There was every inducement in those times for a criminal to refuse to plead to his indictment. If he pleaded, and was eventually found guilty, his property was, under the law as it then stood, forfeited to the Crown, and his relations, even his wife and children, were deprived of their very livelihood. A man might at one and the same time be an unmitigated scoundrel, and yet have the very tenderest feelings for his own, and many such an one endured the fearful martyrdom of pressing to death in order to preserve his belongings to those who had been dependent on him. For by enduring so much he could save everything, and will it as he would.
The official sentence passed upon those who thus "stood mute of malice," as the phrase ran, was "That the prisoner shall be remanded to the place from whence he came, and put in a low, dark room, and there laid on his back, without any manner of covering except a cloth round his middle; and that as many weights shall be laid upon him as he can bear, and more; and that he shall have no more sustenance but of the worst bread and water, and that he shall not eat on the same day on which he drinks, nor drink on the same day on which he eats; and he shall so continue until he die." A refinement of this torture, more worthy of a demon than a human being, was to place a sharp stone under the prisoner's body.
Spiggott and Phillips were both sentenced to this ordeal, and Phillips was taken in hand first. His courage, however, was not sufficient, and he asked pitifully to be allowed to stand again in the dock and plead. This was granted him, rather by way of a favour than as a right, and he pleaded not guilty, but was convicted and in course of events hanged.
William Spiggott was made of somewhat sterner stuff, and elected to be pressed rather than plead. He was then, as the old picture shows, stretched out upon the floor, his hands and feet secured, a board placed upon his chest, and weights up to 350 lbs. gradually added. He endured half an hour of this, but on another 50-lb. weight being added, gasped out that he would plead. Such were the Chinese-like methods of dealing with criminals in Merry England in the Good Old Days. Exactly who those old days were good for, except the privileged classes, we may long seek to discover; not with any very great hope of success.
SPIGGOTT PRESSED AT NEWGATE.
Spiggott, being then graciously permitted to plead, was in his turn tried, found guilty, and hanged at Tyburn. He is notable as having been the last criminal to suffer this penalty.
Nathaniel Hawes, who practised on Finchley Common about the same time as Spiggott and his friends, was taken in 1721 in an unsuccessful attempt to rob a gentleman on that wild spot. Not only was his attempt a failure, but he was himself taken prisoner and handed over to justice by his intended victim. He also refused to plead. He would die, he declared, as he had lived, a gentleman. The reason for his refusing to plead was that the brave clothes in which he had been seized were taken off his back. Like most of his contemporaries, he had a mind, if he must make the journey to Tyburn, to go there respectably, and to cut a dash to the last. He would plead if they were returned, but not unless. "No one shall say I was hanged in a dirty shirt and a ragged coat."
So they pressed this most particular fellow up to 250 lbs. After a few minutes he declared himself ready, nay anxious, to plead, and he was accordingly put back, tried, and found guilty: going those three miles to Tyburn after all, it is melancholy to relate, in the grimy shirt and tattered duds of his very proper aversion.