Act 8 and 9 William III. c. 2, “for the further remedying the ill State

of the Coin of the Kingdome,” an Act, c. 8, for “Incouraging the bringing in wrought Plate to be coined”; c. 26, “for the better preventing the counterfeiting the current Coine of the Kingdome.” Other Acts of the same kind were 9 William III. c. 2; c. 21; these are in addition to numerous Proclamations. Nothing can better show the state of the coinage than the record of petitions of seamen and shipwrights in the King’s yards who had been paid in clipped and counterfeit half-crowns.

In February, 1696, came to a head “the Assassination Plot,” the most dangerous of all the Plots formed against William III. The King was, according to custom, to go to hunt in Richmond Park on February 15. Advantage was to be taken of this to assassinate him. For some reason he did not go, and the execution of the scheme was deferred. But meanwhile one of the conspirators gave information to the Government. Numerous arrests were made, followed by trials and executions. On March 18 Robert Charnock, Edward King, and Thomas Keys were executed at Tyburn. They were followed on April 3 by Sir John Friend and Sir William Perkins. The populace of London flocked to Tyburn in numbers exceeding all precedent to witness the execution of Friend, found guilty by the Court of high treason, and by the people of a crime that touched them more nearly—the brewing of execrable beer. Three non-juring divines attended the condemned men to the scaffold, Jeremy Collier, and two of less note, Shadrach Cook and William Snatt, who absolved the criminals “in a manner more than ordinarily practised in the Church of England.” For this Cook and Snatt were committed to Newgate. Macaulay says that they were not brought to trial. It appears, however, that they were actually indicted, and found guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours (Luttrell, iv. 80) and imprisoned for a short time. Collier kept out of the way, and was in consequence outlawed, remaining under the sentence to the end of his days. Numerous tracts were written on the subject.

On April 29 Brigadier Rookwood, Charles Cranburne, and Major Lowick were executed at Tyburn, they also having been condemned for the Plot.

This completes the story of the executions at Tyburn for the Assassination Plot, but it is impossible to refrain from mentioning a case dismissed by Macaulay in a sentence referring to “Major John Bernardi, an adventurer of Genoese extraction, whose name has derived a melancholy celebrity from a punishment so strangely prolonged that it at length shocked a generation which could not remember his crime.” It is hardly fair to call Bernardi an adventurer. Apart from this, the reader would certainly not gather from Macaulay’s remark that no crime was ever proved against Bernardi. In writing of a shocked generation the historian probably referred to some very mild remarks of Dr. Johnson, in his “Life of Pope.” Pope wrote an epitaph on Secretary Trumball, who, from his official position, took a leading part in persuading Parliament to consent to the imprisonment of Bernardi. The concluding lines of Pope’s epitaph are:—

Such this man was, who, now from earth remov’d At length enjoys the liberty he lov’d.

On this Johnson wrote: “The thought in the last line is impertinent, having no connection with the foregoing character, nor with the condition of the man described. Had the epitaph been written on the poor conspirator who lately died in prison, after a confinement of more than forty years, without any crime proved against him, the sentiment had been just and pathetical; but why should Trumball be congratulated upon his liberty, who had never known restraint?”

Major Bernardi was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the Assassination Plot; he was in the company of Rookwood when the latter, afterwards condemned and executed, was arrested. Against Bernardi there was but one witness, an informer. Even taking this informer’s testimony without abatement the case against Bernardi did not reach higher than suspicion. But the resources of civilisation were equal to the occasion. A clause in an Act, 8 & 9 William III. (1696-7) c. 5, gave power to keep in Newgate Bernardi and five others named, till January 1, 1697-8. An Act, 9 William III. (1697-8) c. 4. gave power to prolong the imprisonment for a second year. A third Act, 10 William III. (1698) c. 19, enacted that the same six persons should be kept in custody during his Majesty’s pleasure.

The rest of the story would be incredible if it were not supported by Acts of Parliament. The Act last mentioned necessarily expired on William’s death, but on the accession of Anne another Act was passed, 1 Anne (1701) st. 1, c. 29. for continuing the imprisonment of these men during the Queen’s pleasure. Anne, however, released one. This Act lapsed on the Queen’s death. On the accession of George I. a similar Act was passed, 1 George I. (1714) st. 2, c. 7. During this reign two of the prisoners died in Newgate. Once more the death of the sovereign put the prisoners in a position to move to be brought to trial or admitted to bail. But an Act of the same tenor as the preceding Acts was passed, 1 Geo. II. (1727) st. 1, c. 4, once more continuing the imprisonment during the sovereign’s pleasure. In vain was the king petitioned; in vain did Bernardi’s doctors depose to his lamentable state, “his miserable lameness, and swelling in his arms, by humours flowing to an old wound”; in vain did his wife pray for her husband’s liberation. Finally, in 1736, after an imprisonment of 40 years, Bernardi, then in his eighty-second year, was set free, not by the clemency of the King, but as he had himself foreseen, “by the great and merciful God himself above, the King of Kings and only Ruler of Princes.”[201] Thus ended the imprisonment of this sick and aged man, the longest imprisonment recorded in the law-books, an imprisonment awarded and continued through several reigns on mere suspicion of one never brought to trial. The case is instructive, as showing how with strict observance of constitutional forms, it is possible to emulate the dark deeds of uncontrolled despotism.

