This way of finding murderers was practised in Denmark by King Christianus II., and permitted over all his kingdom; the occasion whereof was this:—Certain gentlemen being on an evening together in a stove, or tavern, fell out among themselves, and from words came to blows, (the candles being out,) insomuch that one of them was stabbed with a poniard. Now the murderer was unknown, by reason of the number, although the person stabbed accused pursuivant of the king’s, who was one of the company.
The king, to find out the homicide, caused them all to come together in the stove, and, standing round the corpse, he commanded that they should, one after another, lay their right hand on the slain gentleman’s naked breast, swearing that they had not killed him. The gentlemen did so, and no sign appeared against them; the pursuivant only remained, who, condemned before in his own conscience, went, first of all, and kissed the dead man’s feet; but, as soon as he had laid his hand upon his breast, the blood gushed forth in abundance, both out of his wound and his nostrils; so that, urged by this evident accusation, he confessed the murder, and was, by the king’s own sentence, immediately beheaded. Such was the origin of this practice, which was so common in many of the countries in Europe, for finding out unknown murderers.
[5] Until the thirtieth year of the reign of King George III. this punishment was inflicted on women convicted of murdering their husbands, which crime was denominated petit-treason. It has frequently, from some accident happening in strangling the malefactor, produced the horrid effects above related. In the reign of Mary (the cruel) this death was commonly practised upon the objects of her vengeance; and many bishops, rather than deny their religious opinions, were burnt even without previous strangulation. It was high time this part of the sentence the type of barbarism, should be dispensed with. The punishment now inflicted for this most unnatural and abhorred crime is hanging.
[6] It has been a very ancient practice, on the night preceding the execution of condemned criminals, for the bellman of the parish of St. Sepulchre to go under Newgate, and, ringing his bell, to repeat the following verses, as a piece of friendly advice, to the unhappy wretches under sentence of death:—
All you that in the condemn’d hole do lie,
Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die.
Watch all, and pray, the hour is drawing near,
That you before the Almighty must appear;
Examine well yourselves, in time repent,
That you may not t’ eternal flames be sent,
And when St. Sepulchre’s bell to-morrow tolls,
The Lord above have mercy on your souls!
Past twelve o’clock!
The following extract from Stow’s Survey of London, page 125 of the quarto edition, printed in 1618, will prove that the above verses ought to be repeated by a clergyman, instead of a bellman:—“Robert Doue, citizen and merchant taylor, of London, gave to the parish church of St. Sepulchres the somme of 50l. That after the several sessions of London, when the prisoners remain in the gaole, as condemned men to death, expecting execution on the morrow following; the clarke (that is, the parson) of the church shoold come in the night time, and likewise early in the morning, to the window of the prison where they lye, and there ringing certain toles with a hand-bell, appointed for the purpose, he doth afterwards (in most Christian manner) put them in mind of their present condition, and ensuing execution, desiring them to be prepared therefore as they ought to be. When they are in the cart and brought before the wall of the church, there he standeth ready with the same bell, and after certain toles rehearseth an appointed praier, desiring all the people there present to pray for them. The beadle also of Merchant Taylors’ Hall hath an honest stipend allowed to see that this is duely done.”
[7] In Mr. Ainsworth’s Romance of “Rookwood,” Turpin is one of the most striking characters.
[8] The officers’ half-pikes.
[9] “On Saturday last a Fleet parson was convicted before Sir Ric. Brocas of forty-three oaths, (on the information of a plyer for weddings there,) for which a warrant was granted to levy 4l. 6s. on the goods of the said parson; but, upon application to his Worship, he was pleased to remit 1s. per oath; upon which the plyer swore he would swear no more against any man upon the like occasion, finding he could get nothing by it.”—Grub-Street Journal, 20 July, 1732.
[10] In a letter to George Montagu, Esq. dated July 17, 1753, Horace Walpole says:—