How to execute? Even in regard to the way of mere hanging, the problem presented difficulties. In France, a rigid etiquette guarded the method of hanging. A franchise might give the right to hang upon trees only.[19] Some gallows had two pillars, some three, four, six, eight, according to the rank of the person erecting the gallows.[20] These nice distinctions are not to be discovered in English customs. There are, however, traces of strange practices. Four several bailiffs took part in the execution of a man hanged on the gallows of the prior of Spalding. The bailiff of Spalding brought the man to the gallows, the bailiff of Weston brought the ladder to the gallows, the bailiff of Pyncebecke found the rope, the rest was done by the bailiff of Multon.[21]
But hanging was one only out of numerous methods of carrying out a capital sentence: ingenuity seems to have exhausted itself in devising ways of putting a man to death. A law of Æthelstan decrees, “Let him be smitten so that his neck break.”[22] When leaving England for Palestine, Richard I. commanded that he who killed a man on board ship should be tied to the corpse and thrown into the sea: if the murder was committed on land, the murderer was to be buried alive with the body.[23] Boroughs had their own several customs. In one place any man taking another who had stolen to the value of 2s. 8½d., might forthwith hang him: for a second offence the amount was reduced to 8¼d. In Romney, at the end of the fifteenth century, the bailiff found the rope, the prosecutor was bound to find a hangman. Failing this he must himself do the hanging, or be put in prison with the felon till such time as he could find a hangman, or resolve to hang the man with his own hands. In another place a miller stealing flour to the value of 4d. was to be hanged from the beam of his mill.[24] At Sandwich a murderer was buried alive on Thief Down, where perhaps golf is now played.[25] In London, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, a man convicted of treason in the court of the mayor, was bound to a stake in the Thames during two flows and two ebbs of the tide.[26] Two centuries later “pirats and robbers by sea are condemned in the court of the admeraltie, and hanged on the shore at lowe water marke, where they are left till three tides haue ouerwashed them.”[27] At Fordwich, in the fifteenth century, a man condemned to death was carried to a place called Thieves’ Well, there bound hand and foot and thrown in by the prosecutor.[28] At Dover, the condemned man was led to a cliff called Sharpnesse, and there executed by “infalistation,” a word which puzzled the learned Selden. It means that the offender was thrown over the cliff (falaise) on to the beach below.[29] Elsewhere the criminal was thrown into the harbour at high tide; elsewhere, again, he was burnt.[30]
In his “Description of England,” forming part of Holinshed’s Chronicle, Harrison tells of ways of execution in practice when he wrote, about 1580: “He that poisoneth a man is to be boiled to death in water or lead, although the party die not of the practise.” Harrison is here mistaken. The enactment of boiling to death was due to one malefactor, who achieved the rare distinction of having an Act of Parliament directed against himself. The Act, 22 Henry VIII. (1530-1) c. 9, tells the story. It begins by stating that the crime of poisoning has in this realm been most rare, and continues thus:—
“And now in the tyme of this presente parliament, that is to saye in the xviijᵗʰ daye of Februarye in the xxij yere of his moste victorious reygn, one Richarde Roose late of Rouchester in the Countie of Kente coke, otherwyse called Richarde Coke, of his moste wyked and dampnable dysposicyon dyd caste a certeyne venym or poyson into a vessell replenysshed with yeste or barme stondyng in the Kechyn of the Reverende Father in God John Bysshopp of Rochester at his place in Lamehyth Marsshe, wyth whych Yeste or Barme and other thynges convenyent porrage or gruell was forthwyth made for his famylye there beyng, whereby nat only the nombre of xvij persons of his said famylie whych dyd eate of that porrage were mortally enfected and poysoned and one of them that is to say, Benett Curwen gentylman thereof ys decessed, but also certeyne pore people which resorted to the sayde Bysshops place and were there charytably fedde with the remayne of the saide porrage and other vytayles, were in lyke wyse infected, and one pore Woman of them that is to saye, Alyce Tryppytt wydowe is also thereof nowe deceased: Our Sayde Sovereign Lorde the Kynge of hys blessed disposicion inwardly abhorryng all such abhomynable offences because that in no maner no persone can lyve in suretye out of daunger of death by that meane yf practyse thereof shulde not be exchued, hath ordeyned and enacted by auctorytie of thys presente parlyament that the sayde poysonyng be adjudged and demed as high treason, And that the sayde Richarde Roose for the sayd murder and poysonynge of the sayde two persons as is aforesayde by auctorite of thys presente parlyament shall stande and be attaynted of highe treason: And by cause that detestable offence nowe newly practysed and commytted requyreth condigne punysshemente for the same: It is ordeyned and enacted by auctoritie of this presente parliament that the said Richard Roose shalbe therfore boyled to deathe withoute havynge any advauntage of his clargie.”
The Act goes on to declare that in future murder by poisoning shall be deemed to be high treason, punishable by boiling to death.
This was the sequel:—
“1531. The 5. of Aprill one Richard Rose a cooke, was boiled in Smithfielde, for poisoning of diuers persons, to the number of 16, or more, at yᵉ bishop of Rochesters place, amongst the which Benet Curwine Gentleman was one, and hee intended to haue poisoned the Bishop himselfe but hee eate no pottage that day whereby hee escaped: marie the poore people that eate of them, many of them died” (Stow’s Annals, ed. 1615, p. 559).
Stow records another case in 1542, March 17, when Margaret Davy, a maid-servant, was boiled in Smithfield for poisoning three households in which she had lived.[31]
To continue with Harrison: If one “be conuicted of wilfull murther, doone either vpon pretended malice, or in anie notable robberie, he is either hanged aliue in chaines neere the place where the fact was committed (or else vpon compassion taken first strangled with a rope) and so continueth till his bones consume to nothing.”