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1761: Theodore Gardelle, artist

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On this date in 1761, Swiss-born portrait miniaturist Theodore Gardelle was hanged for murdering his landlady.

“We have to lament,” begins our guide, “that the woman might not have met her death at his hands, had she allotted some discretion to the limits of her tongue — a weapon, we may call it, often goading a man to a frenzy of the mind, ending in horror.”

In later years, she might have wielded a midriff.

[Gardelle] was born at Geneva, a city which is famed for giving birth to great men, in both the arts and sciences. He chose the miniature style of painting, and having acquired its first rudiments, went to Paris, where he made great proficiency in the art. He then returned to his native place, and practised his profession for some years, with credit and emolument; but, being unhappy in his domestic concerns, he repaired to London, and took lodgings at Mrs. King’s, in Leicester-fields, in the year 1760.

Gardelle’s version of the crime — long story short — is that he got into a tiff with said landlady, who stumbled when he shoved her and thereby fatally struck her head on the bedstead.

Panicked, Gardelle hid the body and began disposing of it in pieces over the succeeding week, until the ongoing dismemberment was quite accidentally discovered by the almost terminally incurious servants.

One reflection, upon reading this dreadful narrative, will probably rise in the mind of the attentive reader; the advantages of virtue with respect to our social connections, and the interest that others take in what befalls us. It does not appear that, during all the time Mrs. King was missing, she was enquired after by one relation or friend; the murder was discovered by strangers, almost without solicitude or enquiry; the murderer was secured by strangers, and by strangers the prosecution against him was carried on.

But who is there of honest reputation, however poor, that could be missing a day, without becoming the subject of many interesting enquiries, without exciting solicitude and fears, that would have no rest till the truth was discovered, and the crime punished?

Theodore Gardelle didn’t have the luxury of being so philosophical about it — but “was executed amidst the shouts and hisses of an indignant populace, in the Haymarket, near Panton Street, to which he was led by Mrs. King’s house, where the cart made a stop, and at which he just gave a look. His body was hanged in chains upon Hounslow-heath.”

Part of the Themed Set: Selections from the Newgate Calendar.

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1719: Nicholas Horner, a minister’s son

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On this date in 1719, Nicholas Horner was hanged for his highwayman career.

Actually, he was lucky to have made it to his thirties, having dodged the noose thanks to the old man after his first condemnation.

THIS unhappy wretch was the younger son of the minister of Honiton, in Devonshire, and was a very wild untoward child even from infancy. However, his indulgent father, in order to provide for him, bestowed as much learning upon him as qualified him to be clerk to an attorney … but he soon falling into extravagant company, and addicting himself very much to drunkenness and whoredom, ran away from his master before he had served him three years, and betook himself to the highway in order to support himself in the pursuit of those vices. He had such ill luck, nevertheless, in his new profession, as to be taken in the very first robbery he attempted to commit, and accordingly … brought to trial and condemned. However, his father made such interest for him at Court that Queen Anne, who was always known to have a great veneration for the clergy, in consideration of his father’s being one of that order, was prevailed upon to grant him a pardon, upon condition of his being transported out of her Majesty’s dominions, and not settling in any part of Europe for the term of seven years, within six months after his going out of jail.

The Newgate text then indulges a picturesque excursion to the hinterlands, with Horner shipped to India and his English wife being carried off by the Hindoos, then obliged to undergo self-immolation when her Indian husband died.

We rejoin Horner having returned home to find his parents dead. He quickly blew his inheritance and “had again recourse to the highway.”

A slow-moving highway, since his stickup schtick took some time to unfold.

One day, being upon his rambles in quest of prey, and coming up with a rich farmer — “Well overtaken, friend,” said Horner; “methinks you look melancholy: pray what may be your affliction? If you are under any misfortunes by crosses and losses in the world, perhaps it may be in my power to relieve you.” The farmer very frankly replied: “Ah! dear sir, were I to say that I have had any losses in the world, I should be telling a great lie; for I have been a thriving man all my lifetime, and should want for nothing had I but content. But indeed I have crosses enough, through a damned scolding wife at home … Wherefore, could any man tell me a remedy that would cure it, I have a hundred pounds about me in gold and silver which I would freely give him with all my heart for so great a benefit as I should receive by taming this confounded shrew.”

At the mention of the agreeable name of a hundred pounds Horner pricked up both his ears and answered: “Sir, I will first tell you the ingredients which enter into the composition of a scold, and the cause of a distemper being truly known, ’twill be the more easy to complete the cure. You must understand, then, that Nature, in making an arrant scold, first took of the tongues and galls of bulls, bears, wolves, magpies, parrots, cuckoos and nightingales, each a like number; the tongues and tails of vipers, adders, snails and lizards, six apiece; aurum fulminans, aqua fortis and gunpowder, of each one pound; the clappers of seventeen bells and the pestles of thirty apothecaries’ mortars. These being all mixed together, she calcined them in Mount Strombolo, and dissolved the ashes in water taken just under London Bridge at three-quarters’ flood; she then filtrated the whole through the leaves of Calepine’s Dictionary, to render the operation more verbose, after which she distilled it a second time through a speaking trumpet, and closed up the remaining spirits in the mouth of a cannon.

