Phoebe Harris was the last female to be burned at the stake, that barbaric method of execution being abolished by statute in 1793.
While Catherine Jones’ husband was abroad, she promptly married Constantine Boone, who lived in the same house. On returning, her husband caused her to be indicted for bigamy, but in court confusion arose, for how could the ‘marriage’ between two women be classed as bigamy? But Catherine claimed that Constantine was in reality a hermaphrodite and had been exhibited as such at Southwark and Bartholomew Fairs, doubtless in company with two-headed lambs, so-called mermaids, assorted giants and dwarfs. As recounted in the Newgate Calendar, a witness stated that ‘he knew Boone when a child, and that his, or her mother dressed it in girl’s apparel until the age of twelve, when it turned man and went to sea.’ However, because other witnesses testified that Boone was more female than male, the offence could not have been bigamy and the jury acquitted the prisoner. The Calendar’s account concludes by saying: ‘We can only express our astonishment that a hermaphrodite should think of such a glaring absurdity as the taking of a wife!’
Hayes, Catherine (England)
One must feel sorry for poor Mr Hayes, hen-pecked as he was by Catherine, for she was a sharp-tongued harridan who never ceased nagging him. Briefly, she and their two lodgers, Billings and Wood, plotted to kill him for his money, so, getting him drunk on potent ‘red biddy’, the two men then took turns in using an axe to cleave his skull. To avoid identification of the remains Catherine suggested cutting the head off, and held the bucket to catch the blood while Wood did so. The men then threw the head into the Thames, and the parts of the dismembered torso were dropped into a pond near Marylebone.
Catherine Hayes Decapitating Her Husband
When the head was eventually found, the authorities had it impaled on a high pole in Westminster so that it could be identified; friends recognised it, and when it was taken down and put in a glass jar, Catherine saw it and, bursting into tears, said, ‘Yes, it is my husband.’ Whereupon the surgeon extracted it from the jar and gave it to her to hold.
All were arrested, Wood and Billings confessed, the former dying in gaol, the latter being hanged and gibbeted, his corpse suspended from a tree in an iron cage. On 9 May 1726 Catherine was tied to the stake and burned alive, the executioner, beaten back by the roaring fire, being unable to strangle her.
At most executions, together with ale and cake purveyors, accounts of the crimes, written in execrable doggerel and set to popular tunes of the day, were published by local printers. These were sold for the crowds to sing while waiting for the show to start. One such poetic masterpiece hawked round Newgate that day has survived the ravages of time, moths and mildew, and describes in melodramatic style the ’Orrible Murder.
The Head of Catherine Hayes’ Husband
A BALLAD ON THE MURDER OF MR HAYES BY HIS WIFE
In Ty-burn road a man there lived
A just and honest life,
And there he might have lived still,
If so had pleased his wife.
Full twice a day to church he went,
And so devout would be,
Sure never was a saint on earth,
If that no saint was he!
This vext his wife unto the heart,
She was of wrath so full,
That finding no hole in his coat,
She picked one in his scull.
But then heart began to relent,
And griev’d she was so sore,
That quarter to him for to give,
She cut him into four.
All in the dark and dead of night,
These quarters she conveyed,
And in a ditch in Marybone,
His marrow-bones she laid.
His head at Westminster she threw,
All in the Thames so wide,
Says she, ‘My dear, the wind sets fair,
And you may have the tide.’
But Heav’n, whose pow’r no limit knows,
On earth or on the main,
Soon caus’d this head for to be thrown
Upon the land again.
The head being found, the justices,
Their heads together laid;
And all agreed there must have been
Some body to this head.
But since no body could be found,
High mounted on a shelf,
They e’en set up the head to be,
A witness for itself.
Next, that it no self-murder was,
The case itself explains,
For no man could cut off his head,
And throw it in the Thames.
Ere many days had gone and passed,
The deed at length was known.
And Cath’rine, she confess’d at last,
The fact to be her own.
God prosper long our noble King,
Our lives and safeties all,
And grant that we may warning take,
By Cath’rine Hayes’s fall.
Catherine Hayes at the Stake
This advertisement in an issue of the London Morning Post read:
Mrs De St Raymond, Dentist, takes the liberty to recommend to the Nobility and Gentry, her well-known skill in the performance of chirurgical operations for the various disorders of the mouth, especially the lightness of her hand in removing all tartarous concretations, so destructive to the teeth, and her dexterity in extracting stumps, splints and fangs of teeth. She also draws, fills up, fastens and preserves teeth, corrects their deformities, transplants them from one mouth to another, grafts on, and sets in human teeth; likewise makes and fixes in artificial teeth, from one to an entire set, and executes her own newly invented masks for the teeth and obturators for the loss of the palate.
The lady also made an even more attractive offer, if possible, to those with vacant areas of gum space, by stating that she had the necessary expertise ‘to transplant teeth from the jaws of poor lads into the head of any lady or gentleman.’
