Tyburn
Tyburn was a village in Middlesex , which is now part of the City of Westminster , London . It served as the City of London's public gallows place from 1196 to 1783 .
history
The name of the village comes from the river Tyburn (or Ty Bourne ), a tributary of the Thames , which is now completely canal from its source to the mouth at Westminster . It was one of the two estates belonging to the parish of St Marylebone , which itself was named after a watercourse: St Mary's church by the bourne . Tyburn was already listed in the Domesday Book and was located roughly at what is now Marble Arch at the western end of Oxford Street at the intersection of two Roman roads . The precursors of Oxford Street and Park Lane were streets that led to the village: Tyburn Road and Tyburn Lane .
Tyburn gained some importance in prehistoric times through a monument called Oswulf's Stone . This gave its name to the old English administrative unit Ossulstone Hundred of Middlesex. The stone was built over in 1851 when the Marble Arch was moved there. A short time later it was dug up and supported against the marble arch until it disappeared without a trace in 1869.
For centuries the village was notorious for public executions due to London's main gallows . The English scholarly magazine Notes & Queries reported on January 19, 1850 that the Tyburn gallows were located at Connaught Square No. 49 have found. Executions took place there from the 12th century to 1783. After that, they were first on the public square in front of the Newgate Prison shifted and carried out by a law from 1868 within the Newgate Prison non-public.
The first execution was documented in 1196 for a place near the river. Presumably it was about the execution of the insurgent William Fitz Osbert and his followers. Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham , the lovers of Queen Catherine Howard, also died in Tyburn on December 10, 1541 .
In 1571 the Tyburn Tree was built near what is now Marble Arch . This "triple tree" ( English Triple Tree ) was a new type of construction made of wooden beams that formed a large triangle. Therefore, the frame was also known as “three legged mare” ( German “three-legged mare” ) or “three legged stool” (German “three-legged stool” ). Several convicts could be hanged at the same time . The Tyburn Tree stood in the middle of the road embankment and was an important landmark in West London and a very obvious legal symbol for passers-by. The gallows were occasionally used for mass executions, such as on June 23, 1649, when there were 24 prisoners, 23 men and one Hanged woman together in eight horse-drawn carts. After the executions, the bodies were either buried nearby or given to anatomists for autopsies . Already in 1540 in England by Act of Parliament the Surgeons Guild (dt. Guild of Surgeons ) with the Company of Barbers (dt. Society of barbers combined) and among other privileges of the new guild were annually the bodies of four executed criminals for autopsy approved .
The first "victim" of the Tyburn tree was on June 1st, 1571 Dr. John Story (c. 1504–1571), a Catholic opposition leader who refused to recognize the Supreme Act . He had become a Spanish subject in Flanders in the 1560s after successfully escaping from Marshalsea prison . In August 1570 agents of William Cecil , State Secretary Elizabeth I , kidnapped him to England as a traitor .
In the course of the Stuart Restoration , during which, after a short episode of the Republic (see Commonwealth of England ) , a king from the House of Stuart took power again with Charles II , a new king was held here on January 30, 1661, the anniversary of the execution of Charles I . during the English civil war , which had stood at the beginning of the Commonwealth, Oliver Cromwell , who until his death in 1658 Lord protector had been the Commonwealth, " posthumously executed " . He was exhumed from his final resting place at Westminster Abbey , hung at Tyburn , then drowned and quartered . His fate shared the corpses of John Bradshaw (1602-1659), who had passed the death sentence on Charles I as a judge in 1649, and Henry Ireton (1611-1651), a successful general in the Parliamentary Army during the Civil War. On July 11, 1681 Catholic primate of Ireland, was Oliver Plunkett , hanged on the gallows of Tyburn, then beheaded and quartered after being arrested in December 1679 near Dublin, deported to England on charges of high treason sentenced to death were was.
The executions were popular public spectacles that attracted crowds of onlookers. The villagers of Tyburn erected large bleachers and rented their seats to paying audiences. Occasionally the viewing platforms collapsed and buried hundreds of visitors under their rubble. The executions were seen as welcome holiday entertainment. London apprentices even got a day off. The English graphic artist and caricaturist William Hogarth therefore warned in 1747 the trainees of the Thames town in his satirical engraving The Idle Prentice Executed at Tyburn (dt. The lazy apprentice is directed at Tyburn ) forcefully against excessive curiosity.
