Category Archives: Common Criminals

1217: Eustace the Monk, turncoat outlaw

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On this date in 1217, the pirate Eustace the Monk was defeated in battle and summarily beheaded, scuppering an ongoing invasion that nearly seated a French dauphin on the English throne.

This colorful outlaw commenced life as the younger son of a Boulogne lord, but his conventional path into the Abbey Saint-Wulms was aborted by the murder of his father — leading Eustace to abandon his cowl for a vain attempt at vengeance.

“From a black monk becoming demoniac” — in the words of one chronicle — the man’s career thence proceeded, first rejoining the secular economy as a seneschal and then pivoting to outlawry when his former master turned against him.

His exploits in banditry are greatly embellished and romanticized in the medieval French verse titled Eustache the Monk (peruse in full here; helpful introduction here), including a number of charming and imaginary vignettes that double as moral parables and medieval slices-of-life.

Eustache spotted the Abbot of Jumièges as he was coming down the road. “Sir Abbot,” he said, “stop where you are! What are you carrying? Come now, don’t hide it.” The Abbot answered: “What’s it to you?” At this, Eustache was ready to hit him, but instead replied: “What’s it to me, fat-ass? Upon my word, I’ll make it my business. Get down, fast, and not another word out of you, or I’ll let you have it. You’ll be beaten up so badly you won’t be worth a hundred pounds.” The Abbot thought the man was drunk, and said, more politely this time: “Go away. You won’t find what you are looking for here.” Eustache responded: “Cut the bullshit and get off your horse fast, or you’ll be in for a lot of trouble.” The Abbot got down, frightened now. Eustache asked how much money he had with him. “Four marks,” said the Abbot, “in truth I only have four marks silver.” Eustache searched him immediately and found thirty marks or more. He gave back to the Abbot the four marks he claimed to have. The Abbot became duly furious; for, had he told the truth, he would have got back all his money. The Abbot lost his money only because he told a lie.

Around this time Eustace set up as a freelance English Channel pirate and was regularly employed by the English King John from about 1205 until 1212, when he switched his allegiance back to Philip II of France. Eustace tormented his former English patrons during the civil war in that country that led to the Magna Carta; the rebel barons in this war offered the English throne to the French heir Louis, and Louis invaded and held London and about half the realm, merrily aided by Eustace’s channel buccaneers.

Things went sideways for Louis and for Eustace in 1217; the former suffered a devastating reversal at the Battle of Lincoln.* Our man Eustace, attempting to reinforce Louis’s camp, was intercepted at sea and trounced at the Battle of Sandwich.**

Run-of-the-mill French knights were captured for ransom as per usual;

With Eustance, however, the case was different. When the ship was captured, the English instituted a search for him, and he was at length discovered down in the hold (Matthew Paris says in the bilge-water) by ‘Richard Sorale and Wudecoc’. Then Eustace offered a large sum of money for a ransom, ten thousand marks, as the writer of the Guillaume le Marechal puts it; ‘but it could not be.’ His addition offer (so Wendover) to serve the king of the English faithfully thereafter, if actually made, would have been only a reminder of his previous injuries. It was Stephen Trabe (or Crave) [or Crabbe -ed.], one of the mariners, ‘who had long been with him,’ that executed him, so the Histoire des Ducs de Normandie tells us; or as the poem of Guillaume le Marechal narrates it: ‘There was one there named Stephen of Winchelsea, who recalled to him the hardships which he had caused them both upon land and sea and who gave him the choice of having his head cut off either upon the trebuchet or upon the rail of the ship. Then he cut off his head.’ The head was subsequently fixed upon a lance and borne to Canterbury and about the country for a spectacle. The Romance concludes with the sentiment: ‘Nor can one live long who is intent always upon doing evil.’ (Henry Lewis Cannon


13th century illustration: Eustace gets the chop over the side of the boat.

Eustace’s defeat completely undermined Louis’s position, and the chancer was obliged to retreat to his homeland — where he’d become king in 1223. He’s known as Louis the Lion, which is pretty good, but he was rather convincingly surpassed by his son Saint Louis.

* Known to history as the “Lincoln Fair” for all the looting that occurred afterwards.

** The English maneuver on this occasion was to use an advantageous wind to hurl lime onto the French ships, blinding the enemy crews.

