Priscilla Biggadike, who was sentenced to death at the recent Lincoln Assizes, for the wilful murder of her husband by poisoning, at Stickney, a village near Boston, in Lincolnshire, was executed on Monday morning, at nine o’clock.
The unfortunate woman has appearod to pay considerable attention to the ministrations of the chaplain, but she declined to make any confession of her guilt. On Saturday, she was visited by a brother and three sisters, who remained with her upwards of three hours, and strongly urged her to confess, but still she refused, and at length became passionate at their repeated entreaties. George Ironmonger, one of the persons who lodged at her house, also applied for permission to to see her on Saturday, but was refused.
On Sunday she attended Divine service in the prison. She slept well during the night, and was visited at seven o’clock yesterday morning by the Rev. W. Richter, the chaplain, who again, without avail, implored her to confess her guilt. At a quarter to nine she was pinioned by Askerne the executioner, and although she fainted under the operation, she immediately recovered. Five minutes afterwards, the sad procession left the prison for the scaffold, which was erected within the castle walls, on the east side of the Crown Court, a distance of nearly 200 yards from the prison door.
The unfortunate woman, who was supported by two of the warders, moaned piteously, and appeared to take little heed of the chaplain, while reading the solemn service of the dead. On her way to the place of execution, she said to the warders, I hope my trubles are ended, and then asked, ‘Shall we be much longer?’ to which a warder gave a negative reply. The service was brought to a close at the foot of a drop, and the chaplain turning to the prisoner, asked her whether she still persisted in the declaration of her innocence? whether she had anything to do with the crime, in thought, word, or deed? In a firm voice she replied, ‘I had not, sir.’ She was then accommodated with a chair, and the chaplain addressed her as follows:—I have spent an half an hour with you this morning, in endeavouring to impress upon you, a proper sense of your condition, for you are about to pass from this world into another, and to stand before God, to whom the secrets of all hearts are known, I implore you not to pass away without confessing all your sins; not only generally, but especially this particular one, for which you are about to suffer. I had hoped that you would have made that confession, and thus have enabled me, as a minister of Christ, to have pronounced the forgiveness of your sins, under the promise that Christ came into the world to save sinners. It has grieved me much to find that still persist in the declaration, that you are not accountable for your husband’s death; that you still say that you did not administer the poison yourself; that you did not see any other person administer it, and that you are entirely free from the crime. Do you say so, now?
The Prisoner, still in a firm voice, said, Yes.
The Chaplain.—There is only one left, that you have endeavoured to confess your sins to God, though you will not to you fellow creatures. All I can now say is, that I leave you in the hands of God; and may he have mercy on your soul. What a satisfaction it would be to your children, to your friends, to your relations, to know that you had passed from death into life, in the full persuasion that your sins were forgiven you, and that you were admitted into the blessed kingdom of God. I fear that I can hold out no further consolation to you—the matter rests between you and the Almighty. Had you made a declaration of your sins, I should have done what, as a minister of Christ, I am entitled to do—I should have told you that “your sins though many were forgiven.” I am sorry I cannot exercise that authority at the present moment. I must leave you to God.
The condemned woman was then assisted up the steps to the platform, and placed on the trap door. When the fatal rope was being affixed, she stood firm without assistance. The cap was then drawn over her face, and she the exclaimed “All my troubles are over;” then suddenly “Shame, you are not going to hang me!” “Surely my troubles are over.” The bell of the cathedral here tolled forth the hour of nine, at that instant the bolt was drawn, and the wretched woman was launched into eternity.
W. Smith, Printer, Lincoln.