Under the pressure of a belief in the extraordinary delusion of witchcraft, a harmless and aged couple at Tring,—who had been removed from the workhouse to the church for safety,—were seized and so shockingly handled and ducked by a mob at Long Marston, near Tring, in 1751, that the woman, Ruth Osborne, died on the spot. The ringleader, Thomas Colley, was tried at Hertford, when the revolting particulars of the barbarities were proved. He was taken for execution to Gubblecote Cross, in Long Marston parish, thirty miles from Hertford, and so great was the infatuation, and sympathy for the man who had “destroyed an old wicked woman that had done so much mischief by her witchcraft,” that a strong escort of horse was necessary. The body of Colley was afterwards hung in chains on the same gallows, the people of Long Marston, many of whom were present at the murder, having petitioned against the gibbeting near their houses.[54]
Chapter VII.
By this time, as we have seen, it had gradually become usual for the court, in atrocious cases, to direct that the murderer’s body should be hung upon a gibbet in chains, near the place where the fact was committed; but this was no part of the legal judgment.[55] By an Act of 25 George II. (1752) gibbeting in chains was first legally recognized. By this statute it was enacted that the body should, after sentence delivered and execution done, be given to the surgeons to be dissected and anatomized, and that the judge may direct the body to be afterwards hung in chains, but in no wise to be buried without dissection.[56]
But still the gibbeting did not form, as it never has formed, part of the legal sentence.[57] The judge could direct it to be carried out by a special order to the sheriff,[58] and this was sometimes done—as we have seen in the case of Mr. Penny’s murder in 1741—on the petition of the relatives of the deceased. The theory was that the body was at the disposal of the Crown, and that an order to hang in chains would be granted on application to the proper authorities. This post-mortem revengement was thought to be a singular great comfort to the relatives of the murdered man. The Roman law also permitted the murderer’s body to remain on the gibbet after execution, as a comfortable sight to the relatives of the deceased:—“Famosos latrones, in his locis, ubi graffati sunt, furca figendos placuit: ut et conspictu deterreantur alii, et solatio sit cognatis interemptorum.”[59]
The Act of 1752 seems to have cleared the way considerably, and from this date gibbetings rapidly increased. It may here be recalled that the idea of being gibbeted was ever a very terrifying one to the sufferer, and many a strong man who had stood fearless under the dread sentence broke down when he was measured for his irons. We may inquire a little what was in prospect for the caitiff that made the iron so to enter into his soul.
At Newgate, which no doubt gave the example to other prisons, it was the custom, after execution, to convey the body into a place grimly called “the Kitchen.” Here stood a caldron of boiling pitch, and into this the carcass was thrown. It was shortly after withdrawn, placed in the chains, and these cold-rivetted—truly enough “fast bound in misery and iron.” We can picture the brutal work, with, no doubt, the coarse jesting, when the dead malefactor was finally rivetted up in what was called “his last suit.”
“’Twas strange, ’twas passing strange;
’Twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful.”[60]