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1712: Peter Dalton, “I think it is no Sin to take from such Misers”

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Original Dublin broadsheet via James Kelly’s Gallows Speeches: From Eighteenth-Century Ireland:

THE LAST SPEECH AND DYING WORDS OF PETER DALTON

Who was executed near St. Stephen’s Green, on Saturday the 23d of August 1712.

Good Christians,

I Peter Dalton was born in the County of Meath, in the Parish of Kilkarn near Naven, Descended of Honest Parents out of the Country of West-Meath, and was but 12 Years of Age when my Father Dyed, and by the loss of my Father my Mother being a Widow, and having several more Children, she was reduced and the Children were Separated; whereupon I went to Dublin, and Bound my self to one Mr. Crowler a Brewer, where I did live in Splender [sic] and Request, until I thought fit to Marry, and being Married in a short time after, I came in Credit and took a House and Sold Ale, given to no Ill Vice during that time, and kept House Selling of Ale four Years, and got the Handling of other People’s Money, I took Frolicks of Drinking, and Spending in all Sorts of Company, till I run my self in Debt, and was forced to quit Selling of Drink, my Wife and I were forced to Separate out of this City, and found Friends in the Country very Cold. I got into a Gentleman’s Service in the Country to one Captain Netterfield, and out of his Service, became Servant to Captain Wade my Prosecutor, and lived with him about Three Months, and during that time I suffered great Hardships, which I complained to Alderman Quinn, who ordered me to quit his Service, the said Wade being displeased at my Parting, he threatened to put me in Bridewell, the Alderman fearing I should be sent to Bridewell, he ordered I should go Home and Serve my Time to Wade. I did accordingly, and while I was Serving him after, I had worse Usage then I had before, and I told, I wou’d not serve him any longer, and said I wou’d chuse to suffer his Displeasure than serve him, this happened a Year and a half ago, and I parted with him before my Time was Expir’d a Fortnight, this is well known by several in City and Country, then came to Serve Captain Warren of Corduff, lived with him Three quarters of a Year in Credit, being given to Drink I affronted my Master several times, his Honour seeing my failing, he has taken the Affronts with great Patience, very Honourably, I being always waiting of his Honour to Town, was troubled with so many Persons craving Debt of me, that I was asham’d, so that I quitted his Service by his Consent, and Honourably paid me, and more then my Wages, and gave me a favourable Discharge, and soon after Discharging me, I came to my last misfortunes, which brought me to this my shameful End, meeting on William Warren and one James Dalton, about Five Months ago the said Dalton lately came out of England,* I being glad to see him, being long out of this Kingdom, told he was bare of Money, he knowing the said Warren in London, the said Dalton demanded of me if I knew him, I told him I did, then we concluded to take a Pot of Ale, and we all complained the want of Money, Warren sends one abroad, and got as much Money as paid the Reckoning, and I said it was a pitty so many free Lads should want Money, and the rest said the same, but Warren said which way shall we come by it.

The said Warren knowing I lived with an able man meaning Wade, asked of me if any Money was to be got in his House, I told him I could not well tell, he said I know the House and no body dwels there, and let us attack it this Night and see what we can get, I think it is no Sin to take from him or from such Misers, then we did atack [sic] the House, and took several sorts of goods away, and divided them even, and then parted one from the other, where they Disposed of their shares.

I do not know, but what I had I [sic] Discovered it, and directed Wade to find them, which was the only Material Evidence he had against me on Tryal, and for the same was Convicted, that the said Warren took a Bed and two Looking Glasses to one Mulloy’s House in Thomas Court, and he borrowed Eight Shillings from the Landlady, being late he went out to find a Broker to buy them, he came in and brought one to buy the said Goods, but could not sell them, and told the Land lady that the said Goods belonged to me and came out of the Country, and I telling to the contrary, caused Suspicion that the Goods was unlawfully got, so that I was immediately Secured, and brought me before Alderman Page, and was Committed on Suspicion, and he ordered the Prosecutors to put the said Goods in the Gazette, Wade soon came to Town and heard the same and Straight came to me, and I directed him as aforesaid by his promising me before Witness he would not harm me, only to tell where the Goods were, after receiving Sentence, I have prevailed with Judge Nutley, that his Honour gave me a Favourable Report, whereby I got Order of Transportation which I have by me, and the said Wade has prevailed with the Government to revoke the said Order of Transportation and such Orders are given that I should Suffer the 23d Instant.

