The Chronicles of Crime. Camden Pelham
Some time after conviction, a smith went to the prison to take measure of them for chains, in which they were to be hung, pursuant to an order from the secretary of state’s office; but they for some time resisted him in this duty.
On the morning of execution (the 13th December, 1713), they were carried from Newgate to Clerkenwell Green, and there hanged on a gallows; after which, their bodies were put in a cart, drawn by four horses, decorated with plumes of black feathers, and hung in chains.
WILLIAM JOHNSON AND JANE HOUSDEN.
EXECUTED FOR THE MURDER OF SPURLING, A TURNKEY IN THE OLD BAILEY.
IT is not a little remarkable that two instances should have occurred within so short a space of time as nine months, in which the officers of the Crown should have fallen victims to the exertions which they were compelled to make in the discharge of their duties. The male prisoner in this case, William Johnson, was a native of Northamptonshire, where he served his time to a butcher, and, removing to London, he opened a shop in Newport Market; but business not succeeding to his expectation, he pursued a variety of speculations, until at length he sailed to Gibraltar, where he was appointed a mate to one of the surgeons of the garrison. Having saved some money at this place, he came back to his native country, where he soon spent it, and then had recourse to the highway for a supply. Being apprehended in consequence of one of his robberies, he was convicted, but received a pardon. Previously to this he had been acquainted with Jane Housden, his fellow in crime, who had been tried and convicted of coining, but had obtained a pardon; but who, in September, 1714, was again in custody for a similar offence. On the day that she was to be tried, and just as she was brought down to the bar of the Old Bailey, Johnson called to see her; but Mr. Spurling, the head turnkey, telling him that he could not speak to her till her trial was ended, he instantly drew a pistol, and shot Spurling dead on the spot, in the presence of the court and all the persons attending to hear the trials, Mrs. Housden at the same time encouraging him in the perpetration of this singular murder. The event had no sooner happened, than the judges, thinking it unnecessary to proceed on the trial of the woman for coining, ordered both the parties to be tried for the murder; and there being many witnesses to the deed, they were convicted, and received sentence of death. From this time to that of their execution, which took place September 19th 1714, and even at the place of their death, they behaved as if they were wholly insensible of the enormity of the crime which they had committed; and notwithstanding the publicity of their offence, they had the confidence to deny it to the last moment of their lives: nor did they show any signs of compunction for their former sins. After hanging the usual time, Johnson was hung in chains near Holloway, between Islington and Highgate.
THE EARL OF DERWENTWATER, LORD KENMURE, THE EARL OF WINTON, AND OTHERS,
EXECUTED FOR TREASON.
THE circumstances attending the crime of these individuals, intimately connected as they were with the history of the Royal Family of England, must be too well known to require them to be minutely repeated. On the accession of George the First to the throne of Great Britain, the question of the right of succession of King James the Third, as he was termed, which had long been secretly agitated, began to be referred to more openly; and his friends, finding themselves in considerable force in Scotland, sent an invitation to him in France, where he had taken refuge, to join them, for the purpose of making a demonstration, and of endeavouring to assume by force, that which was denied him as of right. The noblemen, whose names appear at the head of this article, were not the least active in their endeavours to support the title of the Pretender, by enlisting men under his standard; and their proceedings, although conducted with all secrecy, were soon made known to the government. The necessary steps were immediately taken for quelling the anticipated rebellion; and many persons were apprehended on suspicion of secretly aiding the rebels, and were committed to gaol.
Meanwhile the Earl of Mar, the chief supporter of the Pretender, was in open rebellion at the head of an army of 3000 men, which was rapidly increasing, marching from town to town in Scotland, proclaiming the Pretender as King of England and Scotland, by the title of James III. An attempt was made by stratagem to surprise the castle of Edinburgh; and with this object, some of the king’s soldiers were base enough to receive a bribe to admit those of the Earl of Mar, who were, by means of ladders of rope, to scale the walls, and surprise the guard; but the Lord Justice Clerk, having some suspicion of the treachery, seized the guilty, and many of them were executed.
The rebels were greatly chagrined at this failure of their attempt; and the French king, Louis XIV., from whom they hoped for assistance, dying about this time, the leaders became disheartened, and contemplated the abandonment of their project, until their king could appear in person among them.
They were aided, however, by the discontent which showed itself in another quarter. In Northumberland the spirit of rebellion was fermented by Thomas Forster, then one of the members of parliament for that county; who, being joined by several noblemen and gentlemen, attempted to seize the large and commercial town of Newcastle, but was driven back by the friends of the government. Forster now set up the standard of the Pretender, and proclaimed him the lawful king of Great Britain and Scotland, wherever he went; and, eventually joining the Scotch rebels, he marched with them to Preston, in Lancashire. They were there attacked by Generals Carpenter and Wills, who succeeded in routing them, and in making 1500 persons prisoners; amongst whom were the Earl of Derwentwater and Lord Widrington, English peers; and the Earls of Nithisdale, Winton, and Carnwarth, Viscount Kenmore, and Lord Nairn, Scotch peers.
These noblemen, with about three hundred more rebels, were conveyed to London; while the remainder, taken at the battle of Preston, were sent to Liverpool, and its adjacent towns. At Highgate, the party intended for trial in London was met by a strong detachment of foot-guards, who tied them back to back, and placed two on each horse; and in this ignominious manner were they held up to the derision of the populace, the lords being conveyed to the Tower, and the others to Newgate and other prisons.
The Earl of Mar, on the day of the battle, attempted to cross the Forth, but was prevented by a squadron of the British fleet, which had anchored off Edinburgh; and Sir John Mackenzie, on the part of the Pretender, having fortified the town of Inverness, Lord Lovat, (at this time an adherent of the reigning monarch, but subsequently a friend to the cause of the Stuarts, for aiding whose rebellion in 1745 he was beheaded,) armed his tenants, and drove him from his fortifications. The Pretender subsequently managed to elude the vigilance of the British ships appointed to prevent his landing, and crossing the Channel in a small French vessel, disembarked in Scotland, with only six followers; but having obtained the assistance of a few half-armed Highlanders, on the 9th of January 1716, he made a public entry into the palace of Scone, the ancient place of coronation for the Scottish kings. He there assumed the functions of a king, and so much of the powers of royalty as he was able to secure, and issued a proclamation for his coronation. The Duke of Argyle, at this time with his army in winter quarters at Stirling, however, determined to attack the rebel forces, and advancing upon them, they fled at his approach. The Pretender having been encouraged to rebel by France, was in anticipation of receiving succour at the hands of the French king, and in the hope of some aid reaching him, he proceeded to Dundee, and thence to Montrose, where, soon rendered hopeless by receiving no news of the approach of the foreigners, he dismissed his adherents. The king’s troops pursued and put several to death; but the Pretender, accompanied by the Earl of Mar, and some of the leaders of the rebellion, had the good fortune to get on board a ship lying before Montrose; and, in a dark night, put to sea, escaped the English fleet, and landed in France.
The unfortunate noblemen who had been secured were, meanwhile, committed to the custody of the keeper of the Tower; and the House of Commons unanimously agreed to impeach them, and expel Forster from his seat as one of their members; while the courts of common law proceeded with the trials of those of less note. The articles of impeachment being sent by the Commons, the Lords