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Authors: Simon Webb
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between both the Halifax Gibbet and the Scottish ‘Maiden’ (which we will discuss later), as opposed to the guillotine, was that there was no board on which to strap the condemned person. It was necessary, with both British devices, to kneel and place the head voluntarily in the correct place, just as though being beheaded with an axe and block.
Before we go any further, let us read an account of the operation of the Halifax Gibbet by a Tudor historian, Raphael Holinshed. He was the source for many of the stories which Shakespeare adapted for his plays. His reliability in matters of ancient history may sometimes be a little dubious, but in this case he was writing about what was actually happening at that time in his own country. It is probably safe to take his evidence as being sound:
Witches are hanged or sometimes burned, but thieves are hanged … generally on the gibbet or gallows, saving in Halifax where they are beheaded after a strange manner, and whereof I find this report. There is and hath been of ancient time a law or rather a custom at Halifax, that who so ever doth commit any felony, and is taken with the same, or confess the fact upon examination; if it be valued by four constables to amount to the sum of thirteen pence half penny, he is forthwith beheaded upon one of the next market days (which fall usually upon the Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays) or else upon the same day that he is so convicted, if market then be held. The engine wherewith the execution is done, is a square block of wood of the length of fourfoot and a half, which doth ride by and down in a slot between two pieces of timber, that are framed and set upright of five yards in height. In the nether end of the sliding block is an axe keyed or fastened with an iron into the wood, which being drawn up to the top of the frame is there fastened by a wooden pin (with a notch made into the same after the manner of a Sampson post) into the middle of which pin also there is a long rope fastened that cometh down among the people, so that when the offender hath made his confession, and hath laid his neck over the nethermost block, every man there present doth either take hold of the rope (or puts forth his arm so near to the same as he can get, in token that he is willing to see true justice executed) and pulling out the pin in this manner, the head block wherein the axe is fastened doth fall down with such violence, that if the neck of the transgressor were so big as that of a bull, it should be cut in sunder at a stroke, and roll from the body by an huge distance. If it be so that the offender be apprehended for an ox, oxen, sheep, horse, or any such cattle; the self beast or other of the same kind shall have the end of the rope tied somewhere unto them, so that they being driven do draw out the pin whereby the offender is executed. Thus much of Halifax law, which I set down only to show the custom of that country in this behalf.
There are several noteworthy features about this description. There was the curious custom that if a man stole an animal, such as a horse or cow, then the animal itself would carry out the execution by pulling out the pin which released the blade. This is a procedure surely unique in the story of British capital punishment. Another interesting point is the participation of all citizens in the process; everybody pulling, or at the very least signifying their willingness to pull, the rope which brought down the blade. This obviated the need for an executioner, and showed that all the citizens approved of what was being done.
Holinshed notes another unique feature of executions by the Halifax Gibbet. He says, ‘so that when the offender hath made his confession, and hath laid his neck over the nethermost block.’ This sounds like some minor detail of Elizabethan religious observance. The priest heard his confession before the man was executed. So what? we are tempted to ask. Wasn’t that common enough during
Before we go any further, let us read an account of the operation of the Halifax Gibbet by a Tudor historian, Raphael Holinshed. He was the source for many of the stories which Shakespeare adapted for his plays. His reliability in matters of ancient history may sometimes be a little dubious, but in this case he was writing about what was actually happening at that time in his own country. It is probably safe to take his evidence as being sound:
Witches are hanged or sometimes burned, but thieves are hanged … generally on the gibbet or gallows, saving in Halifax where they are beheaded after a strange manner, and whereof I find this report. There is and hath been of ancient time a law or rather a custom at Halifax, that who so ever doth commit any felony, and is taken with the same, or confess the fact upon examination; if it be valued by four constables to amount to the sum of thirteen pence half penny, he is forthwith beheaded upon one of the next market days (which fall usually upon the Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays) or else upon the same day that he is so convicted, if market then be held. The engine wherewith the execution is done, is a square block of wood of the length of fourfoot and a half, which doth ride by and down in a slot between two pieces of timber, that are framed and set upright of five yards in height. In the nether end of the sliding block is an axe keyed or fastened with an iron into the wood, which being drawn up to the top of the frame is there fastened by a wooden pin (with a notch made into the same after the manner of a Sampson post) into the middle of which pin also there is a long rope fastened that cometh down among the people, so that when the offender hath made his confession, and hath laid his neck over the nethermost block, every man there present doth either take hold of the rope (or puts forth his arm so near to the same as he can get, in token that he is willing to see true justice executed) and pulling out the pin in this manner, the head block wherein the axe is fastened doth fall down with such violence, that if the neck of the transgressor were so big as that of a bull, it should be cut in sunder at a stroke, and roll from the body by an huge distance. If it be so that the offender be apprehended for an ox, oxen, sheep, horse, or any such cattle; the self beast or other of the same kind shall have the end of the rope tied somewhere unto them, so that they being driven do draw out the pin whereby the offender is executed. Thus much of Halifax law, which I set down only to show the custom of that country in this behalf.
There are several noteworthy features about this description. There was the curious custom that if a man stole an animal, such as a horse or cow, then the animal itself would carry out the execution by pulling out the pin which released the blade. This is a procedure surely unique in the story of British capital punishment. Another interesting point is the participation of all citizens in the process; everybody pulling, or at the very least signifying their willingness to pull, the rope which brought down the blade. This obviated the need for an executioner, and showed that all the citizens approved of what was being done.
Holinshed notes another unique feature of executions by the Halifax Gibbet. He says, ‘so that when the offender hath made his confession, and hath laid his neck over the nethermost block.’ This sounds like some minor detail of Elizabethan religious observance. The priest heard his confession before the man was executed. So what? we are tempted to ask. Wasn’t that common enough during
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