Tyburn

“ Possibly the added information that the crowd stole “the gibbet” is a misconception by the chronicler to whom the tradition is handed down. The passage is not without difficulty. So early in our history “Tyburn” meant merely the Ty-bourne, or brook, where it flowed from Hampstead towards the Thames, not necessarily the common place of execution which afterwards took to itself the distinctive name of Tyburn. What the “Elms” represented has never, so far as can be gathered, been satisfactorily cleared up. ”

“ During the last hundred years of the existence of Tyburn, political executions become more and more rare; the interest of Tyburn becomes more and more a social interest. The salient feature of this period is furnished by the exploits of highwaymen: it might almost be called the era of the knights of the road. Apart from this, the striking feature of the later history of Tyburn, say from the accession of William III., is the constantly increasing ferocity of the laws. ”

“ I have ventured to allot to Tyburn [60] an execution which took place in London in 1177, nineteen years before the execution of William Longbeard. There is evidence of the existence of a gallows at Tyburn at an uncertain date, but going in probability still further back. In 1220 the king, Henry III., ordered the immediate erection of two good gibbets of the best and strongest material, for hanging thieves and other malefactors, in the place where gallows were formerly erected, namely, at “The Elms” (ad Ulmellos) . ”

“ His walks in term times are up Fleet Street, at the end of the term up Holborn, and so to Tyburn; the gallows are his purlieus, in which the hangman and he are quarter rangers--the one turns off, and the other cuts down. All the vacation he lies imbogued behind the lattice of some blind drunken, bawdy ale-house, and if he spy his prey, out he leaps like a freebooter, and rifles, or like a ban-dog worries. No officer to the city keeps his oath so uprightly; he never is forsworn, for he swears to be true varlet to the city, and he continues so to his dying day. ”

“ A stream somewhat similar in course was the Tyburn, which also rose at Hampstead, but flowed through the parish of Marylebone, the ancient Tyburnia. This was considerably to the east of Paddington, and has been treated in the Marylebone section. Oxford Street was the ancient Tyburn Road, and the gallows stood opposite the Marble Arch. [Pg 89]
In Rocque's map (1748) only the Westbourne is marked, but we see Tyburn Turnpike at the junction of the Edgware Road, and near by "the stone where soldiers are shot." ”

“ Those who make these statements are probably misled by knowledge of the fact that in our times a gallows is brought out for the purpose of a rare execution, and then laid up against the time when it will be again required. But of old the gallows—of Tyburn, at least—was in constant requisition, and, till a date which is well known, was a permanent structure—permanent, that is, having regard to its material. The gallows of Tyburn was permanent, subject to renewal from time to time, till the year 1759, when, as will be shown, the permanent gallows gave place to a movable gallows. ”

“ Continuing westward, the most important stream was Tyburn (q.v.) , which rose at Hampstead, and joined the Thames through branches on either side of Thorney Island, on which grew up the great ecclesiastical foundation of St Peter, Westminster, better known as Westminster Abbey. There is no modern survival of the name of Tyburn, which finds, indeed, its chief historical interest as attaching to the famous place of execution which lay near the modern Marble Arch. The residential district in this vicinity was known at a later date as Tyburnia. ”

“ It ran by Lower Brook Street, which owes its name to it, as does also Hay (Aye) hill—Lansdowne Gardens, Half Moon Street, crossed Piccadilly, where it was spanned by a bridge, and thence into the Green Park, where it formed a pond. Running past Buckingham Palace, it divided and formed Thorney Island—or Westminster—one outfall turning the Abbey Mill.
Tyburn has been a place of execution for centuries, the earliest I can find being in “Roger de Wendover,” who mentions that, A.D. 1196, William Fitz-osbert, or Longbeard, was drawn through the City of London, by horses, to the gallows at Tyburn. ”

“ With so much growing timber about, it would have been useless expense and labour to bring carpenters to construct a gallows, and to people of the thirteenth century a quite unnecessary refinement. “The Elms” near Tyburn was the scene of many executions after that of Longbeard. If, in fact, the hanging-place at “the Elms” was on trees growing beside the bourne, then, owing to its course, the execution-ground must have been some few hundred yards farther eastward than the Tyburn of later days. ”

