
When Dr. Cox was preparing for the press his "Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals," he saw the block on which these men were beheaded and supplies a description of it as follows: "It consists of two two and a half inch planks fastened together; it is six feet six inches long by two feet wide. Six inches from one end a piece of wood is nailed across three inches high. The whole is tarred over, but the old warder drew our attention to the fact that, though the cell where it is kept is very dry, the wood is still in places damp. It is a gaol tradition that the blood of these unhappy men shed in 1817 has never and will never dry."
On May 1st, 1820, the Cato Street Conspirators were, after death by hanging, beheaded. This is the latest instance of the ancient custom being maintained in this country. In connection with this subject we may perhaps be permitted to draw attention to a chapter by us in "England in the Days of Old" (1897), entitled "Rebel Heads on City Gates;" it includes much curious information bearing on this theme.
We must not omit to state that the great agitator against the continuance of the barbarities of hanging, drawing and quartering was Sir Samuel Romilly, who in the reign of George III., brought upon himself the odium of the law-officers of the Crown, who declared he was "breaking down the bulwarks of the constitution." By his earnest exertions, however, the punishment was carried out in a manner more amenable to the dictates of mercy and humanity.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Cox's "Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals," 1888.
[20] The Examiner.
Pressing to Death.
One of the most barbarous and cruel of the punishments of our English statutes was that distinguished by the name of _Peine forte et dure_, or pressing to death with every aggravation of torture. It was adopted as a manner of punishment suitable to cases where the accused refused to plead, and was commuted about the year 1406 from the older method of merely starving the prisoner to death. At that time the alteration was considered to be decidedly according to the dictates of humanity and mercy, as the sooner relieving the accused from his sufferings. Such was the small value set upon human life in those dark days of British justice.
The manner in which this exceedingly great torture was inflicted was as follows: "That the prisoner shall be remanded to the place from whence he came, and put in some low, dark room, and there laid on his back, without any manner of covering except a cloth round his middle; and that as many weights shall be laid upon him as he can bear, _and more_; and that he shall have no more sustenance but of the worst bread and water, and that he shall not eat the same day on which he drinks, nor drink the same day on which he eats; and he shall so continue till he die." At a later period, the form of sentence was altered to the following: "That the prisoner shall be remanded to the place from whence he came, and put in some low, dark room; that he shall lie without any litter or anything under him, and that one arm shall be drawn to one quarter of the room with a cord, and the other to another, and that his feet shall be used in the same manner, and that as many weights shall be laid on him as he can bear, and more. That he shall have three morsels of barley bread a day, and that he shall have the water next the prison, so that it be not current, and that he shall not eat," etc. The object of this protracted punishment was to allow the victim, at almost every stage of the torture, to plead, and thus allow the law to take its ordinary course. The object of the persons who have refused to plead was, that any person who died under the _Peine forte et dure_ could transmit his estates to his children, or will them as he desired; whereas, if he were found guilty, they would be forfeited to the Crown. In connection with this, it may be mentioned that when the practice of pressing to death had become nearly extinct, prisoners who declined to plead were tortured, in order to compel them to do so, by twisting and screwing their thumbs with whipcord.
In 1721, a woman named Mary Andrews was subjected to this punishment. After bearing with fortitude the first three whipcords, which broke from the violence of the twisting, she submitted to plead at the fourth.
Baron Carter, at the Cambridge Assizes, in 1741, ordered a prisoner, who refused to plead, to have his thumbs twisted with cords, and when that was without avail, inflicted the higher penalty of pressing. Baron Thompson, about the same time, at the Sussex Assizes, treated a prisoner in a precisely similar manner.
