122
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. VIL FEB. ie, iwi.
cruelty was prolonged over the distance of
three miles to Tyburn village, or of three
and a half miles to the meeting of the old
roads, could scarcely have made a difference
to the poor victim, who must have been
or so let us hope relieved of consciousness.
How is the barbarity recorded 1 ? The con-
temporary chronicler Ralph de Diceto, Dean
of St. Paul's, has "equorum ministerio per
mediam civitatem trahitur ad furcas prope
Tiburnam" Roger of Wendover, another
contemporary, uses the same words, and
therefore may be thought to have borrowed
them, though in doing so he confirmed the
record. He merely seeks to improve the
Latinity of the place-name, which very
curiously he renders Tiburcinam. From
these two contemporary chroniclers is de-
rived the fact that Longbeard was hanged at
Tyburn, wherever in that manor may have
been the very site of the gallows. Any other
evidence is less important than theirs ; and
Tyburn being clearly named as the place of
execution, it is difficult to understand how
any historians, e.g., Stow and Lambert, if
indeed these chronicles were before them,
could have substituted Smithfield for Tyburn.
The chroniclers would not have written
Tyburn if they meant Smithfield.
Gervasse of Canterbury, another contem- porary, has simply " ad ulmos tractus," with- out any positive designation of the place. And as " The Elms " so long indicated the common place of death at Smithfield, was, indeed, a name for it, it is probable that the words of Gervasse have been misunder- stood. It may be that by " Elms " he simply meant gallows, for it is evident that the tree's name was so applied. Also it can be shown that elms (which abounded in the London district) grew at Tyburn, for a later chronicler, Adam Murimuth, recording the execution of Mortimer in 1330, places it in one MS. "apud Elme.s," and in another "ad ulmos de Ty bourne " (ed. Sir Edw. Maunde Thomp- son, p. 62).
William of Newburgh, also a contemporary recorder of Longbeard's execution, has merely " patibulo appensus est " ; and similarly Roger of Hoveden, " trahitur ad patibulum." Matthew Paris, a later chronicler, has "ad
idmetum per medium Londonite trahitur
et suspensus est per catenam in patibulo ."
Now let us see how the historians read the chroniclers. Holinshed (1577) has :
" William with the long beard (a/m.s Fitz Osbert) was from thence [the Tower! drawn with horses to the place of execution called the Elmt*. and there hanged on a gibbet."
Thus the Tudor historian does not name the
place ; neither do the later historians Speed,
Hume, Henry, Turner, Stubbs, or Freeman.
Palgrave (Introduction to ' Rotuli Curise
Regis,' 1835) has :
"William [Fitz Osbert] was dragged over the rough and flinty roads to Tyburn, where his lace- rated and almost lifeless carcass was hung in chains on the fatal elm."
It is clear that this writer had decided that "the fatal elm" or gallows was at Tyburn. Lingard also (1849) : " Fitz Osbert was hastily tried, condemned, dragged at the tail of a horse to the elms at Tyburn, and hanged in chains with nine of his followers." Our latest authority, the ' Dictionary of National Bio- graphy,' is, so it appears to me, scarcely fair
in its deduction: "William Fitz Osbert
was dragged through the city to the Elms (at Smithfield), and there hanged in chains." The parenthesis is the dictionary's, and cannot be said to be warranted, for, as we have seen, Gervasse, the contemporary, although he has " the Elms," does not say they were at Smith- field, nor does M. Paris (though Mr. Luard, his editor, has thus annotated) nor yet Holinshed, who uses similar terms. The dictionary ignores the contemporary record of Ralph de Diceto and Roger of Wendover to the effect that Fitz Osbert was hanged at Tyburn ; and I think it must be allowed that, view- ing their record, Palgrave and Lingard have properly concluded that the place was Tyburn, although it is difficult, if not impos- sible at present, to determine the very site of the gallows. W. L. RUTTON.
(To be continued.)
JESSE AND SELWYN.
IN 1843 John Heneage Jesse published ' George Selwyn and his Contemporaries.' It contained a large number of letters addressed to Selwyn, and very few (I think only eight) from Selwyn. The latter are such as might very probably have been written in draft and then copied ; one is endorsed as a copy.
As the publication of Selwyn's letters to the Earl of Carlisle, first by the Historical MSS. Commission, and since by Mr. Roscoe, has again directed attention 'to Selwyn, it may be well that I should state what I have heard concerning the source of Jesse's publi- ation.
Early in the last century probably about 1825 or a few years afterwards some papers, relating, I believe, to the private estate of George III., were wanted, and as it was sup- posed that they might be at the office of the Commissioners of Land Revenues, Works, and Buildings, my father, who was then a junior
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