The worthy Fuller refers to the Act “De Heretico Comburendo,” for, not content with mere death, it had been thought necessary to invent another mode of punishment for persecuting the Lollards, and this Act authorised the burning of heretics in a high public place.
As for the derivation here attempted, it seems rather a quaint conceit by Fuller than a serious explanation of the origin of a word which for so many centuries bore a notorious meaning. The Bourne flowed along its course from time immemorial; as we know, it was called Tiburne, or Tyburn, in the earliest references extant, and it is much more likely that the execution-ground took its name from the Bourne, than that the brook itself owes its distinctive title to a particular form of death practised so late as the time of the Lollards.
The executions of Nicholas Brembre and Judge Tresillian in 1388 are supposed to have been the first recorded deaths at this new Tyburn. These men had been impeached for high treason. Brembre had been four times Lord Mayor of London. The charge against him was that he had “intended to slay some thousands of the citizens, to alter the name of London to that of ‘New Troy,’ and to have himself created Duke thereof.” So the gentleman was not without ambitions.
Roger Bolingbroke, who met his death for alleged necromancy, was another of the early victims of Tyburn. The whole charge arose out of the bitter jealousy existing between Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, son of Henry IV., and Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, the son of John of Gaunt and Catharine Swynford. On the death of Henry V. each vied with the other for the guardianship of the young King (who was but nine months old when his father died) and the leadership of public affairs. Beaufort’s huge wealth secured him the support of the Church, into whose coffers he poured large gifts, and finally Humphrey was arrested and thrown into prison. Meantime Beaufort had devised that charges of witchcraft should be brought against Gloucester’s chaplain, Roger Bolingbroke and his wife Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, representing that she was exercising necromancy to encompass the death of Henry VI. and place her husband on the throne.
Stow tells us the story:
“Roger Bolinbrooke a great Astronomer, with Thomas Southwell, a Chanon of Saynt Stephen’s Chapell at Westminster, were taken as Conspiratours of the King’s death, for it was said, that the same Roger shoulde labour to consume the King’s person by way of Necromancie, and the said Thomas should say Masses in the Lodge of Hornesey park beside London, vpon certain instruments, with the which the said Roger should use the craft of necromancies, against the faith, and was assenting to the said Roger in all his works. And the 5 and twentieth day of July being Sunday, Roger Bolinbrooke, with all his instruments of necromancie, that is to say a chayre paynted herein he was wont to sit, vppon the 4 corners of which chayre stood foure swords, and vppon every sword an image of copper hanging with many other instruments. Hee stoode on a high scaffolde in Paules Churchyard, before yᵉ crosse, holding a sword in his right hand and a scepter in his left, arrayed in a marvellous attire, and after the Sermon was ended by Maister Low Byshop of Rochester, he abjureth all articles belonging to the crafte of necromancie of missowning to the faith, in presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Cardinall of Winchester, the byshop of London, Salisbury and many other.”
Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, was brought before Chicheley, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, and others, in St. Stephen’s Chapel at Westminster. Bolingbroke was produced as a witness against her, and accused her of inciting him to practise necromancy. Finally a Commission was appointed to inquire into the various witchcrafts and treasons against the King’s person, and Bolingbroke and Southwell as principals, and Eleanor Cobham as an accessory, were indicted for treason. Bolingbroke was condemned to death and was taken to Tyburn, where he was hanged, drawn, and quartered, denying the crime of treason, but crying for God’s mercy for having presumed too far in his cunning.
Nor did Beaufort’s vengeance end here. Humphrey of Gloucester was thrown into prison, where he languished and died in 1446—murdered, some writers allege, by Beaufort. In the following year five of his most noted sympathisers were arrested and put in the Tower, from whence they were “drawn to Tiborne, hanged, let down quick, stripped, marked with a knife to be quartered.” At that juncture the Duke of Suffolk arrived with a pardon, which did not, however, deprive the hangman of his perquisites. Says Stow: “Yᵉ yeomen of yᵉ gallows had their livelode, and the hangmen their clothes and wearing apparel.” He adds that the pardon was secured by the prayers of “Master Gilbert Worthington, the parson of St. Andrewes in Holborn.”
A quiet hanging was little to the taste of either the dispensers of justice or of vengeance, or of the crowds that gathered at executions in those rude days, or, indeed, in the days of the Tudors, or even of Charles II. Common malefactors were swung upon a gibbet and left there, no more trouble was bestowed upon them; but for the plotter against the State, the process of death was more elaborate. References to the victims being “hanged, drawne, and quartered” abound.
It is impossible within the limits of decency to describe in detail the revolting tortures and mutilations practised upon the poor wretches whom ill-fortune brought to Tyburn. What the sentence implied can be found in the State Trial of the Duke of Buckingham, where it was delivered in all its unabashed nakedness by the Earl of Norfolk, though Henry VIII. substituted decapitation. What it meant in actual practice may be judged from the records of the punishment of those concerned in the Babington Plot against Queen Elizabeth. Fifteen men were condemned to die, and after a day and a half had been spent on the ghastly work, leaving it still incomplete, the Queen, disgusted with the sickening business, bade the executioners “despatch with haste” the remaining victims, remitting the last abominations.