Bygone Punishments Part 3

[Ill.u.s.tration: NOTTINGHAM (_from Ogilby's "Book of Roads."_)]

It will be noticed that the gallows is shown a short distance from the town.

It is twenty-six miles from London to East Grinstead, and in that short distance were three of these hideous instruments of death on the highway, in addition to gibbets erected in lonely bylanes and secluded spots where crimes had been committed. "Hangman's Lanes" were by no means uncommon. He was a brave man who ventured alone at night on the highways and byways when the country was beset with highwaymen, and the gruesome gibbets were frequently in sight.

Hanging was the usual mode of capital punishment with the Anglo-Saxons.

We give a representation of a gallows (_gala_) of this period taken from the illuminations to Alfric's version of Genesis. It is highly probable that in some instances the bodies would remain _in terrorem_ upon the gibbet. Robert of Gloucester, _circa_ 1280, referring to his own times, writes:--

"In gibet hii were an honge."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANGLO-SAXON GALLOWS.]

"The habit of gibbeting or hanging in chains the body of the executed criminal near the site of the crime," says Dr. c.o.x, "with the intention of thereby deterring others from capital offences, was a coa.r.s.e custom very generally prevalent in mediaeval England. Some early a.s.size rolls of the fourteenth century pertaining to Derbyshire that we have consulted give abundant proof of its being a usual habit in the county at that period. In 1341 the bodies of three men were hung in chains just outside Chapel-en-le-Frith, who had been executed for robbery with violence. In the same year a woman and two men were gibbeted on Ashover Moor for murdering one of the King's purveyors."[8]

An early record of hanging in chains is given in Chauncy's "History of Hertfordshire." It states, "Soon after the King came to Easthampstead, to recreate himself with hunting, where he heard that the bodies hanged here were taken down from the gallowes, and removed a great way from the same; this so incensed the King that he sent a writ, tested the 3rd day of August, Anno 1381, to the bailiffs of this borough, commanding them upon sight thereof, to cause chains to be made, and to hang the bodies in them upon the same gallowes, there to remain so long as one piece might stick to another, according to the judgment; but the townsmen, not daring to disobey the King's command, hanged the dead bodies of their neighbours again to their great shame and reproach, when they could not get any other for any wages to come near the stinking carcases, but they themselves were compelled to do so vile an office." Gower, a contemporary poet, writes as follows:--

"And so after by the Lawe He was unto the gibbet drawe, Where he above all other hongeth, As to a traitor it belongeth."

Sir Robert Constable was gibbeted above the Beverley-gate, Hull, in 1537, for high treason. "On Fridaye," wrote the Duke of Norfolk, "beying market daye at Hull, suffered and dothe hange above the highest gate of the toune so trymmed in cheynes that I thinke his boones woll hang there this hundrethe yere."

According to Lord Dreghorn, writing in 1774:--"The first instance of hanging in chains is in March, 1637, in the case of Macgregor, for theft, robbery, and slaughter; he was sentenced to be hanged in a chenzie on the gallow-tree till his corpse rot."[9]

Philip Stanfield, in 1688, was hung in chains between Leith and Edinburgh for the murder of his father, Sir James Stanfield. In books relating to Scotland, Stanfield's sad story has often been told, and it is detailed at some length in Chambers's "Domestic Annals of Scotland."

Hanging in chains was by no means rare from an early period in the annals of England, but according to Blackstone this was no part of the legal judgment. It was not until 1752, by an Act of 25 George II., that gibbeting was legally recognised. After execution by this statute, bodies were to be given to the surgeons to be dissected and anatomized, and not to be buried without this being done. The judge might direct the body to be hung in chains by giving a special order to the sheriff. This Act made matters clear, and was the means of gibbeting rapidly increasing in this country.

A gravestone in the churchyard of Merrington, in the county of Durham, states:--

Here lies the bodies of John, Jane, and Elizabeth, children of John and Margaret Bra.s.s, Who were murdered the 28th day of January, 1683, By Andrew Mills, their father's servant, For which he was executed and hung in chains.

Reader, remember, sleeping We were slain: And here we sleep till we must Rise again.

"Whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed."

