Chapter 6
There is an account of a burning at Lincoln, in 1722. Eleanor Elsom was condemned to death for the murder of her husband, and was ordered to be burnt at the stake. She was clothed in a cloth, "made like a shift," saturated with tar, and her limbs were also smeared with the same inflammable substance, while a tarred bonnet had been placed on her head. She was brought out of the prison barefoot, and, being put on a hurdle, was drawn on a sledge to the place of execution near the gallows. Upon arrival, some time was passed in prayer, after which the executioner placed her on a tar barrel, a height of three feet, against the stake. A rope ran through a pulley in the stake, and was placed around her neck, she herself fixing it with her hands. Three irons also held her body to the stake, and the rope being pulled tight, the tar barrel was taken aside and the fire lighted. The details in the "Lincoln Date Book" state that she was probably quite dead before the fire reached her, as the executioner pulled upon the rope several times whilst the irons were being fixed. The body was seen amid the flames for nearly half-an-hour, though, through the dryness of the wood and the quantity of tar, the fire was exceedingly fierce.
An instance in which the negligence of the executioner caused death to be unnecessarily prolonged is found in the case of Catherine Hayes, who was executed at Tyburn, November 3rd, 1726, for the murder of her husband. She was being strangled in the accustomed manner, but the fire scorching the hands of the executioner, he relaxed the rope before she had become unconscious, and in spite of the efforts at once made to hasten combustion, she suffered for a considerable time the greatest agonies.
Two paragraphs, dealing with such cases, are in the _London Magazine_ for July, 1735, and are as follow: "At the assizes, at Northampton, Mary Fawson was condemned to be burnt for poisoning her husband, and Elizabeth Wilson to be hanged for picking a farmer's pocket of thirty shillings."
"Among the persons capitally convicted at the assizes, at Chelmsford, are Herbert Hayns, one of Gregory's gang, who is to be hung in chains, and a woman, for poisoning her husband, is to be burnt."
In the next number of the same magazine, the first-mentioned criminal is again spoken of: "Mrs. Fawson was burnt at Northampton for poisoning her husband. Her behaviour in prison was with the utmost signs of contrition. She would not, to satisfy people's curiosity, be unveiled to anyone. She confessed the justice of her sentence, and died with great composure of mind." And also: "Margaret Onion was burnt at a stake at Chelmsford, for poisoning her husband. She was a poor, ignorant creature, and confessed the fact."
We obtain from Mr. John Glyde, jun., particulars of another case of burning for husband murder (styled petty treason). In April, 1763, Margery Beddingfield, and a farm servant, named Richard Ringe, her paramour, had murdered John Beddingfield, of Sternfield. The latter criminal was the actual murderer, his wife being considered an accomplice. He was condemned to be hanged and she burnt, at the same time and place, and her sentence was that she should "be taken from hence to the place from whence you came, and thence to the place of execution, on Saturday next, where you are to be burnt until you be dead: and the Lord have mercy on your soul." Accordingly, on the day appointed, she was taken to Rushmere Heath, near Ipswich, and there strangled and burnt.[23]
Coining was, until a late period, an offence which met with capital punishment. In May, 1777, a girl of little more than fourteen years of age had, at her master's command, concealed a number of whitewashed farthings to represent shillings, for which she was found guilty of treason, and sentenced to be burnt. Her master was already hanged, and the fagots but awaiting the application of the match to blaze in fury around her, when Lord Weymouth, who happened to be passing that way, humanely interfered. Said a writer in the _Quarterly Review_, "a mere accident saved the nation from this crime and this national disgrace."
In Harrison's _Derby and Nottingham Journal_, for September 23rd, 1779, is an account of two persons who were several days previously tried and convicted for high treason, the indictment being for coining shillings in Cold Bath Field, and for coining shillings in Nag's Head Yard, Bishopsgate Street. The culprit in the latter case was a man named John Fields, and in the former a woman called Isabella Condon. They were sentenced to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, the man to be hanged and the woman burnt.