I was 30 Years of Age last June, this is my last and true Speech, the said Wade Informed the Government if I should Escape Death, I wou’d let the Inns on Fire for Spite to his House that is there, as I am a Dying Man I never thought of any such thing, I desire the Prayers of all good Christians. I Dye a Roman Catholick, and the Lord have Mercy on my Soul.

This is my True Speech,

Peter Dalton.

* Presumably this is the James Dalton who was the criminal-father of the notorious London thief of the same name. -ed.

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1800: The slave Abram, property of John Patterson

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The hanging, and then posthumous beheading and head-spiking, of the Virginia slave Abram lacks any firmer primary date than the signature given this Richmond newspaper report that was later widely reprinted in the young United States. (Our text here hails from the Hartford, Conn. American Mercury, September 18, 1800.)

A HORRID MURDER.

Capt. John Patterson, Inspector at Horsley’s Warehouse in the town of Dinguidsville and county of Buckingham, was lately murdered in a cruel manner by Abram, a negro man slave, the property of the said Patterson.

The circumstances of this atrocious deed is in substance thus related by the wretch who perpetrated it; being his confession at the time he was apprehended — repeated immediately after his trial and condemnation, and on the morning of his execution.

Says he —

In consequence of some punishment inflicted on me by my master for some misdemeanor of which I was guilty, a considerable time prior to the fatal catastrophe, I ever after meditated his destruction: On the evening in which it was effected, my master directed me to set off home (about seven miles distant from the warehouse, where I generally attended) and carry a hoe which we used at the place, I sat [sic] off, and was determined to dispatch him that night, after proceeding some distance I concluded to way-lay him having the hoe in possession, accordingly, I lay on or behind a log, convenient to the road on which my master was to pass, and fell into a slumber; after waiting there a considerable time, I heard the trampling of horses’ feet; I concluded therefore my master was near; I got up and walked forwards; my master soon overtook me, and asked me [it being then dark] who I was; I answeredAbram; he said he thought I had been gone from town long enough to have been further advanced on the road; I said, I thought not, I spoke short to him, and did not care to irritate him; I walked on however; sometimes by the side of his horse, and sometimes before him.

In the course of our travelling an altercation ensued; I raised my hoe two different times to strike him; as the circumstances of thep laces suited my pupose, but was intimidated; when I came to the bridge (across a small stream) I thought that place favorable to my views, but seeing a light, and some people at a house a little distant from thence I resisted the impulse. When I came to the fatal spot, being most obscured by the loftiness of the trees, I turned to the side of the road; my master observed it, and stopped; I then turned suddenly round, lifted my hoe, and struck him across the breast: the stroke broke the handle of the hoe; he fel; I repeated my blows; the handle of the hoe broke a second time; I heard dogs bark, at a house which we passed, at a small distance; I was alarmed, and ran a little way, and stood behind a tree, ’till the barking ceased: in running, I stumbled and fell; I returned to finish the scene; I began, and on my way picked up a stone, which I hurl’d at his head, face, &c. again and again and again, until I thought he was certainly dead — and then I went home.

The body was found the next morning: the features so defaced, the body so mangled, that it was with difficulty his person could be recognized — a scene too shocking for human sight. Capt. Patterson was a man universally esteemed. He was a tender husband, an affectionate brother, a mild master, a kind neighbour, a faithful officer, in short, he possessed every quality that constitutes the good citizen, and an amiable member of society.

P.S. After the cruel monster, who sacrificed the life of so worthy a character to his revenge was hanged, his head was struck off and exhibited on a pole about 24 feet high, in view of the warehouse where he was usually employed.

Buckingham, 19th Aug. 1800.

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1785: Elizabeth Taylor, hanged for burglary

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(Thanks to Richard Clark of Capital Punishment U.K. for the guest post, a reprint of an article originally published on that site with some explanatory links added by Executed Today. CapitalPunishmentUK.org features a trove of research and feature articles on the death penalty in England and elsewhere. -ed.)