“ It is in no degree probable that the site of a fixed gallows in frequent and continuous use should be changed without some good reason.
The first information of the site of the gallows other than the vague indication “Tyburn” is found in one of the old chronicles, which tells that, in 1330, Mortimer was executed at “The Elms, about a league outside the city.” [92] The distance thus vaguely stated would apply about equally to any one of the conjectured sites from Marylebone Lane to the head of the Serpentine, at which writers have severally placed the gallows. ”

“ They have not the value, as material for investigating the social condition of the time, of the more formal charges contained in the Placita de Quo Waranto. Thus we find, in the Rotuli Hundredorum, that the abbat of Westminster was presented by the jurors of three several wards of the City of London as having gallows at Tyburn: in other cases gallows are mentioned as erected by the abbat in Middlesex, two places only being specified. But when we come to the Placita de Quo Waranto, we find that the abbat had gallows in fifteen places in Middlesex in addition to one in the ville of Westminster. ”

“ The 27. of January, Humfrey Arundell esquire, Thomas Holmes, Winslowe and Bery Captaines of the rebels in Deuonshire, were hanged and quartered at Tyborne (Stow, p. 603) .
1550. The 10. of February one Bel a Suffolke man, was hanged and quartered at Tyborne, for moouing a new rebellion in Suffolke & Essex (Stow, p. 604) .
In Machyn’s Diary 1550 to 1563 (Camden Society, 1848) , we get almost for the first time particulars of the rank and file of the victims of Tyburn. ”

“ The name seems to have been carried to Tyburn when hangings were transferred there, and for a time the two execution-grounds flourished simultaneously.
Longbeard was the first of a line of romantic impostors who attracted admirers by hundreds, and ended their days under the gallows. He represented to Richard I. that the wealthy citizens of London were oppressing the poor; he preached to the masses, proclaiming that he was their saviour, and that to him they must look for deliverance. ”

“ Upon Friday you shall be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn by the hands of the common hangman.
“But Mr. Oates, we cannot but remember there were several particular times you swore false about, and therefore, as annual commemorations, that it may be known, to all people as long as you live, we have taken special care of you for an annual punishment.
“Upon the 24th of April, every year, as long as you [166] live, you are to stand upon the pillory, and in the pillory at Tyburn, just opposite to the gallows, for the space of an hour, between the hours of ten and twelve. ”

“ But this page in the early history of Tyburn is almost a blank. The subjects on which it is most difficult to find information are precisely those of occurrence so common that it has not entered the head of contemporaries to notice them. That gibbets, as distinct from gallows, did exist in early times, there is no doubt; their use continued down to the eighteenth century or later. The old writers do not clearly distinguish between gibbet and gallows, but there is a passage in which Matthew Paris certainly means to speak of a gibbet. ”

“ Seller’s map of Middlesex shows the gallows, its form not recognisable, near the angle formed by the junction of the roads.
1697. Defoe, in his Essay upon Projects, refers to Watling Street: “The same High Way or Street called Watling Street ... went on West to that spot where Tyburn now stands, and there turn’d North-West ... to St. Alban’s.” [108]
1712. Beginning with this date the accounts published by Lorrain, the Ordinary of Newgate, of the behaviour of condemned criminals, show the prison of Newgate at the [68] top, on one side, and on the other the gallows of Tyburn. ”

“ August 24. Thomas Hackshot, and Nicholas Tichburne, laymen, rescued a priest, Thomas Tichburne, from the custody of a constable. The two were arrested, condemned and executed at Tyburn (Challoner’s Memoirs, pt. i., p. 206) .
1602. The xviii. of Aprill Peter Bullocke, stationer, and one named Ducket, for printing of Bookes offensiue were Hanged at Tyborne (Stow, p. 803) .
This is a very bald account of an interesting case. James Duckett was a convert from Protestantism. As an apprentice he more than once got into trouble for his opinions ”

“ Jean Marteilhe saw, hanging on a gibbet in 1713, the body of Captain Smith, hanged at Execution Dock in 1708. [97]
Thus there must have been an accumulation of bodies swinging from the gibbets of Tyburn and poisoning the air. The French have always been more lavish in public monuments than we. The great gibbet of Montfaucon in the outskirts of Paris was a solid stone structure, with provision for hanging thereon—if we may trust the pictures given of it—at least sixty bodies; it is said that the bodies not unfrequently numbered from sixty to eighty. ”