Ph[oe]be Harris, in 1786, was burnt in front of Newgate. The _Chelmsford Chronicle_ of June 23rd, 1786, gives an account of her execution. After furnishing particulars of six men being hanged for various crimes, the report says:
"About a quarter of an hour after the platform had dropped, the female convicted" (Ph[oe]be Harris, convicted of counterfeiting the coin called shillings) "was led by two officers of justice from Newgate to a stake fixed in the ground about midway between the scaffold and the pump. The stake was about eleven feet high, and, near the top of it was inserted a curved piece of iron, to which the end of the halter was tied. The prisoner stood on a low stool, which, after the ordinary had prayed with her a short time, being taken away, she was suspended by the neck (her feet being scarcely more than twelve or fourteen inches from the pavement). Soon after the signs of life had ceased, two cart-loads of fagots were placed round her and set on fire; the flames presently burning the halter, the convict fell a few inches, and was then sustained by an iron chain passed over her chest and affixed to the stake. Some scattered remains of the body were perceptible in the fire at half-past ten o'clock. The fire had not completely burnt out at twelve o'clock."
The latest instance on record is that of Christian Murphy, _alias_ Bowman, who was burnt on March 18th, 1789, for coining.
The barbarous laws which permitted such repugnant exhibitions were repealed by the 30th George III., cap. 48, which provided that, after the 5th of June, 1790, women were to suffer hanging, as in the case of men.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] Glyde's "New Suffolk Garland," 1866.
Boiling to Death.
In the year 1531, when Henry VIII. was king, an act was passed for boiling poisoners to death. The preamble of the statute states that one Richard Roose or Coke, a cook, by putting poison in some food intended for the household of the Bishop of Rochester, and for the poor of the parish in which his lordship's palace was situated in Lambeth Marsh, occasioned the death of a man and a woman, and the serious illness of several others. He was found guilty of treason, and sentenced to be boiled to death, without benefit of clergy, that is, that no abatement of the sentence was to be made on account of his ecclesiastical connection, nor to be allowed any indemnity such as was commonly the privilege of clerical offenders. He was publicly boiled to death at Smithfield, and the act ordained that all manner of poisoners should meet with the same doom henceforth.
A maid-servant, for poisoning her mistress, was, in 1531, boiled to death in the market-place of King's Lynn. Another instance of a servant poisoning the persons with whom she lived was Margaret Davy, who perished at Smithfield, in 1542.
This cruel law did not remain long on the Statute Books; shortly after the death of Henry VIII., and in the reign of the next king, Edward VI., it was, in 1547 repealed. The punishment of boiling alive was by no means uncommon before the enactment of Henry VIII., both in England and on the Continent.
Beheading.
Beheading, as a mode of punishment, had an early origin. Amongst the Romans it was regarded as a most honourable death. It is asserted that it was introduced into England from Normandy by William the Conqueror, and intended for the putting to death of criminals belonging to the higher grades of society. The first person to suffer beheading was Waltheof, Earl of Huntingdon, Northampton, and Northumberland, in 1076.
Since the days of the first Norman king down to the time of George the Second in 1747, two monarchs, and not a few of the most notable of the nobility of Great Britain, at the Tower, Whitehall, near the historic Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and other places have closed their noble, and in some instances ignoble, careers at the hands of the headsman.
Charles I. is perhaps the most famous of kings that have been beheaded. On January 30th, 1649, on a scaffold raised before the Banqueting House at Whitehall, he was executed. Within the Banqueting Hall of the Castle of Fotheringay, on February 8th, 1587, the executioner from the Tower, after three blows from an axe, severed the head from the body of Mary, Queen of Scots. Her earlier years opened in the gay court of France, and was full of sunshine, but shadows gathered, and she was--
"A sad prisoner, passing weary years, In many castles, till at Fotheringay, The joyless life was ended."