On August 17, 1785, Elizabeth Taylor was only the third woman to be hanged on the New Drop gallows outside Newgate.*

Elizabeth and her brother Martin were convicted of burgling the house and shop of Samuel Hooker at Highgate in London on the night of Sunday the 7th of May 1785. They got quite a haul, nearly £200 worth of goods comprising sixty yards of Irish linen cloth, ten linen handkerchiefs, two hundred and fifty yards of thread lace, two thousand yards of silk ribbon, thirty yards of muslin, two silk handkerchiefs and some silver spoons and tableware. Elizabeth had been a servant in the Hooker household and had left his employment about sixteen months earlier.

On the night of the 7th Mr. Hooker locked up as usual before going to bed and was satisfied that everything was secure. Sometime after midnight Elizabeth, Martin and possibly a second man arrived at the house where they carefully removed four course of brickwork from under the kitchen window without disturbing the sleeping occupants. Martin was able to get through this hole and then went into the shop, taking the items that he found and passing them out to Elizabeth.

The crime was discovered the following morning when Mr. Hooker came down and was surprised by the amount of light in his kitchen from the sun shining through the hole that had been made. He checked round and went into the shop where he noticed various items missing. In a state of agitation he went next door and fetched his neighbour to look at the situation. He then fetched the local constable, Mr. Thomas Seasons and reported the burglary and the considerable loss of stock to him.

On the 18th of May, Mr. Hooker and Mr. Seasons went to Martin Taylor’s home and searched it. They discovered a cap which had some lace on it and a few yards of ribbon which Mr. Hooker was able to identify but none of the other property. Martin was arrested at the house. Mr. Hooker and Mr. Seasons then went to the home of a friend of the Taylors, Mrs. Halloway, who was a part time dress maker with whom Martin had lodged. She claimed in court that Martin had asked her to make two shifts for his sister from the material that he had brought to her. Mrs. Halloway knew Elizabeth from her visits to the house. Here Mr. Hooker and Mr. Seasons discovered pieces of the Irish linen cut up into panels for shirts and shifts. They also discovered one of the handkerchiefs that had been stolen. Further searching of the house revealed some more of the items in the upstairs room of another lodger, Mrs. Powell. Mr. Hooker and the constable’s next visit was to Bow fair where they apprehended Elizabeth who tried to make a run for it with the help of some of the bystanders. When she was searched a small quantity of ribbon was found in her pocket book. She was taken back to Mr. Season’s house and then before a magistrate where she made a confession. She told Mr. Seasons that she and two men had committed the burglary.

Elizabeth and Martin were committed for trial by the magistrates and appeared at the June Sessions of the Old Bailey which opened on Wednesday the 29th of that month before Mr. Justice Buller. Mr. Silvester led the prosecution and the defence was handled by Mr. Garrow.**

Various witnesses were called including Mr. Hooker, Mr. Seasons, Mrs. Halloway and Mrs. Powell, each giving their account of the events and being cross examined for the defence. Mr. Garrow questioned the constable as to the circumstances in which Elizabeth had made her confession and whether or not he had placed under duress to extract it. He suggested to the constable that he had threatened her with being hanged if she did not confess, something which Mr. Seasons denied, telling the court that he tried to dissuade her from making a confession to him and that she continued because she thought, in his opinion, that it might save her from the gallows.

Martin Taylor was allowed to make a personal statement in his defence in which he told the court that he had bought fourteen yards of the linen for twenty two pence a yard from an acquaintance in the Borough with the intention of having it made up by Mrs. Halloway into clothes for his wife and sister. Elizabeth simply told the court that she knew nothing about the crime at all. Not a statement that was likely to impress the jury in view of the evidence against her.

Both Elizabeth and Martin were convicted and sent back to Newgate to await sentencing at the end of the Sessions. No less than twenty-two men and three women were condemned to hang on that Friday. However fifteen men and the other two women were reprieved and had their sentences commuted to transportation.

The execution of the eight remaining prisoners was to take place on the portable “New Drop” gallows outside the Debtor’s Door of Newgate on Wednesday the 17th of August 1785. They were among a group of eight prisoners to die that morning. With them on the platform was James Lockhart who had been convicted of stealing in a dwelling house, John Rebouit, John Morris and James Guthrie convicted of highway robbery and Richard Jacobs and Thomas Bailey who had also been condemned for burglary.