“Then she opened the graves of all newly deceased pettifoggers, mountebanks, barbers, coffee-men, newsmongers and fishwives from Billingsgate, and with the skin of their tongues made a bladder, which she covered over drum-heads, and filled with storms, tempests, whirlwinds, thunder and lightning; and in the last place, to make the whole composition the more churlish, she cut a vein under the tongue of the dog-star, extracting from thence a pound of the most choleric blood, and then, sublimating the spirits, she mixed them up with the foam of a mad dog, and putting all together in the fore-mentioned bladder stitched them up therein with the nerves of Socrates’ wife.”

“A damned compound indeed this is,” rejoined the farmer. “Surely it must be impossible at this rate for any man to tame a scold.” “Not at all,” continued Horner; “for when she first begins to be in her fits, which you may perceive by the bending of her brows, then apply to her a plaster of good words; after that give her a wheedling potion, and if that will not do, take a birch rod and apply the same with a strong arm from shoulder to flank, according to art; that will infallibly complete the cure.” The farmer, being very well pleased with the prescription, not only gave Horner many thanks, but a good treat at the next inn they came to. Afterwards they rode on together again, and when they came to a convenient place, said Horner: “Will you be pleased to pay me now, sir, for the good advice I have given you?” “I thought, sir,” answered the farmer, “that the treat I gave you in return was sufficient satisfaction.” “No, sir,” quoth Horner, “you promised a hundred pounds, and, d–n me, sir,” continued he, presenting a pistol to his breast, “deliver your bag this instant, or you are a dead man.” At this rough compliment the farmer delivered it to him; but not without a hearty curse or two, and swearing withal that his wife should pay dearly for it the first time he tried the experiment of the birch rod upon her.

Evidently some kind-hearted fellow-bandit, or a target with appointments to keep, or something, helped tighten up Horner’s delivery.

Not long after this exploit Horner met with a gentleman upon Hounslow Heath, whom he saluted with the terrifying words: “Stand and deliver.”

(whew.)

Whereupon the person assaulted gave him what money he had about him, amounting to about six guineas, and said to him: “Truly, sir, you love money better than I do, to venture your neck for it.” “I only follow the general way of the world, sir,” quoth Horner, which now prefers money before either friends or honesty, yea, some before the salvation of their souls; for it is the love of gold that makes an unjust judge take a bribe; a corrupt lawyer plead a wrong cause in defiance of truth and justice; a physician kill a man whom he pretends to cure, without fear of hanging; a surgeon keep a patient long in hand, by laying on one plaster to heal, and two to draw his wound. ‘Tis gold that makes the tradesman tell every day a thousand lies behind the counter, in putting off his bad wares; ’tis that makes the butcher blow his veal, the tailor covet so much cabbage, the miller take toll twice, the baker wear a wooden cravat, and the shoemaker stretch his leather as he does his conscience. In short, ’tis that makes gentlemen of the pad, as I am, wear a Tyburn tippet, or old Storey’s cap, on some country gallows, which all of our noble profession value no more than you, sir, do the losing of this small trifle of six guineas.”

Social criticism of this sort is often put into the mouths of the Newgate Calendar’s evildoers, and in particular its gentleman robbers; note the very close parallel of this last critique to that supposedly uttered by James Withrington.

It is, in fact, essential to the highwayman archetype, and an identity real-life highwaymen intentionally played to — the gentleman thief (mirrored by contemporaries in the Golden Age of Piracy), who here opposes, and there merely parallels, the ascendant order of capitalism.

The complexity of 18th century England’s relationship to the highwayman, filtered through a blossoming mass media, has much exercised later historians: where does a pattern of speech like this fit in its milieu? Can one find in a highwayman’s travesty of bourgeois values, with Linebaugh, an expression of class resistance, or is he merely a failed satirist? Does he truly oppose — or does the futile romance of the road waste genuine opposition on escapism?*

The qualities of resistance, satire and escapism were well-known to the 18th century. That century’s smash theatrical hit, The Beggar’s Opera, staged the noble rogue’s critique to packed houses, and to the dismay of the moralistic element.

Since laws were made for every degree,
To curb vice in others, as well as me,
I wonder we han’t better company,
Upon Tyburn Tree!
But gold from the law can take out the sting;
And if rich men like us were to swing,
‘Twould thin the land, such numbers to string
Upon Tyburn Tree!

Decades later, highwaymen like Paul Lewis were still humming this tune en route to the gallows and self-consciously playing “Macheath”.

