Tyburn: The Story of London's Gallows by Robert Bard Read Free Book Online Page A

Chronicle says that three servants were drawn and hanged. This is the record of a terrible judicial error. The Chronicles tell the story, some under the year 1386, some under 1391. We may suppose that the dates are those respectively of the commission of the crime and the discovery of the real criminal. Stow in 1598 thus tells the whole story: ‘the good man of the Cocke in Cheap at the little conduit was murdered in the night time by a thiefe that came in at a gutter window, as it was knowne long after by the same thiefe, when he was at the gallowes to be hanged for felonie, but his wife was burnt therefore, and three of his men drawne to Tiburne, and there hanged wrongfully.’ One of the old chroniclers, after telling the story, adds, ‘and that was truth’. What more can be said in presence of such a calamity?
    1388 The struggle for power under the rule of the boy-king, Richard I, ended in the utter rout of one of the two factions. This is Stow’s narrative: ‘The foresaid Lords being fled as is aforesaide, Robert Trisilian a Cornishman, Lord chiefe Justice to the King, had hid himselfe in an Apothecaries house in the Sanctuary neere to the gate of Westminster, where he might see the Lords going to the Parliament, and comming forth thereby to learne what was done, for all his life time he did all things closely, but now his craft being espied was turned to great folly. For on Wednesday the seventeenth of February he was betraied of his owne servant, & about eleven of the clocke before noone, being taken by the Duke of Glocester, and in the Parliament presented, so that the same day in the after noone hee was drawne to Tyborne from the Tower of London through the Citie, & there had his throat cut and his bodie was buried in the gray Friers Church at London. This man had disfigured himselfe, as if he had beene a poore weake man, in a frize coat, all old & torne, and had artificially made himselfe a long beard, such as they called a Paris beard, and had defiled his face, to the end hee might not bee knowen but by his speach. On the morrow, was executed sir Nicholas Brembar, who had done many oppressions, & caused seditions in the Citie, of whom it was saide, y whilest he was in full authoritie of Majoralitie, hee caused a common payre of Stockes in every ward, and a common Axe to be made to behead all such as should bee against him, and it was further said, that hee had indited 8000. & more of the best and greatest of the Citie, but it was said that the said Nicholas was beheaded with the same Axe hee hadde prepared for other: this man if hee hadde lived, hadde beene created Duke of Troy, or of London by the name of Troy. On the fourth of March Thomas Uske, Undershrive ( under-sherrif ) of London, & lohn Blake Esquire, one of the kings household, were drawne from the Tower to Tyborne and there hanged and beheaded, the head of Thomas Uske was set up over Newgate, to the opprobry of his parents, which inhabited thereby. Also on the 12 of May … Sir John Bernes knight of the kings Court … was in the same place [Tower hill] beheaded, sir John Salisburie knight was drawne from the Tower to Tyborne and there hanged.’ Some of the accounts state that Brembre was hanged at Tyburn, but Knighton says that he was beheaded on Tower Hill, the king having stipulated with Parliament that he should not be drawn nor hanged. Walsingham says that Little Troy was the new name intended to be given by Brembre to London. 11
    1399 In this year took place several executions for the murder of the Duke of Gloucester at Calais. John Hall was charged with having kept the door of the room when the Duke was done to death by being smothered in a feather-bed… ‘the lordes were examyned what peyne the same John Halle hadde desyrved ffor his knowyng off the deeth off the Duk off Gloucestre: and the lordes seyden, that he were worthy the moste grete peyne and penaunce that he myght have. And so the Juggement was that the same John Halle shulde be