Henry VIII. was a great king, but his cruel attitude towards his queens will ever diminish his glory; two of them were executed at his instigation at the Tower, namely, Anne Boleyn, on May 19th, 1536, and Katherine Howard, on February 13th, 1542. In the death at the block of Lady Jane Grey, "the nine days' queen," the scene is more pathetic and picturesque. On February 12th, 1553-4, she and her young husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, were executed at the Tower, the former on the Green within the ancient stronghold, and the latter on Tower Hill. The story of her unhappy fate is one of the most familiar pages of English history. Fuller said of this noble woman: "She had the innocency of childhood, the beauty of youth, the solidity of middle, the gravity of old age, and all at eighteen; the birth of a princess, the learning of a clerk, the life of a saint, and the death of a malefactor for her parents' offences."
Amongst the notable men who have suffered at the Tower, we must mention John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, beheaded on Tower Hill, June 23rd, 1535. He had nearly reached the age of four score years. The Pope, to spite Henry VIII., had sent the prelate a cardinal's hat, but the aged bishop had suffered death before it reached this country. Sir Thomas More was executed on July 6th, 1535. Like his friend Fisher, he refused submission to the Statute of Succession and to the King's Supremacy. The devotion of Margaret Roper to her father, Sir Thomas More, forms an attractive feature in the life story of this truly great man. After execution his head was spiked on London Bridge, and she bribed a man to move it, and drop it into a boat where she sat. She kept the sacred relic for many years, and at her death it was buried with her in a vault under St. Dunstan's Church, Canterbury.
George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, was beheaded on May 17th, 1536, two days before the execution of his sister, Queen Anne Boleyn; and his wife, Jane, Viscountess Rochford, was beheaded at Tower Hill, with Katherine Howard, on February 13th, 1542, on the charge of having been an accomplice in the queen's treason. On July 28th, 1540, Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, was executed. Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury, opposed the king and his government, and she was condemned for high treason. On May 27th, 1541, her earthly career closed. "The haughty old countess," it is recorded, "refused to lay her head upon the block, and the headsman had to follow her about the scaffold, and to 'fetch-off' her grey head 'slovenly' as he could."[24] She was nearly seventy years old.
The following are included in the list of notable men beheaded, and in most instances we are only able to give their names and dates of execution, but the story of their careers will be found in the pages of English history. Henry, Earl of Surrey, beheaded January 19th, 1546-7; Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, March 27th, 1548-9; Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, January 22nd, 1551-2; Sir Thomas Arundel, February 26th, 1551-2; John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, August 22nd, 1553. Next comes Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, executed February 22nd, 1553-4. He was the father of Lady Jane Grey. Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, suffered death June 2nd, 1572. On February 25th, 1600-1, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, was beheaded.
Sir Walter Raleigh was a many-sided man, the discoverer of North Carolina, the defender of his country, an author, a court favourite, and a man of undaunted courage. In the Tower he was long a prisoner, and there wrote some notable books, and the following hymn:--
"Rise, O my soul, with thy desires to heav'n, And with divinest contemplations use Thy time, where time's eternity is given, And let vain thoughts no more thy mind abuse; But down in darkness let them lie; So live thy better, let thy worse thoughts die.
"And thou, my soul, inspired with holy flame View and review, with most regardful eye, That holy cross, whence thy salvation came, On which thy Saviour and thy sin did die; For in that sacred object is much pleasure, And in that Saviour, is my life, my treasure.
"To Thee, O Jesu, I direct my eye; To Thee my hands, to Thee my humble knees, To Thee my heart shall offer sacrifice,-- To Thee my thoughts, who my thoughts only sees; To Thee myself, myself and all, I give; To Thee I die, to Thee I only live."
On October 29th, 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh was executed at Whitehall under a sentence which had hung over his head for fifteen years.
