The Ride to Tyburn
©Morbidia
Part I
Like most bad nights, last night had been a long one. Edith's eyes were heavy and pouchy and
her head lolled in time to the cart's bumping over ruts and holes in the road. Coming from the
country, the daughter of a moderately well-off family, Edith had never been to see a local
hanging much less one of the mass affairs on the great triple tree. She was amazed to see the
throngs that lined the road. The continuing bumping and shaking, starting and stopping, caused
her tired eyes to close and her exhausted body to seek comfort in sleep.
Today's was a full bill of fare, 24 souls to pass into eternity on the great gallows that had stood in
the road since the time of Good Queen Bess. It made for a long and slow trip. The carts stopped
and started as they wended their way. A source of the frequent stops was the mob's dislike of one
of the occupants of a cart in the center of the line. The man had been a fence who was notorious
for never giving full value. His cart, and the other unfortunate in it with him, were the targets of
thrown offal, faeces, and rocks.
A particularly short stop caused Edith to lurch awake. A barmaid darted out of the crowd and
jumped onto the back of the cart holding a mug in her hands. Holding the mug out to Edith, the
barmaid exclaimed:
- You poor lamb! Drink this, it'll help.
Edith craned her neck and shrugged because her hands were tied behind her and her arms were
pinioned by rope that was coiled around her arms and chest and ending in a noose that was
loosely draped around her neck. The barmaid held the mug to Edith's lips. As the cheap raw rum
coursed down her throat, the memories of the events that had led Edith to this ride came back
with full force.
**
Edith had come to London with her parents. They had not wanted to bring her, but her begging
and pleading had caused them to relent. It was a fateful and deadly decision. They had stayed at a
cheap boarding house near St. Paul's. One night after dining out, Edith's parents had started to
feel ill and within a week they were both dead of cholera. Edith's only recourse had been to take
their money, arrange the burials, and try to return home. Unfortunately, most of their money had
been converted into bank notes, and one of the notes had been printed badly. Instead of finding
passage home on the coach, she had been detained and accused of forgery.
She was taken into custody and held for trial. The trial itself had been a travesty. It had come at
the end of a long day, and both the magistrate and jury were impatient to get home and eat. After
Edith had told her story, the magistrate had exclaimed:
- This is all well and good, but the fact remains that the note was bad. Every forger who has
passed through my court has said the same thing. Jury how do you rule?
The jury retired for only a few minutes and then returned a verdict of guilty. The magistrate
placed a black cap on his head and proclaimed:
- You are hereby found guilty of passing forged bank notes. I sentence you to be returned to
prison and from there be taken tomorrow to a place of execution and to be hanged by the neck
until you are dead, your body to be given to the College of Surgeons once sentence has been
carried out. May the Lord have mercy on your soul. And lest you think this is unfair, it is not so
long ago that this crime would have led you to the stake to be burned for petite treason. England
has come so far in its justice system that we no longer practice that barbarity!
When Edith had heard herself pronounced guilty, she simply started staring into space. The chain
of events had been too much for her to absorb. She was placed in a cell with an almost emaciated
woman who was to suffer the same penalty. It was not a peaceful night. Although Edith was in
shock and could barely talk, the scrawny woman was almost hysterical. She had been convicted
of the theft of a teapot but had pleaded that she was with child. Rather than wait to see if her
belly grew, the magistrate had convened a panel of matrons who had declared her not pregnant.
She spent the night railing against her fate and alternately hugging and pushing the apathetic
Edith. By morning, both women were hollow-eyed from lack of sleep.
The prisoners were removed from their cells, their shackles were struck off, and they were taken
to the chapel for final services. Crowded together in a special pew, they were exhorted to repent
their sins. As the time approached to mount the carts for their last trip, they were again lined up.
This time, their hands were bound in front of them as a deacon handed out booklets with hymns
so that the literate might console themselves by singing on the way and the illiterate could
ponder the woodcuts depicting damnation and salvation. Edith kept dropping hers while staring
into space. The deacon got so frustrated, that he ordered the guard to bind her hands behind her
back.
In the courtyard, the guards placed a noose over each prisoner's head and wound the ropes firmly
but not tightly around their bodies. The carts each soon contained either one or two of
condemned. Edith's was the last cart, and staring into space, she mounted alone to sit down on
the baled hay inside it. The gate opened and the procession to Tyburn began.
