The History of Halifax in Yorkshire, 12mo. 1712, sets forth “a true account of their ancient, odd, customary gibbet-law; and their particular form of trying and executing of criminals, the like not us’d in any other place in Great Britain.” The Halifax gibbet was in the form of the guillotine, and its gibbet-law quite as remarkable. The work referred to, which is more curious than rare, painfully endeavours to prove this law wise and salutary. It prevailed only within the forest of Hardwick, which was subject to the lord of the manor of Wakefield, a part of the duchy of Lancaster. If a felon were taken within the liberty of the forest with cloth, or other commodity, of the value of thirteen-pence halfpenny, he was, after three market-days from his apprehension and condemnation, to be carried to the gibbet, and there have his head cut off from his body. When first taken, he was brought to the lord’s bailiff in Halifax, who kept the town, had also the keeping of the axe, and was the executioner at the gibbet. This officer summoned a jury of frith-burghers to try him on the evidence of witnesses not upon oath: if acquitted, he was set at liberty, upon payment of his fees; if convicted, he was set in the stocks on each of the three subsequent market-days in Halifax, with the stolen goods on his back, if they were portable; if not, they were placed before his face. This was for a terror to others, and to engage any who had aught against him, to bring accusations, although after the three market-days he was sure to be executed for the offence already proved upon him. But the convict had the satisfaction of knowing, that after he was put to death, it was the duty of the coroner to summon a jury, “and sometimes the same jury that condemned him,” to inquire into the cause of his death, and that a return thereof would be made into the Crown-office; “which gracious and sage proceedings of the coroner in that matter ought, one would think, to abate, in all considering minds, that edge of acrimony which hath provoked malicious and prejudiced persons to debase this laudable and necessary custom.” So says the book. In April, 1650, Abraham Wilkinson and Anthony Mitchell were found guilty of stealing nine yards of cloth and two colts, and on the 30th of the month received sentence, “to suffer death, by having their heads severed and cut off from their bodies at Halifax gibbet,” and they suffered accordingly. These were the last persons executed under Halifax gibbet-law.
The execution was in this manner:—The prisoner being brought to the scaffold by the bailiff, the axe was drawn up by a pulley, and fastened with a pin to the side of the scaffold. “The bailiff, the jurors, and the minister chosen by the prisoner, being always upon the scaffold with the prisoner, in most solemn manner, after the minister had finished his ministerial office and christian duty, if it was a horse, an ox, or cow, &c. that was taken with the prisoner, it was thither brought along with him to the place of execution, and fastened by a cord to the pin that stay’d the block, so that when the time of the execution came, (which was known by the jurors holding up one of their hands,) the bailiff, or his servant, whipping the beast, the pin was pluck’d out, and execution done; but if there were no beast in the case, then the bailiff, or his servant, cut the rope.”
The Halifax Gibbet.
But if the felon, after his apprehension, or in his going to execution, happened to make his escape out of the forest of Hardwick, which liberty, on the east end of the town, doth not extend above the breadth of a small river; on the north about six hundred paces; on the south about a mile; but on the west about ten miles;—if such an escape were made, then the bailiff of Halifax had no power to apprehend him out of his liberty; but if ever the felon came again into the liberty of Hardwick, and were taken, he was certainly executed. One Lacy, who made his escape, and lived seven years out of the liberty, after that time coming boldly within the liberty of Hardwick, was retaken, and executed upon his former verdict of condemnation.
The records of executions by the Halifax gibbet, before the time of Elizabeth, are lost; but during her reign twenty-five persons suffered under it, and from 1623 to 1650 there were twelve executions. The machine is destroyed. The [engraving] placed above, represents the instrument, from a figure of it in an old map of Yorkshire, which is altogether better than the print of it in the work before cited.
The worthy author of the Halifax gibbet-book seems by his title to be well assured, that the machine was limited to, and to the sole use and behoof of, his district; but in this, as in some other particulars, he is mistaken.
A small print by Aldegraver, one of the little German masters, in 1553, now lying before the writer, represents the execution of Manlius, the Roman, by the same instrument; and he has a similar print by Pens, an early engraver of that school. There are engravings of it in books printed so early as 1510. In Hollinshed’s Chronicle there is a cut of a man who had attempted the life of Henry III. suffering by this instrument. In Fox’s “Acts and Monuments,” there is another execution in the same manner.