Crime -- Great Britain; Criminals -- Great Britain; Executions and executioners; Tyburn gallows (London, England)
=1502.= Vpon Monday, beyng the second day of May, was kept at the
Guyld hall of London an Oyr determyne, where sat the Mayre, the Duke
of Bokyngham, Therle of Oxenford, with many other lordes, Juges, and
knyghtes, as commyssioners: before whome was presented as prisoners to be
enquyred of, sir James Tyrell, and sir John Wyndam, knyghtes, a Gentilman
of the said sir James, named Wellesbourn, and one other beyng a shipman.…
Vpon ffriday folowyng, beyng the vjᵗᵉ day of May and the morowe after
the Ascension of our Lord, Sir James Tyrell and the forsaid Sir John
Wyndam, knyghtes, were brought out of the Toure to the scaffold vpon the
Toure hill, vpon their ffete, where they were both beheded. And the same
day was the forsaid Shipman laied vpon an herdyll, and so drawen from
the Toure to Tybourne, and there hanged, hedid, and quartered. And the
forenamed Wellysbourn Remayned still in prison at the kynges commaundment
and pleasure (Chronicles of London, Kingsford, 1905, p. 256).
=1523.= About eight miles from Bath is a village, Farleigh-Hungerford,
known locally as Farleigh Castle from the extensive ruins of what was
once a proud castle full of life and movement. As the name denotes,
the Castle was the seat—one of the seats—of the Hungerford family,
established at Heytesbury so far back as the twelfth century. In 1369
the Hungerford of his day, Sir Thomas Hungerford, purchased the manor
of Farleigh. In 1383 he obtained permission to convert the manor-house
into a castle. Sir Thomas made a great figure in the world: he is the
first person formally mentioned in the rolls of Parliament as holding the
office of Speaker.
Wandering among the vast ruins, the visitor, prompted by his guide-book,
will not fail to note the spot where was formerly a furnace. If there
is in all England a place where ghosts should walk, where the midnight
owl should hoot, it is in the ruins of Farleigh Castle. For, now nearly
four hundred years ago, Farleigh Castle was the scene of a terrible
crime, expiated, perhaps in part only, by the death on the scaffold of
one of the principal criminals, and of one or two of the abettors of an
over-reaching ambition, or of a lawless passion.
In the Chronicle of the Grey Friars is the following passage:—
=1523.= And this yere in Feuerelle the xxᵗʰ day was the lady Alys
Hungrford was lede from the Tower vn-to Holborne, and there put in-to
a carte at the church-yerde with one of hare seruanttes, and so carred
vn-to Tyborne, and there bothe hongyd, and she burryd at the Grayfreeres
in the nether end of the myddes of the churche on the northe syde.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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