"Thou shalt do no murder."

Restored by subscription in 1789.

The parents of the murdered children were away from home when the awful crime was committed by their farm servant, a young man aged about nineteen, inoffensive, but of somewhat deficient intellect. It is quite clear from the facts which have come down to us that he was insane, for in his confession he stated the devil suggested the deed to his mind, saying, "Kill all, kill all, kill all." The eldest of the family, a daughter, struggled with him for some time, and he was not able to murder her until after her arm was broken. She had placed it as a bolt to a door to secure the safety of the younger members of the family who were sleeping in an inner room. The full particulars of the horrible crime may be found in the pages of Dodd's "History of Spennymoor,"

published in 1897, and are too painful to give in detail. Some troopers marching from Darlington to Durham seized the culprit, and conveyed him with them. He was tried at Durham, and condemned to be gibbeted near the scene of the murders. Many stories which are related in the district are, we doubt not without foundation in fact. It is a.s.serted that the wretch was gibbeted alive, that he lived for several days, and that his sweetheart kept him alive with milk. Another tale is to the effect that a loaf of bread was placed just within his reach, but fixed on an iron spike that would enter his throat if he attempted to relieve the pangs of hunger with it.

His cries of pain were terrible, and might be heard for miles. The country folk left their homes until after his death. "It is to be hoped," says Mr. Dodd, the local historian, "that the statement about the man being gibbeted alive is a fiction." Some years ago, a local playwright dramatised the story for the Spennymoor theatre, where it drew large audiences.

Long after the body had been removed, a portion of the gibbet remained, and was known as "Andrew Mills's Stob," but it was taken away bit by bit as it was regarded a charm for curing toothache.

Robert and William Bolas were gibbeted on Uckington Heath, near Shrewsbury, in 1723. They had murdered Walter Matthews and William Whitcomb, who had resisted their entering a barn to steal wheat. A popular saying in Shropshire is "Cold and chilly like old Bolas." Its origin is referred back to the time the body of Robert Bolas was hanging in chains. At a public-house not far distant from the place one dark night a bet was made that one of the party a.s.sembled dare not proceed alone to the gibbet and ask after the state of Bolas's health. The wager was accepted, and we are told the man undertaking it at once made his way to the spot. Immediately upon this, another of the company, by a short cut, proceeded to the gibbet, and placed himself behind it, and a third, carrying a number of chains, concealed himself in a hedge adjoining the road. Upon arriving at the gibbet, the person undertaking to make the enquiry, screwed up his courage, and timidly said in a low voice, "Well, Bolas, how are you?" Immediately, in a shaky voice, as from a tomb, came the response from the person behind the gibbet, "Cold and chilly, thank you." This unlooked-for reply completely upset the valour of the enquirer, and turning tail he fled for the inn with all possible speed. Upon pa.s.sing the place where the person with the chains was lying, he was followed with a loud rattling and reached his comrades in a most exhausted and frightened condition. Tradition has it that the event terminated in the bold adventurer becoming, and continuing ever afterwards, a lunatic.

When Robert Bolas was awaiting his trial he believed that it would result in an acquittal, and that he would thus be permitted to go home for the corn harvest and get his barley. He was a man of immense strength, and a great source of amus.e.m.e.nt to his fellow prisoners awaiting trial, before whom, although loaded with heavy chains, he would sing and dance with the most perfect ease. It was upon one of these occasions, when he was in a particularly happy and hopeful mood, that he is reported to have made use of the saying, which is known even to the present day, "I would that these troublesome times were over as I want to go home and get my barley."

A curious story is told to the effect that the corpse of Bolas was taken down from the gibbet by some of his companions and thrown into the river Tern, but that it would not sink. Weights were then tied to it, but still it floated upon the top of the water, and subsequently was again placed upon the gibbet. The part of the river into which it was thrown is still called "Bolas's hole."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BREEDS'S GIBBET-IRONS, RYE.]

In the Town Hall, Rye, Suss.e.x, is preserved the ironwork used in 1742 for gibbeting John Breeds, a butcher, who murdered Allen Grebble, the Mayor of Rye. It appears that Breeds had a dispute about some property with Thomas Lamb, and learning that he was about to see a friend off by a ship sailing to France on the night of March 17th planned his murder.

