Thief-Taker Hangings Read online

  On the way from Newgate, conveyance was modernized to a wooden cart, with criminals—often sitting on their own coffins—accompanied by the hangman and the prison chaplain. After a brief stop at St. Sepulchre Church to greet the Bell-Man, the procession, which included the marshals, the constables, and the jailers (known as “Javelin Men”) began the nearly three-hour trip to Tyburn. Depending on the popularity of the criminal, he or she was either pelted or cheered along the way. En route, the condemned could stop at taverns, where all—hangman, chaplain, and the soon-to-be-deceased—tipped one back together.

  Upon arrival, the cart stopped under the gallows, and the criminal’s neck was tied by rope to the hanging bar. Spectators jostled for better viewing on scaffolds and stadium-like seating. A final speech was expected and often delivered, with copies of the speeches transcribed and then sold to the crowd, making for instant bestsellers. Lastly, the criminal was hanged.

  In previous years, by means of a gibbet (not isolated to Tyburn), the corpse remained strung up until it rotted away, poisoning the air with the stench of slowly decaying flesh. In the enlightened eighteenth century, surgeons hounded the Triple Tree for bodies to dissect . . . but not without battling the assembled mob, which wanted grisly souvenirs of the day’s proceedings, or a superstitious touch of the corpse for its supposed healing properties.

  The shocking number of deaths may supply the reason why these public executions failed to deter crime. Social reformer and author of Tom Jones, Henry Fielding, wrote concisely of a nation desensitized: “Many cart loads of our fellow creatures are once in six weeks carried to slaughter.” But every thief, every lawbreaker in the land knew the score. Get caught with your hand in another’s purse, and you risked a trip to the Tyburn Tree.

  Today the facts of the Tyburn hangings are as ghastly as they are hard to fathom. The courthouse publication State Trials records in great detail the 1570 executions of Christopher Norton and his uncle Thomas, both accused of high treason. Of Christopher it was written: “And being hanged a little while, and then cut down, the butcher opened him, and as he took out his bowels, he cried and said, ‘Oh Lord, Lord, have mercy upon me!’ and so yielded up the ghost.” The account continues in horrific detail. He was quartered, his bowels burned, his remains carried in a basket to Newgate Prison, as was custom, where they were parboiled. His head was set on London Bridge and his cooked quarters tacked onto the gates of the city. Even by the eighteenth century, such a report was neither grisly nor uncommon. It was a matter of course.

  The

  Thief-Taker

  Hangings

  Defoe in the pillory for sedition in 1703

  Engraving by James Charles Armytage after Eyre Crowe

  I

  The Dissenter

  The poor Author was a great while, call’d hard Names on every side, by one sort of People because they did understand him, and by another because they did not understand him.

  —Daniel Defoe, The Review, December 20, 1705

  Defoe was a dead man. On January 3, 1703, Daniel Finch, Second Earl of Nottingham, had issued a warrant for his arrest. A week later, the London Gazette published a proclamation offering a £50 reward for information leading to his capture and giving a physical description of him: “a middle-sized spare man, about 40 years old, of a brown complexion, and dark-brown coloured hair, but wears a wig, a hooked nose, a sharp chin, grey eyes, and a large mole near his mouth.”

  The charge against Defoe? Seditious libel.

  The news no doubt troubled him greatly. In under a week, he wrote to Finch, pleading for pardon. Until now, Defoe, age forty-two, had never shied away from taking a contradictory view. A Presbyterian, and therefore outside the Church of England, he had stood by his core beliefs despite his chosen religion keeping him from the advantages of an elite education or public office. He didn’t waver in his faith and still managed to gain prominence. In years past, he’d even had the ear of King William III.

  But King William died unexpectedly in 1702. Tories—no friends to Dissenters, as those beyond the state religion were known—took over the government, and Defoe lost what influence he’d had. In the first few years of her reign, Queen Anne tied church and state very much together. The situation wasn’t likely to improve for the Dissenters. Defoe didn’t wait around to see what the government might do. He went into hiding.

