Transcriber’s Note: Corrections have been made to a small number of evident typos, but otherwise the text is as printed, with inconsistent spelling, hyphenation, punctuation and general style.

TYBURN TREE
ITS HISTORY AND ANNALS

GIBBET ON KENNINGTON COMMON, ABOUT 1748.

Tyburn Tree
its
History and Annals

BY
ALFRED MARKS

AUTHOR OF “WHO KILLED SIR EDMUND BERRY GODFREY?”
“HUBERT AND JOHN VAN EYCK: THE QUESTION OF
THEIR COLLABORATION CONSIDERED,”
ETC., ETC.

Who … began diligently and earnestly to prayse that strayte and rygorous iustice, which at that tyme was there executed vpon fellones, who as he sayde, were for the most part xx hanged together vpon one gallowes.—Sir Thomas More, Utopia, about 1516.

LONDON
BROWN, LANGHAM & CO.
78, NEW BOND STREET, W.

Ther bith therfore mo men hanged in Englande in a yere ffor robbery and manslaughter, then ther be hanged in Ffraunce ffor such maner of crime in vij yeres.—Chief Justice Fortescue, about 1476.

Than stele they, or Rubbe they. Forsoth they can nat chuse,

For without Londe or Labour hard is it to mentayne,

But to thynke on the Galows that is a careful payne.

But be it payne or nat: there many suche ende.

At Newgate theyr garmentis are offred to be solde.

Theyr bodyes to the Jebet solemly ascende,

Wauynge with the wether whyle theyr necke wyl holde.

Alexander Barclay, The Ship of Fools, 1509.

Je suis persuadé que dans les treize cantons et leurs alliés, on pend moins de voleurs dans un an, que l’on ne fait à Londres dans une seule assise.—César de Saussure, Lettres et Voyages, 1725-1729.

Many cart-loads of our fellow-creatures are once in six weeks carried to slaughter.—Henry Fielding, Enquiry, etc., 1751.

The following malefactors were executed at Tyburn … John Kelly, for robbing Edward Adamson in a public street, of sixpence and one farthing.—Gentleman’s Magazine, March 7, 1783.

It is frequently said by them [the prisoners in Newgate] that the crimes of which they have been guilty are as nothing when compared with the crimes of Government towards themselves: that they have only been thieves, but that their governors have been murderers.—Mrs. Fry, 1818, quoted in Romilly’s Life, ii. 486-7.

PREFACE

How our fathers lived is a subject of never-failing interest: of some interest it may be to inquire how they died—at Tyburn. The story has many aspects, some noble, some squalid, some pathetic, some revolting. If I am reproached with dwelling on the horrors of Tyburn, I take refuge under the wing of the great Lipsius, who, in his treatise De Cruce, has lavished the stores of his appalling erudition on a subject no less terrible.

But the subject has an interest other than antiquarian. We are to-day far from the point of view of Shelley—

“Power like a desolating pestilence

Pollutes whate’er it touches.”

The general tendency is all towards extending the power of governments. Some would fain extend the sphere of the State’s activity so as to give to the State control over almost every action of our daily lives. It may therefore be not without use to recall how governments have dealt with the people in the past. The State never voluntarily surrenders anything of its power. Less than a hundred years ago, ministers stoutly defended their privilege of tearing out a man’s bowels and burning them before his eyes. The State devised and executed hideous punishments, sometimes made still more hideous by the ferocity of its instruments, the judges. All mitigation of these punishments has been forced on the State by “idealists.” The State dragged its victims, almost naked, three miles over a rough road. The hands of compassionate friars placed the sufferer on a hurdle—not without threats of punishment for so doing. In the end, the State adopted the hurdle. So it has always been. Not a hundred years ago, Viscount Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, could see no reason for altering the law which awarded the penalty of death to one who had stolen from a shop goods to the value of five shillings. To Romilly, though he did not live to see this result of his untiring labours in the cause of humanity, we may gratefully ascribe the abolition of the extreme penalty for this offence.

On this field, as on others, the victories of civilisation have been won by the individual in conflict with the community.

I desire to thank Mr. C. W. Moule, the Librarian of Corpus Christi College, and the College authorities, for permission, most courteously granted, to reproduce the drawing by Matthew Paris showing Sir William de Marisco being drawn to the gallows.

I am indebted to Mr. Herbert Sieveking for permission to reproduce, from a photograph taken for him, the print from the Gardner Collection showing an execution at Tyburn. I am in an especial degree obliged to him for calling my attention to Norden’s map of Middlesex, the subject of an article by him in the Daily Graphic of September 4, 1908.

