The first information of the site of the gallows other than the vague indication “Tyburn” is found in one of the old chronicles, which tells that, in 1330, Mortimer was executed at “The Elms, about a league outside the city.”[92] The distance thus vaguely stated would apply about equally to any one of the conjectured sites from Marylebone Lane to the head of the Serpentine, at which writers have severally placed the gallows. At first sight it may seem strange that a site so remote from the prisons of Newgate and the Tower should have been chosen. But it was usual, for a reason which will appear, to place the gallows at a considerable distance from the town. The gallows for the county of Surrey was at St. Thomas-a-Waterings, near the second milestone on the Kent Road. Loyseau shows that while the pillory, used for non-capital punishment, was always set up in the principal place or street of a town, capital punishments were carried out at a distance—“le gibet est tousiours emmy les champs.”[93] He refers to Lipsius, who in his turn cites ancient authors to prove the practice. There is, of course, good reason why the place of execution should have been fixed far from the abodes of men. In addition to its gallows, Tyburn had its gibbets, on which bodies of men hanged alive were suffered to hang till they fell to pieces. In other cases bodies were transferred, after hanging, to a gibbet— “Waving with the weather while their neck will hold.” [Illustration: PART OF A MAP OF MIDDLESEX, 1607, WITH THE FIRST KNOWN REPRESENTATION OF THE TRIPLE TREE.]