Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton

by Rowland Hughes

  As the weeks went by and she heard nothing of Jerry Jackson her fears died away. That episode in her life was over; the future would no doubt bring its own excitements and pleasures; meanwhile the present was very agreeable.

  So she thought as her gallant, having put on his own skates, knelt down on the ice and fastened a pair on to her feet. She was a novice at this pastime, made fashionable by the exiled Cavaliers when they returned from the Low Countries, but she had taken to it with her accustomed physical verve. She was in fact already more skilled at it than she allowed to appear.

  The infatuated young man by her side was prepossessing, and it was nearly as pleasant to her as it was to him to have his arm round her waist, drawing her body close to his. He bent down so low as they glided off together that the curls of his golden periwig brushed her cheek and he murmured:

  ‘Do you know what you look like, Lady Skelton?’

  His breath floated towards her in a little cloud.

  She shook her head, smiling dreamily.

  ‘Like a beautiful, pure, white swan.’

  The watchman, passing outside the great house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, called out in his flat, monotonous voice, ‘Past twelve of the clock and a mild, thawing morning.’

  Lady Skelton, turning in her canopied and curtained bed, thought drowsily that it was a pity the Great Frost was over – it would be a long, long time before there would be anything like it again – she had enjoyed the skating, that strong young arm round her waist, the warm amorous voice murmuring compliments and endearments in her ear. But perhaps it was time for life to slip back into its accustomed grooves – one could not go skating for ever. She must visit her mantua maker, and tomorrow she had promised to wait on Lady Weston at her country house at Highgate. She sank softly again into sleep.

  Twelve slow solemn chimes announced midnight from the belfry of St Sepulchre’s church.7 And as the last chime died away, there was the sound of a hand-bell tolling dolefully. The watchman paused below the walls of Newgate Prison, set his lantern down on the ground and clearing his throat, delivered the ‘Admonition to the Prisoners of Newgate on the Night before Execution’, as laid down and provided for, by the annual sum of 26s 8d in the will of pious Robert Dowe, citizen of London and Merchant Taylor.8

  ‘You prisoners within,

  Who for wickedness and sin,

  After many mercies shown, are now appointed to die today, in the forenoon, give ear and understand that this morning the greatest bell of St Sepulchre shall toll for you in form and manner of a passing bell…’

  The pickpocket, who was to die, looked at the Ordinary praying beside him with the blank gaze of a terrified child. He was in fact barely sixteen years of age. ‘…to the end that all godly people hearing that bell and knowing that it is for you going to your deaths may be stirred up heartily to pray…’

  The footpad who was to die, drank off another tot of brandy and sank down again into a drunken stupor. ‘…there to give an account of all things done in this life and to suffer eternal torments for your sins, unless upon your hearty and unfeigned repentance you find mercy…’

  The highwayman, who was to die, was giving a supper party to seven ladies of the town. He was more than a little drunk and so were they. Their painted faces and patches and curls seemed to swim before him as he raised his glass and toasted them in turn.

  ‘Nan, Moll, Bets, Ursula, Jenny, Peggy, Fan. My pretty jades. I am heartily sorry to part with you, but no doubt I shall meet you all again in hell. Farewell then till our next merry meeting!’

  Surely they had cleared the streets of slush by now? Lady Skelton lowered the window of her coach and, putting her head out, asked the footman impatiently what was causing the delay.

  He said excitedly, ‘A great throng of people, my lady. It seems that there is a hanging this morning at Tyburn and the prisoners are just leaving the prison. That bell that your ladyship hears is the great bell of St Sepulchre tolling for the condemned men.’

  Lady Skelton said petulantly, ‘Giles should have known better than to drive past Newgate. No doubt there is one of these execution processions most mornings.’

  She held an orange stick with cloves up to her nose; she could smell the jostling mob from here; she did not want to catch the plague or jail fever.

  The footman said with an eagerness that broke through his obsequious manner, ‘Would your ladyship care to follow the procession? There must be a noted malefactor to be turned off, for the crowd is vaster than it would be for an ordinary hanging, and there are several coaches here belonging to the Quality.’

