Executioner.—“It is sharp enough, and heavy enough.”
The executioner proceeded to do his office; but the note says, “it was under such distraction of mind, that he fell into the very error which the duke had so earnestly cautioned him to avoid; wounding him so slightly, that he lifted up his head, and looked him in the face, as if to upbraid him for making his death painful; but said nothing. He then prostrated himself again, and received two other ineffectual blows; upon which the executioner threw down his axe in a fit of horror; crying out, ‘he could not finish his work:’ but, on being brought to himself by the threats of the sheriffs, took up the fatal weapon again, and at two other strokes made a shift to separate the head from the body.”[493]
As to the fee itself, “thirteen-pence half-penny—hangman’s wages,” it appears to have been of Scottish extraction. The Scottish mark (not ideal or nominal money, like our mark) was a silver coin, in value thirteen-pence halfpenny and two placks, or two-thirds of a penny; which plack is likewise a coin. This, their mark, bears the same proportion to their pound, which is twenty-pence, as our mark does to our pound, or twenty shillings, being two-thirds of it. By these divisions and sub-divisions of their penny (for they have a still smaller piece, called a bodel or half a plack) they can reckon with the greatest minuteness, and buy much less quantities of any article than we can.[494] This Scottish mark was, upon the union of the two crowns in the person of king James I., made current in England at the value of thirteen-pence halfpenny, (without regarding the fraction,) by proclamation, in the first year of that king; where it is said, that “the coin of silver, called the mark piece, shall be from henceforth current within the said kingdom of England, at the value of thirteen-pence halfpenny.”[495] This, probably, was a revolution in the current money in favour of the hangman, whose fee before was perhaps no more than a shilling. There is, however, very good reason to conclude, from the singularity of the sum, that the odious title of “hangman’s wages” became at this time, or soon after, applicable to the sum of thirteen-pence halfpenny. Though it was contingent, yet it was then very considerable pay; when one shilling per day was a standing annual stipend to many respectable officers of various kinds.
Nothing can well vary more than the perquisites of this office; for it is well known that Jack Ketch has a post-obit interest in the convict, being entitled to his clothes, or to a composition for them; though, on the other hand, they must very frequently be such garments that, as Shakspeare says, “a hangman would bury with those who wore them.”[496]
This emolument is of no modern date, and has an affinity to other droits on very dissimilar occasions, which will be mentioned presently. The executioner’s perquisite is at least as old as Henry VIII.; for sir Thomas More, on the morning of his execution, put on his best gown, which was of silk camlet, sent him as a present while he was in the Tower by a citizen of Lucca, with whom he had been in correspondence; but the lieutenant of the Tower was of opinion that a worse gown would be good enough for the person who was to have it, meaning the executioner, and prevailed upon sir Thomas to change it, which he did for one made of frize.[497] Thus the antiquity of this obitual emolument, so well known in Shakspeare’s time, seems well established; and, as to its nature, has a strong resemblance to a fee of a much longer standing, and formerly received by officers of very great respectability. For anciently “garter king of arms” had specifically the gown of the party on the creation of a peer; and again, when archbishops, bishops, abbots, and priors, did homage to the king, their upper garment was the perquisite even of the lord chamberlain of the household. The fee in the latter case was always compounded for, though garter’s was often formerly received in kind, inasmuch as the statute which gives this fee to the lord chamberlain directs the composition, because, as the words are, “it is more convenient that religious men should fine for their upper garment, than to be stripped.”[498] The same delicate necessity does not operate in the hangman’s case, and his fee extends much farther than either of them, he being entitled to all the sufferer’s garments, having first rendered them useless to the party. Besides this perquisite, there has always been a pecuniary compliment, where it could possibly be afforded, given by the sufferer to the executioner, to induce him to be speedy and dexterous in the operation. These outward gifts may likewise be understood as tokens of inward forgiveness.
“Upon the whole,” says Dr. Pegge, “I conceive that what I have offered above, though with much enlargement, is the meaning of the ignominious term affixed to the sum of thirteen-pence halfpenny, and I cannot but commiserate those for whom it is to be paid.”[499]
[487] “The executions, on ordinary occasions, were removed from this memorable place, and were performed in the street of the Old Bailey, at the door of Newgate. This was first practised on the 9th of December, 1783. See the printed account. Every of these executions I was told by Mr. Reed, 1785, is attended with an expense of upwards of nine pounds. Twenty persons were hanged at once in February, 1785.”—Dr. Pegge.
[488] Madox’s History of the Exchequer, ii. p. 373.
[489] These arms actually appear in Edmondson’s Body of Heraldry, annexed to the name of Brandon, viz. the arms of Arragon with a difference, and the arms of Brabant in a canton.