“Such as hauing wals and banks neere vnto the sea, and doo suffer the same to decaie (after conuenient admonition) whereby the water entereth and drowneth vp the countrie, are by a certeine custome apprehended, condemned, and staken in the breach, where they remaine for euer as parcell of the foundation of the new wall that is to be made vpon them, as I haue heard reported.” This also is strange, showing that a machine practically identical with the guillotine was in use in England centuries before the re-invention of the machine by Dr. Guillotin:—
“There is and hath beene of ancient time a law or rather a custome in Halifax, that who soeuer dooth commit anie fellonie, and is taken with the same, or confesse the fact vpon examination: if it be valued by foure constables to amount to the sum of thirteene pence halfe penie, he is foorthwith beheaded upon one of the next market daies.… The engine wherewith the execution is doone, is a square block of wood of the length of foure foote and an halfe, which dooth ride vp and downe in a slot, rabet, or regall betweene two peeces of timber, that are framed and set vpright of fiue yardes in height. In the neather end of the sliding blocke is an ax keied or fastened with an iron into the wood, which being drawne vp to the top of the frame is there fastned by a wooden pin (with a notch made into the same after the manner of a Samsons post) vnto the middest of which pin also there is a long rope fastened that commeth downe among the people, so that when the offendor hath made his confession, and hath laid his necke ouer the neathermost blocke, euerie man there present dooth either take hold of the rope (or putteth foorth his arme so neere to the same as he can get, in token that he is willing to see true iustice executed) and pulling out the pin in this maner, the head blocke wherein the ax is fastened dooth fall downe with such a violence, that if the necke of the transgressor were so big as that of a bull, it should be cut in sunder at a stroke, and roll from the bodie by an huge distance. If it be so that the offendor be apprehended for an ox, oxen, sheepe, kine, horsse, or anie such cattell: the selfe beast or other of the same kind shall haue the end of the rope tied somewhere vnto them, so that they being driuen doo draw out the pin wherby the offendor is executed.”[32]
Harrison says that “we have vse neither of the wheele nor of the barre, as in other countries,” and these punishments are not to be found in the chronicles.
A favourite story of the Middle Ages is that of the unjust judge, Sisamnes, flayed alive by order of Cambyses. This punishment is one not likely to have been overlooked. In the “Laws of Henry I.” (so called), we find scalping and flaying mentioned as punishments (comacio and excoriacio[33]). It is certain that the punishment was not absent from men’s minds. In 1176, the secretary of the young king was discovered to be in correspondence with Henry II. He was thought worthy of death; some proposed that he should be hanged, others that he should be flayed alive (vivum excoriari[34]). I have not found a written record of execution in England by flaying alive, but there exists singular and terrible indirect evidence of the infliction of the punishment in a very remarkable case.
In 1303 was successfully carried out a burglary which after six centuries remains the greatest burglary on record, the amount involved being £100,000, equal to £2,000,000 in money of the present day. The palace of the king at Westminster was contiguous to the abbey. In the King’s treasury were lodged at the time in question not only the regalia, but a large sum of money destined to the carrying on of the war in Scotland. Edward I. left Westminster on March 14th and travelled towards Scotland, reaching Newcastle on May 6th. Shortly before this date the treasury was broken into and its treasure carried off. The robbery being discovered, forty-one friars and thirty-four monks were committed to the Tower. The burglary had been skilfully planned. Early in the spring the cemetery—the plot enclosed by the cloisters—was sown with hemp, so that the hemp should grow high enough by the time fixed for the robbery to hide the treasure. Mr. Joseph Burtt, who has told the story at length, came to the conclusion that “the affair was evidently got up between William, the sacrist of Westminster, Richard de Podlicote, a merchant, and the keeper of the palace, with the aid of their immediate servants and friends.”[35]
Ten monks and one cleric were arraigned, but, refusing to be tried by secular judges, were remanded to the Tower. But the judges “condemned the sacrist of Westminster for receiving and concealing jewels of our lord the king.” Strangely enough, there is no record of his sentence.[36] But certain doors giving access to the treasury were found to be covered, inside and outside, with skin. Sir Gilbert Scott submitted a piece to an eminent microscopist, Mr. Quekett, who pronounced it to be human skin. There has been vague talk of “the skins of Danes” in connection with the lining of these doors, but Dean Stanley, who says that the skin is that of “a fair-haired, ruddy-complexioned man,” is of opinion that there is no period to which these fragments of skin can be so naturally referred as to that of the burglary.[37]
Here is the record of a punishment, the only one of its kind I have found recorded:—
“1222. A Prouinciall councell was holden at Oxforde, by Stephen Langton Archbyshoppe of Canterburie, and his suffragane bishops and others.… There was also a young man and two women brought before them, the yoong man would not come in any church, nor be partaker of the Sacraments, but had suffered himselfe to be crucified, in whom the scars of all yᵉ wounds were to be seene, in his hands, head, side and feete, and he reioyced to bee called Jesus of these women and other. One of the women being olde, was accused for bewitching the young man vnto such madnes, and also (altering her owne name) procured her selfe to bee called Mary the mother of Christ: They being conuict of these crimes and other, were adiudged to bee closed vp betweene two walles of stone, where they ended their liues in misery. The other woman being sister to the young man, was let goe, because shee reuealed the wicked fact” (Stow, Annals, p. 178).
There is another story, of about the same time, telling of a religious maniac, done to death in an abnormal way:—
“A man that faynyd hym selfe Cryste at Oxynforde, he was cursyde at Aldermanbery at London, the yere of oure Lorde Mˡccxxij.”