Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/205

 9*s.xi.MAEOH7,i903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

197

Chronicles of Crime,' one author repeating the error of the other. As a fact Ryland's execution was the last but three of these judicial tragedies enacted on that fatal site.

Ryland suffered with five other convict! condemned for ordinary felonies of a com paratively minor character highway robbery rape, burglary, &c. on Friday, 29 August 1783. The sad scene was repeated on Monday the 22nd of the following month, when six more convicts were hanged there. The next month, October, saw ten men die on the fata tree, the " three-legged mare " of vulgar slang the ^ date being Tuesday the 28th ; and once again, on Friday, 7 November following, the scene had its ghastly drama enacted, anc for the last time. On this occasion the olc " three-legged mare " was not trotted out; the convict, a solitary victim, was suspended from across beam stretched from side to side of the southern end of the Edgware Road. His name was John Austin, and his crime was "robbery with violence." He had assaultec and cruelly treated a mere lad in the fields at Bethnal Green, and robbed him of the paltry sum of three-halfpence ! I have told all this before with more detail in the columns oi 4 N. & Q.,' but have not now the means of supplying the reference. GNOMON

Temple.

In my former reply I said that I believed the execution of Ryland the engraver was the last that took place at Tyburn. I find that this is a mistake, although the statement is made in 'Old and New London,' v. 196. The last criminal who was executed at Tyburn was John Austin, who suffered the last penalty of the law on 7 November, 1783, more than two months after Ryland suffered. The first execution before Newgate took place on 9 December following. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

ARMS OF MARRIED WOMEN (9 th S ix 28 113 195; x. 194, 256, 290, 473; xi. 114).-- - MR! UDAL suggests that an armigerous woman who marries a non-armigerous man may still display her own arms. But how? Her husband has no shield, so where are the wife's arms to go ? She cannot bear them apart, on a man's shield, because she is not a man she cannot use a lozenge, because she is' neither maid nor widow. Of course, if the non - armigerous husband dies, and the armigerous lady marries an armigerous male, then her arms can be impaled with her second husband's, or put in pretence, if she has no brothers.

Not long ago a friend of mine consulted me as regards a friend of his, a married woman, who wanted an armorial book-plate

of her own, apart from her husband's. This seems to me. as I told him, impossible. No married woman can bear her arms apart from her husband's shield, whether impaled or in pretence. The only (apparent) excep- tion is when a peeress in her own right marries a commoner, and her shield, with coronet and supporters, is placed side by side with his. But even then her arms, ensigned with the coronet of her rank, are also placed in pretence on the husband's coat.

The armigerous woman marrying the non- armigerous man does not forfeit her arms. They are there, ready for use when they can be used. As long as her husband is non- armigerous they cannot be used cannot be in evidence. If the husband becomes armigerous, or she marries an armigerous man, then the impediment is removed.

GEORGE ANGUS.

St. Andrews, N.B.

The question raised by MR. UDAL at the last reference is very interesting. For my part, I incline to the opinion that an armigerous lady who is married to a non- armigerous man can bear no arms during that coverture. While she was a spinster she bore her father's coat on a lozenge. If her husband predeceases her, she will, I take it, resume those armorial bearings (with a black background 1 ?). If she espouses in second nuptials a man of coat-armour, she will bear her paternal arms impaled with his. But during the first marriage how is she to bear arms 1 She cannot bear her father's on a lozenge, because that would imply spinster- hood, or (as I have doubtfully taken for granted above) widowhood. She cannot bear her paternal coat on a shield, because the shield appertains to the baron, not to the femme. It seems to me her power to use armorial bearings is suspended. After all, the woman's right to such insignia is purely dependent on either her father or her hus- 3and. It is, so to say, honorary or com- jlimentary, for a woman cannot fight in
 * rusades or joust in a tournament.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS. Town Hall, Cardiff.

MR. UDAL asks a question concerning married women and the right to impale arms, jn my 'Shakespeare's Family,' p. 23, I pub- ished a note concerning this, which I found n the State Papers at the Record Office 'Dom. Ser. St. Pap. Eliz.,' xxvi. 31, 1561) :

" At a Chapitre holden by the Office of Arms at

he Embroyderers Hall in London Anno 4 Reginse

lizabethje it was agreed that no inhiritrix, eyther

mayde, wife, or widdow, should bear or cause to be