Old-Time Punishments.
If one feature is more prominent than another in connection with former methods of repressing crime, or of punishing those who had been declared guilty of breaches of the law, it is that of brutality. Refinement, even in retribution, is perhaps not to be expected, having regard to the habits of the people and the conditions under which they lived. In the neighbourhood of the Border, “Jeddart justice”—to hang a man first and try him afterwards—was doubtless often found a convenient arrangement for dealing with those who were supposed to be delinquents. There is at least one case on record, too, of the drowning of a supposed witch at Carlisle, though the unfortunate woman was probably guilty of no more serious offence than being insane.
One of the most remarkable executions on record was that of Sir Andrew de Harcla, whose place in North-Country history is too well known to need further reference. He offended Edward the Second—whether he was as guilty as some historians have endeavoured to show is certainly a matter of opinion—and that monarch sent commissioners to Carlisle to seize de Harcla for treason. “The law” in those days was merely another name for the caprice of the King, and de Harcla had no trial. The cedula, or judgment, ran that Sir Andrew de Harcla, Earl of Carlisle, should be stripped of his Earl’s robes and ensigns of knighthood, his sword broken over his head, his gilt spurs hacked from his heels, and that he should be drawn to the place of execution, and there hanged by the neck; his heart and bowels taken out of his body, burnt to ashes and winnowed, his body cut into four quarters, one to be set upon the principal tower of Carlisle Castle, another on the tower of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a third upon the bridge at York, and the fourth at Shrewsbury, and his head upon London Bridge.
There has been doubt thrown upon the extent to which this revolting sentence was obeyed. Dr. Burn says “it was performed accordingly,” while the monks of Lanercost record that de Harcla “suffered in the ordinary place of execution with great fortitude, affirming to the end that in his transactions with the King of Scotland he had meant no hurt to his own King or country.” On the scaffold, they add, he said, “You have disposed of my body at your pleasure; my soul, which is above your disposal, I give to God.” It was customary to allow a sledge or hurdle on which persons condemned for high treason were dragged to the gallows; there is nothing in local records to show in what way the Earl was conveyed to the place of execution.
A question which has occupied a good deal of the attention of local antiquaries at various times is whether the body was dismembered and the parts dispersed as ordered. De Harcla’s sister petitioned Edward the Third for the restitution of her brother’s body for burial, and the order addressed to de Lucy, who had been de Harcla’s executioner, is still in existence. It runs thus:—“The King to his faithful and beloved Anthony de Lucy, Warden of Carlisle Castle, greeting. We command that you cause to be delivered without delay the quarter of the body of Andrew de Harcla, which hangs by the command of the Lord Edward, late King of England, our father, upon the walls of the said Castle, to our beloved Sarah, formerly the wife of Robert de Leyburn, sister to the aforesaid Andrew, to whom we of our grace have granted that she may collect together the bones of the same Andrew, and commit them to holy sepulture, whenever she wishes or her attorney. And this you shall in no wise omit. Witness the King at York, the 10th of August (1337), by the King himself.” A portion of the body is believed to have been buried in Kirkby Stephen Church; the tradition was strengthened by the discovery of part of the bones of a man under peculiar conditions when the church was rebuilt half a century ago.
Although there are several Gallows Hills in Cumberland and Westmorland, there only seems to be one place which has retained any particular story, and it is thus told in Mr. William Andrews’ third book relating to punishments[10]:—“It has been asserted by more than one local chronicler that John Whitfield, of Cotehill, a notorious North-Country highwayman, about 1768 was gibbeted alive on Barrock. He kept the countryside in a state of terror, and few would venture out after nightfall for fear of encountering him. He shot a man on horseback in open daylight; a boy saw him commit the crime, and was the means of his identification and conviction. It is the belief in the district that Whitfield was gibbeted alive, that he hung for several days in agony, and that his cries were heartrending, until a mail coachman passing that way put him out of his misery by shooting him.”
There is a contemporary record of the execution to be found in the St. James’s Chronicle, for August 12th, 1768, as follows:—“Wednesday, John Whitfield, for murdering William Cockburn on the Highway, near Armithwaite, was executed at Carlisle, and afterwards hung in Chains near the Place where the Fact was committed.” It will be seen that the record makes no mention of the culprit having been put into his iron cage when alive, and one can only hope that there is nothing beyond tradition to support the assertion.
Next we come to the gibbeting of a Threlkeld man, one of the earliest recorded instances of that punishment being imposed in the County Palatine. The facts are contained in the Rydal papers, published in 1890 by the Historical Manuscripts Commission. Writing from Rydal on November 24th, 1671, to Sir Joseph Williamson, Sir Daniel Fleming said:—
“Being lately in Lancashire I received there—as a justice of the peace of that county—an information against one Thomas Lancaster, late of Threlkeld in Cumberland, who, it is very probable, hath committed the most horrid act that hath been heard of in this countrey. He marryed the 30th of January last a wife in Lancashire, who was agreed to be marryed that very day, or soon after, to another; and her father afterwards conveyed all his reall estate to this Lancaster upon his giveing security to pay severall sums of money to himselfe and his other daughters. And through covetousness to pay these and other payments it is very probable that Lancaster hath lately poysoned—with white arsenic—his wife, her father, her three sisters, her aunt, her cosin-german, and a servant boy, besides poyson given to severall of his neighbours who are and have been sick, that people—as it is presumed—might think the rest dead of a violent fevor. I have committed him prisoner unto Lancaster Castle and shall take what more evidence I can meet with against the next assizes, that he may there have a fair triall, and—if he be found guilty—such a punishment as the law shall inflict upon such like offenders.”
On April 3rd, of the following year, Sir Daniel, writing to Sir George Fletcher, at Hutton, returned to the subject, after he had discussed private affairs and the action of the Judges with regard to the Papists. At the Lent Assizes at Lancaster, he said, “Thomas Lancaster has been found guilty of poisoning eight persons, and is to be hanged in chains.” Three weeks later in a letter to Sir William Wilde, Justice of the Common Pleas, the same gossip recorded that “Thomas Lancaster has confessed that he poisoned the old woman with arsenic, for a bribe of £24 from the heir to her estate, worth £16 per annum.” It is, however, to the church registers of Hawkshead that we must turn for an account of the final proceedings, the entry being under date April 8th, 1672:—