THE CHRONOLOGY OF TYBURN.
1108. Earliest date to which the establishment of Tyburn as a place of execution can with probability be assigned.
1177. First record of an execution in London, probably at Tyburn.
1196. First record of an execution, Tyburn being named as the place.
1220. Two new gallows ordered for Tyburn.
1222-1570. Executions at Tyburn recorded at the following dates: 1222, 1242, 1305, 1330 (position indicated, “about a league outside the City of London”), 1386, 1388, 1399, 1400, 1402, 1404, 1424, 1427, 1437, 1441, 1446, 1447, 1455, 1467, 1468, 1483, 1495, 1497, 1499, 1502, 1523, 1525, 1531, 1534, 1535, 1536,* 1537, and each year to 1544, 1549, 1550, 1552, and each year to 1557, 1560,* 1561,* 1562,* 1563,* 1569,* 1570.
(The list shows how continuous were executions here.)
The years marked * will not be found in the Annals following this. The records are uninteresting and have therefore been omitted. Tyburn is mentioned as to 1536 in Wriothesley’s Chronicle, as to 1560, 1, 2, and 3, in Machyn’s Diary. Stow mentions Tyburn in 1569.
1571. Erection of the permanent triangular gallows.
1607. Site of triangular gallows shown by map to be to the N. of the N.E. corner of Hyde Park.
1614. Representation of the triangular gallows.
1626. Exact site of gallows proved by accounts of the visit of Henrietta Maria. To the same year must be referred mention of “the three wooden stilts” in Shirley’s “The Wedding,” printed in 1629.
1649. Eight persons hanged on each of the three beams.
1660. Bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw “hanged at the several angles of the Triple-tree.”
1680. Seller’s map of Middlesex shows the gallows (form not recognisable) near the angle formed by the junction of the roads E., W., and N.
1697. “Watling Street … went on West to that spot where Tyburn now stands, and there turned North-West.” (Defoe.)
1712. Triangular gallows figured in Lorrain’s broadsheet.
1725. Triangular gallows shown in Mackay’s map, in the space formed by the junction of the roads.
1746-1757. Triangular gallows shown in the same position in Rocque’s maps, London, 1746, Middlesex, 1754, and 1757.
1747. Triangular gallows shown in the same position (approximately) in the last plate of Hogarth’s “Industry and Idleness.”
1756. Triangular gallows shown as in Rocque’s maps, in Seale’s map.
1759. Triangular gallows gives place to movable gallows.
1783. Last execution at Tyburn.