Mr. Lamb, for reasons not stated, changed his mind, and induced his neighbour Mr. Grebble to take his place. On returning home and pa.s.sing the churchyard, Breeds rushed upon him and mortally wounded him with a knife. The unfortunate man was able to walk home, but shortly expired while seated in his chair. His servant was suspected of murdering him, but Breeds's strange conduct soon brought the crime home to him. He was tried, found guilty, and condemned to death, and to be hung in chains.

The gibbet was set up on a marsh situated at the west end of the town, now known as "Gibbet Marsh." Here it stood for many years; but when all the mortal remains had dropped away from the ironwork with the exception of the upper part of the skull, the Corporation took possession of it, and it is now in their custody.

Mr. Lewis Evans, has given, in his article on "Witchcraft in Hertfordshire," an account of the murder of John and Ruth Osborn, suspected of witchcraft. Notice had been given at various market towns in the neighbourhood of Tring that on a certain day the man and his wife would be ducked at Long Marston, in Tring Parish. On the appointed day, April 22nd, 1757, says Mr. Evans, Ruth Osborn, and her husband John, sought sanctuary in the church, but the "bigotted and superst.i.tious rioters," who had a.s.sembled in crowds from the whole district round, not finding their victims, smashed the workhouse windows and half destroyed it, caught its governor, and threatened to burn both him and the town, and searched the whole premises, even to the "salt box," for the reputed witches in vain. However, they were found at last, dragged from the vestry, and their thumbs and toes having been tied together, they were wrapped in sheets, and dragged by ropes through a pond; the woman was tried first, and as she did not sink, Thomas Colley, a chimney sweep, turned her over and over with a stick. John Osborn, the husband, was then tested in the same way, and the trial was made three times on each of them, with such success, that the woman died on the spot, and the man a few days later. When the experiment was over, Colley went round and collected money from the crowd for his trouble in shewing them such sport.

The coroner's verdict, however, declared that the Osborns had been murdered, and Colley was tried at Hertford a.s.sizes, before Sir William Lee, and having been found guilty of murder, was sent back to the scene of the crime under a large escort of one hundred and eight men, seven officers, and two trumpeters, and was hung on August 24th, 1751, at Gubblecote Cross, where his body swung in chains for many years.[10]

A Salford woolcomber named John Grinrod (or Grinret), poisoned his wife and two children in September, 1758, and in the following March was hanged and gibbeted for committing the crime. The gibbet stood on Pendleton Moor. It was a popular belief in the neighbourhood:--

"That the wretch in his chains, each night took the pains, To come down from the gibbet--and walk."

As can be easily surmised, such a story frightened many of the simple country folk. It was told to a traveller staying at an hostelry situated not far distant from where the murderer's remains hung in chains. He laughed to scorn the strange stories which alarmed the countryside, and laid a wager with the publican that he would visit at midnight the gibbet. The traveller said:--

"To the gibbet I'll go, and this I will do, As sure as I stand in my shoes; Some address I'll devise, and if Grinny replies, My wager of course, I shall lose."

We are next told how, in the dark and dismal night, the traveller proceeded without dismay to the gibbet, and stood under it. Says Ainsworth, the Lancashire novelist and poet, from whom we are quoting:--

"Though dark as could be, yet he thought he could see The skeleton hanging on high; The gibbet it creaked; and the rusty chains squeaked; And a screech-owl flew solemnly by.

"The heavy rain pattered, the hollow bones clattered, The traveller's teeth chattered--with cold--not with fright; The wind it blew hastily, piercingly, gustily; Certainly not an agreeable night!

"'Ho! Grindrod, old fellow,' thus loudly did bellow, The traveller mellow--'How are ye, my blade?'-- 'I'm cold and I'm dreary; I'm wet and I'm weary; But soon I'll be near ye!' the skeleton said.

"The grisly bones rattled, and with the chains battled, The gibbet appallingly shook; On the ground something stirr'd, but no more the man heard, To his heels, on the instant, he took.