  Lady Skelton laughed. ‘It would be cruel, would it not, to deprive you of the pleasure of seeing a hanging? As it is, it seems that I have no alternative, and that the only way to get out of the crowd is to follow it.’ Her lashes dropped, giving a partly scornful, partly good-humoured look to her face.

  The footman said fervently, ‘Oh, thank you, my lady,’ and jumped up to his place on the box.

  Barbara, in spite of her assumed air of indifference, was interested in the proceedings. She had never seen an execution. The sight might afford her some new sensation.

  The crowd was growing thicker every moment as people poured out of doorways and alleys, and pushed their way through side-streets. Every window had its craning heads. There was a great deal of shouting, joking and raucous laughter. Lady Skelton’s coachman, by taking advantage of a momentary gap in the crowd, and by dint of some loud whip-cracking and as much swearing as was consistent with the dignity of a coachman to a lady of rank, manoeuvred the coach into a position opposite the porch of St Sepulchre’s church. Here the clergyman waited, attended by the parish clerk, with three nosegays of rosemary tied with white silken ribbons, the season being too early for the flowers which he was bound by custom to present to the doomed men.

  The noisy voice of the crowd sank suddenly to a loud murmuring sound, then broke into cheering. ‘The prisoners are coming, my lady,’ the footman called down to his mistress. The mob, parting reluctantly, made way with ironic applause for the Sheriff’s carriage and his bodyguard. This was followed by a cart in which two criminals were seated on their coffins, one a sullen ruffian of fifty, the other a sickly, scared youth. Barbara regarded them dispassionately. If this was all that was to be seen it was hardly worth the wait.

  A second cart rumbled into view and the cheering swelled into a roar. Seated in the cart was the incongruous figure of a young man dressed in the height of fashion and as gaily as if for his wedding. His breeches were of black velvet, his yellow waistcoat of flowered tabby; his long-skirted green velvet coat was ornamented with big bunches of yellow ribbons, his cravat was of fine lace. A cascade of lace and ribbon fell over his wrists. His head was bare, his beautiful auburn hair hung in curls on his shoulders. He carried a black hat trimmed with feathers and yellow ribbons under one arm, in his hand a lace handkerchief which he waved in acknowledgement of the plaudits of the crowd. He held his head high, his demeanour was careless, even jaunty, his eyes defiant. Only the rope hanging round his neck showed that he was not some spark riding in a hangman’s cart for a wager or a jest.

  The footman appeared at the window. ‘Pardon, my lady, but you might care to know that that fellow is Captain Jerry Jackson, a notorious highwayman, to be hanged this morning for robbery and murder.’

  Lady Skelton said, ‘Indeed! Is that his name?’ Her voice came faint and breathless.

  The footman, as he scrambled again on to the box, winked at the coachman and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Love at first sight! They’re all the same. Town wenches or ladies of quality, they all dote on a likely-looking highwayman with a hempen cravat round his neck.’

  Barbara sat very still inside the coach, her fingers clenched together in her muff. ‘To be hanged for highway robbery and murder.’ So this was to be the end of Jerry Jackson.

  Her thoughts were in confusion. An angry pity, a kind of shuddering physical horror at the thought of the violence tha
t was to be done within the hour to her lover’s body, struggled against her deep selfishness, the callousness which she had cultivated like a grace. Suddenly, crushing down every other feeling, came a terrifying apprehension for her own safety.

  She leant out of the window, beckoned to a respectably dressed, elderly man standing near. ‘Good sir, that highwayman Jackson – has he lain long in Newgate? Can you tell me anything of his capture?’

  He doffed his hat. ‘At your service, my lady. I believe that he was first apprehended in Buckinghamshire some time last summer. Isn’t that so, Jake?’

  He turned to his companion, who was eager to oblige this fine and lovely lady. ‘Yes, that is right, my lady. What actually happened, according to the official account of his life and confession which I had a glimpse of just now – not that you can believe the half of these confessions – the criminals are always said to be “truly penitent and moved to contrition” whereas the truth is that most of them glory in dying quite unconcerned – ’

  Lady Skelton broke in impatiently.

