Half-hours with the Highwaymen - Vol 1 by Charles G. (Charles George) Harper

Author:Charles G. (Charles George) Harper [Harper, Charles G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783752349849
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Outlook Verlag
Published: 2020-07-24T00:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER XII

THE WAYSIDE GIBBETS

The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth.—Psalm lxxix. 2.

The highwaymen were not specifically servants of the Lord, and certainly never numbered a saint in their ranks; but the point to be made here is that, after all, they were human beings, who lived in a supposedly civilised country, and were entitled to be turned off in a gentlemanly way; and, their crimes being thus expiated, to be buried decently and allowed to rest. For a murderer, it may readily be conceded, nothing could be too severe in the way of punishment. Let the bodies of those who profane God's temple be themselves profaned with every offensive circumstance. But for mere robbery upon the highway the methods of the law were too drastic.

When it was considered more than usually desirable to convey a warning to evil-doers in general, and highwaymen in particular, that Justice was still vigilant and ready to punish crime, the bodies of executed malefactors were occasionally set up along the roads on tall gallows and hanged, or "gibbeted," there in chains or in an especially constructed iron framework, so that they might remain for a length of time, to preach an eloquent sermon to some classes of the passers-by, and to disgust others.

Among the features of the country to which the old map-makers especially devoted their attention, the gibbets and the beacons along the roads are most prominent. Ogilby, in his Britannia of 1675, shows a startlingly large "gallows," like a football goal, a mile and a half on the London side of Croydon, and on the Tarporley-Chester Road shows a "Gibbit," two miles and a half from Chester.

THE ROAD NEAR CHESTER, 1675.

There was never any lack of subjects for gibbeting purposes, but it was generally desired to preserve the criminal's body as long as possible, to avoid the trouble and expense of replacing him with a fresh subject; and to that end the practice was either to place the body in a copperful of boiling pitch, or to pour pitch over it. So treated, it would last an almost incredibly long time: always supposing the relatives of that public exhibit did not come by stealth and make away with it.

There are still a few gibbets to be found in England: but rarely, or never, the original posts. A sentiment which we are not quite prepared to declare a perverted one, but which is certainly a sufficiently gruesome manifestation of antiquarian enthusiasm, has led to the old gibbet-posts being renewed from time to time in several places; and there they stand, on hill-tops or by roadsides, reminders of those fearful old times when such things as these could be.

In these pages we are concerned only with those that bear upon the subject of the highwaymen. Among these Caxton Gibbet is prominent, standing as it does on the North Road, between Royston and Alconbury Hill.

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