Tyburn: London's Fatal Tree (25 page)

Few executions in the Tower have been more undignified than that of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, who was the last of the Plantagenet family and was seventy-one years of age when she was put to death in 1541. A woman of formidable spirit as well as remarkable fleetness of foot for one of her years, she absolutely refused to lay her head on the executioner’s block and, dodging the guards, was pursued round and round the scaffold by the executioner who hacked pieces off her whenever his axe could make contact. He completed the job in the end, a new type of death by a thousand cuts.

In 1542 Jane, Viscountess Rochford, fell foul of Henry VIII, who believed that she had assisted his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, to carry on various adulterous affairs. Both women were executed within minutes of each other on Tower Green. It is said that Henry had been so incensed when he heard of Catherine’s sexual adventures that his first instinct had been to rush for his sword and execute her there and then. Lady Jane Grey, ‘the Nine Days’ Queen’, was executed at the same spot in 1554. In 1743 three soldiers of the regiment which became the Black Watch were executed on Tower Green having been found guilty of inciting disaffection. As late as the twentieth century, spies were executed within the precincts of the Tower.

Many executions took place publicly on Tower Hill. The victims were usually traitors or the high-born. Possibly the first to die there was Richard Wyche, in 1440. Condemned to death for being a Lollard, that is, a religious zealot of subversive views, he was very popular and became a revered martyr after being burned at the stake. In his memory a cross and small cairn were erected which attracted substantial numbers of pilgrims. Many of them showed their devotion by buying some of his ashes. Interestingly, even after a hectic day selling these ashes to eager pilgrims, there was always a plentiful supply for renewed trading the next day. The glorification of Wyche irked the authorities who had the cross and the cairn removed.

Among those who died at Tower Hill was Sir Thomas More. Not normally known for his levity, he made a jest as he ascended the scaffold in 1535. He is purported to have said, ‘See me safely up, for my coming down I can shift for myself.’ Other notables who died there included the Earl of Strafford in 1641 and Archbishop Laud in 1645. So hated was Strafford that an estimated 100,000 people are said to have watched his execution. Lord Lovat was executed in 1747. His execution was notable because it was the last by beheading in England. Huge crowds gathered to watch and a temporary grandstand collapsed, killing twenty onlookers. This happened before Lovat had ascended the scaffold and he is said to have found the sight highly amusing.

Westminster Old Palace Yard witnessed the death of Guy Fawkes and two other Gunpowder Plot conspirators and later that of Sir Walter Raleigh. Charles I met his end outside the Banqueting Hall in Whitehall on 30 January 1649. Other sites of execution have also been identified but Tyburn is the one above all that remains synonymous in the popular mind with the pageantry in reverse that was public execution in London.

F
rom the very end of the twelfth century until 1783 large numbers of condemned prisoners were dragged or conveyed from Newgate to be put to death at Tyburn. No accurate figure exists for the total number of criminals for whom this was the last journey but estimates put the figure at around 60,000. What would an observer of Tyburn Fair have seen? What ceremonies were enacted? How did the felons comport themselves and how did the crowd react and respond?

An elaborate ritual evolved and was acted out by the authorities before and during the journey to Tyburn. The commonalty responded with rites of its own. By the eighteenth century at least, it had become obvious that those who turned out with such relish to watch the processions to Tyburn, the activities around the scaffold and the death agonies of the felons, had their own individual and collective reasons for being there. These had little to do with any sense that they were being browbeaten by the law and the frightful penalties that it could impose. Much the reverse. Tyburn had become associated with mockery, irreverence and the defiance of authority. The activities there encapsulated rough-and-ready humour, elements of carnival and, on occasion, very public displays of approval or sympathy for the condemned miscreants. For their part, the latter sometimes seem to have relished their brief moment of glory and to have drawn succour from it.

