Tyburn: London's Fatal Tree Read Online Free PDF Page B

magician, along with Canon Thomas Southwell of St Stephen’s Chapel at Westminster, were charged with treason for attempting to kill Henry VI by sorcery. The purpose of the plot, in which Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, was also implicated, was to replace Henry as King with his uncle the Duke of Gloucester. It was alleged that on 25 July 1441, Bolingbroke ‘with all his instruments of necromancy’ worked his malevolent spell although it had clearly not achieved its aim. All the plotters were arrested and when undergoing questioning Bolingbroke blamed Eleanor for causing him to ‘labour in the sayd art’ of witchcraft and sorcery. Bolingbroke, Southwell and Eleanor were indicted for treason. Margery Gourdemaine was also accused of involvement. Margery, often known as the ‘Witch of Eye’, had been charged eleven years previously on suspicion of practising witchcraft and Eleanor was said to have used Margery’s services against the King. Margery was burnt as a witch at Smithfield in October 1441. Southwell perished in the Tower after prophesying that he would never die at the hand of the law. Eleanor, after performing a penance by walking barefoot through the streets of London carrying a lighted candle and dressed in a white sheet, was imprisoned for life. Bolingbroke was drawn from the Tower to Tyburn where he was hanged and quartered. (This strange case is reflected in Shakespeare’s Henry VI ; see Appendix , p. 239 .)
    Events on the gallows were sometimes accompanied by elements of black humour and never more so than in the case in 1447 of five condemned men who had been brought to Tyburn and were being made ready for execution and subsequent dismemberment. They had just been stripped when, at the eleventh hour, a reprieve arrived. Now, the law stated that the hangman was entitled to the clothing of any prisoner. This practice, although bizarre to modern eyes, was a useful perk for the hangman because these items, often believed to have supernatural properties, could be sold for considerable sums. The reprieve notwithstanding, the hangman was utterly determined not to forego his perks and he refused to hand the clothes back to the prisoners who must have started feeling very chilly. What entertainment there must have been for the crowd that day as the hangman and the shivering, naked but reprieved prisoners stood on the gallows arguing vehemently about the clothes. While derisive shouts and ribald catcalls doubtless rang in the air as the men trudged home naked, they must have been only too glad of the reprieve and eager to put a distance between themselves and the Tyburn gallows.
    In 1455 racial violence erupted in the City aimed at the Lombards who were successful Italian merchants. Three men attacked a Lombard who responded by complaining to the mayor, as a result of which one of the attackers was arrested. This prompted action by fellow apprentice mercers and supporters of the arrested man, who having managed to get him released, proceeded to seek out and attack other Lombards. The situation threatened to get out of hand until the master of the Mercers’ Company intervened. Although order was restored, some of the rioters were arrested for robbing the Lombards and they were eventually hanged at Tyburn. The sighting of Halley’s Comet a few months later was widely seen as an unhappy portent of unrest and certainly the following year further outbreaks of violence took place against those regarded as rapacious foreign merchants, unduly favoured by the powers that be.
    Outbreaks of plague and other epidemic disease were a feature of fifteenth-century London. In 1485 what became known as the ‘English sweating sickness’ made its first appearance. Unusually, this took most of its victims from the ranks of the upper classes. Since these contained many literate people who were therefore those most able to leave a lasting testimony, it seems that the disease carved a swathe of fear through English society.