  Published anonymously a month prior, in December 1702, Defoe’s pamphlet, “The Shortest Way with the Dissenters; A Satire against High Church Tyranny,” sold well, to Defoe’s surprise. It also prompted his arrest warrant. He had a few successes under his belt as a writer, but at this point he was still primarily a businessman, the recent owner of a rather profitable brick and tile factory in Tilbury.

  Ironically, the sarcasm of advocating for the “rooting out” of Dissenters from the country gained legitimate support in some factions. He meant it to show the absurdity of the extremists’ small-mindedness, but some High Church Anglicans—the side of the Church of England that more closely resembled Catholicism—missed the satire entirely and cheered for the nonconformists to be “hang’d,” “banish’d,” “destroy’d,” or, better yet, for the “present Race of poison’d Spirits” to be “purg’d from the Face of the land.” On the other side of the aisle, many Dissenters took tone-deaf alarm at Defoe’s essay. Not to be excluded, those in the middle—who really should have known better—somehow found it affronting as well. Most importantly, however, the Tory government took offense and considered it libelous that they might have had eyes on overpowering their opponents. Defoe’s writing got under everyone’s skin equally, it seemed.

  Officials quickly discovered the author’s identity and ordered all copies of the pamphlet destroyed by the common hangman—obviously not Defoe’s aim. According to biographer Maximillian Novak, Defoe considered his words “no more outrageous than those he imitated.” The initial reaction of praise and approval from many among the High Church substantiated this rationale. Only when they discovered that the author didn’t belong to their number did they deem the pamphlet seditious. But Defoe had targeted not only the government but also the Queen, an ardent supporter of the Church. His words had consequences. As Novak observes, “Defoe was a gambler and could not resist the perverse pleasure of approaching the edge of abyss.”

  Queen Anne herself gave orders to the Earl of Nottingham “to make strict and diligent search for Daniel Defoe, and him having found, you are to apprehend and seize together with his papers for high crimes and misdemeanors, and to bring him before me to be examined concerning such matters.” Backed into a corner and fighting for his freedom, Defoe begged for leniency, writing of a “mind impatient of confinement.” He threw himself at Nottingham’s feet: “I beseech your Lordship to assure her Majtie, that I am perfectly free from any seditious designs.”

  Defoe, the married father of six, had a seventh on the way and also took care of his father. He needed his freedom to support his family. In his letter to Nottingham, he wrote of how “prisons, pillories, and such like” were worse to him than death. In one last bid, he even offered to banish himself from the country to serve the British Army for a year in the Netherlands, where at least he could die in service to his country rather than uselessly in prison. Defoe later called himself a man deficient of “passive courage,” and this letter proved it. Its suppliant tone made for a stark departure from someone who as a young man had been such a loud and ardent Dissenter.

  Born Daniel Foe around 1660—later adding the aristocratic particle to his name—he had witnessed some of the most momentous events in the history of England. Born just as King Charles II ascended the throne and the Restoration began, Defoe had lived through the Great Plague and the Great Fire of 1666. In 1688, during the Glorious Revolution, he rode to join the army of Prince William of Orange, soon anointed King William III. A year later, he recollected what he had seen in the political pamphlet, “Re
flections upon the Late Great Revolution.”

  Pamphleteering served as a major tool to form or often sway public opinion, and pamphlet wars were frequent. Rebuttals followed published attacks, then counter-rebuttals, and so on. The chosen venue for debating the day’s controversies, anonymous pamphlets frequently sounded a single note and ranged from one sheet to many hundred. Anyone who had the money for the printing costs could author one—and a great many did. Many resembled present-day blog posts. Some looked more like modern-day letters to the editor, insult-driven and horribly written. But Defoe’s well-conceived and executed pamphlets stood out from the pack.

  As a youth, Defoe studied to enter the ministry, but instead he chose a life in trade. In his business career, he sold many products, notably hosiery, wine, tobacco, and, most recently, brick and pantile. At the turn of the century, when he reached middle age, Defoe found his pulpit and a place in life as a writer. He wrote what he knew and saw. He wrote about business while also turning his focus to the Church and the country’s political unrest.

