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).