Crime -- Great Britain; Criminals -- Great Britain; Executions and executioners; Tyburn gallows (London, England)
Then, vpon a certaine night, the King lying without the castle, both he
and his friends were brought by torch light through a secret way vnder
ground, beginning far off from the sayde castle, till they came euen to
the Queenes chamber, which they by chance found open: they therefore
being armed with naked swords in their hands, went forwards, leauing the
King also armed without the doore of the Chamber, least that his mother
shoulde espie him: they which entred in, slew Hugh Turpinton knight,
who resisted them, Master John Neuell of Home by giuing him his deadly
wound. From thence, they went towarde the Queene mother, whom they found
with the Earle of March readie to haue gone to bedde: and hauing taken
the sayde Earle, they ledde him out into the hall, after whom the Queene
followed, crying, _Bel filz, bel filz, ayes pitie de gentil Mortimer_,
Good sonne, good sonne, take pittie vpon gentle Mortimer: for she
suspected that her sonne was there, though shee saw him not. Then are
the Keyes of the Castle sent for, and euery place with all the furniture
is yeelded vp into the kings handes, but in such secret wise, that none
without the Castle, except the kinges friendes, vnderstoode thereof. The
next day in the morning verie early, they bring Roger Mortimer, and other
his friends taken with him, with an horrible shout and crying (the earle
of Lancaster then blind, being one of them that made the showt for ioy)
towardes London, where hee was committed to the Tower, and afterward
condemned at Westminster, in presence of the whole Parliament on Saynt
Andrewes euen next following, and then drawne to the Elmes and there
hanged on the common Gallowes. Whereon hee hung two dayes and two nights
by the kinges commaundement, and then was buryed in the Gray Fryars
Church.[129]
It has been frequently said that Mortimer was the first person executed
at Tyburn. The French Chronicle of London says, “Sir Roger Mortimer, and
Sir Symon de Bereford, who was of his counsel, were drawn and hanged at
London”; and in a note Mr. Riley adds that he “is said to have been the
first person executed at Tyburn, but according to Roger of Wendover,
William Fitz-Osbert, or Longbeard, was executed there in 1196.” Dr.
Lingard says that Mortimer “was executed at Tyburn, the first, as it is
said, who honoured with his death that celebrated spot.” The reader now
knows that not only Longbeard, but Constantine Fitz-Athulf, had certainly
been here executed, and also probably others mentioned in these Annals.
It may be taken for granted that the new gallows erected in 1220, and
the old gallows replaced by them, had not stood idle. In the century and
a half during which the gallows had stood at Tyburn, hundreds, if not
thousands of unrecorded executions must have taken place here.[130]
=1345.= The murder of Sir John of Shoreditch.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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