  As a pamphleteer, he was working in a genre that relied on directness. Until the release of “The Shortest Way,” nothing illustrates Defoe’s moral code and fearlessness more than his strongly worded Legion’s Memorial. Defoe hand-delivered the pamphlet to the House of Commons after the imprisonment of a group of Kentish petitioners. Writing on behalf of “Two hundred thousand Englishmen,” Defoe demanded the release of the wrongly imprisoned men, asserting that citizens had the right to petition, and that elected representatives should serve the people rather than the other way around. If not outright threatening, the pamphlet certainly challenged Parliament. It was signed dramatically, “Our name is Legion, and we are Many.”

  Defoe keenly supported King William, but many disliked the foreign-­born king. In “The True-Born Englishman,” a satiric poem, and one of his most successful works ever, Defoe decried the irrational way that his countrymen looked down on foreigners despite their own “mixtures of Blood.” Tens of thousands of copies of the poem were sold, and it led to an introduction to the King in 1701. Regrettably, their friendship had a short shelf life. The King died a year later, in March 1702.

  While Defoe certainly enjoyed writing poetry, the businessman in him saw the public demand for a voice in the religious debate. At the end of 1702, after Parliament passed a bill barring Dissenters from government, Defoe published a twenty-nine-page pamphlet, “The Shortest Way with the Dissenters,” in an attempt to slap the country awake. As biographer Paula Backscheider notes, he wanted the publication to act as “the dramatic gesture that would hold a mirror up to men and bring them to a right perspective on their actions and the Dissenter’s character.”

  It accomplished neither end. In a perverse testament to his skills as a writer, nearly everyone believed that a High Church Anglican had written it. This wouldn’t be the last time that he artfully took on a character to conceal his authorship. His first novel wouldn’t appear for another seventeen years, but here we have an early demonstration of his power—even if he did pass it off as nonfiction. He gained more than a few critics for using a fictitious narrator to discuss religious matters, one contemporary counterattack complaining that such a maneuver invaded “the Conscience.”

  His instincts led him to seek appeasement. But he did so less than humbly when he issued an apology in the form of a second pamphlet, “A Brief Explanation of a Late Pamphlet, Entituled, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters.” In it, he heaped the onus of misinterpretation on his readers. He never believed himself guilty for shining a light on others’ iniquity.

  Many tongues wagged about the affair. Word had it that if he were caught, his punishment would be severe. Defoe stayed out of sight, on the lam, for nearly half a year, eluding search party after search party. Displaying a knack for fugitive life, he moved at night, often in disguise, and bounced around. He may even have ventured to Holland—and with good cause. The £50 bounty on his head was enough for someone to live on for a whole year, and it was for mere information, not even the capture itself.

  One account from the period tells of a dashing, swaggering Defoe locked in a showdown with a man while walking in Hackney Fields. Unsure if he’d been recognized, Defoe took precautions. He drew his sword, drove the stranger to his knees, and forced him to “Swear that if he ever met him again, he should shut his eyes till he was half a mile off him.” Another account described Defoe in a series of similar close calls, at least one of them sending the writer barreling out a window at the last moment.

  The more time passed, the more the government smeared his name and transmogrified his satire into a full-fledged subversive manifesto. Before long, he was no longer merely seditious, but as it read in his indictment, he was of “a disordered mind, and a person of bad name, reputation and conversation.”

  On May 21, 1703, Defoe ran out of luck. The Post Man and the Historical Account broadcast that: “On Thursday Daniel de Foe, Author of the Pamphlet, entitul’d, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, was taken, and after having been examined, he was committed on Saturday to Newgate.” The arrest had gone down in Spitalfields after someone spotted him at the home of a French weaver named Nathaniel Sammen. There a pair of Nottingham’s “messengers” seized him, according to the London Post. The nameless informer claimed the £50 reward.