Magna Carta, the magnificent conception of a great English ecclesiastic of the thirteenth century, would perhaps be found even to-day, if a time of stress came upon us, to be still a counsel of perfection. If that is so, the blame must rest upon William III. and his advisers. Strange that men to whom power was given in order that they might protect us from arbitrary government should have exceeded those they displaced in the exercise of arbitrary power! Cromwell derided Magna Carta in terms not to be reproduced here.[202] The accession of William was almost immediately followed by the suspension of habeas corpus, resting upon the great Charter.

Macaulay tells us that Charles II. “would gladly have refused his assent to that measure,” the habeas corpus Act. We will not dispute it; but Charles did not ask for the suspension of habeas corpus when the Rye House Plot broke out. Macaulay tells us that James II. hated the Act. This, again, we will not dispute. But he did not ask for its suspension when Monmouth invaded England. William did not wait for the Assassination Plot to ask Parliament to suspend the Act. Before he had been on the throne a month he established an evil precedent which has ever since been followed; no minister has since ever hesitated to ask Parliament to suspend habeas corpus, and no Parliament has ever refused the request when made. Suspended four times in the reign of William and Mary and William, once in the reign of Anne, thrice in the reign of George I., four times in the reign of George II., and twenty times in the reign of George III. (Ireland is left out of account), habeas corpus was reduced to the point at which it afforded exactly the amount of protection that a man would receive from a waterproof coat, worn in sunshine, and carefully left at home when rain falls.[203]

=1696.= _December 31._ Yesterday 14 men were executed at Tyburn, 10 of them for clipping and coining, the other 4 for robbery (Luttrell, iv. 162).

=1697.= _July 20._ The 16th past, 14 malefactors were executed at Tyburn; 3 men and 1 woman for coining, 2 men for counterfeiting stamp’t paper, a woman for murthering her bastard child; and 7 more for robbery and burglary; and the French woman, who murdered Mrs. Pullein, was hanged at the end of Suffolk Street, where the fact was committed (Luttrell, iv. 254).

=1697.= _November 4._ Yesterday 6 persons were executed at Tyburn; two for coining, one for robbing on the high way, and 3 for counterfeiting stampt paper, of which Mr. Salisbury the minister was one; he had the favour to goe to Tyburn in a mourning coach, and his body was brought back in a herse.

Salisbury was a non-juring parson of Sussex; the evidence against him showed that he did not commit the forgery for want, “as having a good estate and a good living, but only to prejudice king William’s Government” (Luttrell, iv. 292, 302).

A few days later Luttrell records the committal of another parson for the same offence.

=1698.= _December 22._ Yesterday fourteen men and one woman were executed at Tyburn; two of the men were drawn in a sledge, and were for coining; one man was carried in a coach, for robbing on the high way; and the rest in carts, for burglary and robbery on the high way; and one for murther (L., iv. 464).

Including these, Luttrell records the execution at Tyburn this year of 62 persons.

=1699.= Luttrell records the execution this year at Tyburn of 51 persons.

In this year was passed the Act so often and so strongly denounced by Romilly in later years (10 William III., c. 12 in the folio edition of the Statutes), which came into operation after May 20. It was directed against burglary and horse stealing as well as against “the crime of stealing goods privately out of shops and warehouses, commonly called Shoplifting.” The notoriety of the Act was earned by its inflicting the penalty of death for shoplifting to the value of five shillings. This Act also established the “Tyburn ticket,”[204] as it came to be called, a certificate awarded for the apprehension and prosecution of offenders. This gave exemption from parish and ward offices. It further enacted that all persons convicted of theft, who had benefit of clergy should, instead of being burnt in the hand, be “burnt in the most visible part of the left cheek nearest the nose,” the burning to be done in court in presence of the judge. Luttrell records in connection with the May sessions that “two were burnt in the left cheek, according to the new act of parliament”; at the next sessions eighteen were so branded. But the innovation did not prove successful. Luttrell says that retaliation was threatened—“the said offenders for the future threaten whatever house they break into, &c., they will mark the persons on the cheek to prevent distinction.” The provision was repealed by 5 and 6 Anne (1706), c. 6, and burning in the hand was again established. The repealing Act states in the preamble that “the said punishment [of burning on the cheek] hath not had its desired effect, by deterring such offenders from the further committing such crimes and offences, but on the contrary, such offenders being rendered thereby unfit to be intrusted in any service or employment to get their livelihood in any honest and lawful way, become the more desperate.” But the penalty of death for stealing to the value of five shillings remained.

=1700.= _March 16._ Three prisoners were this week taken in the very act of coining in Newgate.