Evidence of the centrality of the spectacle at Tyburn in popular culture is shown by a mass of popular expressions used to refer to the executions carried out there and elsewhere in the London area. A hanging day was a ‘hanging match’, a ‘Paddington Fair’ or Tyburn Fair. To hang was ‘to swing’ or ‘dance the Paddington frisk’. To travel in the cart from Newgate to Tyburn was ‘to go west’. The gallows was the ‘three-legged mare’ or the ‘deadly nevergreen’. There were innumerable euphemisms for death by hanging. These included ‘collared’, ‘frummagemmed’, ‘scragged’, ‘tucked up’ or ‘turned off’. A ‘Tyburn check’ was a rope and a ‘Tyburn tippet’ was a halter. The importance in popular culture of the rites surrounding hanging is confirmed by the extensive use of slang words for it. The ordinary people enjoyed the spectacle and gave it a prominent place in their communal culture; it provided a welcome break from everyday drudgery.

Hanging sessions at Tyburn took place after the eight annual sittings at the Old Bailey. Sometimes there was a postponement so that the felons from two sessions could be dealt with on the same occasion. This provided a more salutary spectacle, or so the authorities believed. It also provided more entertainment for the crowd.

A period of several days – typically at least a week – elapsed between the prisoner being sentenced and the execution itself. During this time rumours, sometimes wildly exaggerated ones, would spread around London about the criminal and the nature of his or her crime. The writers and printers would get to work retelling these crimes and where the reality was not considered lurid enough, they made liberal use of their imaginations to sensationalise the stories and therefore, as they hoped, to sell more copies. Some prisoners who enjoyed the good life and had money to spend, passed their last few days sharing their quarters with friends and relations, abandoning themselves to uproarious feasting, drinking and general junketing. Prisoners who were particular celebrities might entertain members of the public. The latter had bribed the turnkeys well so they could boast to their friends that they had made the acquaintance of the prisoner during his last days. Other condemned felons spent their last few days in belated soul-searching and spiritual introspection, attempting to shrive themselves of their sins and preparing for the awful fate ahead of them.

Newgate had little to offer those who wanted to engage in peaceful meditation during their last days. The place was extraordinarily noisy. Inmates moaned, argued, shouted; some screamed dementedly. Warders bellowed orders, chains and manacles clanked, hinges creaked and great wooden doors clanged shut, the reverberations echoing to and fro down cheerless stone passages. Hucksters bawled their wares; prostitutes plied their trade; prisoners with money called out for more beer; others shouted insults at passers-by and sometimes urinated on them. The stench of Newgate was pestiferous. For some condemned prisoners, the prospect of going out into the fresh air, even if only to ride to Tyburn, must have come as something of a relief.

On the last evening the chaplain would offer the prisoner the final sacrament and at midnight a bell was tolled in the tower of St Sepulchre’s Church, close by Newgate. This part of the ritual was the result of a bequest whereby St Sepulchre’s had been given an annual sum of £50 for the purpose of paying the bellman. The benefactor, whose munificence must have been regarded as something of a mixed blessing by the condemned inmates of Newgate, went by the name of Robert Dow. This practice started in 1604 and involved the handbell being rung loudly within the precincts of the prison itself, accompanied by the following cry:

All you that in the condemned hole do lie,
Prepare you, for tomorrow you shall die;
Watch all and pray; the hour is drawing near,
That you before the Almighty must appear.
Examine well yourselves; in time repent,
That you may not to eternal Flames be sent.
And when St Sepulchre’s Bell in the morning tolls,
The Lord above have mercy on your souls.

As day dawned, the prisoner, most likely quaking with abject terror, possibly suffering from a severe hangover, perhaps prudently already drunk but in a few cases apparently indifferent, would be taken to the Press Room where his irons were struck off. Then he dressed for the occasion. The choice of apparel was the prisoner’s. Some went to their deaths wearing finery specially bought for the occasion, although many chose to don a funerary shroud which symbolised contrition. Some, the more hard-nosed, wore a simple garment such as a cheap nightshirt, seeking to thwart or at least frustrate the hangman, one of whose perks it was to sell the clothing the condemned prisoner had worn on his last public appearance. A cord was then bound round the arms, the elbows being pinned in such a way that the arms and hands had some freedom of movement. Handcuffs were left on those prisoners thought to be particularly slippery. A halter was placed around the neck by an official quaintly known as the ‘Knight of the Halter’. The Under Sheriff would make a ceremonial demand for the condemned prisoner to be given into his custody and, when he was handed over, issued a formal receipt for the body as if it was already dead.