The actress Elizabeth Taylor — no relation — taking her leave of the soon-to-be-executed Montgomery Clift in the 1951 classic A Place in the Sun

At around 7.30 a.m., the condemned were led from their cells into the Press Yard where the Under Sheriff and John Villette, the Ordinary, (Newgate’s chaplain) met them. Their leg irons were removed by the prison blacksmith and the Yeoman of the Halter supervised the proceedings as the hangman and his assistant bound their wrists in front of them with cord and also place a cord round their body and arms at the elbows. White nightcaps were placed on their heads. The prisoners were now led across the Yard to the Lodge and then out through the Debtor’s Door where they climbed the steps up to the portable wooden gallows. There were shouts of “hats off” in the crowd. This was not out of respect for those about to die, but rather because the people further back demanded those at the front remove their hats so as not to obscure their view of the execution. Once assembled on the drop, the hangman, probably Edward Dennis, put the nooses round their necks while they prayed with the Ordinary. Elizabeth might have had her dress bound around her legs for the sake of decency but the men’s legs were left free. When the prayers had finished at about 8.15, the under sheriff gave the signal and the hangman moved the lever, which was connected to a drawbar under the trap, causing it to fall with a loud crash, the prisoners plunging 12-18 inches and usually writhing and struggling for some seconds before relaxing and becoming still. If their bodies continued to struggle, the hangman, unseen by the crowd, within the box below the drop, would grasp their legs and swing on them so adding his weight to theirs and thus ending their sufferings sooner. The dangling bodies would be left hanging for an hour before being either returned to their relatives. It was not recorded whether Elizabeth struggled or whether she died easily.

Although still by no means an instant death at least being hanged outside Newgate and being given some drop was a considerable improvement over executions at Tyburn with the long and uncomfortable ride to the gallows where prisoners died a much slower death as they got virtually no drop.

* The other two were Frances Warren and Mary Moody.

** William Garrow was a wet-behind-the-ears barrister at this moment having been called to the bar just the year prior, but he went on to a career as one of the age’s great Whig jurists and (thanks to his unusually energetic advocacy for his clientele) a key figure in the development of the adversarial trial model. He’s notable for coining — in 1791, in a case that he lost — the phrase and then-novel doctrine “presumed innocent until proven guilty”. He’s the subject of the 2009-2011 BBC series Garrow’s Law. -ed.

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1963: Eddie Lee Mays, the last executed in New York

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The last execution in the state of New York occurred on this date in 1963 when Harlem murderer Eddie Lee Mays — who shot a woman dead in the course of a pub stickup — went to the mercy seat at Sing Sing prison.


It was also the last execution in Sing Sing’s notorious electric chair, here elevated to the artistic canon by Andy Warhol‘s 1960s series of electric chair images. Warhol based his arresting view of the apparatus on press photos circulated around the 1953 electrocution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in the same device.

New York’s once-robust death penalty statutes and habits disappeared along with the rest of America’s by the late 1960s; her last executioner, Dow B. Hover — the guy who threw the switch on Eddie Mays — committed suicide in 1990.

The Empire State ditched its death penalty laws in 1984, briefly reinstated them in 1995, but executed no prisoners before everything was ruled out constitutionally in 2004.

By coincidence, August 15, 1963 was also the date of the last execution in Scotland.

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2018: Carey Dean Moore

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On this date in 2018, Nebraska executed Carey Dean Moore for killing two cab drivers all the way back in 1979 — 39 years earlier.

It had been over 20 years since Nebraska carried out any execution, but Moore’s real milestone was in the ongoing drug supply breakdown of the U.S. lethal injection system. Moore was the first U.S. prisoner executed using the opiate fentanyl — in his case, in combination with diazepam, cisatracurium, and potassium chloride. Nebraska’s supply of the last two of these stood within weeks of its labeled expiration.

The German pharmaceutical firm that manufactured some of Wilson’s lethal cocktail sued the Cornhusker state for its intent to use its product as a mankiller. U.S. judge Richard G. Kopf — who formerly blogged bench life at his site Hercules and the Umpire — tartly rejected this appeal, finding that after four decades on death row it had become curiously essential to the majesty of justice that Moore be executed right now: “Any delay now is tantamount to nullifying Nebraska law, particularly given the rapidly approaching expiration of two of the drugs and the total absence of any feasible alternatives.”

