In the Print Room of the British Museum, in that fine collection of pictures relating to London—Crowle’s interleaved edition of Pennant’s London—is a very fine engraving of the Queen, praying under the gallows by moonlight, assisted by a torch-bearer—a coach and six awaiting her return; but as this picture is manifestly of the last century, it is not worth reproducing in any way.
Where the gallows stood is still a moot point—but evidence points that No. 49, Connaught Square was built on its site, and in the lease of the house from the Bishop of London it is so expressed. Against this a correspondent in “Notes and Queries” (2 S. x. 198) says, “that the late Mr. Lawford, the bookseller of Saville Passage, told me that he had been informed by a very old gentleman who frequented his shop, that the Tyburn Tree stood as nearly as possible to the public house in the Edgware Road, now known by the sign of the ‘Hoppoles,’ which is at the corner of Upper Seymour Street; he having several times witnessed executions there. Amongst them, Dr. Dodd’s, which had made a strong impression on his memory, on account of the celebrity of the culprit, and because, when the hangman was going to put the halter round the doctor’s neck, the latter removed his wig, showing his bald shaved head; and a shower of rain coming on at the same time, someone on the platform hastily put up an umbrella, and held it over the head of the man who had but a minute to live, as if in fear that he might catch cold.”
Another correspondent (4 S. xi. 98) practically endorses this site. He says: “The potence itself was in Upper Bryanston Street, a few doors from Edgware Road, on the northern side. The whole of this side of the street is occupied by squalid tenements and sheds, now (Feb. 1, 1873) in the course of demolition, and on the site of one of these, under the level of the present street, is to be seen a massive brickwork pillar, in the centre of which is a large socket, evidently for one of the pillars of the old gallows. An ancient house at the corner of Upper Bryanston Street and Edgware Road, which has been pulled down within the last few weeks was described to me as the only one existing in the neighbourhood when executions took place at Tyburn, and from the balcony in front of which the Sheriffs of London used to take their official view of the proceedings.”
The date of the last hanging at Tyburn was Nov. 7, 1783.
A curious thing connected with Tyburn was the “Tyburn Ticket.” In the Morning Herald, March 17, 1802, is this advertisement: “Wanted, one or two Tyburn Tickets, for the Parish of St. George’s, Hanover Square. Any person or persons having the same to dispose of may hear of a purchaser,” etc. These tickets were granted to a prosecutor who succeeded in getting a felon convicted, and they carried with them the privilege of immunity from serving all parochial offices. They were transferable by sale (but only once), and the purchaser enjoyed its privileges. They were abolished in 1818. They had a considerable pecuniary value, and, in the year of their abolition, one was sold for £280.
Tyburnia is that part of London bounded south by the Bayswater Road, east by the Edgware Road, and the west includes Lancaster Gate.
There was a Turnpike called Tyburn Gate which commanded the Edgware and Uxbridge Roads; and close by, on the north side of the Bayswater Road—from the corner of the Edgware Road—is Connaught Terrace; No. 7 of which was, in 1814, the residence of Queen Caroline—wife of George IV. It was here, and to her mother, that the Princess Charlotte ran, rather than live at Carlton House, or marry the Prince of Orange. Then there was great consternation, and the Lord Chancellor, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and others, came to reason with her, but she would none of them, and not even her kind uncle, the Duke of Sussex, could prevail with her to go back.
Lord Brougham was more successful, and this is a portion of his account of how he managed the wayward girl: “We then conversed upon the subject with the others, and after a long discussion on that and her lesser grievances, she took me aside, and asked me what, upon the whole, I advised her to do. I said at once, ‘Return to Warwick House, or Carlton House, and on no account to pass a night out of her own house.’ She was extremely affected and cried, asking if I, too, refused to stand by her. I said, quite the contrary, and that as to the marriage, I gave no opinion, except that she must follow her own inclination entirely, but that her returning home was absolutely necessary; and in this all the rest fully agreed—her mother, the Duke of Sussex, Miss Mercer and Lady Charlotte Lindsay, for whom she had a great respect and regard. I said, that however painful it was to me, the necessity was so clear, and so strong, that I had not the least hesitation in advising it. She again and again begged me to consider her situation, and to think whether, looking to that, it was absolutely necessary she should return.
“The day now began to dawn, and I took her to the window. The election of Cochrane (after his expulsion, owing to the sentence of the Court, which both insured his re-election and abolished the pillory) was to take place that day. I said, ‘Look there, Madam; in a few hours all the streets and the park, now empty, will be crowded with tens of thousands. I have only to take you to the window, show you to the crowd, and tell them your grievances, and they will rise in your behalf.’ ‘And why should they not?’ I think she said, or some such words. ‘The commotion,’ I answered, ‘will be excessive; Carlton House will be attacked,—perhaps pulled down; the soldiers will be ordered out; blood will be shed; and if your Royal Highness were to live a hundred years, it never would be forgotten that your running away from your father’s house was the cause of the mischief; and you may depend upon it, such is the English people’s horror of bloodshed, you would never get over it.’ She at once felt the truth of my assertion, and consented to see her uncle Frederic (the Duke of York) below stairs, and return with him. But she required one of the Royal carriages should be sent for, which came with her governess, and they, with the Duke of York, went home about five o’clock.”
Turning down Park Lane, we find Gloucester House, the residence of H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge, and it is so called because it was bought by the late Duke of Gloucester on his marriage. Formerly the Earl of Elgin lived here, and here he exhibited the “Elgin Marbles” which are now the pride of the classical section of the British Museum. Byron, in his Curse of Minerva, thus writes of them:—