From the seventeenth century, most of the condemned felons rode in a horse-drawn cart to Tyburn while a well-to-do prisoner, if in possession of an extrovert personality, might ride in his own carriage or hire a grand conveyance for the occasion. Where two or more prisoners were to be hanged on the same day, the rich prisoner might graciously offer his fellows a ride in the coach. For many this might be the first time they had ever climbed into such a conveyance – except for the purposes of robbery, perhaps. The cart was sometimes draped in black. The ride to Tyburn provided a spectacle and, to emphasise the supposedly salutary lessons to be drawn from the sight, there was a rule of precedence. When multiple executions took place at Tyburn, the felons who sat in the front seats of the first wagon were those convicted for the most serious crimes. Significantly these were major offences against property and therefore highwaymen and those who had robbed the mail often rode in the front rank. Although the purpose of the authorities was to impress the watching multitude with the punishment meted out for such serious offences, the effect was the very opposite. The treatment accorded by the crowd to those who rode in the front ranks encouraged them to see themselves as popular and glamorous heroes which, in most cases, they were. Far from being shamed by their valedictory public appearance through the streets to Tyburn, it is clear that some felons took considerable succour from their brief time in the limelight. Those who were especially popular with the crowd would be besieged with requests to provide a lock of hair or any other souvenir of the occasion.

Robert Dow’s bequest also allowed for the tolling of the great bell in the tower of St Sepulchre as the procession formed up outside Newgate Prison. The procession always set off with an escort. It was led by the City Marshal and an Under Marshal who commanded a force of constables and soldiers armed with pole weapons, often described as ‘javelins’. Sometimes the procession had literally to force and fight its way through drunken, jeering or hostile crowds. The result might be broken heads and noses streaming blood. On other occasions the crowd might be so incensed by the sight of a prisoner whose crime was considered particularly heinous that they would rush the procession and try to seize him with a view to a lynching. A guard of as many as 200 soldiers might therefore be needed in anticipation of trouble. The hangman would ride in a cart in advance of the main procession because he had various preparatory arrangements to make. The chaplain also rode in one of the carts along with the condemned prisoners. He was there in an often futile attempt to persuade the prisoner to atone for his sins and thereby prepare himself for the afterlife. The Ordinary’s job was understandably greatly sought-after because his purpose was frequently other than purely spiritual. He had probably spent the previous weeks gathering material for the broadsheet he wrote purporting to contain the last confession of the condemned prisoner. These sometimes appeared on the streets several days before the execution! In the case of notorious prisoners, they sold extremely well and brought the Ordinary a very handsome profit.

From the official point of view, the presence of the Ordinary was not just symbolic. It indicated the involvement of the Church in the punishment of sin and recognised that although the prisoner’s physical life was about to be terminated, his soul could still be saved even at this late hour. Prisoners with influence could have a priest of their own choice with them on their last journey. The coffin allocated to each prisoner was carefully placed in the cart in which he was to make his last journey. On occasions, family and friends of the condemned felons also rode in the procession but this usually only occurred where the prisoner had influence.

All along the route, large numbers would turn out eating, drinking and making merry as well as shouting, jostling for a good view, quarrelling and sometimes fighting among themselves. Hawkers would be out in large numbers along the way and at Tyburn, selling everything from pies, baked potatoes and sweetmeats to the broadsheets containing the supposed valedictory confessions of the condemned prisoner or prisoners. There was also a trade in human flesh because prostitutes would be touting their wares among the carefree revellers. Pickpockets and cutpurses were everywhere, pickings being rich in the densely packed crowds. Youthful pickpockets were known as ‘Tyburn blossoms’.

The mood of the gathering partly depended on the nature of the crimes which the condemned prisoners had committed, as did the number of spectators who were attracted. All, however, hoped for good entertainment. A prisoner considered a hero would bask in the adulation and good wishes of the crowds, admired perhaps because he had done those things which they themselves were afraid to do. However, a felon whose crimes aroused the crowd’s ire might be assailed by a rain of stones, rotting fruit and vegetables and excrement. So the people stood and watched, most at street level, others on rooftops or poking their heads out of upstairs windows and they cheered or jeered as they considered appropriate.