Although the execution went ahead, it did not go smoothly. According to the Lincoln Journal Star,

Members of the media who witnessed Moore’s death Tuesday by lethal injection described reactions of Moore to the drugs that included rapid and heaving breaths, coughing, gradual reddening of the face and hands, and then a purple cast to the skin. 

But about 15 minutes into the procedure, about a minute after Moore’s eyelids appeared to open slightly, Corrections Director Scott Frakes, who was in the room with the condemned prisoner, said something into his radio and the curtains closed for the media witnesses.

The curtains did not open again for 14 minutes, six minutes after Lancaster County Attorney Pat Condon pronounced Moore dead at 10:47 a.m., and 29 minutes after the first drug, diazepam, was administered at 10:24.

The curtain that shielded the four media witnesses from what happened during that time is significant, as they were not allowed to view everything that happened in the room. That hindered transparency and true reporting of the effects of the drugs, observers have said.

Don’t worry, we have the assurance of Frakes et al that everything worked fine and was done by the book while the curtain was down.

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1937: Leslie George Stone, hanged by a fiber

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Leslie George Stone hanged at Pentonville Prison on this date in 1937 for a murder that was revealed by the fabric of his trousers.

The naked body of Stone’s ex-flame Ruby Keen had turned up in the Bedfordshire town of Leighton Buzzard — strangled with a scarf after what looked a desperate struggle.

Now, Stone would already be a suspect here because of his relationship, and the fact that they’d been seen drinking together in public the preceding night. But what cinched the noose was Scotland Yard taking a variety of cast impressions of the apparent marks left in the earth by the killer.


Casts of the killer’s footprints taken by Scotland Yard from the murder scene of Ruby Keen. From the collection of Scotland Yard’s “Black Museum”.

Sample pairs of trousers were taken from all the possible suspects in the case. When Spilsbury examined Stone’s brand-new suit trousers he found that the knees had been brushed so hard that the nap had been worn away. Microscopic examination of the trousers showed up particles of sandy soil that matched that from the scene of the crime. There was also found, in the lining of Stone’s jacket, a silk fibre that matched with those taken from the dead girl’s underskirt. (Source)

If we’re being honest, “matches” of fiber even now are basically junk forensics that continue to go routinely, maddeningly overclaimed in courtrooms. But the same quality of incriminatory flimflam that enrolls fiber matches in so many wrongful conviction cases seems here to have been spotlighted the right guy. By the time of his trial Stone had to come off his demonstrable falsehoods about his and Keen’s movements on the night of her death, and submitted unpersuasive testimony that he’d strangled her as an accidental exuberance in a fight, and left her still alive.

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1264: Not Inetta de Balsham, gallows survivor

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We have this incident courtesy of Robert Plot’s 17th century The natural history of Stafford-shire; the date of the (attempted) execution is inferred from the text of the pardon as the Monday preceding the clemency of Saturday, Aug. 16:

Amongst the unusual accidents that have attended the female Sex in the course of their lives, I think I may also reckon the narrow escapes they have made from death … Yet much greater was the deliverance of one Margery Mousole of Arley in this County, who being convicted of killing her bastard child, was, much more justly than Ann Green at Oxford, accordingly condemned and executed at Stafford for it, where she was hanged by the neck the usual time that other Malefactors are, yet like Ann Green and Elizabeth the Servant of one Mrs. Cope of Oxford, she came to life again, as it has been much more common for women to doe in this case, than it has been for men: I suppose for the same reason that some Animals will live longer without Air, than others will, as was showen above; the juices of Women being more cold and viscid, and so more tenacious of the sensitive soul than those of men are. Which appear’d most wonderfully in the case of Judith de Balsham, temp. Hen. 3. who being convicted of receiving and concealing theeves, was condemned and hanged from 9 by the clock on Munday morning, till Sun-rising on Tuesday following, and yet escaped with life as appears by her pardon, which for its rarity I shall here receite verbatim.

Ex Rotulo Paten. de Anno Regni Regis Henrici tertii 48o. membr. 5a.

