Hanging was regulated by law by Henry I., but the earliest recorded use of the rope in England can be traced to the days of Henry II. This questionable distinction belongs to the town of Malden, which, in the year 1167, “was amerced three marks for having hanged a robber without such view,” that is to say, the approval of the King’s Sergeant.
Eight years later, Andrew Bucquinte, a thief, who had carried out numerous robberies in the City of London, was sentenced to be hanged, “which was done, and the Citie became more quiet”; while the later chroniclers give full details, which had been passed on to them, of the death in 1196 of William FitzOsbert, or “Longbeard.” Matthew Paris, Stow, and Hollinshed all name “the Elms” as the place of hanging. Roger de Wendover records that Longbeard was drawn to the gallows “near Tyburn,” and there hanged with nine of his followers.
This would seem to be the first authentic account of an execution by hanging at Tyburn, though, in fact, it is very doubtful—Roger de Wendover notwithstanding—if Longbeard met his fate at Tyburn. “The Elms” was the name given to the hanging-place at Smithfield long before the law’s last penalty was demanded at Tyburn, and at the “Elms, at Smithfield,” a century after Longbeard’s death, William Wallace was hanged and quartered in 1305.
The name seems to have been carried to Tyburn when hangings were transferred there, and for a time the two execution-grounds flourished simultaneously.
Longbeard was the first of a line of romantic impostors who attracted admirers by hundreds, and ended their days under the gallows. He represented to Richard I. that the wealthy citizens of London were oppressing the poor; he preached to the masses, proclaiming that he was their saviour, and that to him they must look for deliverance. Richard listened to his story. This so encouraged him that he “had gotten two and fiftie thousand persons readie to have taken his part,” and all rich people went in fear of their lives. Summoned to appear before the Archbishop of Canterbury for inciting to rebellion, Longbeard was accompanied by so many followers that the Prelate dared not deliver sentence. He then retired, with his paramour, to the Tower of St. Mary-le-Bow, which he had previously provisioned and fortified. Ignoring all the Archbishop’s commands to appear, it was only when the church had been assaulted and set on fire that, driven out by smoke and flames, he surrendered. He was dragged to the Tower, and thence to the final scene.
Longbeard was a man of evil life, but the poor looked upon him as a martyr, and, Stow says, “pared away the earth that was be-bled (sprinkled) with his blood, and kept the same as holy reliques to heale sicknesse.” It would therefore appear that he was not only hanged, but drawn and quartered as well.
This custom of carrying away trophies from the gibbet was a superstition, and Brand, in his edition of Bourne’s Antiquitates Vulgares, writes:
“Chips of gallows and Places of Execution are used for Amulets against Agues. I saw lately some Saw-dust, on which Blood was absorbed, taken for some such purpose from off the Scaffold on the beheading of one of the rebel lords, 1746.”
Possibly the added information that the crowd stole “the gibbet” is a misconception by the chronicler to whom the tradition is handed down. The passage is not without difficulty. So early in our history “Tyburn” meant merely the Ty-bourne, or brook, where it flowed from Hampstead towards the Thames, not necessarily the common place of execution which afterwards took to itself the distinctive name of Tyburn. What the “Elms” represented has never, so far as can be gathered, been satisfactorily cleared up. It is reasonably supposed that rows of trees stood on the banks of the burn where it passed through the forest and marshes, and probably their branches afforded convenient means for hanging prisoners.