A like method was pursued in 1721, with Nathaniel Hawes, a prisoner who refused to plead; when the cord proved inefficacious, a weight of 250 pounds was laid upon him, after which he decided to plead. The same year seems prolific of cases of this character, there being particulars of an instance in the _Nottingham Mercury_ of January 19th, 1721. They are included in the London news, and are as follow: "Yesterday the sessions began at the Old Bailey, where several persons were brought to the bar for highway robbery, etc. Among them were the highwaymen lately taken at Westminster, two of whom, namely, Thomas Green, _alias_ Phillips, and Thomas Spiggot, refusing to plead, the court proceeded to pass the following sentence upon them: 'that the prisoner shall be,' etc. [the usual form, as given above]. The former, on sight of the terrible machine, desired to be carried back to the sessions house, where he pleaded not guilty. But the other, who behaved himself very insolently to the ordinary who was ordered to attend him, seemingly resolved to undergo the torture. Accordingly, when they brought cords, as usual, to tie him, he broke them three several times like a twine-thread, and told them if they brought cables he would serve them after the same manner. But, however, they found means to tie him to the ground, having his limbs extended; but after, enduring the punishment for an hour, and having three or four hundredweight put on him, he at last submitted to plead, and was carried back, when he pleaded not guilty."
The Rev. Mr. Willette, the ordinary of the prison, in 1776, published the "Annals of Newgate," and from these we learn further particulars of the torture of the highwayman, Thomas Spiggot. "The chaplain found him lying in the vault upon the bare ground, with 350 pounds weight upon his breast, and then prayed with him, and at several times asked him why he should hazard his soul by such obstinate kind of self-murder. But all the answer that he made was, 'Pray for me; pray for me.' He sometimes lay silent under the pressure as if insensible to the pain, and then again would fetch his breath very quick and short. Several times he complained that they had laid a cruel weight upon his face, though it was covered with nothing but a thin cloth, which was afterwards removed and laid more light and hollow; yet he still complained of the prodigious weight upon his face, which might be caused by the blood being forced up thither and pressing the veins so violently as if the force had been externally on his face. When he had remained for half-an-hour under this load, and fifty pounds weight more laid on, being in all four hundred, he told those who attended him he would plead. The weights were at once taken off, the cords cut asunder; he was raised up by two men, some brandy put into his mouth to revive him, and he was carried to take his trial." The practice of _Peine forte et dure_ gave the name of "Press-yard" to a part of Newgate, and the terrible machine above referred to was probably in the form of a rack.
We require to go further back to find instances of a fatal termination to the punishment. Such a case occurred in 1676. One Major Strangeways and his sister held in joint possession a farm, but the lady becoming intimate with a lawyer named Fussell, to whom the Major took a strong dislike, he threatened that if she married the lawyer he would, in his office or elsewhere, be the death of him. Surely, Fussell was one day found shot dead in his London apartments, and suspicion at once fell upon the officer, and he was arrested. At first he was willing to be subjected to the ordeal of touch, but when placed upon trial, resolved not to allow any chance of his being found guilty, and so refused to plead, in order that his estates might go to whom he willed. Glynn was the Lord Chief Justice on this occasion, and in passing the usual sentence for _Peine forte et dure_, used instead of the word "weights," as above, the words "as much iron and stone as he can bear," doubtless to suit the prison convenience, and make the sentence perfectly legal. He was to have three morsels of barley bread every alternate day, and three draughts of "the water in the next channel to the prison door, but of no spring or fountain water," the sentence concluding, "and this shall be his punishment till he die." This was probably on the Saturday, for on the Monday morning following, it is stated, the condemned was draped in white garments, and also wore a mourning cloak, as though in mourning for his own forthcoming death. It is curious to notice that his friends were present at his death, which was so much modified from the lengthy process that his sentence conveys as to be in fact an execution, in which these same friends assisted. They stood "at the corner of the press," and when he gave them to understand that he was ready, they forthwith proceeded to pile stone and iron upon him. The amount of weight was insufficient to kill him, for although he gasped, "Lord Jesus, receive my soul," he still continued alive until his friends, to hasten his departure, stood upon the weights, a course which in about ten minutes placed him beyond the reach of the human barbarity which imposed upon friendship so horrible a task.
In 1827, an Act was passed which directs the court to enter a plea of "not guilty," when a prisoner refuses to plead. It is surprising that the inhuman practice of pressing to death should have lingered so long. In this chapter we have only given particulars of a few of the many cases which have come under our notice in the legal byways of old England.
Drowning.
Among the nations of antiquity, drowning was a very common mode of execution. Four-and-a-half centuries before the birth of Christ, the Britons inflicted death by drowning in a quagmire. In Anglo-Saxon times women found guilty of theft were drowned. For a long period in the Middle Ages, the barons and others who had the power of administering laws in their respective districts possessed a drowning pit and a gallows.