  The Earl of Nottingham had his man. In order to get him, he had brought in the printer of the pamphlet, George Croome, and the man who delivered it, Edward Bellamy. After questioning and probably a great deal of intimidation, both men agreed to testify against Defoe to save themselves. Nottingham cut an imposing figure, so severe in appearance and manner that he had earned the nickname “Dismal.” The earl already had examined many of Defoe’s personal papers and books seized during the manhunt. Nottingham was hoping for bigger fish, and seemed ready to trade Defoe’s freedom for information on accomplices, or possibly Whig leaders with whom the writer was suspected of collaborating. Defoe spurned the requests. He described his unenviable position to William Penn, founder of the Pennsylvania colony, a fellow Dissenter, and a fan of “The True-Born Englishman.”

  Sir in Some Letters which I have Sent his Lordship I have Answer’d him with the Same Assurance. . . . That if my Life were Concern’d in it I would Not Save it at the Price of Impeaching Innocent men, No More would I Accuse my Friends for the Freedome of Private Conversation. . . . I have no Accomplices, No Sett of Men, (as my Lord Call’d Them) with whom I used to Concert Matters, of this Nature.

  Nottingham’s offer fell on deaf ears.

  On June 5, Defoe made bail. Court records show that it took the assistance of four others for Defoe to raise the necessary £1,500 bond. He agreed to appear at the Justice Hall in the Old Bailey on July 7 at nine a.m. to answer his charges.

  The “True & Perfect Kallendar of the Names of All the Prisoners in Newgate for Fellony & Tresspasses the 7th Day of July 1703” shows him a man of his word. “Daniel DeFoe”—alias De Foo—appears fourth on the list, between Hannah Ford—accused of stealing a pair of shoes, a smock, and a petticoat—and Elizabeth Williams, suspected of stealing a silver cup. Defoe pled guilty on the advice of his counsel and stood trial that day. It surely didn’t warm his heart to find the courtroom full of judges about whom he’d written in less than glowing tones. This was going to get personal.

  Biographer John Robert Moore describes the lineup he faced. “Of the Lord Mayor, the sheriffs, and the aldermen who were most likely to be in charge of his trial, several had been lashed by Defoe in print by name for their public and private morals, their physical and mental infirmities, in a manner which no one of the men would be likely to forget or easily forgive.” But it gets worse. “They had been attacked as individuals, as officials, or as members of a party. . . . Probably every one of them had some personal grudge to pay off against Defoe.” Now, thanks to “The Shortest Way,” in walked the writer who’d smeared them. Revenge on a silver platter.

/>   Chief among the men was the hanging judge Sir Salathiel Lovell, city recorder and a member of the Society for the Reformation of Manners, a group that formed in 1691 to eradicate the city’s immoral tendencies. This band of self-proclaimed do-gooders concentrated heavily on prostitution and sodomy, and it just so happened that Defoe had written a scathing treatise against the Society in 1702, entitled “Reformation of Manners.” In it, Defoe pointed out “That no Man is qualified to reprove other Mens Crimes, who allows himself in the Practice of the same.” He elided Lovell’s name, but there was no hiding the target.

  L——l, the Pandor of thy Judgment-Seat,

  Has neither Manners, Honesty, nor Wit;

  Instead of which, he’s plenteously supply’d

  With Nonsense, Noise, Impertinence, and Pride.

  Defoe further exposed the recorder as amenable to the highest bidder.

  He trades in Justice, and the Souls of Men,

  And prostitutes them equally to Gain:

  He has the Publick Book of Rates to show,

  Where every Rogue the Price of Life may know:

  And this one Maxim always goes before,

  He never hangs the Rich, nor saves the Poor.

  No, this wasn’t going to go well at all. Needless to say, the court found Defoe guilty. Lovell sentenced him to pay a fine of two hundred marks (roughly £133), to stand in the pillory three times, and to languish in prison at the Queen’s pleasure—that is, indefinitely. Defoe escaped the gallows, but in early eighteenth-century England, the pillory presented hazards all its own. There was no guarantee that he would survive the punishment; some had perished at the hands of unruly crowds eager to mete out their own justice.