“ Lord Sandwich gave to the world a thing and its name. He was an inveterate gambler, and, in order that he might continue this diversion uninterruptedly, he caused to be served to him thin slices of meat placed between bread. Hence the “sandwich,” known to all civilised men.
1779. August 25. Four malefactors were carried to Tyburn for execution, and had been tied up for near twenty minutes when a report was spread that a reprieve [266] was come to Newgate for one of them. They were all untied and left in the cart while one of the sheriffs went to Lord Weymouth to learn the truth. ”

“ John, Tyburn, that had stood from time immemorial beside the banks of the Tye Bourne, between the Oxford Street end of what are now Marylebone Lane and Stratford Place, was situated [Pg 160] in a very lonely, yet exposed situation, on the great road from the City of London to the west. The village centred about where High Street, Marylebone, is now to be found, and the church and the village pound stood apart. So often was this original place of worship broken into and desecrated by thieves and vagabonds that it became at last necessary to remove it altogether. ”

“ When I descended a little to earth--a step which was hastened by a flash of recollection that showed me Ferguson's niece waiting at Clerkenwell Gate, a little figure, forlorn and desolate, yet with eyes of wrath and a face puckered with determination--when I came I say a little to myself and to think of Hogsden Gardens, and remembered that it lay on the farther side of town by Bunhill Fields, I was already at Tyburn turning ”

“ But some time afterwards an apothecary’s boy, who had been got out of the way, and was now at Flushing, began to talk of what he knew; inquiry was made, and in the end the criminals were put upon their trial. On October 23, 1615, Richard Weston, the under-keeper of the Tower, was hanged at Tyburn. He was followed by Mrs. Turner, hanged on November 9th, at the same place; on the 20th Sir Gervase Elwes, the lieutenant of the Tower, was executed on Tower Hill, and on December 9th, James Franklin, the physician, was executed at St. Thomas a Waterings. ”

“ On this field, as on others, the victories of civilisation have been won by the individual in conflict with the community.
I desire to thank Mr. C. W. Moule, the Librarian of Corpus Christi College, and the College authorities, for permission, most courteously granted, to reproduce the drawing by Matthew Paris showing Sir William de Marisco being drawn to the gallows.
I am indebted to Mr. Herbert Sieveking for permission to reproduce, from a photograph taken for him, the print from the Gardner Collection showing an execution at Tyburn. ”

“ The procession from Newgate to Tyburn used to pass along Broad Street, and halt at the great gate of the hospital, in order that the condemned man might take his last draught of ale on earth. ”

“ Mrs. Turner, the poisoner, Felton, the assassin of the duke of Buckingham, Jack Sheppard, Jonathan Wild, Lord Ferrers, who murdered his steward, Dr. Dodd and Mother Brownrigg, “all died in their shoes” on the Tyburn tree.
Since laws were made for every degree,
To curb vice in others as well as in me [Macheath] ,
I wonder we ha’nt better company
’Neath Tyburn tree.
Gay, The Beggar’s Opera (1727) . 165Tycho, a vassal of the bishop of Treves, in the reign of Kaiser Henry IV. He promised to avenge his lord and master, who had been plundered by Count Adalbert, a leader of bandits. ”

“ The Pope advised Richard to remove Hubert from the office of justiciar, and not to employ churchmen in secular offices. Hubert resisted for a while, but in the end accepted his dismissal.
Stow, in his “Survey” (ed. Thomas, p. 96) , says that Longbeard was hanged at “the Elms in Smithfield,” but there is no authority for this.
The evidence that “The Elms” of Tyburn was the place of execution is full: “Ad furcas prope Tyburnam,” Chronicle of Ralph de Diceto, ed. Stubbs, ii. 143; “ad furcas prope Tiburcinam,” Roger of Wendover, ed. Coxe, iii. 95, ed. Hewlett, i. 244 ”

“ That yere were meny men a pechyd of treson, bothe of the cytte and of othyr townys. Of the cytte Thomas Coke, knyght and aldyrman, and John Plummer, knyght and aldyrman, but the kyng gave hem bothe pardon. And a man of the Lorde Wenlockys, John Haukyns was hys name, was hangyd at Tyburne and be heddyd for treson. ”