Even soldiers and sailors, who are still noted for their jollities on landing from distant climes, were marched to the scaffold in the “good old times.”
“Sir John Norris and Sir Francis Drake, being returned, as ye have heard many of their Saylers, and souldiers, shortly after their landing fell sick, and died of a stanch bred amongst them on shippe board, other some of them so rudely behaved themselves about the countrey, about the Court, and elsewhere, that many men misliked of their doings, and divers of them being apprehended, on the twenty 7 of August one was hanged on the end of a signe at an Inne doore in the Towne of Kingstone-uppon-Thames, for a terror to the rest. The twenty nine of August, two more were hanged in Smithfield, two at the Tower Hill, two besides at Westminster, and one at Tiburn” (Stow).
An Irishman who had shown marked disrespect to the Virgin Queen received equally short shrift. Bren O’Royrke was arraigned at Westminster on the 28th October 1591, and found guilty of high treason on ten different charges. Stow (Annals) records what was doubtless the most grave of them:
“That the said O’Royrke, a Dremaher aforesaide, caused the picture of a woman to bee made, setting to her her Majestie’s, and caused it to be tyed to an horse tayle, and to bee drawne through the mire in derision of her Majestie. And after caused his Calliglasses to hew the same in pieces with their axes, uttering divers traiterous and rebellious words against her Majestie.”
When before his judges, he refused to plead unless he was remanded for a week to allow a lawyer to come from Ireland, and to receive the counsels of his friends. But he was told that if he maintained his contemptuous attitude judgment must be given, and he was guilty of his own death; and the interpreter, one John Ly, expounded his sentence in all its gruesome detail. We learn that “Uppon Wednesday, being the third of November, Bren O’Royrke was drawne to Tyborne and there hanged”—leaving out the disgusting after-business. But before this was done, John Ly and the Archbishop of Cashel exhorted him to crave God and the Queen’s forgiveness. “O’Royrke turned upon him and sayde, hee had more neede to looke to him selfe, and that he was neither here nor there.” After his death “his heart was holden up by the hangmanne, naming it to be the arch traytor’s heart, and then did he cast the same into the fire.”
The execution of Dr. Lopez and his confederates for plotting with the Spaniards to poison Queen Elizabeth is graphically depicted in Treason and Plot, by Martin Hume. The execution took place early in June 1594:
“All England was in a ferment of indignation owing to the revelations made by Ferreira and Tinoco, and the heat introduced into the accusations against Philip and his ministers by the Essex party: and at length, early in June, 1594, the three poor wretches, bound to hurdles, were dragged up Holborn to Tyburn, and the penalty of treason was paid by all of them, with sickening barbarity, exceeding even the usual awful rites. It is related that one of the three, probably Tinoco who was the youngest, recovered his feet after the hanging, and, mad with pain and desperation, attacked the executioner. The crowd applauding his pluck, broke through the guard and formed a ring to witness the unequal fight. Two burly ruffians came to the hangman’s help, but one was immediately felled by a blow from the prisoner, who kept the other at bay for some time. The half-strangled creature was at length stunned by a blow upon the head, and the disembowelling then proceeded. Dr. Lopez in vain tried to speak to the vast scoffing crowd. Almost incoherent with agitation he solemnly protested his innocence: mocking laughter and ribald interruption alone greeted his despairing cry. He was unfortunately inspired to say that he loved his mistress better than his Saviour Jesus Christ: and this coming from a Jew so incensed the multitude that the tumult silenced all else, and Ruy Lopez went to his death leaving his final secret to be guessed by others.”
Major Hume was apparently convinced that Lopez was really innocent of an intention to kill Elizabeth. He was guilty of an intention to poison Don Antonio, the Portuguese pretender; and he had also pretended a plot against the Queen in order to get money out of the Spaniards; so in any case he was rightly punished.
The dreadful tale of horrors might be continued almost interminably. One willingly passes over in silence many other sufferers, to include just one more notable scene at Tyburn, when, under remarkable circumstances, the gallows took a curious part in reforming fashion in the reign of James I.
Plots grew thick and fast under the first of the Stuarts, as under his predecessors. The murder of Sir Thomas Overbury differed from most, inasmuch as it was designed to satisfy private vengeance rather than an intrigue against the State. Overbury had done all in his power to prevent the Earl of Somerset from marrying the Countess of Essex, and had thus won her hatred. She poisoned the mind of the Earl against his friend, and he, in turn, influenced the King. So when Sir Thomas refused to be sent as ambassador to Brussels, James I. was easily persuaded to imprison him in the Tower. There Overbury languished and died.