Nicholas Horner was hanged before The Beggar’s Opera debuted, but he — either the man or the character — had more sharp words for another keystone of propriety, holy wedlock. Whether this is the voice of the robber or his interlocutor, we may venture (given the shrew-taming digression above), that it’s someone whose domicile was less than blissful.

Horner overtook, beyond Maidenhead Thicket, a young man and a young woman who were going to be married at Henley-upon-Thames, with a couple of bridesmen and bridesmaids.

These he presently attacked … [and] demanded also the wedding-ring, for which the intended bridegroom entreated him yet more earnestly than for his money; but Horner being resolutely bent upon having it, they delivered it to him; whereupon he said: “You foolish young devils, do you know what you are going about? Are you voluntarily going to precipitate yourselves into inevitable ruin and destruction, by running your heads into the matrimonial noose with your eyes open? Do you know it is an apprenticeship for life, and a hard one too? You had better be ruled by me, and take one another’s words; and if you do, you’ll find in taking my counsel that it is the best day’s work you ever did since the hour of your birth.”

Ah, for the days when intercity transit entailed the omnipresent prospect of a gentlemanly robbery.

Let’s conclude on a light note — since we know the end of the story, after all — and picture whether this escaped mugging constituted news-you-can-use for broadsheet readers of a thespian bent.

Not long after this exploit a lady of distinction, being alone in the stage-coach … was informed by the coachman … that if her ladyship had any things of value about her, it would be her best way to secure them as well as she could, for he saw several suspicious fellows scouting up and down the heath … [T]he lady put her gold watch, a purse of guineas and a very fine suit of laced head-cloths under her seat. This done she dishevelled her hair in a very uncouth manner all over her head and shoulders, by which time Horner had ridden up to her, and presenting a pistol into the coach demanded her money.

Hereupon the lady … [acted] the part of a lunatic, which she did to the life, for opening the coach door and leaping out, and taking Horner by one of his legs, she shrieked out in a most piteous and lamentable shrill voice: “Ah! dear Cousin Tom, I am glad to see you. I hope you will now rescue me from this rogue of a coachman, who is carrying me, by that villain my husband’s order, to Bedlam for a madwoman.” “D— me,” replied Horner, “I am none of your cousin; I don’t know you. I believe you are mad indeed, so Bedlam is the fittest place for you.” “Ah! Cousin Tom,” said the lady again, “but I will go along with you; I won’t go to Bedlam.” She then clung close to Horner and his horse, and counterfeited lunacy with such dexterity that he really thought it natural, and asked the coachman: “Do you know this mad b—h? “Yes,” replied the coachman, “I know the lady very well she is sadly distracted, for she has torn her head-cloths all to pieces and thrown them away as we came along; and I am now going with her by her husband’s orders to London, to put her into a madhouse, where she may be cured; but not into Bedlam, as she supposes.” “E’en take her then along with you to the devil, if you will,” said Horner in a passion, “for I thought to have met with a good purchase, and I find now there is nothing to be got of this mad toad.” So he set spurs to his horse and rode away as fast as he could, for fear of being plagued any more with her, for she seemed mighty fond of her cousin, and ran a good way after him; but after he was gone out of sight she was better pleased with his absence than his company, and got safe to London.

* The issues at stake, and the literature on them, are explored at length in Andrea McKenzie’s “The Real Macheath: Social Satire, Appropriation, and Eighteenth-Century Criminal Biography,” Huntington Library Quarterly December 2006, Vol. 69, No. 4, Pages 581–605.

Part of the Themed Set: Selections from the Newgate Calendar.

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1781: John Donellan, Esq.

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On this date in 1781, John Donellan was hanged for murdering his brother-in-law to secure an inheritance.

JOHN DONELLAN had been a captain in the army, and was the son of Colonel Donellan. He certainly distinguished himself as a good soldier, for not only had he been much wounded in the service, but, if his own account may be credited, he was singularly instrumental in the taking of Mazulapatam. … In June, 1777, he married Miss Boughton; and on Friday, 30th of March, 1781, he was tried at the assizes at Warwick for the wilful murder of Sir Theodosius Edward Allesley Boughton, Bart., his brother-in-law.

…

… Sir Theodosius was twenty years old on the 3rd of August past. On his coming of age he would have been entitled to above two thousand pounds a year, and in the event of his dying a minor the greater part of his fortune was to descend to his sister, the wife of Mr Donellan. It was known in the family on the evening of Tuesday, the 26th that Sir Theodosius was to take his physic the next morning. … As he was taking it he observed that it smelled and tasted very nauseous; upon which [his mother, Lady Boughton] said: “I think it smells very strongly like bitter almonds.” He then remarked that he thought he should not be able to keep the medicine upon his stomach.

