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TEMPLE BAR 
 
 C|e Citg Mpi\n, 
 
 A NARRATIVE OF THE HISTORICAL OCCURRENCES OE A CRIMINAL 
 CHARACTER ASSOCIATED WITH THE PRESENT BAR. 
 
 BT 
 
 A MEMBER OF THE INNER TEMPLE. 
 
 " I would we were all of one mind, and one mind good. — ! there were desolation 
 of gaolers and gallowses !" — CymhcUne, Act V. Scene 4. 
 
 LONDON: DAVID BOGUE, 86 FLEET STREET. 
 
 MDCCCLIII. 
 

 LONDON : 
 PRINTED BY Q BARCLAY, CASTLE SI, LEICESTER SQ. 
 
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PART I. 
 
 From the Restokation of Chaeles II., 1660, to the 
 Death of Queen Anne, 1714. 
 
 Temple Bar, the only survivor of the City bars and gates, has, on 
 many occasions, obtained no inconsiderable share of public attention. 
 
 Placed between the Hberties of the cities of London and West- 
 minster, it sets to each a limit. 
 
 It stands alone — a monument of bygone days, an enduring record 
 of the povs^er of the Crown, and of the passions of the people — a 
 memorial of a period when, to insure the security of the throne, the 
 terrors of the law were alone rehed upon, and humanity and com- 
 passion for human imperfections constituted no part of the criminal 
 jurisprudence of the country. 
 
 Replete as this every-day scene is with reminiscences of the 
 past, we have considered that half an hour might not be mipro- 
 fitably employed in recalling some of those historical occurrences 
 with which it has been associated. 
 
I TEMPLE BAE, 
 
 We have, however, no intention of indulgitig our readers with 
 antiquarian lore, of dwelling for one moment on its architectural 
 proportions. Neither do we propose accompanying the herald in 
 those gorgeous processions to which, at the sound of his trumpet, its 
 gates have opened to admit the Sovereign, encircled by the chivalry 
 of the Court, within the most loyal of all cities, the good city of 
 London !* " May peace be within her walls." 
 
 The historical occurrences to which our attention wUl be limited 
 are of a much less attractive character. We have to contemplate 
 the frown, not the smile of royalty ; to direct oiir attention from the 
 crowded thoroughfare to the gloomy summit of the arch, to behold 
 there in the vividness of mental vision what our forefathers, in the 
 distinct reality of form, were forced to regard — those livid heads 
 and dismembered hmbs which, as terrible examples of hostile resist- 
 ance to the power of the throne, have from time to time been 
 affixed upon it. A practical commentary, illustrating in characters 
 of blood the words of Solomon, — " Curse not the king, no not 
 in thy thoughts; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for 
 a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings 
 shall tell the matter." 
 
 * A work, we believe, is in the course of preparation by a gentleman 
 fully qualified for tlie task he has undertaken, which wiU embrace both these 
 subjects. 
 
TEMPLE BAH. 
 
 If, from the contemplation of this mournful subject, any sug- 
 gestions should arise having a tendency yet further to ameliorate 
 the criminal institutions of our country, to render them still more 
 in accordance with the unproved feelings of the great conununity 
 in VFhich we are Hving, we shall reflect with much pleasure on 
 the time we have passed near the City Bar. 
 
 Old London Bridge, the southern entrance to the metropolis, 
 had for many centuries been considered a locahty advantageously 
 adapted, from its public position, for striking terror into the hearts 
 of the rebellious, by the display of the lifeless heads of those who 
 had fallen under the severity of the laws — laws ruthlessly admi- 
 nistered, and carried into execution with a barbarity the conception 
 of which it is difEcult at the present day to realise.* 
 
 The head of the Scottish patriot, Wallace, and, subsequently, 
 
 * In the reigu of Edward IV. Thomas Burdet, Esq., of Arrows, in War- 
 wickshire, was beheaded for having used a coarse expression, the apphcation 
 of which had been erroneously apphed to the person of the king. In the same 
 reign, a tradesman, who kept a shop at the sign of the Crown, having said he 
 would make his son heir to the Crown, this harmless pleasantry was inter- 
 preted to be spoken in derision of Edward's assumed title, and he was 
 condemned and executed for the offence. 
 
 In the reign of Henry VIII., April 6, 1631, Richard Kose, a cook, was 
 boiled to death in Smithfield, for poisoning several persons in the family of the 
 Bishop of Eochester ; an ex post facto act had been passed for this express 
 purpose. Margaret Davy subsequently, on March 17, 1541, suffered a simi- 
 
4 TEMPLE BAK. 
 
 the heads of Sir Thomas More and Fisher, bishop of Rochester, 
 had, amidst many others of scarcely inferior note, graced, not dis-. 
 graced, the stem battlements of the Drawbridge Tower. 
 
 The restoration of Charles II. to the throne — in whose reign 
 our narrative commences — had been accompanied by little amend- 
 ment either in the criminal law or practice of the country; with 
 few exceptions, the same severe enactments continued on the statute 
 book ; the same means as those adopted in the days of the Plan- 
 tagenets and Tudors were still deemed essential to punish treason, 
 or to deter from its commission. 
 
 It was the misfortune of the king, on his arrival in England, 
 to receive from all classes of his subjects the most servile adulation. 
 Endeared to them by the recollection of his past adversities, no 
 
 lar death in Smitifield, "for poisoning three households that she had 
 dwelled in." 
 
