[697] Brutal and bungling as all this was, it would appear that, from the first, it was designed that a cruel butchery should desecrate their death. The original warrant for their execution orders that:-- 'They, and each of them, be hanged by the neck--but not until they be dead--for whilst they are yet alive, they are to be taken down--their entrails are to be taken out of their bodies, and, whilst they are yet alive, to be burned before their faces; their heads are then to be respectively cut off; their bodies to be divided into four quarters, and their heads and bodies to be at His Majesty's disposal.' The above death warrant, with written directions from Mr. Cooke, as to the troops to attend at the scaffold, is addressed to Alderman Archer, High Sheriff for Dublin in 1798, and is now preserved by his grandnephew, Rev. Thomas Gray, M.A., F.T.C.D. [698] The Society of United Irishmen. [699] Most writers on the period, in noticing the anomaly that in England two witnesses were necessary in cases of treason, but in Ireland only one, assume that this law continues in force. The law as regards two witnesses dates from the reign of Edward III. It received strengthening touches by the 7 & 8 Will. III. cap. 3. But in 1822 it was extended to Ireland (1 & 2 Geo. IV. cap. 24); and editors of Haydn might note this fact. [700] General Edward Boyle, eighth Earl of Cork, survived until June 29, 1856, and was the last surviving peer who had sat in the Irish and in the English House of Lords. [701] See notice of the duel, p. 177, _ante_. [702] 'Anonymous letters are flying. _My friend_ got two this week threatening death and destruction if he exerted himself on the approaching trials.' 'My friend' is the 'cipher' by which McNally always means himself.--J. W. to Cooke, July 10, 1798. (MSS. Dublin Castle.) [703] The late Lord Ross, a friend of Armstrong's, to Rev. Thomas Gray, M.A., F.T.C.D., who has communicated it to W. J. F.