Part II
The fumes of the cheap raw liquor shocked Edith out of her torpor. Coughing and spluttering,
Edith gazed up at the barmaid and gasped out a thanks. The procession lurched back into motion,
and the barmaid gave Edith a pitying squeeze on the shoulder as she hopped off the cart. Edith's
mind began to race as the fact of her fate sank home.
Struggling with the ropes, she managed to gain a little slack around her arms and chest. Thoughts
of jumping off the cart and trying to disappear into the crowd played through her mind. Then she
saw the impossibility of it - with her arms bound the most likely outcome would be bruises from
falling on her face.
The cart lurched to another stop. Edith had one final idea for this ride; she cried out to the crowd
lining the road:
- For the love of God. PLEASE, somebody get me a DRINK!
Several in the crowd chuckled, but one gallant fop sprung onto the cart and held a flask filled
with brand to her lips. As she gulped this different liquor greedily, the fop whispered:
- Oooh, but I would have loved to get a doxy as pretty as you in my bed tonight. I doubt,
however, that your condition tonight would permit it.
Almost gagging at the crude comment, Edith was about to spit some of the liquid in his face
when the cart bounced into motion again. The fop hopped off with a merry wave. And so the
procession went. At five more stops, Edith cried out for a drink and succeeded at three, earning a
disapproving 'Tsk' from her cart's driver. Unused to drinking spirits, she was gigglingly drunk
from a combination of cheap rum and fine brandy. Now it all seemed a joke.
Then she realised that the procession had slowed. She looked over her shoulder to see a gigantic
horizontal triangle supported at each corner by a great wooden stud. Even as she watched, the
first carts were beginning to line up under the farthest beam, horses facing toward the crowd of
spectators. As each cart pulled into its appointed position, the cart driver dismounted and held
the horse's bridle while two other men, who had been lounging at the foot of the far beam,
scampered onto the cart.
The two men began getting the first prisoners to stand and to unwind the long ropes around their
bodies. While the first prisoner was still flexing his arms to restore circulation, one of the men
quickly took his hymnal away. The second man coiled the long rope that ended in the
noose around the prisoner's neck and looked up. Following the gaze of the man with the rope,
Edith noticed a small man crawling on top of the beam. He scampered to a point over the first
cart and laid his whole body across the wood and began to gesticulate with a come up gesture.
The man on the beam was gesturing impatiently and looked as though he was trying to levitate
the prisoner by main force of waving his arm. Edith, thoroughly drunk, giggled earning a
further 'Tsk' from her driver. She continued to watch as the first man began to unwind the second
prisoner's rope while the second tossed the end of the first prisoner's rope to the man on the
beam. The rope uncoiled as the end sailed into the air to be deftly caught and fastened.
All the time that the two hangmen in the cart were performing their trade, the first prisoner was
haranguing the crowd. Edith laughed at some of his gibes as the second rank of carts finished
pulling up under the other far beam. The first hangman had jumped off the cart and proceeded to
the second whose sole occupant was the woman who had kept Edith up all night. As the
hangman jerked her to her feet and unwound the rope, she started to scream and plead and drown
out the amusing tale the first prisoner was telling. The crowd hissed at her to no avail while the
second hangman fitted a hood over the first prisoner's face.
The two prisoners in the first cart were noosed and hooded; the hang ropes had been fastened to
the beam with only a little slack so that neither man could fall down if he should faint. The man
on the beam had scooted over the woman and was just finished fastening the rope when he
shouted something to the first driver. The second hangman on the woman's cart quickly yanked a
hood over her head too and shouted.
Edith's drunken amusement changed to horror as the two carts were slowly walked into the
crowd. The two men, one still talking, and the woman, still screaming, were forced to walk by
the pull of the nooses. Suddenly the man's tale and woman's shrieks were cut off as the three
began swinging wildly at the ends of their ropes. The men's legs could be seen kicking at the air
while the woman's dress rustled and her shoes could be seen alternately pulling under the hem
and sticking out with toes pointed straight at the ground. The crowd was jeering and clapping.
Edith began to feel nauseated and turned away from the sight. Almost by compulsion, she
turned her head back again and noticed that in the span of those few moments all carts had been
withdrawn from under the first beam leaving five other men kicking and wriggling. Without
pause, the hangmen had turned their attention to the men under the second beam. As each cart
drew away, the crowd cheered louder.
