Tyburn

Tyburn was a manor (estate) in London, Middlesex, England, one of two which were served by the parish of Marylebone. Tyburn took its name from the Tyburn Brook, a tributary of the River Westbourne. The name Tyburn, from Teo Bourne, means 'boundary stream'.
The parish, and probably therefore also the manor, was bounded by Roman roads to the west (modern Edgware Road) and south (modern Oxford Street). The junction of these was the site of the famous Tyburn Gallows (known colloquially as the "Tyburn Tree"), now occupied by Marble Arch. So, for many centuries the name Tyburn was synonymous with capital punishment: it was the principal place for execution for London and Middlesex criminals and convicted traitors, including many religious martyrs. In the 18th century it was also known as "God's Tribunal". Hangings at Tyburn often included a sometimes raucous procession of the condemned from Newgate Gaol in the City—at the end of the 18th century, the hangings were moved to Newgate.
The manor of Tyburn, and the neighbouring Lisson, were recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, and were together served by the parish of Marylebone, itself named after the stream. The original name of the parish was simply Marybourne, the stream of St Mary; the French "le" appeared in the 17th century, under the influence of names like Mary-le-Bow. Domesday showed that the manor was held, both before and after the Norman Conquest, by the Barking Abbey nunnery. The Domesday survey records it as having eight households, suggesting a population of around 40. In the 1230s and 1240s, the manor was held by Gilbert de Sandford, the son of John de Sandford, who had been the chamberlain to Eleanor of Aquitaine. In 1236, the City of London contracted with Sir Gilbert to draw water from Tyburn Springs, which he held, to serve as the source of the first piped water supply for the city. The water was supplied in lead pipes that ran from where Bond Street station stands today, 800 m east of Hyde Park, down to the hamlet of Charing (Charing Cross), along Fleet Street and over the Fleet Bridge, climbing Ludgate Hill (by gravitational pressure) to a public conduit at Cheapside. Water was supplied free to all comers.
The junction of the two Roman roads had significance from ancient times, and was marked by a monument known as Oswulf's Stone, which gave its name to the Ossulstone Hundred of Middlesex. The stone was covered over in 1851 when Marble Arch was moved to the area, but it was shortly afterwards unearthed and propped up against the Arch. It has not been seen since it was stolen in 1869.
Although executions took place elsewhere (notably on Tower Hill, generally related to treason by gentlemen), the Roman road junction at Tyburn became associated with the place of criminal execution for the City of London and Middlesex after most were moved here from Smithfield in the 1400s. In the 12th century, the Sheriff of London had been given the jurisdiction in Middlesex, as well as in the City of London. Prisoners were taken in public procession from Newgate Prison in the city, via St Giles in the Fields and Oxford Street (then known as Tyburn Road). From the late 18th century, when public executions were no longer carried out at Tyburn, they occurred at Newgate Prison itself and at Horsemonger Lane Gaol in Southwark.
The first recorded execution took place at a site next to the stream in 1196. William Fitz Osbert, a populist leader who played a major role in an 1196 popular revolt in London, was cornered in the church of St Mary-le-Bow. He was dragged naked behind a horse to Tyburn, where he was hanged.
In 1537, Henry VIII used Tyburn to execute the ringleaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace, including Sir Nicholas Tempest, one of the northern leaders of the Pilgrimage and the King's own Bowbearer of the Forest of Bowland.
In 1571, the Tyburn Tree was erected near the junction of today's Edgware Road, Bayswater Road and Oxford Street, 200 m west of Marble Arch. The "Tree" or "Triple Tree" was a form of gallows, consisting of a horizontal wooden triangle supported by three legs (an arrangement known as a "three-legged mare" or "three-legged stool"). Multiple criminals could be hanged at once, and so the gallows were used for mass executions, such as that on 23 June 1649 when 24 prisoners (23 men and 1 woman) were hanged simultaneously, having been conveyed there in eight carts.
After executions, the bodies would be buried nearby or in later times removed for dissection by anatomists. The crowd would sometimes fight over a body with surgeons, for fear that dismemberment could prevent the resurrection of the body on Judgement Day (see Jack Sheppard, Dick Turpin or William Spiggot).
The first victim of the "Tyburn Tree" was John Story on 1 June 1571. Story was a Roman Catholic who was tried for and convicted of treason. There is a plaque to the Catholic martyrs executed at Tyburn in the period 1535–1681 at 8 Hyde Park Place, the site of Tyburn convent. Among the more notable individuals suspended from the "Tree" in the following centuries were John Bradshaw, Henry Ireton and Oliver Cromwell, who were already dead but were disinterred and hanged at Tyburn in January 1661 on the orders of the Cavalier Parliament in an act of posthumous revenge for their part in the beheading of King Charles I.
The gallows seem to have been replaced several times, probably because of wear, but in general, the entire structure stood all the time in Tyburn. After some acts of vandalism, in October 1759 it was decided to replace the permanent structure with new moving gallows. These remained until the last execution in Tyburn, probably carried out in November 1783. On the night of Wednesday, 28 March 1759, part of the gallows was blown down. Further evidence of the fixed gallows's disrepair was noted on Friday, 22 June 1759 with the execution of Katharine Knowland, "When she came to Tyburn, all the crossbeams were pulled down; so she was tied up on the top of one of the upright posts, and hung with her back to it." One of the first mentions of the gallows being used again was on 7 October 1759, when four people were executed on the "new moving gallows" which afterwards was "carried off in a cart".