And before you say that this quirky quote hardly falls into the category of torture, I should point out that it was advertised in 1777 – but that the first practical application of anaesthesia in dentistry, that of using nitrous oxide, was not until 1844, ether was not used until 1846, and sufferers preferring cocaine had to wait until 1879 – ouch!
Hereford, Nan (England)
In the 1600s highwaymen lurked on every lonely street – and one of the fiercest and most demanding was Nan Hereford. Big-boned and unattractive, it didn’t really matter; she sat well on a horse and hid her features behind a forbidding black mask. Like her male compatriots she wore a cloak, shirt and breeches, with a wide-brimmed hat pulled low over her face. Unlike them, however, she never resorted to using a pistol; her very appearance in front of a coach was sufficient to make the driver rein in the horses, his companion to throw down his blunderbuss, and the unfortunate passengers to hand over their valuables, any tardiness being overcome by a few well-aimed blows from her fists. Following a hold-up or two, she would retreat to a tavern by arrangement, the inn-keeper being only too willing to give her refuge until any pursuit died down. There, to make doubly sure, she would change into women’s attire and return to the city, biding her time until taking to the highways again.
But the horse patrols eventually caught up with her. In Newgate she proved almost impossible to control, fighting with the warders and even setting part of the gaol on fire. She was going to be hanged for robbery anyway, so it mattered little that arson was also a hanging offence.
On 22 December 1690 the hangman had quite a busy day. In addition to hanging sixteen felons at Tyburn for various crimes, highwayman William Davis, known as the ‘Golden Farmer’, had to be dispatched in Fleet Street, his cadaver afterwards to be suspended in chains on Bagshot Heath. After that the executioner had to go to Newgate, where Nan Hereford was waiting for him on the scaffold. ‘Stand and deliver!’ might have been her usual demand – but this time it was the hangman who st
ood there and delivered her into the next world!
One would have thought that even a murderer such as Wanda Jean Allen, who brutally killed her room-mate in 1988, would have behaved with a certain degree of decorum and shown some penitence in her final moments before being executed, but not Wanda; she just smiled broadly at her lawyer and the prison chaplain – and stuck her tongue out derisively!
Housden, Jane (England)
The moral of this story is if you’re a man and you have to shoot someone, don’t shoot them in a crowded courtroom; if you’re a woman, don’t encourage him in the dire deed no matter how much you care for him – with so many witnesses, even the finest defence counsel in the world could not get you acquitted!
Jane was a hardened criminal from the word go, as was her paramour, William Johnson. A jack of all trades, an ex-sailor, William turned his hand, and his horse’s head, towards the highway and held up coaches to rob the passengers. He was caught, tried, but for some reason, was pardoned. He had a lot in common with Jane, for she too had previously been arrested and tried on a charge of coining (counterfeiting), and had also received a pardon. This merciful gesture did not deter her; there was money to be made, literally, from coining and so she repeated the offence. No leniency was shown this time, and she was brought to the bar in the Old Bailey.
It so happened that on hearing that his lady friend was on trial, Johnson came to court in order to give her some loyal support, but as he approached the open door to the courtroom, the head turnkey (chief warder) attempted to bar him from entering, explaining brusquely that he could not speak to the prisoner at the bar until the end of the trial. Furious, Johnson made no reply but, urged on by Jane’s defiant and encouraging shouts, drew a pistol and without a moment’s hesitation, shot the turnkey dead, in full view of the judge, jury, officials and public gallery.
At that, the judge ordered the removal of the officer’s body and the arrest of the attacker; he then decided that there was little point in proceeding with Jane’s coining charge and, there being no need to call any witnesses to the crime just committed, he sentenced both of them to death, Johnson for pulling the trigger, Jane for being an accessory during the fact.
At least the two lovers were together when, on 19 September 1712, they mounted the scaffold steps. Neither showed the slightest remorse or regret – nor did Richard Pearse, the hangman, as he dispatched them. After an hour, all twitching and writhing having ceased, their bodies were cut down. The method of disposal of Jane Housden’s corpse is not known, but that of Johnson’s was hanged in chains, gibbeted, near Holloway as a dreadful warning to all.
Gibbet Irons
The obtaining of evidence of conspiracy to murder is of course vital, but the lengths to which the prosecution went, in the cases of Catherine Miller and her lover George Smith, both accused of murdering her elderly husband was, to say the least, unorthodox. During the trial testimony was given that the two suspects had been allowed to share a cell for a night, and that a prison warder had, at the instigation of the district attorney, hidden himself under the bed, hoping to hear something that would incriminate them!
Hungerford, Lady (England)
Lady Hungerford started off as plain Agnes, or Alice, Cottell, and she managed to get a job in the household of Sir Edward Hungerford at his residence, Farleigh Castle, which was situated in a village appropriately named Farleigh-Hungerford near Bath. Sir Edward, Sheriff of Wiltshire, Somerset and Dorset, Commissioner of Peace, was highly regarded in court circles. In addition to his castle he also owned a magnificent house in London, the family name later being commemorated in the capital by Hungerford Stairs and Hungerford Street – the latter being the thoroughfare in which Charles Dickens, as a child of ten, began his working life by sticking labels on bottles of blacking. During the reign of Charles II, a successor built Hungerford Market on the site of the mansion and its extensive gardens where now stands Charing Cross Station, from which southbound trains traverse Hungerford Bridge.