On May 12th, 1641, was executed Wentworth, Earl of Strafford; and on January 10th, 1644-5, was beheaded Archbishop Laud. William Howard, Viscount Stafford, a victim of Oates's perjury, was executed on December 29th, 1680. "Having embraced and taken leave of his friends," says Bell, "he knelt down and placed his head on the block: the executioner raised the axe high in the air, but then checking himself suddenly lowered it. Stafford raised his head and asked the reason of the delay. The executioner said he waited the signal. 'I shall make no sign,' he answered, 'take your own time.' The executioner asked his forgiveness. 'I do forgive you,' replied Stafford, and placing his head again in position, at one blow it was severed from his body."[25]
A noted name in history comes next, the Duke of Monmouth. He was beheaded July 15th, 1685. "Here are six guineas for you," he said to the executioner, "and do not hack me as you did my Lord Russell. I have heard that you struck him three or four times. My servant will give you more gold if you do your work well." Then he undressed, felt the edge of the axe, and laid his head on the block. The executioner was unnerved, he raised his axe, but his arm trembled as it fell, and only a slight wound was inflicted. Several blows were given before the neck was severed.
We are now nearing the end of executions at the Tower, and only three more names occur. The cause of Prince Charlie was supported by not a few of the best blood of Scotland, but the battle of Culloden ended all hopes for the Pretender, and brought misery to many of his brave followers. William, Earl of Kilmarnock, and Arthur, Lord Balmerino, on August 18th, 1746, were beheaded for their devotion to the Jacobite cause. Simon, Lord Fraser of Lovat, had passed a shameless life, and little can be said in his favour. In 1715, he fought against Prince Charles Edward, but subsequently joined the Jacobites, and took part in the battle of Culloden. He managed to escape from the field after the engagement, and it was not until April 9th, 1747, that he was beheaded on Tower Hill. On reaching the scaffold, he asked for the executioner, and presented him with a purse containing ten guineas. He then asked to see the axe, felt its edge, and said he thought it would do. Next he looked at his coffin, on which was inscribed:--
SIMON, DOMINUS FRASER DE LOVAT, Decollat April 9, 1747, Ætat suae 80.
After repeating some lines from Horace, and next from Ovid, he prayed, then bade adieu to his solicitor and agent in Scotland; finally the executioner completed his work, the head falling from the body. Lord Lovat was the last person beheaded in this country.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] Wilson's "The Tower and the Scaffold," 1879.
[25] D. C. Bell's "Chapel of the Tower," 1877.
The Halifax Gibbet.
The mention of the Halifax gibbet suggests a popular Yorkshire saying: "From Hell, Hull and Halifax, good Lord, deliver us." Fuller says the foregoing is part of the "Beggars' and Vagrants' Litany," and goes on to state: "Of these three frightful things unto them, it is to be feared that they least fear the first, conceiving it the farthest from them. Hull is terrible to them as a town of good government, where beggars meet with punitive charity; and, it is to be feared, are oftener corrected than amended. Halifax is formidable for the law thereof, whereby thieves, taken in the very act of stealing cloth, are instantly beheaded with an engine, without any further legal proceedings. Doubtless, the coincidence of the initial letters of these three words helped much the setting on foot of the proverb." The Halifax gibbet law has been traced back to a remote period. It has been suggested that it was imported into the country by some of the Norman barons. Holinshed's "Chronicle" (edition published in 1587) contains an interesting note bearing on this subject. "There is, and has been, of ancient time," says Holinshed, "a law or rather custom, at Halifax, that whosoever doth commit any felony, and is taken with the same, or confesses the fact upon examination, if it be valued by four constables to amount to the sum of thirteenpence-halfpenny, he is forthwith beheaded upon one of the next market-days (which fall usually upon the Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays), or else upon the same day that he is convicted, if market be holden. The engine wherewith the execution is done is a square block of wood, of the length of four feet and a half, which doth ride up and down in a slot, rabet, or regall, between two pieces of timber that are framed and set up right, of five yards in height. In the nether end of a sliding block is an axe, keyed or fastened with an iron into the wood, which, being drawn up to the top of the frame, is there fastened by a wooden pin (with a notch made in the same, after the manner of a Samson's post), unto the middest of which pin also there is a long rope fastened, that cometh down among the people; so that when the offender hath made his confession, and hath laid his neck over the nethermost block, every man there present doth either take hold of the rope (or putteth forth his arm so near to the same as he can get, in token that he is willing to see justice executed), and pulling out the pin in this manner, the head-block wherein the axe is fastened doth fall down with such a violence, that if the neck of the transgressor were so big as that of a bull, it should be cut in sunder at a stroke, and roll from the body by a huge distance. If it be so that the offender be apprehended for an ox, sheep, kine, horse, or any such cattle, the self beast or other of its kind shall have the end of the rope tied somewhere unto them, so that they, being driven, do draw out the pin, whereby the offender is executed."
