Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/292

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [0* s. VIL APRIL is, 1901.

although there is certainly a dividing wall along the eastern edge of Drury Lane*, the parish of St. Giles in 1586 stretched over the whole area then apparently known as St. Giles's Field or Fields ; while the eastern part, "outside the bar of the Old Temple of London," was evidently sometimes called, as by Stow, Lincoln's Inn Fields. But these names do not appear on the map of Ralph Aggas.

Thus it appears to me that the open fields of St. Giles's witnessed the executions of 1414-18 and 1586, and, correcting my admission (ante, p. 121) of the general belief that "the new gallows" for Sir John Old- castle were erected near the Hospital of St. Giles, I think, after closer examination, that it is more probable the place (in con- formity with the sentence of death) was nearer to the old house of the Templars by the north end of Chancery Lane. Nor do I find that any executions took place in St. Giles's Fields except on the two occasions when the spot was specially selected for the punishment of conspiracies alleged to have been there devised.

I think that Tyburn succeeded Smithfield, because prior to the transposal, which Stow assigns to 1418, we have the case in 1388 of the execution of Tresilian and others at Tyburn. English history, however, affords very little evidence on the point, as in general it notices only the execution of nobles or notable people ; that of common felons is disregarded. Stow tells us of course omitting his source of information that in the cruel reign of Henry VIII. 72,000 criminals were executed throughout Eng- land ; we wish that he had named the general place of the London gallows. At Tyburn the following hangings are recorded by Hall and Holinshed :

In 1534 Elizabeth Barton, the deluded and perhaps deluding " Holy Maid of Kent," together with Richard Master, parson of Aldington, and Edward Barking, a monk, her chief instructors, and five others. In 1535 three Carthusian priors refusing to accept the king's supremacy. In 1536 Lord Thomas FitzGerald arid his five uncles, Irish rebels. In 1537 those implicated in the insurrection, called " The Pilgrimage of Grace," against the suppression of the reli-

fious houses, among whom are named Sir ohn Bulmer, Sir Thomas Percy, Sir Francis Bigod, and eight others. In 1538 Edmund Coningsby and Edward Clifford, for counter- feiting the king's signet. In 1539 two serving-men of Sir Adrian Fortescue, who the same day was beheaded at the Tower.

In 1540 the Prior of Doncaster and six others, not accepting the king's supremacy. In 1541 Lord Dacres, for killing a forester when unlawfully hunting deer. Also in 1541 Culpepper and Derham, involved in the sad affair of Queen Katharine Howard. All these were hung at Tyburn, and of course a host of common criminals. Of the latter we have but one source of information, at least only one known to me, viz., the diary of Henry Machyn, citizen and raerchant- taylor of London. As a funeral furnisher, he is chiefly observant of such pageantry, but also he seems diligently to have recorded the executions of the thirteen years over which his diary extends 1550-63. We wish it were not thus limited, for its value is considerable. The period does not touch the reign of Henry VIII., or probably the number would have been greater ; and as it is we can hardly think the record complete, for 141, the number of Tyburn executions I have picked out, is not great for thirteen years. The crime is not always stated, and only two of the executed are distinctly noted as murderers ; seven are coiners, one had counterfeited the Queen's signet, three were conspirators, four robbers on Hounslow Heath, and the remainder generally thieves and cutpurses. There are executions of felons also at St. Thomas a Watering, a recognized place for the gallows on the Old Kent Road, a mile and a half from London Bridge ; of robbers at sea by low- water mark at Wapping; and special executions at Hyde Park Corner and Charing Cross. And during Mary's reign there is the burning of heretics at Smithfield and Stratford-at-Bow.

We have now arrived at a time when it is quite clear that the common place of execu- tion was Tyburn, where we have seen that even as early as 1196 the gallows had been raised, and where, indeed, in 1330 the gibbet on which Mortimer was hung was termed by the chroniclers " communis furca latronum." But again we cannot escape the question what or where was Tyburn 1 Was it originally by the burn, or always at the old cross-roads now marked by the Marble Arch ? a lonely, desolate place even when mapped by Rocque in 1746, nothing seen but the gallows at the cross, "Tiburn House "(the grand stand for viewing the death scene), a lesser construc- tion for the same purpose, four trees (probably the associated elms), and within the park wall the place " where soldiers are shot."

It is my hope that what I have written (at too great length, I fear) may elicit some facts, or at least conjectures, tending towards the solution of the question. The find of