_April 20._ Yesterday, one Larkin, _alias_ Young, with another, were executed at Tyburn; the former for coyning in Newgate (Luttrell, iv. 624, 636).

=1705.= _December 12._ “One John Smith, condemned lately at the Old Baily for burglary, was carried to Tyburn to be executed, and was accordingly hanged up, and after he had hung about 7 minutes, a reprieve came, so he was cutt down, and immediately lett blood and put into a warm bed, which, with other applications, brought him to himself again with much adoe” (Luttrell, v. 623).

The story is told at greater length by James Mountague in “The Old Bailey Chronicle,” 1700-83, i. 51-3:—

“After hanging five minutes and a quarter, a reprieve was brought.… The malefactor was cut down and taken with all possible expedition to a public house where proper means was pursued for his recovery, and with so much success that the perfect use of all his faculties was restored in about half an hour.”

The account given by Smith of his sensations was that when first turned off he felt excessive pain, but that it almost immediately ceased. The last circumstance he recollected was like an irregular and glimmering light before his eyes: the pain he felt in hanging was infinitely surpassed when his blood was recovering its usual course of circulation.

Hatton, in his “New View of London” 1708, i. 84-5, says that Smith hanged for about a quarter of an hour; he adds that the executioner, while Smith was hanging, pulled his legs, and used other means to put a speedy period to his life.

Smith did not profit by this severe lesson. For a while indeed he served the cause of law and order, as will be seen by the following:—

=1706.= _March._ Smith, who, sometime since was half-hanged and cut down, having accused about 350 pickpockets, house breakers, &c., who gott to be soldiers in the guards, the better to hide their roguery, were last week upon mustering the regiments drawn out and immediately shipt off for Catalonia: and about 60 women, who lay under condemnation for such crimes, were likewise sent away to follow the camp (Luttrell, vi. 25).

And again: =1706.= _November 9._ The officers of her majesties guards yesterday drew out their companies in St. James’s Park, which were viewed by Smith (sometime since hang’d at Tyburn, but a reprieve coming was cut down before dead) and two other persons in masks, in order to discover felons and housebreakers: out of which 2 serjeants with 6 soldiers were seized as criminals and committed to the Marshalsea prison (Luttrell, vi. 105).

Smith had received an unconditional pardon; later he was again tried for burglary, and acquitted on a point of law. Lesson number 2. But Smith was a third time apprehended on a charge of burglary and committed for trial. The prosecutor died, and Smith was discharged. It is said that finally he was drowned at sea.

Smith’s recovery from hanging does not stand alone. In 1740 there was a case of a man who was left hanging for the usual time, and recovered:—

=1740.= _November 25._ “Yesterday only five of the Malefactors were executed at Tyburn: two of them, viz., George Wight and Abraham Hancock having obtain’d a Reprieve thro’ the Intercession of a Noble Peer.

“Duel, executed for the Rape, was brought to Surgeons-Hall, in order for Anatomy, but after he was stripp’d and laid on the Board, and one of the Servants was washing him, to be cut up, he perceived Life in him, and found his Breath to come quicker and quicker, on which a Surgeon bled him, and took several Ounces of Blood from him, and in about two Hours he came so much to himself as to sit up in a Chair, groan’d very much, and seem’d in great Agitation, but could not speak: tho’ it was the Opinion of most People if he had been put in a warm Bed and proper Care taken, he would have come to himself. Whether he’s now living we know not, but a great Mob assembled at Surgeons-Hall on this Occasion, and according to _their Law_, he could not be executed again: but according to the Law of the Land, the Sheriffs have a Power to carry him again to Tyburn and execute him, his former sentence, _of being hung till he was dead_, not having been executed. Its reckon’d his coming to Life was owing to the wrong Disposition of the Halter” (_London Daily Post and General Advertiser_).

Duel or Dewell did not recollect being hanged: he said that he had been in a dream; that he dreamed of Paradise, where an angel told him his sins were forgiven. He made a complete recovery. At the next sessions at the Old Bailey he was ordered to be transported for life.

Some years before this, the problem of the recovery of persons hanged had received careful attention. Thus, we find the following in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1733 (April 27), p. 213:—

Mr. Chovet, a Surgeon, having by frequent Experiments on Dogs, discovered, that opening the Windpipe, would prevent the fatal Consequences of the Halter, undertook Mr. Gordon, and made an Incision in his Windpipe: the Effect of which was, that when Gordon stopt his Mouth, Nostrils, and Ears for some Time, Air enough came thro’ the Cavity to continue Life. When he was hang’d he was perceived to be alive after all the rest were dead: and when he had hung 3 quarters of an Hour, being carried to a House in Tyburn Road, he opened his Mouth several Times and groaned, and a Vein being open’d he bled freely. ’Twas thought, if he had been cut down 5 Minutes sooner, he might have recover’d.

Two cases of recovery, not assisted by the surgeon, are recorded in the _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).

=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.”