Fanciful etymologists played mad pranks with the name. In Fuller’s Worthies, Tieburne is derived on vague authority from “Tie” and “Burne,” because the “poor Lollards” there “had their necks tied to the beame and their lower parts burnt in the fire. Others” (he goes on more sensibly) “will have it called from Twa and Burne, that is two rivulets, which it seems meet near the place.” And then it was plainly a Bourn whence no traveller returned! Most probably it is a shortened form of The, or At the Aye Bourne (= ’t Aye-bourne = Tyburn) or Brook already denoted. Tyburn was not always London’s sole or even principal place of execution. In early times people were hanged as well as burned at Smithfield. The elms at St. Giles’s were far too handy a provision to stay idle. At Tower Green was the chosen spot for beheading your high-class criminal, and it was common to put off a malefactor on the very theatre of his malefaction. There are few spots in Old London which have not carried a gallows at one or other time. Some think that certain elm-trees suggested the choice of Tyburn. In the end it proved the most convenient of all, being neither too near nor too far; and in the end its name came to have (as is common with such words) a general application, and was applied at York, Liverpool, Dublin, and elsewhere, to the place of execution.

To-day the criminal’s progress from cell to gallows is an affair of a few minutes. To an earlier time this had savoured of indecent haste. Then, the way to Tyburn, long in itself, was lengthened out by the observance of a complicated ritual, some of it of ancient origin. Let us follow “the poor inhabitant below” from the dock to the rope. To understand what follows one must remember that two distinct sets of forces acted on his mind:—on the one hand, the gloom of the prison, the priest’s advice, the memory of mis-spent days, the horror of doom; on the other, the reaction of a lawless nature against a cruel code, the resolve to die game, the flattering belief that he was the observed of all observers, and perhaps a secret conviction that the unknown could be no worse than the known. According as the one set or other prevailed he was penitent or brazen, the Ordinary’s darling or the people’s joy. Well, his Lordship having assumed the black cap and pronounced sentence of death, the convict was forthwith removed to the condemned hold in Newgate. There he was heavily fettered, and, if of any renown as a prison-breaker, chained to a ring in the ground. Escape was not hopeless. Friends were allowed to visit and supply him with money, wherewith he might bribe his keepers; and the prison discipline, though cruel, was incredibly lax (Jack Sheppard’s two escapes from the condemned hold, carefully described by Ainsworth, are cases in point). To resume, our felon was now frequently visited by the Ordinary, who zealously inquired (from the most interested motives) into his past life, and admonished him of his approaching doom. At chapel o’ Sundays he sat with his fellows in the condemned pew, a large dock-like erection painted black, which stood in the centre, right in front of and close to the ordinary’s desk and pulpit. For his last church-going the condemned sermon was preached, the burial service was read, and prayers were put up “especially for those awaiting the awful execution of the law.” The reprieved also were present, and the chapel was packed with as many spectators as could squeeze their way in.

Now, our old law was not so bad as it seemed. True, the death-penalty was affixed to small offences; but it was comparatively rarely exacted. In looking over Old Bailey sessions-papers of from one to two centuries ago, I am struck with the number of acquittals—brought about, I fancy, by the triviality of the crime, not the innocence of the prisoner—and jurors constantly appraised the articles at twelve pence or under to reduce the offence to petty larceny, which was not capital, and after sentence each case was carefully considered on its merits by the King in Council (the extraordinary care which George III. gave to this matter is well known: he was often found pondering sentences late into the night). Only when the offender was inveterate or his crime atrocious was the death-penalty exacted. In effect, cases now punished by long terms of penal servitude were then ordered for execution. I don’t pretend to say whether or no to-day’s plan may be the more merciful. We have, on the authority of the Newgate Ordinary, a list between 1700 and 1711. Of forty-nine condemned in one year, thirty-six were reprieved and thirteen executed, in another year thirty-eight were condemned, twenty were reprieved, and eighteen were executed; the highest annual return of executions during that period was sixty-six, the lowest five. An Act of 1753 (25 Geo. II., c. 37) provided for the speedy exit and dissection of murderers; but the fate of other felons might hang dubious, as weeks often elapsed without a Privy Council meeting. The Recorder of London brought up the report from Windsor. When it reached Newgate, usually late at night, the condemned prisoners were assembled in one ward. The Ordinary entered in full canonicals and spoke his fateful message to each kneeling wretch. “I am sorry to tell you it is all against you,” would fall on one man’s trembling ears; while “Your case has been taken into consideration by the King and Council and His Majesty has been mercifully pleased to spare your life,” was the comfortable word for another. The reprieved now returned thanks to God and the King; the others, all hope gone, must return to the condemned hold.

There broke in on them here, during the midnight hours on the eve of their execution, the sound of twelve strokes of a hand-bell, the while a doleful voice in doleful rhyme addressed them:

You prisoners that are within,

Who for wickedness and sin....

Here the rhyme failed; but in not less dismal prose the voice admonished them that on the morrow “the greatest bell of St. Sepulchre will toll for you in the form and manner of a passing bell”; wherefore it behoved them to repent. In later years the songster procured himself this rigmarole:—

Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die.

Watch all and pray, the hour is drawing near