XXIV.
In the year 1650 Anne Green was tried at Oxford, before Serjeant Umpton Croke, for the murder of her bastard child, and by him sentenced to be hanged; which sentence was accordingly executed on the fourteenth day of December, in the Castle-Yard, Oxford, where she hung about half an hour, being pulled by the legs, and, after all, had several strokes given her on the stomach with the butt end of a musket. Being cut down, she was put into a coffin, and carried to a house to be dissected; where when they opened the coffin, notwithstanding the rope remained fast jammed round her neck, they perceived her breast to rise: whereupon one Mason, a tailor, intending an act of humanity, stamped on her breast and belly; and one Oran, a soldier, struck her with the butt end of his musket. After all this, when Sir William Patty, Dr. Willis, and Mr. Clarke, came to prepare the body for dissection, they perceived some small rattling in her throat, which induced them to desist from their original design, and began to use means for her recovery; in which they were so successful, that within fourteen hours she began to speak, and the next day talked and prayed very heartily. Nor did the humanity of the Doctors stop, till by obtaining a pardon for her, they secured that life, which their skill had restored. She was afterwards married, had three children, lived in good repute among her neighbours, at Steeple-Barton, and died in 1659. What was very remarkable, and distinguished the hand of Providence in her recovery, she was found to be innocent of the crime for which she suffered; and it appeared the child had never been alive, but came from her spontaneously, four months after conception.