“When the King heard of it he ordered that justice should be executed upon them, so they were taken two by two on hurdles and dragged to the gallows (at Tyburn), which is three miles from London.
“The Prior went alone on a hurdle, and the holy friars confessed to each other as they went along, the Prior embracing the crucifix and saying many prayers. When they were arrived at the gallows they took one of the first and cast a rope about his neck, and the hangman asked his pardon. Then all the others placed themselves so that they should see the first die, the Prior exhorting in Latin and comforting him as he was led up. The friar turned to the hangman and said, ‘Brother, do thy duty.’ The rope being placed on the gallows, the hangman whipped the horse, and the friar remained hanging. Directly, before he was half-dead, they cut the rope and stripped him: then they ripped up his belly, plucked out his bowels and his heart, and cast them into the fire that was burning there, and afterwards they cut off his head and quartered the body. The holy friars looked on at all this, praying the whole time, and when the first execution was finished the Sheriff said to the other fathers: ‘Ye see what has become of your companion: you had better repent and you will be forgiven.’ Altogether in one voice, which was as if the Holy Ghost himself was speaking, they cried, ‘Sheriff, we are only impatient to join our brother.’ Each one offered himself as first for martyrdom, and they all died like the first.”
The English Chronicles record the Carthusian martyrdoms in this year 1535 (20th April, five men; and 19th June, three men) at Tyburn, and this note appears to refer to the second execution. The quarters were seared with pitch and set up at the gates on London Bridge and before the Charter House. The Spaniard says that the quarters remained incorrupt.
In all the number there are few brighter names than those of the Earl of Kildare and his four kinsmen, whose capture, imprisonment, and death (1537) furnished a deplorable tale of Tudor treachery and vengeance. The earl, who had been involved in one of the numerous rebellions in Ireland, which were the chronic state of that unhappy country, had been promised pardon if he repaired to England. The story, so full of pathos, and of the fear of death, brightened by the heroism of the younger brother, cannot be better told than in Hollinshed’s quaint phrases:
“And before his imprisonment was bruted, letters were posted into Ireland streiatly commanding the deputie upon sight of them, to apprehend Thomas Fitzgirald his uncles, and to see them with all speed conuenient shipt into England. Which the lord deputie did not slacke. For having feasted three of the gentlemen at Kilmainan immediatelie after their banket (as it is now and then seene that sweet meate will have sowre sawce) he caused them to be manacled, and led as prisoners to the Castell of Dublin; and the other two were so roundlie snatcht up in villages hard by, as they no sooner felt their owne captivitie than they had notice of their brethren’s calamitie. The next wind that served into England, these five brethren were imbarked, to wit James Fitzgirald, Walter Fitzgirald, Oliver Fitzgirald, John Fitzgirald, and Richard Fitzgirald. Three of these gentlemen, James, Walter, and Richard, were knowne to have crossed their nephue Thomas to their power in his rebellion and therefore were not occasioned to misdoubt anie danger. But such as in thos days were enimies to the house, incensed the King so sore against it, persuading him that he should never conquer Ireland, as long as anie Giraldine breathed in the countrie: as for making the pathwaie smooth, he was resolved to lop off as well the good and sound grapes, as the wild and fruitlesse berries. Whereby appeareth how dangerous it is to be a rub, when a King is disposed to sweepe an alleie.
“Thus were the five brethren sailing into England, among whom Richard Fitzgerald being more bookish than the rest of his brethren, and one that was much given to the studies of antiquitie, wailing his inward griefe, with outward mirth comforted them with cheerefulnesse of countenance, as well as persuading them that offended to repose affiance in God, and the King his mercie, and such as were not of that conspiracie to relie to their innocencie, which they should hold for a more safe and strong barbican than any rampire of Castell of brasse. Thus solacing the sillie mourners sometime with smiling, sometime with singing, sometime with grave and pittie apophthegmes, he craved of the owner the name of the barke; who having answered, that it was called the Cow, the gentleman sore appalled thereat, said: ‘Now, good brethren, I am in utter despaire of our returne to Ireland, for I beare in mind an old prophecie, that five earles, brethren, should be carried in a Cowes bellie to England, and from thense never to returne’.
“Whereat the rest began afresh to howle and lament, which doubtlesse was pitifull, to behold five valiant gentlemen, that durst meet in the field five as sturdie champions as could be picked out in a realme, to be so suddenlie terrified with the bare name of a woodden cow, or to fear like lions a sillie cocke his combe, being moved (as commonlie the whole countrie is) with a vaine and fabulous old wives’ dreame. But what blind prophesie soever he read, or heard of anie superstitious beldame touching a cow his bellie, that which he foretold them was found true. For Thomas Fitzgirald the third of Februarie, and these five brethren his uncles were drawne, hanged, and quartered at Tiburne, which was incontinentlie bruted as well in England and Ireland, as in foren soyles.”
In the midst of his arrangements for divorce the vengeance of Henry VIII. fell upon a witless girl who was known as “The Holy Maid of Kent.” She had become imbecile from frequent epileptic fits. Masters, the vicar of Addington, and Dr. Bocking, a Canon of Canterbury, tutored her to predict, as it suited their own ends, that Henry VIII. would lose his kingdom and die a violent death if he cast aside Catherine of Arragon, and married Anne Boleyn. The final scene of this diabolical influence of strength over weakness was that the girl and her abettors were hanged and beheaded at Tyburn, her head being set on London Bridge, and those of the men on the City gates.
LONDON BRIDGE (Showing heads displayed).
From a Print in Magdalene College, Cambridge.