Hyde Park, Its History and Romance by Mrs. (Ethel) Alec-Tweedie

Author:Mrs. (Ethel) Alec-Tweedie [Alec-Tweedie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: European General, Romance, Nonfiction, Historical, Reference, History, Historiography
ISBN: 9788827564356
Publisher: Publisher s11838
Published: 2018-02-05T05:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER IX

BENEATH THE TRIPLE TREE

Exactly the date at which the dreaded instrument at Tyburn assumed the form of the “Triple Tree” cannot be told. As has already been said, there is reason to believe that a permanent structure—“the common gallows” of the time—was set up in the district known as Tyburn in the closing years of the fourteenth century; and that the site was a little more eastward, beyond the present area of the Park, than the later place of execution.

What particular plan the earlier structure took can only be surmised. One is inclined to think that the gallows, like other and better inventions of civilisation, underwent stages of development; that from the branch of the growing elm the old gibbet, with its single beam and angle bar, was first devised, and that the two upright posts with the crossbeam followed. In all probability the gallows was then built high, so that the victim who paid the last penalty of the law swung clear above the heads of the crowd gathered to witness the execution.

No doubt this gruesome spectacle was intended to strike awe into the hearts of the beholders. But human nature, being a thing perverse, is not always understood. Its most disastrous result on the manners of the time was rather to glorify crime and criminal. A fitting end at Tyburn gave distinction to many a poor rogue who otherwise would have left the world unhonoured and forgotten. Four centuries of Tyburn’s rough justice did less for the suppression of crime than more enlightened and humane efforts have done in the course of comparatively few years.

The triangular plan had already been adopted in Shakespeare’s time, and probably long before, as references to it imply a common knowledge. In Love’s Labour Lost, one of his earlier plays, he has Biron saying:

“Thou makest the triumviry the corner cap of Society,

The shape of Love’s Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.”

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