Drowning was a punishment of King Richard of the Lion Heart, who ordained by a decree that it should be the doom of any soldier of his army who killed a fellow-crusader during the passage to the Holy Land.
The owner of Baynard's Castle, London, in the reign of John, had the power of trying criminals, and his descendants long afterwards claimed the privilege, the most valued of which was the right of drowning, in the Thames, traitors taken within the limits of his territory.[21]
Bearing on this subject the annals of Sandwich supply some important information. It is recorded, that in the year 1313, "a presentment was made before the itinerant Justices at Canterbury, that the prior of Christ Church had, for nine years, obstructed the high road leading from Dover Castle to Sandwich by the sea-shore by a water-mill, and the diversion of a stream called the Gestlyng, where felons condemned to death within the hundred should be drowned, but could not be executed that way for want of water. Further, that he raised a certain gutter four feet, and the water that passed that way to the gutter ran to the place where the convicts were drowned, and from whence their bodies were floated to the river, and that after the gutter was raised the drowned bodies could not be carried into the river by the stream, as they used to be, for want of water."[22]
Drowning was not infrequently awarded as a matter of leniency, and as a commutation of what were considered more severe forms of death. We have an instance of such a case in Scotland in 1556, when a man who had been found guilty of theft and sacrilege was ordered to be put to death by drowning "by the Queen's special grace." At Edinburgh, in 1611, a man was drowned for stealing a lamb; and in 1623 eleven gipsey women were condemned to be drowned at Edinburgh in the Nor' Loch. On the 11th May, 1685, Margaret M'Lachlan, aged sixty-three years, and Margaret Wilson, a girl of eighteen years, were drowned in the waters of Blednoch, for denying that James VII. of Scotland was entitled to rule the Church according to his pleasure. Six years prior to this, namely, on the 25th August, 1679, a woman called Janet Grant was tried for theft, in the baronial court of Sir Robert Gordon, of Gordonston, held at Drainie, and pleaded guilty. She was sentenced to be drowned next day in the Loch of Spynie.
In France, drowning was a capital punishment as late as 1793, but in Scotland we do not trace it later than 1685, and in England it was discontinued about the commencement of the seventeenth century.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] Pike's "History of Crime in England," 1873.
[22] Boys's "History of Sandwich."
Burning to Death.
Burning to death was a frequent method of punishment in the barbarous days of many nations. In our own country it was used by the Anglo-Saxons as the penalty of certain crimes, and, as the ordinary punishment of witchcraft, it was maintained throughout the Middle Ages.
Burning alive was from early times the recognised method of uprooting heretical notions of religious belief of every class. The first to suffer from this cause in England was Alban, who died at the stake in the year A.D. 304. Since his day, thousands have suffered death on account of their religious belief, through intolerance; but that is not a subject we intend dealing with at the present time.
We desire to direct attention to some of the cases of the burning alive of women for civil offences. This practice was considered by the framers of the law as a commutation of the sentence of hanging, and a concession made to the sex of the offenders. "For as the decency due to the sex," says Blackstone, "forbids the exposing and publicly mangling their bodies, their sentence (which is to the full as terrible to sensation as the other) is, to be drawn to the gallows, and there to be burnt alive;" and he adds: "the humanity of the English nation has authorised, by a tacit consent, an almost general mitigation of such part of these judgments as savours of torture and cruelty, a sledge or hurdle being usually allowed to such traitors as are condemned to be drawn, and there being very few instances (and those accidental and by negligence) of any persons being disemboweled or burnt till previously deprived of sensation by strangling."
We gather from the annals of King's Lynn that, in the year 1515, a woman was burnt in the market-place for the murder of her husband. Twenty years later, a Dutchman was burnt for reputed heresy. In the same town, in 1590, Margaret Read was burnt for witchcraft. Eight years later, a woman was executed for witchcraft, and in the year 1616, another woman suffered death for the same crime. In 1791, at King's Lynn, the landlady of a public-house was murdered by a man let into the house at the dead of night by a servant girl. The man was hanged for committing the crime, and the girl was burnt at the stake for assisting the murderer to enter the dwelling.