In London various places have been used for the scene of execution. The spot where a murder had been committed was often appropriately selected as the place of retribution. Execution Dock was reserved for pirates and sea-robbers, Tower Hill for persons of rank who were beheaded. Gallows for meaner malefactors were sometimes erected on the latter place, the right to do so being claimed by the city. In the reign of Edward IV., however, there was a conflict of authority between the king and the corporation on this point. The king’s officer set up a scaffold and gallows on Tower Hill, whereupon the Mayor and his brethren complained to the king, who replied, that he had not acted in derogation of the city liberties, and caused public proclamation to be made that the city exercised certain rights on Tower Hill. Executions also took place, according to Pennant, at the Standard in Chepe. Three men were beheaded there for rescuing a prisoner, and in 1351 two fishmongers for some unknown crime. Smithfield had long the dismal honour of witnessing the death-throes of offenders. Between Hozier and Cow Lanes was anciently a large pool called Smithfield Pond or Horse Pool, “from the watering of horses there;” to the south-west lay St. John’s Court, and close to it the public gallows on the Town Green. There was a clump of trees in the centre of the green, elms, from which the place of execution was long euphemistically called “The Elms.” It was used as such early in the thirteenth century, and distinguished persons, William Fitzosbert, Mortimer, and Sir William Wallace suffered here. About 1413 the gibbet was removed from Smithfield and put up at the north end of a garden wall belonging to St. Giles’ Leper Hospital, “opposite the Pound where the Crown Tavern is at present situate, between the end of St. Giles High Street and Hog Lane.” But Smithfield must have been still used after the transfer of the gallows to St. Giles. In 1580 another conflict of jurisdiction, this time between the city and the Lieutenant of the Tower. A gibbet was erected in that year in East Smithfield, at Hog Lane, for the execution of one R. Dod, who had murdered a woman in those parts. “But when the sheriff brought the malefactor there to be hanged Sir Owen Hopton, the Lieutenant of the Tower, commanded the sheriff’s officers back again to the west side of a cross that stood there,” and which probably marked the extent of the liberties of the Tower. Discussion followed. The sheriffs with their prisoner accompanied the Lieutenant into a house to talk it over, “whence after a good stay they all departed.” The city gave way--the gibbet was taken down, and the malefactor carried to Tyburn in the same afternoon, where he was executed.