Hanging in Chains

PIRATE’S CHAINS.
(From the Thames.)

Hanging in Chains

BY
ALBERT HARTSHORNE, F.S.A.

“No, no; let them hang, and their names rot, and their
crimes live for ever against them” (Mercy to Greatheart:
The Pilgrim’s Progress, Chapter iv.).

New York
THE CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY
104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE

MDCCCXCIII

[Pg iv]
[Pg v]

PREFACE.

Of the twelve regular methods of proceeding in the courts of criminal jurisdiction in England, the last—that of execution—is the only one that is particularly treated of in the following pages. “Sus. per col.” has been, as it were, the only warrant; but in attempting to trace some items in a record that runs like a scarlet thread through the long course of events that constitutes history, it has not been possible, on the one hand, to avoid touching upon other modes and details of capital punishment in England, or, on the other, to escape from straying somewhat into the catalogue of what Blackstone calls “the shocking apparatus of death and punishment” to be met with in the criminal codes of other European nations. And while this course has been pursued,—certainly rather by way of comment and illustration, than with any desire to “accumulate horrors on horror’s head,”—an endeavour has also been made, in carrying down the pitiful story, to dissipate some of the clouds of mystery and fable that have clustered round the Gibbet. Removed, as we happily are by time, from a period when it was lawful, and even accepted as fitting, that men who bore the brand of Cain should be made the subject of a revolting and disgraceful spectacle, we can approach the matter without prejudice, and with proper calmness; but it is, perhaps, not so easy at once to realize how great is the change that has taken place in national feeling and sympathy since George the Third was king. And if humanity would recoil to-day with abhorrence from the actual gibbet, sensation itself would be stunned at the punishment for High Treason,—at the drawing and quartering of patriots, whose names may shine in history “through their tears like wrinkled pebbles in a glassy stream.” It will be borne in mind that the gallows and the gibbet are the most ancient instruments of capital punishment in the world; as such they have a distinct archæological as well as a legal interest; and, inasmuch as it appears that the custom of exposing human bodies in irons and chains is almost peculiar to this country, doubtless no further motive need be adduced for now bringing together these scattered English notices. And it is thought that what may be lacking in other respects may be somewhat compensated for by the historical and antiquarian features, so that, in spite of its rather ominous title, the book may be found not entirely repellent.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.