Here a bottle was delivered to Lady Boughton containing the genuine draught, which she was desired to smell, and inform the Court whether it smelled like the medicine Sir Theodosius took. She answered in the negative. She was then desired to smell another containing the draught, with the addition of laurel-water, which she said had a smell very much like that of the medicine she gave to Sir Theodosius. … Two minutes after Sir Theodosius had taken the draught he struggled very much. It appeared to her as if it was to keep the draught down. He made a prodigious rattling in his stomach, and guggling …

She saw Mr Donellan less than five minutes after. … he asked her where the physic bottle was; on which she showed him two draughts; when he took up one of the bottles and said, “Is this it?” she answered, “Yes.” He then rinsed it, and emptied it into some dirty water that was in a washhand-basin; and on his doing so she said: “What are you at? You should not meddle with the bottles.” Upon that he snatched up the other bottle and rinsed it …

We omit the forensic testimony presented to confirm that the victim was indeed poisoned.

As well as the latter-day observer can tell, we have a guilty — and fairly clumsy — poisoner after his brother-in-law’s boodle.

We’ll never know the answer, but the Newgate author hints at other family members who might have had the same means, motive and opportunity … like Donellan’s wife:

[Lady Boughton] soon afterwards went into the parlour, where she found Mr and Mrs Donellan; and the former told his wife that her mother had been pleased to take notice of his washing the bottles, and that he did not know what he should have done if he had not thought of saying that he had put the water into them to put his finger to it to taste.

Lady Boughton’s just full of evidence! Don’t suppose she could have had anything to gain, hmm? Let’s ask a jailhouse snitch:

John Darbyshire deposed that he had been a prisoner in Warwick jail for debt, and that Mr Donellan and he had had a bed in the same room for a month or five weeks. He remembered to have had a conversation with him about Sir Theodosius being poisoned. On his asking him whether the body was poisoned or not, he said there was no doubt of it. The witness said: “For God’s sake, Captain, who could do it?” He answered it was amongst themselves; he had no hand in it. The witness asked whom he meant by themselves. He said: “Sir Theodosius himself, Lady Boughton, the footman and the apothecary.” The witness replied, “Sure, Sir Theodosius could not do it himself!” He said he did not think he did — he could not believe he would. The witness answered: “The apothecary could hardly do it — he would lose a good patient; the footman could have no interest in it; and it is unnatural to suppose that Lady Boughton would do it.” The Captain said how covetous Lady Boughton was: she had received an anonymous letter the day after Sir Theodosius’s death charging her plump with poisoning him; that she called him and read it to him, and trembled. She desired he would not let his wife know of that letter, and asked him if he would give up his right to the personal estate, and to some estates of about two hundred pounds a year belonging to the family. The conversation was about a month after the Captain came into the jail. At other times he said that it was impossible he could do a thing that never was in his power.

Stranger things have happened, but it sounds like a weak attempt to set mom up; it sounded weak to the jury, too.

At seven o’clock on the next day, the 2nd of April, 1781, he was carried to the place of execution at Warwick, in a mourning-coach, followed by a hearse and the sheriff officers in deep mourning. As he went on he frequently put his head out of the coach, desiring the prayers of the people around him.

On his arrival at the fatal spot he alighted from the coach and, ascending a few steps of the ladder, prayed for a considerable time, and then joined in the usual service with the greatest appearance of devotion; he next, in an audible tone of voice, addressed the spectators to this effect: that as he was then going to appear before God, to Whom all deceit was known, he solemnly declared that he was innocent of the crime for which he was to suffer; that he had drawn up a vindication of himself, which he hoped the world would believe, for it was of more consequence to him to speak truth than falsehood, and he had no doubt but that time would reveal the many mysteries that had arisen in his trial.

After praying fervently some time he let his handkerchief fall — a signal agreed upon between him and the executioner — and was launched into eternity. When the body had hung the usual time it was put into a black coffin and conveyed to the town hall to be dissected.

Part of the Themed Set: Selections from the Newgate Calendar.

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1691: Jack Withrington, highwayman

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On this date in 1691, highwayman Jack Withrington hanged at Tyburn.

THIS fellow was the youngest of five brothers, who were all born at Blandford, in Dorsetshire. The other four were all hanged in the country, but Jack had the good fortune to be reserved for Tyburn, and by that means to have his name transmitted to posterity. He was bound to a tanner in Shaftesbury, a town in his native county, with whom he served about three years. Then he entered into the Earl of Oxford’s Regiment of Horse, in which, when Monmouth‘s rebellion was suppressed in the West of England, he came up to London, where he soon met with opportunities of discovering his valour to the world. These occasions were two quarrels in which he was engaged: the first with a man famous for fighting, against whom he behaved with so much bravery and skill that it won him a vast reputation; the second with a person of great estate, but a noted coward, when he showed himself a gentleman by his adherence to the point of honour and good breeding. By these duels he won abundance of applause, so as thereby to contract a familiarity with all the greatest fighting men of the time, especially those in his own regiment. Withrington however carried his manhood so far as to get himself turned out of the regiment within a year after, for challenging his captain. He then became a perfect bully and gamester; and, being fortunate, in a little time by these means saw himself master of a considerable sum of money. Notwithstanding all this good luck at first, he found himself afterwards subject to the fate of gamesters —- viz. to be frequently without money in spite of his large winnings. This brought him at last to consider the uncertainty of Fortune and endeavour to make himself master of her, by supplying with fraud what he might want in plain open skill. But this also did not continue long; for everyone began to be aware of him as a common sharper, and none who knew him would venture to play with him.