However, back to Agnes; what impression she made on her employer is not known; suffice it to say that the capacity in which she ultimately served was higher up the menial scale than that of a kitchen maid or even a housekeeper, and it soon occurred to her that a landowner as wealthy and aristocratic as Sir Edward would seem to be a worthwhile catch; he was a widower, his late wife, Jane, daughter of John, Lord Zouche of Haryngworth, having recently died. But Agnes’ problem was that she already had a husband. However, to someone as ruthless and ambitious as Agnes Cottell, that was a mere bagatelle, and on 26 July, under her guidance and supervision, William Inges and William Mathewe, two of the Hungerford servants, murdered the unfortunate John Cottell and disposed of all traces of his cadaver. And then, by making herself indispensable, probably in more ways than one, she married Sir Edward.
The perpetrators of the crime went undetected, and Lady Agnes became a member of a social life of which she had previously only dreamed. Three memorable years passed and then, on 14 December 1521, Sir Edward made his will. By it, after leaving a few minor legacies to various churches and friends, ‘the residue of all my goods, cattalls [chattels], juells, plate, harnesse, and all other moveables whatsoever they be, I freely geve and bequeath to Agnes Hungerford my wife’. He also made her the sole executrix. Oddly enough, six weeks later, on 24 January 1522, he died.
Whether Lady Agnes was betrayed by an unsuccessful blackmailer, as was likely, or suspicion borne by the authorities over John Cottell’s disappearance somehow bore fruit, is not known, but on 25 August 1522, as recorded in the Coram Rege Roll for Michaelmas term, 14 Henry VIII (1523), the two servants, Inges and Mathewe, were indicted with:
Having with force and arms made an assault on John Cottell at Farley, by the procurement and abetting of Agnes Hungerford, late of Heytesbury in the county of Wilts., widow, at that time the wife of the aforesaid John Cottell. And that a certain linen scarf called a kerchief which the aforesaid William and William then and there held in their hands, put round the neck of the aforesaid John Cottell and with the aforesaid linen scarf did then and there feloniously throttle, suffocate and strangle the aforesaid John Cottell, so that he immediately died, and afterwards the aforesaid William and William did then and there put into a certain fire in the furnace in the kitchen of the Castle of Farley the body of the aforesaid John Cottell, which did then burn and consume it.
Agnes herself was charged with ‘well knowing that the aforesaid William Mathewe and William Inges had done the felony and murder aforesaid, did receive, comfort and aid them on 28 December 1518.’ It was later recorded that a charge of actually murdering her husband was also brought against her.
While awaiting trial all three were confined in the Tower of London, records showing that the cost of guarding and providing for Agnes for the duration of her imprisonment was ten shillings a week. There they remained until, as ancient documents stated, ‘and now, to wit, on Thursday next after the quinzaine of St Martin [27 November 1522] in the same term, before the Lord the King at Westminster, in their proper persons [themselves], came the aforesaid William Mathewe, William Inges and Agnes Hungerford, brought to the bar by Sir Thomas Lovell, Constable of the Tower of London, by virtue of the writ of the Lord the King, to him thereupon directed.’
At the trial Lady Hungerford and her two accomplices were found guilty and sentenced to death. In addition, everything bequeathed to her in Sir Edward’s will was forfeited to the King.
At last the day of execution arrived, and as reported in the Grey Friars Chronicle:
This yere 1523 in Feverelle [February] the 20th day was the lady Agnes Hungerford lede from the Tower unto Holborne and there put into a carte at the churchyerde with hare servantes and so carried unto Tyborne, and there all were hongyd, and she burryd at the Grayfreeres in the nether end of the myddes of the churche on the northe syde.
In London there are surely no tourist attractions more macabre than the one which was displayed to visitors in Westminster Abbey’s Lady Chapel for n
early three hundred and fifty years, for they were the remains of Queen Katherine of Valois, King Henry V’s wife! After her death in 1437 the coffin was wrapped in lead taken from the roof, and because the lid was not replaced, her body, naked from the waist up, lay fully exposed. Described by the historian Dart as ‘continuing to be seen, the bones firmly united and thinly covered with flesh, like scrapings of fine leather’, regrettably it was not until 1776 that decency prevailed, and her corpse was interred in the Abbey’s vaults.
Hutchinson, Amy (England)
Poor Amy! In 1746 when she was sixteen years of age, slim and attractive, she fell in love with a young man, much against her father’s wishes. Her father was right, for her lover ‘seduced her under promise of marriage’. He then went to London but said he would marry her when he returned. Shocked by his infidelity, she allowed herself to be courted by another, much older man, John Hutchinson, and although he treated her unkindly at times, caught on the rebound, she agreed to marry him. But just as the newlyweds were leaving the church, who should turn up but Lover No.1!
Female Executions: Martyrs, Murderesses and Madwomen Page 11