Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 02.pdf/510

 Remarkable Resuscitations after Execution. remained on the gibbet (if the records of the time are to be trusted) no less than three days; and yet she survived to receive par don from Henry III. In 13 13 Matthew of Enderby was hanged for some crime of which he had been convicted; he was cut down, and revived just before the body was about to be interred. In 1363 Walter Wynkeburn was hanged at Leicester; when cut down, he was carried in a cart to the cem etery of the Holy Sepulchre in that city; he gradually regained sensibility while the cart was rumbling along, and escaped with life. Similar cases occurred in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The seventeenth cen tury was exceptionally full of such cases. Dr. Plot mentions the strange lot of a Swiss, on the authority of Dr. Obadiah Walker, master of University College : this man is said to have been hanged no less than thir teen times without losing his life; his wind pipe having been converted by disease into a substance almost as hard as bone. No case has, perhaps, been more discussed or written about than that of Anne Green. This poor girl was executed at Oxford in 1650. After hanging for half an hour she was cut down, actually trampled upon while prostrate, and her body then consigned to the doctors for dissection. To the surprise of all, as they were about to commence the work of dissection, a slight rattling in the throat was perceived, and upon means being used for her recovery, she speedily returned to consciousness, and the next day talked and prayed very heartily. During the time of this her recovering, the officers concerned in her execution would needs have had her away again to have it completed on her; but by the mediation of the worthy doctors and some other friends, there was a guard put upon her to hinder all further disturbance until they had sued out her pardon from the government. Much doubt indeed arose as to her actual guilt. Crowds of people in the mean time came to see her, and many as serted that it must be the providence of God, who would thus assert her innocence.

465

A similar case occurred in France in 1625. A young girl, Helen Gillet, was tried on the charge of infanticide; and although the evi dence was very vague and unsatisfactory, she was condemned to death by the parlia ment of Dijon. The execution was to take place on May 13th. We are told that on the appointed morning the executioner confessed himself and received the sacra ment, and that when he arrived at the scaf fold he exhibited the most lively signs of mental anguish. He wrung his hands and raised them to heaven, and falling on his knees, prayed for pardon from the culprit, and begged the blessings of the assistant priests. He cried out that he wished he were in the place of her who was about to receive from him the mortal stroke. At last, when the head of the miserable girl was laid upon the block, he raised the axe, but missing his blow, only wounded her left shoulder. The headsman, horror-stricken, called aloud to the populace to kill him, and stones were thrown at him from all sides. His wife, however, who was by his side, darted forward, and seizing Helen, placed her head once more upon the block, and the executioner struck again, but again missed his blow. The rage of the multitude now knew no bounds, and the executioner fled for safety to a small chapel which stood near by. His wife then seized a cord, and twist ing it round the neck of the prisoner tried to strangle her, but a volley of stones flew from the crowd, and the female fiend drew out a pair of long sharp scissors with which she stabbed her victim in the face and neck and different parts of the body. The popu lace, in a transport of rage, killed both her and her husband on the spot. The lifeless, as it was supposed, body of Helen Gillet was taken charge of by a surgeon; and signs of life having been discovered by him, the application of prompt remedies restored her to consciousness. The inhabitants of Dijon then presented a petition to the king, and prayed him to grant her his royal pardon. The prayer was successful.