In the common scale of knavery the next step above a sharper is a downright thief. Withrington made bold to ascend this degree, and was resolved to take the most honourable station thereon, that of a highwayman. He had money enough to buy him a good horse and accoutrements, so that the resolution and the real attempt were not long asunder. His first adventure was with a farmer, from whom he took forty pounds, giving him in return only an impudent harangue, occasioned by the countryman’s reproaching him with the robbery.

The next that fell in Withrington’s way was Mr Edward Clark, gentleman usher to the Duchess of Mazarin. They met in Devonshire, on the road between Chudleigh and Ashburton. Mr Clark made some resistance, so that in the scuffle Withrington’s mask fell off and discovered his face, which Mr Clark knowing, he called him by his name, and said he hoped he would not rob an old acquaintance. “Indeed I shall, sir,” quoth Withrington, “for you get your money much easier than I do, who am forced to venture my life for a maintenance; you have so much a year for eating, drinking and entertaining your lady with scandal and nonsense. What I shall take from you will do you little harm; it is only putting a higher price upon half-a-score reputations, which you know how to do as well as any coxcomb in England. Ladies never let such faithful servants go unrewarded, nor will yours suffer your loss to fall on yourself.” He got about eight guineas out of this gentleman’s pocket, and for old acquaintance sake bade him “Good-b’w’ye” very heartily.

Withrington’s robberies in less than a year and a half were talked of almost all over the kingdom. But alas! he met with a diversion, common to mankind, that draws even the most stupid into the rank of polite persons. The poor man was in love; and with whom but a rich widow inn-keeper in Bristol! Farewell to the highway: Withrington has another scent to pursue. No more robberies to be thought of from a man who was himself robbed of his heart! He employed an old bawd in the affair, who was intimately acquainted with our hostess, and by this flesh-broker’s mediation things had like to have come to an issue, and Jack to have been master of the Swan Inn. In short, there was nothing prevented it but the accidental coming of a certain gentleman, who knew our highwayman, and informed his mistress what he was. The effects of this discovery were Jack’s being kicked out of doors by the ostler and chamberlain, and the commitment of madam the negotiatress to Bridewell, in order to mill Dolly.

After his return to the highway he and one of his companions met with Mr Thompson, a noted tailor, in a part of Hertfordshire that was convenient for robbing. They took from him about thirty pounds in silver, and then, dismounting him, they ordered him to stay where he was till they brought him more company. As soon as they were gone from him he remounted his horse and attempted to ride off as fast as he could; but our highwaymen perceiving what he was at, and having the best horses, they fetched him back, and mistrusting he had more money, by his being in so much haste, they searched him afresh, he protesting all the while that he had not so much as a farthing left if it were to save his soul. In a literal sense he might be right; but they made a shift to find forty guineas, which they thought better than farthings. Withrington upon this exclaimed that it was a sad thing that one Christian could not believe another! They then shot his horse, to put a stop to his speed, and so rode away and left him.

These, we pause to digress, are not the only stock and store among the (surely half-legendary) c.v. of this colorful bandit. The verbosely entitled Complete History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen, Footpads, Shoplifts and Cheats of Both Sexes reports that Withrington delivered himself of an even wordier critique of the nascent economic order of the day.

[T]ravelling the road, he met a rich farmer, from whom he took £40. Quoth he, Is not this a downright robbery? Roberry? replied Withrington; So let it be; who is there now-a-days does not rob? The tailor steals before his customer’s face; the weaver steals by eking out the length of a piece of cloth with the remainder of broken ends; the surgeon steals by prolonging a cure; the apothecary steals with a quid pro quo, using one drug for another for cheapness, without any regard to the age and constitution of the patient; the merchant steals by putting his money into the Bank of England; the scrivener steals by selling the soul of a poor man for the money that he can take of a forfeit; the grocer steals by using false weights; the vintner steals by adulterating his wine; the butcher steals by blowing up his meat; the victualler steals by drawing in short measures; the cook steals by roasting his meat twice over; the baker steals by raising his bread when there’s no occasion; and the shoe-maker steals by stretching his leather as much as he does his conscience. Thus, as there is cheating and cozening in all trades but mine, you cannot blame me for borrowing this small trifle; which I shall honestly pay you when we meet again; so till then, farewell.