In the illustration we give, which is a reproduction of an old picture, it will be observed that a horse is drawing the rope to loosen the pin, and to allow the axe to fall and cut off the head of the victim. The doomed man had doubtless stolen the horse. Near the gibbet are assembled the jurymen, and the parish priest is engaged in prayer.
Before a felon was condemned to suffer, the proof of certain facts appears to have been essentially necessary. In the first place, he was to be taken in the liberty of the forest of Hardwick, and if he escaped out of it, even after condemnation, he could not be brought back to be executed; but if he ever returned into the liberty again, and was taken, he was sure to suffer. It is recorded that a man named Lacy escaped, and resided seven years out of the forest, but returning, was beheaded on the former verdict. This person was not so wise as one Dinnis, who, having been condemned to die, escaped out of the liberty on the day fixed for his execution (which might be done by running in one direction about five hundred yards), and never returned. Meeting several people that asked if Dinnis was not to be beheaded on that day, his answer was, "I trow not," which, having some humour in it, became a proverbial saying in the district, and is used to this day--"'I trow not,' quoth Dinnis." In the next place, the fact was to be proved in the clearest manner. The offender had to be taken either hand-habend or back-berand, that is, having the stolen goods in his hand, or bearing them on his back, or, lastly, confessing that he took them.
The value of the goods stolen had to be worth at least thirteenpence-halfpenny, or more. Taylor, the water-poet, refers to the subject as follows:--
"At Halifax the law so sharpe doth deale, That whoso more than thirteenpence doth steale, They have a jyn that wondrous quick and well Sends thieves all headless into heaven or hell."
A further condition of the Halifax gibbet law is scarcely so clear as the preceding. The accused was, after three market or meeting days, within the town of Halifax, next after his apprehension and being condemned, taken to the gibbet. This probably means that after he was delivered to the bailiff, no time further than was necessary was to elapse before proceeding to the trial, and that the bailiff was to send speedy summons to those who were to try him, which might be done in two or three days. If he were found guilty, the day of his execution depended upon that of his sentence, for he was to be beheaded on no other day than Saturday, which was the great meeting. Thus, if condemned on Monday, he would be kept three market days; but if condemned on Saturday, as some assert, he would be conducted straightway to the gibbet. The two last persons who suffered death by this engine were condemned and executed on the same day.
The final ordinance of the law directs that on being led to the gibbet the malefactor is to have his head cut off from his body. That the machine was fully capable of this is evident both from Holinshed's remarks and from the following anecdote given by Wright, the historian of Halifax, as an extract from "A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain." A country woman, who was riding by the gibbet at the time of the execution of a criminal, had hampers at her sides, and the head, bounding to a considerable distance from the force of the descending axe, "jumped into one of the hampers, or, as others say, seized her apron with its teeth, and there stuck for some time."
The parish register at Halifax contains a list of forty-nine persons who suffered by the gibbet, commencing on the 20th day of March, 1541, the earliest date of which there is a recorded execution, and terminating on the 30th day of April, 1650. After which latter execution the bailiff of the town received an intimation that should another case occur, he would be called to public account. The number of beheadals in each of the reigns comprised in the above dates are: five in the last six years of the reign of Henry VIII.; twenty-five in the reign of Elizabeth; seven in the reign of James I.; ten in the reign of Charles I.; two during the Commonwealth.