REX omnibus, &c. Salutem. Quia Inetta de Balsham pro receptamento latronum ei imposito nuper per considerationem Curie nostre suspendio adjudicata & ab hora nona diei Lune us?que post ortum Solis diei Martis sequen. suspensa, viva evasit, sicut ex testimonio fide dignorum accepimus. Nos divine charitatis intuitu pardonavimus eidem Inette sectam pacis nostre que ad nos pertinet pro receptamento predicto & firmam pacem nostram ei inde concedimus. In cujus, &c. Teste Rege apud Cantuar. XVIo. die Augusti.

Covenit cum Recordo Lau Halsted Deput. Algern. May mil.

How unwillingly the cold viscid juices part with the sensitive soule, appear’d, I say, most strangely in this case: unless we shall rather say she could not be hanged, upon account that the Larynx or upper part of her Wind-pipe was turned to bone, as Fallopius tells us he has sometimes found it, which possibly might be so strong, that the weight of her body could not compress it, as it happened in the case of a Swiss, who as I am told by the Reverend Mr. Obadiah Walker Master of University College, was attempted to be hanged no less than 13 times, yet lived notwithstanding, by the benefit of his Wind-pipe, that after his death was found to be turned to a bone: which yet is still wonderfull, since the circulation of the blood must be stopt however, unless his veins and arteries were likewise turned to bone, or the rope not slipt close.

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1848: Puran Appu, Kandy rebel

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Weera Sanadhdhana Weera Balasooriya Kuru Uthumpala Arthadewa Gunaratne Nanayakkara Lakshapathi Maha Widanelage Fransisco Fernando — who is thankfully better known simply as Veera Puran Appu — was executed on this date in 1848 as one of the principals in a Ceylon rebellion against the British.

For several years he had been a famed and colorful bandit in the central highlands around Kandy, and his name bore the romance of the road and the weight of a £10 price. He was “light, well looking, well made, stout, marks of punishment on the back and 4 vaccination marks” in the words of the Brits’ wanted-man bulletin. They forgot to add: political.

In July of 1848, Puran Appu emerged at the head of a popular uprising sparked by land seizures and taxes upon an irate peasantry that every day became more inextricably entangled in the empire’s economic circuitry. It’s known as the Matale rebellion after the central city which Puran Appu briefly held, ransacking government buildings before the disciplined British army was able to rally and put down the rising and stood the rebel in front of a firing squad.

“He died exclaiming, if the king [meaning the self-proclaimed rebel king, in whose name Puran Appu acted] had three men about him as bold and determined as myself he would have been master of Kandy,” the British Governor Torrington* recorded.

He’s honored in Sri Lanka (and Kandy in particular) every year on this anniversary of his death, but fine for any occasion is a 1978 Sri Lankan biopic about, and titled, Veera Puran Appu.

* George Byng was his name, the 7th Viscount Torrington. He’s in the same family tree as the 18th century British admiral infamously executed pour encourager les autres, John Byng: Admiral John was a younger son of the 1st Viscount Torrington.

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1819: Nathan Foster, wife-killer and patriot-killer

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Two hundred years ago today, Nathan Foster hanged in Masonville, New York.

The crime on his charge sheet was poisoning his wife, Eleanor, to get with the pretty young maid she hired.

But little less damning in the eyes of his neighbors was the belief that he had taken the life of a patriot while fighting the pro-British side during the American Revolution.

Foster was a tory during the Revolution, and is reported to have been the identical person who inhumanly murdered Col. Alden, at the massacre of Cherry Valley, in 1777. Priest, in his narrative of the capture of David Ogden, who died a short time since in Franklin, Delaware County, thus refers: “This act of barbarity was perpetrated by a man named Foster, a tory at that time, and the same, who a few years since (1819) was hanged for the murder of his wife, by poison, in Delaware County, N.Y. at Delhi. That the same Foster did murder Colonel Alden, was ascertained by a certain James Campbell, another tory, who stated to David Ogden, that he had heard this Foster boast of the act, while they were both with the British at Niagara. He was at length overtaken by justice, and ended his miserable life on the gallows, although at the advanced age of __ years. He died without a confession of his guilt.

Foster’s prosecution had the aid at the very bar of New York’s Attorney General — the future United States President Martin Van Buren. There’s a #longreads piece on the man and the case available from New York History Review.

On this day..