[27] Harrison, in Holinshed’s Chron. An instance is recorded in Machyn’s Diary: “1557. The vj day of Aprell was hangyd at the low-water marke at Wapyng be-yond santt Katheryns vij for robyng on the see,” p. 131. According to Hentzner, who visited England about 1598, 300 pirates were hanged yearly in London.
[28] Borough Customs (Selden Soc.), pp. 73, 74.
[29] Fortescue, “De Laudibus Legum Angliæ, with the Summs of Sir Ralph de Hengham.” Notes by Selden, 1741, p. 33, note.
[30] Borough Customs (Selden Soc.), pp. 73, 74.
[31] The Act making poisoning high treason was repealed by 1 Edward VI., c. 12, sec. 12, which made poisoning wilful murder, to be punished as murder. Harrison was therefore mistaken in writing of the punishment as if it still existed. Curiously enough Bacon, on the trial of the Earl of Somerset, eulogised Henry’s Act, without hinting at its repeal.
[32] “The Christian Prudence of this Customary Law” is defended in a little work, “Hallifax and its Gibbet-Law Placed in a True Light,” 1708, containing an illustration copied in Gough’s edition of Camden’s “Britannia,” and in the enlarged “Magna Britannia,” ed. 1731, vi. 384. In “Hallifax and its Gibbet-Law” it is stated, with every appearance of probability, that the custom goes back to a date before the Norman Conquest. It appears that the last persons executed were Abraham Wilkinson and Anthony Mitchell in 1650 for stealing 9 yards of cloth and two colts.
[33] Thorpe, “Anc. Laws and Inst. of England,” fo. ed., p. 252.
[34] Chron. Benedict of Peterborough, ed. Stubbs, i. 122-3.
[35] “Gleanings from Westminster Abbey” (Sir Gilbert Scott), 1863, pp. 282-90, where the original authorities are mentioned.
[36] Chrons. of the Reigns of Edward I. and Edward II., ed. Stubbs, i. 132.