Part III
Edith's cart stopped under the third beam, the horse facing into the deadly triangle. She was all
the way at the end with the first prisoners immediately to her left. As the driver left the cart to
stand by his horse, he gave her a sad, pitying, and vaguely disapproving shake of his head. She
faced stiffly front, but she could see the shadows of the first three victims cast onto the portion of
the crowd that was waiting to watch her own death. They had stopped struggling and she could
see the three shadows merely swaying and turning in the light breeze.
Edith's nose wrinkled as she became aware of an outhouse smell emanating from the direction of
the source of the shadows. She began to fight the urge to vomit from the combined effects of the
liquor she had drunk and the smell of her fellow prisoners' faeces and urine as they lost control
of their sphincters. She closed her eyes but quickly opened them again when she felt someone
step onto the cart and start to tug at her arms. The first hangman pulled her to her feet. As he
unwound the rope from around her body, he looked at her in a not unkindly way and said:
- It's time, luv. If ye've anywot ter say to them, say it now.
At that moment, he reached for the noose and snubbed the knot tightly under her ear. The second
hangman was also on the cart and was coiling the rope that the first hangman had handed to him.
Edith heard a voice above her say:
- Come on man, come on, we've not got all day!
When she looked up she saw the no-longer comical sight of the beam man waving his arm for
the rope. She quickly looked back down and saw the jeering crowd waiting impatiently. She
couldn't watch them and couldn't close her eyes, so she twisted in the hangmen's grasps and
faced the front of the cart. The sight was no better. Edith's eyes widened and her mouth formed
an 'O' of terror and horror; she was looking at the first three victims dangling limply with their
faces hidden in anonymous hoods. She felt a release in her belly and was mortified to feel warm
liquid running down her legs. The first hangman whispered to Edith:
- No worry, no shame, luv, that's what the straw's for. Let's get this done quick, eh? Jim, git!
The two jumped off without having placed a hood over her face. Whimpering, Edith felt the cart
begin to move slowly under her feet. The noose tugged her backwards as she felt for each step.
For a moment her left foot felt nothing under it. She swung her left leg forward and managed to
catch the edge of the cart again with both legs pressed tightly together. Desperately trying to
maintain a grasp on the edge of the cart, Edith locked her knees and curled her toes. The cart
moved relentlessly forward as the rope straightened and caused her board-stiff body to lean
backward, the noose tightening as the rope took more and more of her weight.
Suddenly her legs were kicking wildly as she swung free. Her mouth still gaping open, Edith's
last clear sight was the cart making its way past other dangling bodies. The noose burned as it
slipped up her neck and settled under her jaw, finally forcing her mouth closed. Her toes
scrabbled desperately for the ground that was a just a tantalisingly short distance beneath her.
Bright lights were dancing in front of her eyes as she tried to take a breath. Her chest gave a
mighty heave only to pull in the tiniest sip of air. She felt detached and floating as she swayed
and spun at the end of the rope.
A second attempt at breathing no longer seemed worth the effort. She heard the muted roar of the
crowd through the pressure of trapped blood on her eardrums. The bright lights started to turn
dark at the edges as she was vaguely aware of the swaying and twisting of her body and the
scissoring of her legs. At last, none of it seemed to matter and she stared unknowingly back at
the crowd which was moving madly before her eyes. She dimly realised that she was dying. With
her last conscious thought, she felt her sphincter releasing, the warm thick mass filling her
underwear. Her last feeling an overwhelming sadness -- and then she had no feeling at all.
The crowd gave its usual roar when Edith's body began to gyrate like a hooked trout at the end of
a line. They cheered her struggles as her hips wriggled and her face grimaced. When her body
gave a last shudder and swayed limply at the end of its rope, they surveyed the sight of two
dozen corpses slowly twisting under the great beams and began to disperse. Some among them,
mostly poor youths, ran to the swinging bodies and quickly grabbed their shoes, which certainly
would earn them some money once sold.
The beam man crawled along untying the ropes and letting the bodies drop to the ground. The
two hangmen undid the nooses and cut the ropes into pieces that they would sell for souvenirs.
They were especially careful to keep the ropes from the two women separate because a woman's
hangrope fetched a premium price. Relatives who had paid the court for their loved ones' bodies
took them away for burial. Two of the drivers who had brought prisoners to the great gallows
worked their way among the remaining corpses, stooping to pick each one up by the shoulders
and ankles and heaving them into the carts. When the ground had been cleared, the drivers threw
canvas covers over the carts so that each bore a lumpen mass only identifiable by the occasional
hand or foot and one white-stocking leg peeking out from under. The hands seemed to wave
goodbye as the carts bumped off toward Surgeon's Hall.

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