A SCUFFLE BETWEEN TEMPLARS AND ALSATIANS
Not many recorded crimes have taken place in the Temple, for youth, however poor, is hopeful. It takes time to make a man despair, and when he despairs, the devil is soon at his elbow. Nevertheless, greed and madness have upset some Templars' brains. In October, 1573, a crazed, fanatical man of the Middle Temple, named Peter Burchet, mistaking John Hawkins (afterwards the naval hero) for Sir Christopher Hatton, flew at him in the Strand, and dangerously wounded him with a dagger. The queen was so furious that at first she wanted Burchet tried by camp law; but, being found to hold heretical opinions, he was committed to the Lollards' Tower (south front of St. Paul's), and afterwards sent to the Tower. Growing still madder there, Burchet slew one of his keepers with a billet from his fire, and was then condemned to death and hung in the Strand, close by where he had stabbed Hawkins, his right hand being first stricken off and nailed to the gibbet.
In 1685 John Ayloff, a barrister of the Inner Temple, was hung for high treason opposite the Temple Gate.
In 1738 Thomas Carr, an attorney, of Elm Court, and Elizabeth Adams, his accomplice, were executed for robbing a Mr. Quarrington in Shire Lane (see page 74); and in 1752 Henry Justice, of the Middle Temple, in spite of his well-omened name, was cruelly sentenced to death for stealing books from the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, but eventually he was only transported for life.
The celebrated Earl of Mansfield, when Mr. Murray, had chambers at No. 5, King's Bench Walk, apropos of which Pope wrote—
"To Number Five direct your doves,
There spread round Murray all your blooming loves."
(Pope "to Venus," from "Horace.")
A second compliment by Pope to this great man occasioned a famous parody:—
"Graced as thou art by all the power of words,
So known, so honoured at the House of Lords"
(Pope, of Lord Mansfield);