  ‘Yes, yes. But what did it say?’

  The crowd was surging forward, following in the wake of the procession. Lady Skelton motioned to the man to mount on the step of her coach, and as it moved slowly forward he told her:

  ‘Well, it seems that he was betrayed by some doxy of his – saving your ladyship’s presence – when he was in bed with another woman. He escaped out of the window of the inn where he was harboured and fled northwards, but they searched the countryside and found him drinking with some companions at the “Boot” inn at Olney. They all but caught him there, but he slipped through their fingers again. He and his friends headed south after that, and were seen by some gentlemen who were out hunting near Whaddon. They rode across the fields to Winslow and gave the alarm. When Jackson and his fellow rogues came to Winslow they found the people turned out with scythes and forks to bar their way. But they dashed furiously through them, and scattering them rode to Chesham, hotly pursued by a military patrol which had been called out and a great crowd of other horsemen, and there outside the town they turned to engage their pursuers, their horses being blown. The fight lasted for half an hour – you must allow that this rogue Jackson is a man of undaunted courage – till Jackson’s companions were all wounded or slain, and his horse shot under him, and then he was taken prisoner. He has languished in Newgate ever since, endeavouring to escape his just punishment, by bribery and petitions, and indeed I believe he might have escaped, for they say that his cell has been thronged with ladies of rank, but he was found guilty of murder on the highway as well as robbery, and that’s a thing they daren’t wink at. That is all I can tell you, my lady, but we may hear more when he makes his dying speech.’

  Barbara said slowly, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Very pleased to oblige you, I’m sure, my lady!’ said the man as he jumped off the step of the coach.

  Barbara leant back in her seat. Her heart was beating so violently that she felt as if she were suffocating. What she had heard justified her sharpest fears. Jackson had been captured as a direct result of her action. What more natural than that he should seek to betray her in his turn? His confession had made no mention of his mysterious female accomplice. Was he waiting to make a dramatic revelation at the foot of the gallows? Horrible though it would be she must follow him to Tyburn Tree. Only when he hung there dead, her unexposed secret dead with him, could she hope for peace of mind.

  She called up to the coachman, ‘Drive on and try to secure a good place.’

  The order in no way surprised Giles. An interesting hanging ranked even higher than a visit to Bedlam or Bridewell among the Quality’s favourite pastimes. But in spite of his anxiety to obey his mistress, on his own as well as on her account, they made slow progress. The pace of the procession was set not by the eagerness of the spectators, but by the slow rumbling of the carts which bore the chief actors in the gruesome pageant to their deaths.

  Slowly the procession wended its way down Snow Hill, crawled at an even slower pace up the ‘heavy hill’ of Holborn9 and, passing St Andrews church with its tall tower, stopped at the ‘Bowl’ alehouse for the condemned men to have their last drink.

  Her ladyship’s coach was well to the fore, and she could see, over the heads of the shouting, cheering people, Jerry Jackson’s tall, resplendent figure, as he stood up, a mug of ale in his hand, and toasted the mob. Some sally on his part provoked the uproarious mirth of the crowd and even louder cheers. A man standing near the coach explained to his neighbour, ‘He’s saying that he’ll come back and pay for it later. The good plucked ones always say that. Ah, the crowd likes a rogue that dies game.’

  The three doomed men had emptied their last mugs of ale. The Sheriff’s carriage, the soldiers and the carts moved on. The faces of the spectators crowding the windows and balconies of the houses might have been those of an audience at a playhouse or a bull-baiting, but in the eyes of many of the women were facile tears called forth by Jackson’s good looks and stylish air.

  Holborn Bars, the ultimate boundary of the City, was reached. A man standing there called out, ‘Friend Jackson, I wish you a good journey!’ The crowd laughed at this, taking it to be a joke, but Jackson, a set smile on his lips, raised his hand in a little gesture of gratitude and farewell.

  The procession bumped along the Tyburn Road. Straggling and mean houses gave way gradually to the country. And so Hyde Park, and the gallows were reached and the procession slowed down and stopped, for this was the end of the journey.