And a bit of, er, gallantry.

Another time Jack Withrington meeting a gentleman and his wife on the road betwixt St. Albans and Dunstable, he very submissively craved their benevolence; but they not instantly granting his request, he shot the horse on which they both rode, and swore that as he denied him his money, he would take his wife. So forcing her into an adjacent copse, and acting a man’s part by her, he restored her to her husband again, from whom taking eleven or twelve guineas he said, This is no more than my due for I am not obliged to do your drudgery for nothing.

Rape and repartee! Dreamy.

But we know where this is heading.

The last robbery Withrington committed was alone. He stopped a nobleman on Hounslow Heath attended by two footmen. There was a short dispute, but Withrington having the best of it, he took a portmanteau in which were two hundred and eighty guineas, sixty pounds in silver, and a parcel of fine linen. A hue and cry was soon issued out after him, and he was apprehended by means of it at Malmesbury, in Wiltshire, from whence he was removed to London, where he was condemned for this fact.

The sentence of death seemed to have no effect on his temper, for he was as gay and humorous under that circumstance as ever he had been before. When he was riding up Holborn Hill he ordered the cart to stop, and calling up the Sheriff’s deputy, “Sir,” said he, “I owe a small matter at the Three Cups, a little farther on, for which I am afraid of being arrested as I go by the door; therefore I shall be much obliged to you if you will be pleased to carry me down Shoe Lane and bring me up Drury Lane again into the road by which I am to travel this devilish long journey.” The deputy informed him that if such a mischance should happen he should come to no damage. “For,” says he, “I’ll be bail for you myself, rather than you shall go back to prison again.” “Thank you heartily, sir,” quoth Jack; “I protest I could not have thought that I had a friend in the world who would have stood by me so in such a time of need.” After this he rode very contentedly to the place of execution, where he was tucked up with as little ceremony as usual. This fatal day was Wednesday, the 1st of April, in the year 1691.

Part of the Themed Set: Selections from the Newgate Calendar.

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2001: Mariette Bosch, love triangulator

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On this date in 2001, Botswana secretly hanged creepy South African emigre Mariette Bosch for whacking her neighbor in order to steal the neighbor’s husband.

That the black widow was actually white only threw the lurid scenario into sharper relief. In the well-heeled enclaves of Gaborone, one Ria Wolmarans was found shot dead in 1996, and inside a month her former husband Tienie Wolmarans had moved in with Mariette Bosch.

The big break in the case came from Mariette’s sister Judith, to whom the murderess had unguardedly confided her love for Tienie prior to the shooting. (The lovebirds’ official story was that their loins only heated up as Ria Wolmarans’ body cooled.) Judith got ahold of the 9mm Mariette had borrowed and handed over to the police what proved to be the murder weapon.

Although the courts found Mariette’s erratic defense — something about hypnotism and her victim’s boss — absurdly implausible, her elite status helped make her the lightning rod for capital punishment in Botswana.

The international attention she attracted, however, simultaneously pressured the government to close the books with a very speedy hanging.

Bosch was hanged at 6 a.m. this date upon 24 hours’ notice to herself and none whatsoever to the outside world: Tienie — who always avowed disbelief that Bosch killed his wife — was turned away from the prison on what he figured was a routine visit the previous day, and found out about Bosch’s execution with the rest of the country when it hit the news two days later. Bosch had to go her last day on earth alone.

Although it remains an emblematic case, Bosch’s disposal hasn’t exactly changed Botswana’s hanging protocol: brief appeals process, executions in secrecy, scant prospect of clemency. The country’s politicians make no apologies about it, notwithstanding the high-profile work of its domestic human rights organization Ditshwanelo. (Here’s its statement on Bosch.)

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1952: Nikos Beloyannis, the man with the carnation

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Before dawn on this date in 1952, four Greek Communists were shot outside Athens for treason.

Nikos (Nicholas) Beloyannis (or Mpeloyannis), the most prominent among them, spent a goodly portion of his adult life in prison for his subversive opinions — first at the hands of the interwar Greek nationalist government, then the Nazi occupation, then the British.

His many years’ service to communism was, unbeknownst to him, even then being horse-traded away as Stalin and Churchill carved up post-World War II spheres of influence.

Uncle Joe ceded Greece to the West — so the reds were left dangling during the Greek Civil War, and guys like Nikos got fitted for left martyrology.


The Execution of Beloyannis, by Peter de Francia.

“The man with the carnation” — it was his signature prop at the mass show trial where he drew a death sentence for “conspiring to overthrow by force the present regime in Greece.”

The trial, and the outcry that greeted its swift and questionable resolution, helped establish an enduring international reputation among fellow-travelers.

(From The Man With The Carnation, released after the fall of the Papadapoulos dictatorship.)

