The Worst Street in London: Foreword by Peter Ackroyd Read Online Free PDF Page B

and pulled by the executioner, so that they were dead before the flames reached the body. But this woman was literally burned alive; for the executioner letting go the rope sooner than usual, in consequence of the flames reaching his hands, the fire burned fiercely round her, and the spectators beheld her pushing away the faggots, while she rent the air with her cries and lamentations. Other faggots were instantly thrown on her; but she survived amidst the flames for a considerable time, and her body was not perfectly reduced to ashes until three hours later.’
    Men convicted of Treason could be sentenced to a different but just as terrible method of execution: that of being hanged, drawn and quartered. Most men who suffered this fate had been accused of conspiring against the monarch and therefore they became martyrs to those who shared their ideals. Perhaps sensitive to this, the Newgate Calendar’s reports of executions of this nature are generally composed with much more taste than the accounts of female murderers such as Catherine Hayes. This does not however negate the fact that this form of execution was ghastly. Before undertaking his final journey, the condemned man would be tied to a hurdle which was in turn attached to a horse. The prisoner was then drawn through the streets in full view of the thousands of onlookers who had turned out to see the macabre spectacle. On reaching the gallows, the man would be placed on the back of a horse-drawn cart and a noose put around his neck. The horses would then be scared into bolting forwards, thus dragging the body from the back of the cart and leaving it to swing in the air. At this point, those who had been sentenced only to hang would be left on the gallows until it was presumed that life was extinct.
    A much worse fate met those convicted of Treason. The executioner watched carefully to decide when the prisoner was about to lose consciousness and at that point, the body was cut down and quickly disemboweled and castrated; the executioner making a point of showing the dying convict his own innards and amputated genitalia before he passed out. Once the prisoner had been disemboweled, the corpse was beheaded and the torso cut into quarters. Heads of traitors were often displayed publicly at the entrances to bridges or major thoroughfares as a warning to others, although many were ‘rescued’ by members of the deceased’s family so they could be buried with the rest of the corpse.
    Given the sickening nature of all three forms of 18th century capital punishment, being sentenced to death must have devastated all but the most resilient of convicts. However, for those receiving this most awful of sentences, all was not lost. After sentence was passed, the prisoner’s family, friends and associates could petition for mercy via the Recorder of London who in turn, produced a report on each capital sentence and sent it to the reigning monarch for consideration. If the king felt that the prisoner had a good enough case, he could issue one of two types of pardon: a Free Pardon was issued when the monarch and his cabinet felt there was some doubt as to the prisoner’s guilt. Once issued, the accused was free to leave his or her place of incarceration without further ado. More common was the Conditional Pardon. This was issued when it was felt that the sentence delivered was too severe. Receivers of Conditional Pardons generally had their sentences commuted to a lesser punishment. During the 18th century, around half of all those sentenced to death were pardoned.
    The death penalty could also be avoided altogether by using two methods, the first of which one involved a mechanism known as ‘Benefit of Clergy’. This ancient system was originally introduced in the Middle Ages to allow the Church to punish its members without going through a civil court. If a prisoner could prove he was a God-fearing Christian, the judge might be persuaded to hand sentencing over to the clergy,