  It was a mild morning. Though the ground underfoot was thick with half-melted slush there was a languor in the air that spoke of spring. In the distance a haze lay over the soft heights of Notting Hill. But here in the execution ground there was a ghastly bustle and animation. The brick wall enclosing Hyde Park was edged with spectators. More privileged onlookers filled the stands opposite. Beggars swarmed in and out of the crowd. Children cried and tumbled about; dogs barked. Orange women and sellers of ale did a brisk trade. Broadside vendors, some of them women with babies in their arms, bawled out ‘Confessions of Captain Jerry Jackson,’ or even ‘Last Dying Speech and Confessions of the notorious highwayman, Gentleman Jackson.’

  A ballad singer howled:

  ‘ “Captain Jackson’s Farewell”

  Farewell good friends, let not your kind hearts sorrow,

  My doom has come. I shall be dead tomorrow.

  Fair ladies, dry your lovely eyes

  Nor pain me with your tender-hearted sighs!’

  There were no tears in the lovely eyes of Barbara Skelton as she sat in her coach, her gaze fixed in fascinated horror on the three-legged gallows on which in a short time her former lover would hang. All softer emotions were extinguished by panic fear for her own safety. Repugnant though it would be to her overstrained nerves she dared not leave this grisly spot till Jackson was dead. She did not wish for his death – indeed, she assured herself, conscious of unusual and unwelcome twinges of conscience, she would gladly and generously have forgiven him his perfidy and have procured for him his release had it been possible – but, if he had to die, then the quicker and the more silently he died the better. A dreadful impatience possessed her. For his sake, as well as her own, she told herself, she wished him a speedy departure.

  It seemed – and this was something to be thankful for – that Jerry Jackson was to be turned off first. The cart in which he stood was drawn up under the gallows. The Sheriff’s bodyguard with some difficulty cleared a passage for the Sheriff himself. Only a little group of people – friends no doubt of the condemned highwayman – were allowed below the gallows. A woman, so disfigured with tears that it was hard to tell if she were young or middle-aged, plain or comely, seemed to be standing guard over his coffin. The hangman, who had been lounging by, smoking a pipe, pocketed his pipe and began to take an interest in the proceedings. A hush fell on the crowd as Jerry Jackson, drawing himself up, looked round on the people, preparatory to making his final c
onfession or speech.

  In spite of herself, a pang, not so much of remorse as of regret, shot through Barbara at the sight. How often he had stood before her looking just thus, waiting for her to admire some new coat or piece of finery, childish, braggart, swaggering, without force of character or unusual intellect, yet able to fire her senses and warm her heart to a semblance of love by his sheer animal magnetism. She told herself fiercely, to drive out the pity that once admitted to her heart might have brought with it compunction, even remorse, emotions that had no place in its arid soil, that his courage was mostly a pose. He would prefer to die thus, supported by the applause of the mob, the sobs of foolish women, than in the peaceful obscurity of a sick-bed. They would say of him (and he knew it) that he had died with ‘undaunted courage’, ‘the most perfect indifference’, ‘very game’. Only she, Barbara Skelton, would know that he had not dared to take a man’s life till she had led the way.

  She saw then that he was looking straight at her and that he had recognised her. She sat perfectly still, as was her wont when danger threatened, her pale face framed in the open window of the coach. Only her eyes moved as, opening them wide, she fixed them imploringly on Jackson’s face.

  He smiled wryly, and bending down to the Ordinary held a whispered conversation with him. Barbara, in an agony of fear, saw the clergyman after some hesitation give Jackson writing materials. Jackson wrote for several minutes – the crowd fidgeted restlessly at the unexpected delay – and handed it to the Ordinary, who received it with several nods of the head.

  Barbara could have screamed in the nervous anguish of her suspense. What unlucky impulse had urged her to follow Jackson to his death? What mighty mischief did he intend to launch against her in his last speech, or in that hurriedly scribbled confession? He was going to ruin her – the woman whom he had possessed and loved – as he stood on the very brink of eternity. Barbara was appalled by the malicious impiety of it.