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1796: Francois de Charette, Vendee rebel

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On this date in 1796, Republican France subdued the troublesome Vendee with the execution of its last great rebel.

Royalist officer Charette (English Wikipedia link | French) had assumed leadership of the anti-Republican revolt that broke out in the Vendee in 1796 — albeit with some turf rivalry with other anti-Republican figures in the area.

After a capable stretch of guerrilla campaigning, Charette had no sooner laid down his arms than the desperately counterrevolutionary English pushed for an ill-considered resumption of hostilities.

This time, the rebels took it in the culottes.

Charette, having upheld the monarchist cause long past his fellows — and much past any hope of success — became the figure the Republic had to eliminate to pacify the region. As English historian Archibald Alison has it, Charette paid a grim price for refusing to just be bought off.

Anxious to get quit of so formidable an enemy on any terms, the Directory offered [Charette] a safe retreat into England with his family and such of his followers as he might select, and a million of francs for his own maintenance. Charette replied, “I am ready to die with arms in my hands; but not to fly, and abandon my companions in misfortune. All the vessels of the Republic would not be sufficient to transport my brave soldiers into England. Far from fearing your menaces, I will myself come to seek you in your own camp.” …

This indomitable chief, however, could not long withstand the immense bodies which were now directed against him. His band was gradually reduced from seven hundred to fifty, and at last, ten followers. With this handful of heroes he long kept at bay the Republican forces; but at length, pursued on every side, and tracked out like a wild beast by bloodhounds, he was seized after a furious combat, and brought, bleeding and mutilated, but unsubdued, to the Republican headquarters. … Maltreated by the brutal soldiery, dragged along, yet dripping with blood from his wounds, before the populace of the town, weakened by loss of blood, he had need of all his strength of mind to sustain his courage; but, even in this extremity, his firmness never deserted him.

He was shot in Nantes after a perfunctory trial, refusing a blindfold and giving the orders to his own firing squad.


The execution of Charette. Mid-19th century illustration.


Execution of General Charette, in Nantes, March 1796, by Julien Le Blant.

Napoleon, who had done well to duck a possibly career-killing assignment to the Vendee the year before and was in consequence at this very moment the Revolution’s emergent man on horseback,* paid tribute from his suitable distance to Charette’s brilliance.

Charette was a great character; the true hero of that interesting period of our Revolution, which, if it presents great misfortunes, has at least not injured our glory. He left on me the impression of real grandeur of mind; the traces of no common energy and audacity, the sparks of genius, are apparent in his actions.

* Having made his name by efficiently putting down a royalist putsch in Paris a few months before, Napoleon had wed Josephine just three weeks before Charette’s execution.

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1997: First use of lethal injection in China

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On this date in 1997, Kunming City Intermediate People’s Court debuted a brand-new execution technology for the world’s capital of capital punishment.

With a 1996 Criminal Procedural Law reform making lethal injection an option for processing the enormous ranks of China’s condemned, experimentation got underway this date on two convicts whose identities and crimes I have not seen indicated. These were not only the first lethal injections in China, but the first anywhere outside the U.S.

According to the New York Times, China began its foray without the usual accoutrement of medicalization: rather than the familiar strap-down gurney, Kunming officials simply brought the doomed prisoners to the same execution ground used for shootings and had them roll up their sleeves for the needle.

Whatever its initial inelegance, China has enjoyed many thousands of test cases since to refine the practice — as many as 15,000 per year at this time, Amnesty International has charged.*

In the 12 years since, and aided by the offices of its guinea pigs, lethal injection has gained significantly in both technical sophistication and official acceptance; it is now thought that most Chinese executions use this method, rather than the old gunshot-to-the-back-of-the-head.

To What End?

More humane? Maybe.

Easier on an executioner than discharging a bullet at point-blank range? You’d have to think so.

Cheaper? Well, maybe — if the cost of the mobile killing van is spread over enough, er, “subjects”.

But lethal injection enjoys one significant benefit of distastefully obvious utility to the state:** it facilitates tissue transplant from a recently executed prisoner.

Though Chinese officials have always stonewalled on the subject, lucrative organ harvesting from executed prisoners has long been endemic in the country.

* China’s death penalty system has been famously opaque, so this figure is far in excess of the known thousand-plus judicial executions every year (1,718 in 2008) and would include several times that number in other judicial executions not publicly reported, plus extrajudicial killings that presumably wouldn’t involve lethal injection. Even with only the official executions specifically known to the wider world, China easily accounts for the majority of the world’s executions year after year.

** The older (and still-used) method of shooting a prisoner in the head also preserves organs, of course.

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1836: Goliad Massacre

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On this date in 1836 — Palm Sunday, as it happened — over 300 Anglo POWs fighting to separate Texas from Mexico were executed en masse outside Goliad’s fortress

Less widely celebrated than the Battle of the Alamo preceding it by a fortnight, the Battle of Coleto on March 19-20 had seen Mexican troops surround and capture another force of Texians at Goliad.