"Over moorland he dashed, and through quagmire he plashed, His pace never daring to slack; Till the hostel he neared, for greatly he feared Old Grindrod would leap on his back.

"His wager he lost, and a trifle it cost; But that which annoyed him the most, Was to find out too late, that certain as fate The landlord had acted the Ghost."

The tragic story of Eugene Aram has received attention at the hands of the historian, poet, and novelist, and his name is the most notable in the annals of crime in the North of England. In the winter of 1744-5 a shoemaker, named Daniel Clarke, who had recently married, and was possessed of money and other valuables, as it subsequently transpired not obtained in an honourable manner, was suddenly missing, and two of his a.s.sociates, Richard Houseman and Eugene Aram, were suspected of knowing about his disappearance, and even at their hands foul play was suspected, but it could not be brought home to them. Aram left the town, and in various places followed his calling--that of a school teacher.

The mystery of Daniel Clarke remained for some years unsolved, but in 1758 a labourer found at Knaresborough some human bones, and it was suspected that they were Clarke's, and were shown to Houseman, who was supposed to have a knowledge of the missing man, and in an unguarded moment said that they were not those of Clarke. His manner aroused suspicion, and on being pressed he confessed that Clarke was murdered and buried in St. Robert's Cave, and that Aram and himself were responsible for his death. The cave was explored, and the skeleton of the murdered man was found. Aram was arrested at Lynn, where he was an usher in a school, and was esteemed alike by pupils and parents. He stoutly protested his innocence, and undertook his own defence. He read it in court, and it was regarded as a masterpiece of reasoning. It was, however, made clear from the statements of Houseman, who was admitted as king's evidence, that Aram had murdered Clarke for gain when he was in indigent circ.u.mstances. The jury returned a verdict of guilty against Aram, and he was condemned to death, and his body to be afterwards hung in chains.

It appears quite clear from a careful consideration of the case that Aram was guilty of the crime.

He attempted, after his trial, to commit suicide by cutting his arm with a razor in two places, but when discovered, with proper remedies, his failing strength was restored. On the table was found a doc.u.ment giving his reasons for attempting to end his own life. On the morning of his execution he stated that he awoke about three o'clock, and then wrote the following lines:--

"Come, pleasing rest, eternal slumber fall, Seal mine, that once must seal the eyes of all; Calm and composed, my soul her journey takes, No guilt that troubles, and no heart that aches; Adieu! thou sun, all bright like her arise; Adieu! fair friends, and all that's good and wise."

On August 6th, 1759, he was hanged at York, and afterwards his body was conveyed to Knaresborough Forest, where it was gibbeted.

Hornsea people are sometimes called "Hornsea Pennels," after a notorious pirate and smuggler, named Pennel, who murdered his captain and sunk his ship near to the place. He was tried and executed in London for the crimes, and his body, bound round with iron hoops, was sent to Hornsea, in a case marked "gla.s.s." The corpse, in 1770, was hung in chains on the north cliff. Long ago the cliff with its gibbet has been washed away by the sea.

On the night of June 8th, 1773, a man named Corbet, a rat-catcher and chimney-sweep, living at Tring, entered down the chimney the house of Richard Holt, of Bierton, Buckinghamshire, and murdered him in his bed-chamber. For this crime Corbet was hanged and gibbeted in a field not far distant from the house where the murder was committed. The gibbet served as a gallows. A correspondent of the _Bucks Herald_ says in 1795 he visited Bierton Feast, and at that period the gibbet was standing, with the skull of the murderer attached to the irons. Some years later the irons were worn away by the action of the swivel from which they were suspended, fell, and were thrown into the ditch, and lost sight of. Francis Neale, of Aylesbury, blacksmith, made the gibbet, or as he calls it in his account the gib, and his bill included entries as follow:--

s. d.

"July 23, A.D. 1773. To 6lb. Spikes 0 2 3 " " Iron for Gib-post 0 16 4 " " Nails for the Gib 0 4 0 " " 3 hund'd tenter Hooks 0 3 0 " " The Gib 5 0 0"

These figures were copied from the original accounts by the late Robert Gibbs, the painstaking local chronicler of Aylesbury. This is understood to have been the last gibbet erected in Buckinghamshire.[11]