“Tieburne some will so have it called, from Tie and Burne, because the poor Lollards, for whom this instrument (of cruelty to them, though of Justice to Malefactors) was first set up, had their necks tied to the Beame, and their lower parts burnt in the fire.” The worthy Fuller refers to the Act “De Heretico Comburendo,” for, not content with mere death, it had been thought necessary to invent another mode of punishment for persecuting the Lollards, and this Act authorised the burning of heretics in a high public place. As for the derivation here attempted, it seems rather a quaint conceit by Fuller than a serious explanation of the origin of a word which for so many centuries bore a notorious meaning. The Bourne flowed along its course from time immemorial; as we know, it was called Tiburne, or Tyburn, in the earliest references extant, and it is much more likely that the execution-ground took its name from the Bourne, than that the brook itself owes its distinctive title to a particular form of death practised so late as the time of the Lollards. The executions of Nicholas Brembre and Judge Tresillian in 1388 are supposed to have been the first recorded deaths at this new Tyburn. These men had been impeached for high treason. Brembre had been four times Lord Mayor of London. The charge against him was that he had “intended to slay some thousands of the citizens, to alter the name of London to that of ‘New Troy,’ and to have himself created Duke thereof.” So the gentleman was not without ambitions. Roger Bolingbroke, who met his death for alleged necromancy, was another of the early victims of Tyburn. The whole charge arose out of the bitter jealousy existing between Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, son of Henry IV., and Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, the son of John of Gaunt and Catharine Swynford. On the death of Henry V. each vied with the other for the guardianship of the young King (who was but nine months old when his father died) and the leadership of public affairs. Beaufort’s huge wealth secured him the support of the Church, into whose coffers he poured large gifts, and finally Humphrey was arrested and thrown into prison. Meantime Beaufort had devised that charges of witchcraft should be brought against Gloucester’s chaplain, Roger Bolingbroke and his wife Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, representing that she was exercising necromancy to encompass the death of Henry VI. and place her husband on the throne. Stow tells us the story: