Before we proceed to matters of a pecuniary nature, having said so much upon the _Executioner_, permit me to step out of the way for a moment, and add a word or two on the _Executioné_, which will explain a Yorkshire saying. It was for the most unsuspected crime imaginable, that the truly unfortunate man who gave rise to the adage suffered the Sentence of the Law at York. He was a Saddler at Bawtry, and occasioned this saying, often applied among the lower people to a man who quits his friends too early, and will not stay to finish his bottle; "That he will be hanged for leaving his liquor, like the Saddler of Bawtry." The case was this: There was formerly, and indeed it has not long been suppressed, an Ale-house, to this day called "_The Gallows House_," situate between the City of York and their Tyburne; at which House the Cart used always to stop; and there the Convict and the other parties were refreshed with liquors; but the rash and precipitate Saddler, under Sentence, and on his road to the fatal Tree, refused this little regale, and hastened on to the Place of Execution--when, very soon after he was turned-off, a Reprieve arrived; insomuch that, had he stopped, as was usual, at the Gallows House, the time consumed there would have been the means of saving his life; so that he was hanged, as truly as unhappily, for leaving his liquor. The same compliment was anciently paid to Convicts, on their passage to Tyburne, at St. Giles's Hospital; for we are told by Stowe[387], that they were there presented with a Bowl of Ale, called "_St. Giles's Bowl_;" "thereof to drink at their pleasure, as their last refreshing in this life." This place (Tyburne) was the established scene of Executions in common cases so long ago as the first year of King Henry IV; Smithfield and St. Giles's Field being reserved for persons of higher rank, and for crimes of uncommon magnitude; such as treason and heresy: in the last of these, Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, was burnt, or rather roasted, alive; having been hanged up over the fire by a chain which went round his waist[388]. [387] History of London, vol. II. p. 74. [388] Rapin. See also Bale's Life and Trial of Sir John Oldcastle. St. Giles's was then an independent Village, and is still called St. Giles's in the Fields, to distinguish it from St. Giles's, Cripplegate; being both in the same Diocese. The Execution of the Duke of Monmouth (in July 1685) was peculiarly unsuccessful in the operation. The Duke said to the Executioner, "Here are Six Guineas for you: pray do your business well; do not serve me as you did my Lord Russell: I have heard you struck him three or four times. Here" (to his Servant); "take these remaining Guineas, and give them to him if he does his work well." _Executioner._--"I hope I shall." _Monmouth._--"If you strike me twice, I cannot promise you not to stir. Pr'ythee let me feel the Axe." He felt the edge, and said, "I fear it is not sharp enough."