Unaware of a Mexican order issued the previous December to execute foreign prisoners,* the men under Col. J.W. Fannin — a dithering commander whose military competence didn’t quite equal his romantic aspirations — expected to be released in a matter of weeks. They were marched out this morning on some innocuous pretext and had bare moments to apprehend their impending fate before their guards mowed them down. (Fannin was individually shot apart from his troops.)

Nineteenth-century musketry was a mediocre tool for mass slaughter, especially when the targets were nearly as many as their executioners. A number of prisoners survived the volley and managed to escape the subsequent cavalry charge and bayoneting by leaping into a nearby river. A fortunate few others were intentionally preserved. This thorough site on the massacre** preserves several survivor accounts.

These memoirs also detail life in the unit and troop maneuvers that are certainly of interest; in these pages, of course, we are most drawn to the accounts of those who stared death in the face — like this (understandably melodramatic) description by Herman Ehrenberg:

Either life or death! Behind were the bayonets of the murderers, and before me was the sword of a coward that crossed my way to the saving stream. Determinedly I rushed upon him. Forward I must go, and — the coward took flight in characteristic Mexican gallantry. Now the path was open, near was the point of my escape.

…

Arriving at the other bank of the river, I looked around once more to where my comrades were dying, while the bullets of the still firing enemies whistled about me. The hellish exaltations of the enemy mixed with the cries of pain of my dying brothers sounded over to me. What feelings took possession of me here! I cast another look and a farewell greeting to my dead companions and turned to flee. I had to hasten if I did not wish to fall into the hands of the lancers who were now on this side of the river less than a half a mile below me.

Which makes an interesting stylistic contrast with the story of John C. Duval, similar in its events but strikingly low-key, even ironic:

Some one near me exclaimed “Boys! they are going to shoot us!” and at the same instant I heard the clicking of a musket locks all along the Mexican line. I turned to look, and as I did so, the Mexicans fired upon us, killing probably one hundred out of the one hundred and fifty men in the division. We were in the double file and I was in the rear rank. The man in front of me was shot dead, and in falling he knocked me down. I didn’t get up for a minute, and when I rose to my feet, I found that the whole Mexican line had charged over me, and were in hot pursuit of those who had not been shot and who were fleeing towards the river about five hundred yards distant. I followed on after them, for I knew that escape in any direction (all open prairie) would be impossible, and I had nearly reached the river before it became necessary to make my way through the Mexican line ahead. As I did so, one of the soldiers charged upon me with his bayonet (his gun I suppose being empty). As he drew his musket back to make a lunge at me, one of our men coming from another direction, ran between us, and the bayonet was driven through his body. The blow was given with such force, that in falling, the man probably wrenched or twisted the bayonet in such a way as to prevent the Mexican from withdrawing it immediately. I saw him put his foot upon the man, and make an ineffectual attempt to extricate the bayonet from his body, but one look satisfied me, as I was somewhat in a hurry just then, and I hastened to the bank of the river and plunged in. The river at that point was deep and swift, but not wide, and being a good swimmer, I soon gained the opposite bank, untouched by any of the bullets that were pattering in the water around my head.


The Texas state flower — the bluebonnet — blooms in front of the monument put up to the Goliad Massacre on its centennial. Creative Commons image from Matthew Lee High.

History buffs in the Goliad environs this weekend can catch the annual re-enactment of the Goliad Massacre this weekend at Presidio La Bahia.

* The order came from the top, but the general who captured Goliad had no stomach to carry it out. He asked for leniency … but received an emphatic confirmation of the execution order.

** Also see its unit rosters tracking the particular fates of most of Fannin’s men, and these biographies of the unit.

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1697: Godfrey McCulloch, on the maiden

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On this date in 1697, Godfrey McCulloch was beheaded for murder.

A lesser Scotch noble, McCulloch was heir to a family that had seen better times. His forebears had built and laid their [attached] heads at cozy Cardoness Castle, but hard times had seen the Gordon clan foreclose a bum McCulloch mortgage, and that put the families at pistols drawn.*

A minor confrontation between Godfrey McCulloch and Sir William Gordon saw McCulloch plant in Gordon’s leg a bullet wound that festered into a fatal infection.

McCulloch fled to the continent, but eventually — there’s no place like home — returned, and was recognized in Edinburgh.

One boring scaffold speech later, and that was that … unless you credit the legend that his headless body sprang up and ran 100 yards.

McCulloch was beheaded on the Maiden, a guillotine precursor that automated the chopping process.

He seems to have the distinction of being the last person so executed. (Update: Perhaps not.)

* McCulloch, who was also a member of the Scottish Parliament, held a sheriff’s commission in Wigton. Although anti-Covenanter, he washed his hands of the Wigtown martyrs case.

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