Tyburn Tree. Alfred Marks
ADDENDA.
Pages 62–65, and illustration.
Norden’s map of 1607 gives the first indication of the site of the triangular gallows, but, in writing of the map as giving the earliest known representation of the gallows, I had forgotten Richard Verstegen’s “Theatrum Crudelitatum Haereticorum nostri temporis,” Antwerp, 1587. The Triple Tree is shown quite correctly as to form, without indication of site, on p. 83.
Page 170, “put them to the manacles.”
This instrument of torture is shown in the above-mentioned book, in an engraving on page 75, the description, here translated, being: “An instrument of iron which presses and doubles up a man into a globe-shape. In this they put Catholics, and keep them in it for some hours.”
TYBURN TREE
Its History and Annals
HISTORY
INTRODUCTION
Looking back down the long vista of six hundred years, we see an innumerable crowd faring to their death from the Tower of London or from the prison of Newgate to the chief of English Aceldamas, the field of blood known as Tyburn. Of this crowd there exists no census, we can but make a rough estimate of the number of those who suffered a violent death at Tyburn: a moderate computation would place the number at fifty thousand. It is composed of all sorts and conditions of men, of peers and populace, of priests and coiners, of murderers and of boys who have stolen a few pence, of clergymen and forgers—sometimes of men who in their person unite the two characters—of men versed in the literature of Greece and Rome, of men knowing no language but the jargon of thieves. Cheek by jowl are men convicted of the most hideous crimes—men whose only offence it is that they have refused to renounce their most cherished beliefs at the bidding of tyrant king or tyrant mob. As a final touch of grim humour the ex-hangman sometimes figures in the procession, on the way to be hanged by his successor.
They fare along their Via Dolorosa in many ways. Some bound and laid on their back are dragged by horses over the rough and miry way, three miles long; a few are on horseback; some walk between guards; the most are borne in carts which carry also due provision of coffins presently to receive their bodies. All make a halt at the Hospital of Saint Giles-in-the-Fields, where they are “presented with a great bowl of ale, thereof to drink at their pleasure, as to be their last refreshment in this life.”
It is for the most part a nameless, unrecorded crowd. For hundreds of years only a single figure emerges here and there from the throng. During a few decades only of the history of Tyburn do we see clearly and in detail the figures in these dismal processions. They go, in batches of ten, fifteen, twenty, laughing boys, women with children at the breast, highwaymen decked out in gay clothes for this last scene of glory; men and women drunk, cursing, praying. Some of the women are to be burnt alive; of the men, some are to be simply hanged; others, first half-hanged, are to have their bowels torn out and burnt before their eyes; some are to be swung aloft till famine cling them. The long road is thronged with spectators flocking in answer to the invitation of the State to attend these spectacles, designed to cleanse the heart by means of pity and terror. To-day Tyburn—what Tyburn means—is, in spite of the jurists, at its last gasp. After a struggle of a hundred years hanging is all but abolished. The State has renounced its attempt to improve our morals by the public spectacle of violent deaths. The knell of capital punishment was rung when Charles Dickens compelled the State to do its hanging in holes and corners.
The “Histories of England” do not tell us much about Tyburn. “The far greater part of those books which are called ‘Histories of England,’ ” writes Cobbett, “are little better than romances. They treat of battles, negotiations, intrigues of courts, amours of kings,