The executions were public spectacles which attracted crowds of thousands. Spectator stands provided deluxe views for a fee. On one occasion, the stands collapsed, reportedly killing and injuring hundreds of people. A hanging as public spectacle was depicted by William Hogarth in his satirical print The Idle 'Prentice Executed at Tyburn (1747).
Tyburn was commonly invoked in euphemisms for capital punishment: for instance, to "take a ride to Tyburn" (or simply "go west") was to go to one's hanging, "Lord of the Manor of Tyburn" was the public hangman, "dancing the Tyburn jig" was the act of being hanged. Convicts would be transported to the site in an open ox-cart from Newgate Prison. They were expected to put on a good show, wearing their finest clothes and going to their deaths with insouciance.
On 19 April 1779, clergyman James Hackman was hanged there following his 7 April murder of courtesan and socialite Martha Ray, the mistress of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. The Tyburn gallows were last used on 3 November 1783, when John Austin, a highwayman, was hanged; for the next eighty-five years, hangings were staged outside Newgate prison. Then, in 1868, due to public disorder during these public executions, it was decided to execute the convicts inside the prison.
The site of the gallows is now marked by three young oak trees that were planted in 2014 on a traffic island in the middle of Edgware Road at its junction with Bayswater Road. Between the trees is a roundel with the inscription "The site of Tyburn Tree". It is also commemorated by the Tyburn Convent, a Catholic convent dedicated to the memory of martyrs executed there and in other locations for the Catholic faith.
Although most historical records and modern science agree that the Tyburn gallows were situated where Oxford Street meets Edgware Road and Bayswater Road, in the January 1850 issue of Notes and Queries, the book collector and musicologist Edward Francis Rimbault published a list of faults he had found in Peter Cunningham's 1849 Handbook of London, in which he claimed that the correct site of the gallows is where 49 Connaught Square was later built, stating that "in the lease granted by the Bishop of London, this is particularly mentioned".
Tyburn was primarily known for its gallows, which functioned as the main execution site for London-area prisoners from the 16th through to the 18th centuries. For those found guilty of capital crimes who could not obtain a pardon, which accounted for about 40%, a probable destiny was to be hanged at Tyburn. Other contemporary methods of punishment that may have been used as alternatives to Tyburn included execution, followed by being hung in chains at the place where the crime was committed; or burning at the stake; and being drawn and quartered, of which the latter two were common in cases of treason.
The last days of the condemned were marked by religious events. On the Sunday before every execution, a sermon was preached in Newgate's chapel, which those unaffiliated with the execution could pay to attend. Furthermore, the night before the execution, around midnight, the sexton of St Sepulchre's church, adjacent to Newgate, recited verses outside the wall of the condemned. The following morning, the convicts heard prayers, and those who wished to do so received the sacrament.
On the day of execution, the condemned were transported to the Tyburn gallows from Newgate in a horse-drawn open cart. It was about three miles (5 km) from Newgate to Tyburn, but as the streets were often crowded with onlookers, the journey could last up to three hours. The cart usually stopped at the "Bowl Inn" public house in St Giles High Street. This was the "halfway house". Here the condemned were allowed to drink strong liquors, wine or strong ale.
The draught itself was described in a 19th-century ballad as being of a "nutty brown ale drunk from a 'broad wooden bowl'". At various times the St Giles Bowl appears to have been administered at a number of inns (or perhaps one inn under a number of names) in St Giles, each successively being referred to as "The Bowl". According to Walter Thornbury in his classic London Old and New, "The Bowl" would appear to have become associated with the "Angel Inn" on St Giles High Street. In 1873, the City Press feared that the Angel Inn, another memorial of ancient London, was about to pass away. The Angel was remodelled in 1898 and stands to this day.
Having arrived at Tyburn, the condemned found themselves in front of a crowded and noisy square; the wealthy paid to sit on the stands erected for the occasion, in order to have an unobstructed view. Before the execution, the condemned were allowed to say a few words; the authorities expected that most of the condemned, before commending their own souls to God, would admit their guilt. It is reported that the majority of the condemned did so. A noose was then placed around their neck and the cart pulled away, leaving them hanging.
Instances of pickpocketing have been reported in the crowds of executions, a mockery of the deterrent effect of capital punishment, which at the time was considered proper punishment for theft.
Sites of public executions were significant gathering places and executions were public spectacles. Scholars have described the executions at Tyburn as "carnivalesque occasion[s] in which the normative message intended by the authorities is reappropriated and inverted by an irreverent crowd" that found them a source of "entertainment as well as conflict." This analysis is supported by the presence of shouting street traders and food vendors and the erection of seating for wealthier onlookers. Additionally, a popular belief held that the hand of an executed criminal could cure cancers, and it was not uncommon to see mothers brushing their child's cheek with the hand of the condemned. The gallows at Tyburn were sources of cadavers for surgeons and anatomists.
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