CONTENTS

PAGE
WHOM TO EXECUTE? WHO IS TO EXECUTE? HOW TO EXECUTE?[6]
DRAWN, HANGED, AND QUARTERED[27]
TORTURE AND THE PEINE FORTE ET DURE[35]
THE HANGMAN[44]
AFTER TYBURN[49]
ORIGIN AND SITE OF THE TYBURN GALLOWS[54]
THE CHRONOLOGY OF TYBURN[71]
ANNALS[73]
INDEX[269]

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE REV. MR. WHITEFIELD PREACHING ON KENNINGTON COMMON[Frontispiece]
From a print in the Crowle Pennant, Print Room, British Museum, Part VIII., No. 242. Probable date, 1748, or somewhat later. The triangular gallows is probably that erected for the execution in 1746 of the rebels of 1745. The bodies on the gibbet are those of highwaymen or murderers.
FACING PAGE
THE FIRST KNOWN REPRESENTATION OF THE TRIPLE TREE[62]
A portion of a map of Middlesex engraved by John Norden for William Camden’s “Britannia,” edition of 1607.
THE TRIPLE TREE ABOUT 1614[64]
The illustration reproduces the frontispiece of a book. The gallows is shown in the uppermost lozenge on the left.
THE RUINS OF FARLEIGH CASTLE[66]
From Sir Richard Colt Hoare’s “Hungerfordiana; or, Memoirs of the Family of Hungerford,” 1823.
THE TRIPLE TREE IN 1712[66]
From a broadsheet published by the Rev. Paul Lorrain, the Ordinary of Newgate, containing an account of an execution at Tyburn, on September 19, 1712.
THE TRIPLE TREE IN 1746[68]
Reduced from Rocque’s 24-sheet Map of London, etc., begun in March, 1737, and published in October, 1746.
THE SITE OF TYBURN TREE[70]
Showing the locality before the alterations of 1908. Reduced from the Ordnance large-scale map of 1895.
SIR WILLIAM DE MARISCO (OR WILLIAM MARSH) DRAWN TO TYBURN IN 1242[90]
From a contemporary drawing by Matthew Paris in the MS. “Chronica Majora,” in the possession of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Reproduced here by permission of the Librarian and authorities of the College.
DRAWING TO TYBURN ON HURDLES, temp. ELIZABETH[166]
From “The Life and Death of Mr. Genings.” (See illustration facing p. 64.)
EXECUTIONS AT TYBURN, temp. ELIZABETH[168]
From “The Life and Death of Mr. Genings.” (See illustration facing p. 64.)
THE TRIPLE TREE ABOUT 1680[198]
From a print in the Gardner Collection. Reproduced, with Mr. Gardner’s permission, by Mr. Herbert Sieveking, who allows this reproduction from a photograph taken for him.
THE PEINE FORTE ET DURE[230]
William Spiggott under the press in Newgate, in 1721. From the (anonymous) “Newgate Calendar,” 5 vols., 1773.
THE TRIPLE TREE IN 1747[240]
Reduced from the last plate of Hogarth’s series of “Industry and Idleness,” showing the execution at Tyburn of Thomas Idle.
THE INTERIOR OF SURGEONS’ HALL[246]
Showing the body of a murderer after dissection, in accordance with the provisions of the Act of 1752. From “The New and Complete Newgate Calendar,” by William Jackson, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law, 6 vols., 1795.
DRAWING TO TYBURN ON A SLEDGE[248]
Showing Dr. Cameron being drawn to Tyburn in 1753. From “The Old Bailey Chronicle,” by James Montague, of the Temple, 4 vols., 1783.
THE EXECUTION AT TYBURN OF EARL FERRERS IN 1760[252]
From a print in the Crace Collection, Print Room, British Museum, Views, Portfolio XXX., No. 3. This was one of the earliest executions on the new movable gallows.
THE NEW GALLOWS AT NEWGATE, 1783[266]
From “The Old Bailey Chronicle,” as above.

ADDENDA.

Pages [62-65], and [illustration].

Norden’s map of 1607 gives the first indication of the site of the triangular gallows, but, in writing of the map as giving the earliest known representation of the gallows, I had forgotten Richard Verstegen’s “Theatrum Crudelitatum Haereticorum nostri temporis,” Antwerp, 1587. The Triple Tree is shown quite correctly as to form, without indication of site, on p. 83.

Page [170], “put them to the manacles.”

This instrument of torture is shown in the above-mentioned book, in an engraving on page 75, the description, here translated, being: “An instrument of iron which presses and doubles up a man into a globe-shape. In this they put Catholics, and keep them in it for some hours.”

TYBURN TREE
Its History and Annals