Tyburn has appeared in many euphemistic and derisive phrases relating to the death penalty . If a good fortune was not predicted, the "took a ride to Tyburn" (English "to take a ride to Tyburn" ). Whoever was already wriggling on the gallows danced the "Tyburn-Hüpfer" (English "dancing the Tyburn jig" ). The publicly appointed executioner was referred to as the "lord of Tyburn" (English "Lord of the Manor of Tyburn" ) . Convicts were brought from Newgate Prison in an open ox cart. A “good performance” was expected from them , by which the contemporary audience understood that the “poor souls” passed away in their best clothes and with a casual demeanor. In this case, the audience roared approvingly “Gut Gestorben!” ( “Good dying!” ), But the death row inmates were loudly mocked if they were weak.
In addition to a composed demeanor, the audience demanded a “last dying speech” from the doomed . Most of the convicts adhered to this peculiar ritual and gave a speech before their execution, in which they usually expressed repentance for the atrocities committed and warned posterity not to follow the same sinful path. This speech was often sold in the form of a leaflet as a kind of "program slip" before the execution of the judgment.
Biographical details and information on the course of events, as Matthias Brinsden had his clergyman read under the gallows on September 24, 1722, were also appreciated:
- "I was born of kind parents, who gave me learning: I went apprentice to a fine-drawer. [...] I fell in love with Hannah, my last wife, and after much difficulty won her, she having five suitors courting her at the same time. We had ten children (half of them dead), and I believe we loved each other dearly; but often quarrelled and fought. Pray, good people, mind, I had no malice against her, nor thought to kill her two minutes before the deed; but I designed only to make her obey me thoroughly, which the scripture says all wives should do. This I thought I had done when I cut her skull on Monday [...] "
- Translation: “I was born to kind parents who taught me: I was apprenticed to a plastic potter. […] I fell in love with Hannah, my last wife, and won her after many difficulties, because five suitors were courting her at the same time. We had ten children (half of them died) and I think we loved each other tenderly; but we often quarreled and argued. Please, dear people, consider that I had nothing wrong with them in my mind, nor did I think of killing them two minutes before the act; I just planned to make her thoroughly obedient to myself, just as the Scriptures say all should be women. I thought I would have done this when I cut her skull on Monday [...] "
The last time the Tyburn gallows was used was on November 3, 1783, when the mugger John Austin was executed.
Today, three brass plaques set in a triangle in the pavement at the corner of Edgware Road and Bayswater Road are reminiscent of Gallows Square. Another memorial is the Tyburn Convent , a Benedictine convent dedicated to the memory of the more than 350 Catholic martyrs who were executed in England during the Reformation.
literature
- Captain Benson: Tyburn Death Trip: The Lives, Crimes and Executions of the Most Notorious Highwaymen, Murderers and Thieves. Creation Books, New York 2004, ISBN 1-84068-075-X , 624 pages
- Alan Brooke: Tyburn: London's fatal tree / Alan Brooke & David Brandon. Sutton, Stroud 2004. ISBN 0-7509-2971-5 , IX, 246 pages.
- Donald Rumbelow: The Triple Tree: Newgate, Tyburn and Old Bailey. Harrap, London 1982, ISBN 0-245-53877-1 , 223 pages
- Dennis Wheatley: The shadow of Tyburn Tree. Arrow Books, London 1970. ISBN 0-09-003200-4 , 448 pages. ( Original edition: bound, Hutchinson & Co., London 1948, 380 pp. )
See also
- Execution Dock in London district of Wapping , and 1830 for more than 400 years as a place of execution of the British Seeger Ichtes served
Web links
- Tyburn and Tyburnia (British History Online)
- Location of Marble Arch and the corner of Bayswater Road and Edgware Road (www.streetmap.co.uk)
- Description of the last trip from Newgate to Tyburn, as they experienced the convicts before their execution (Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield )
- Being hanged at Tyburn (Capital Punishment UK: The 18th & 19th centuries)
- John Roberts: Tyburn Hanging Tree and the Origins of Speakers' Corner ( Memento of February 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- Photo of a plaque of the "Tyburn Tree" (copyright-free-pictures.org.uk)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Notes upon Cunningham's Handbook for London , from: Notes & Queries, January 19, 1850, ( Project Gutenberg )
- ^ Newgate Calendar, Part 1 (to 1740): Matthias Brinsden. Executed for killing his wife.
- ↑ Tyburn Convent: Tyburn Martyrs ( Memento July 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 48 " N , 0 ° 9 ′ 37" W.