“They have a castle on a hill,

I tooke it for an old wyndmill,

The vanes blowen off by weather:

To lye therein one night, ’tis guest,

’Twere better to be ston’d and prest,

Or hang’d; now chuse you whether.”[[8]]

It has been asserted, therefore, that “Lydford law became a proverbial expression for summary punishment without trial.”[[9]] This, however, is going further than the facts will allow, and is wholly misleading when thus used to show the connection between Lydford law and lynch-law. It would seem to imply that Lydford law in England was once as well known, as a name for summary punishment, as lynch-law has become in this country. As a proverbial expression Lydford law never came into general use; it was confined to one section of England and never became more than a localism.

In another part of England a certain summary procedure was known by the name of Halifax law. In this case there was a trial followed by immediate punishment. The trial was of a summary nature without adequate opportunity of defense, and the punishment was irrevocable. The name, Halifax law, originated from the so-called gibbet law or custom in the forest of Hardwick, coextensive with the parish of Halifax, under which the frith burghers summarily tried any one charged with stealing goods to the value of 13½ d., and could condemn him to be beheaded on the market-day.[[10]]

Cowper justice is defined by Jamieson to mean “trying a man after execution; the same with Jeddart, or Jedburgh justice,” and the latter he defines as “a legal trial after the infliction of punishment.” Jeddart justice refers to Jedburgh, a Scotch border town, where many of the border raiders are said to have been hanged without the formality of a trial. It is said that “in mockery of justice, assizes were held upon them after that they had suffered.”[[11]]

All of these expressions, however, were entirely provincial. They were merely different names used to characterize the methods employed in various parts of England and Scotland for executing popular justice. These practices differ from the administration of lynch-law in not dispensing with all regular proceedings. Further, as will appear later, the death penalty was not at first inflicted under lynch-law; originally, lynching was synonymous with whipping. It is impossible, therefore, to trace lynch-law back to these mediæval practices and find in them any explanation for the existence of the practice of lynching in the United States.