 This Act was repealed in the following reign. Burning females to death, 
 however, continued, within the memory of the present generation, to be 
 inflicted by the law for the crimes of high and petty treason. For the latter 
 crime, the last to suffer in London was Catherine Hayes, burnt to death at 
 Tyburn, May 9, 1726, for the murder of her husband ; for the former, 
 Catherine Murphy, for colouring a piece of metal to resemble a shiUing — 
 made high treason by the 15th and 16th George II. c. 28 — was burnt in the 
 Old Bailey, on the 18th March, 1789 ; by the humanity of the sheriff, she 
 was, however, first strangled. By the 30th Geo. III. c. 48, this barbarous 
 mode of punishment was abolished, and hanging substituted. 
 
TEMPLE BAE. 5 
 
 measures, however humiliating, were neglected to convince him 
 of their smcere contrition for their former rebellious conduct. The 
 clergy hastened to place his dethroned and beheaded father in the 
 martyrology of the saints ; the legislature, to -decree that the day on 
 which the " Sons of Belial " had imbrued their hands in his blood 
 should ever after be observed as a day of solemn fasting and 
 humiliation; and the lower orders, frantic with loyalty and the 
 wine running from the conduits, "to throw up their caps, and cry 
 ' God save his Majesty.' " 
 
 In this excited state of feeling an Act was passed, by which 
 the judges who condemned the deceased monarch, and some 
 others who had taken a leading part in the civil commotions of 
 the last reign, were excluded from an indemnity which exempted 
 from punishment many who had been less actively engaged in 
 the stirring events of that period. 
 
 For this exception the nation were indebted more to the cle- 
 mency of the Crown than to the merciful disposition of the Par- 
 liament. 
 
 By the operation of this Act, several of the persons we have 
 mentioned were soon afterwards tried, condemned, and executed, 
 and their heads affixed, in terrorem, on London Bridge. 
 
 That the sword of justice should descend on those alone 
 whose lives had been prolonged to this period, was, however. 
 
6 TEMPLE BAK. 
 
 deemed an insuiEcient expiation for the crimes that had been 
 committed. 
 
 Death had kindly removed three of the principal actors from 
 the scene — Cromwell, Bradshaw, and Ireton. The graves were 
 now searched for their dead bodies, and upon their discovery, 
 fast passing into decay, they were torn from the tomb, and, 
 amidst the jeers and scoffs of the rabble, borne to the gallows 
 at Tyburn. On the evening of the same day their bodies were 
 decapitated and buried in a deep hole under the gallows, and 
 their heads placed aloft on Westminster Hall.* 
 
 These acts of vindictive justice had scarcely terminated, when 
 the office of the executioner was again called into requisition, to 
 mete out condign punishment on a band of insane adventurers, 
 who sought to overthrow the government of Charles, and to 
 
 * " The bodies of the three usurpers, viz. Cromwell, Bradshaw, and Ireton, 
 after an industrious search, were found on Sunday last. Thereupon they 
 (except Bradshaw, who, on account of the offensive state of his body, could 
 not be immediately removed) were taken out of the graves. On the evening 
 of the 23d January, 1660-1, all of them were brought out into a pubhc-house 
 in Holbom, and shown to any one who desired to see them ; and in the 
 course of the following "Wednesday, being the 30th January, on which his ma- 
 jesty's father, of excellent and blessed memory, was murdered, the above- 
 mentioned bodies were conveyed in their open cof&ns to Tyburn (a place where 
 the worst criminals and thieves are hanged) ; the bodies were then taken out 
 of the coffins, and hanged on the gallows. Cromwell was wrapped in a green 
 
TEMPLE BAB. 7 
 
 establish in its place one of a most wild and visionary ' cha- 
 racter. 
 
 We allude to the Millenarians, or Fifth Monarchy men. These 
 enthusiasts, led on by Venner, who believed himself commissioned 
 by Heaven to proclaim the advent of the Prince of Peace, com- 
 mitted the most frightful excesses. 
 
 The truth of the assertions they had boldly made, that "no 
 weapons formed against them should prosper," "no hair of their 
 heads be touched," was shortly to be tested in the most satis- 
 factory manner, by the execution, in different parts of the City 
 of London, of the leader and his misguided associates. Venner 
 was executed in Coleman Street, at the commencement of the 
 year 1661. Their heads were placed along with those of the 
 regicides on London Bridge.* 
 
 shroud, Bradshaw in a coloured, and Ireton in a white cloth ; it was a fine 
 day, and the sun shone as warm as in summer, and made Cromwell's fat so 
 scorched that no one could stand by on account of the offensive smell. They 
 were again in the evening removed, their heads cut off, and the bodies buried 
 under the gallows. Subsequently their heads were placed on Westminster 
 Hall." — News from London of the ith February, 1661. Translated from the 
 scarce original in Butch. 
 
 * Thomas Venner was a wine-cooper, and acquired a competent estate 
 by his trade. He was so strongly possessed of the notions of the Millena- 
 rians, or Fifth Monarchy men, that he expected Christ was coming to reign 
 
8 TEIVIPLE BAE. 
 
 These were the last destined to be placed there. On future 
 occasions, when the right to dispose of the quartered remains of 
 the subject devolved on the Crown, that right, as regards those 
 who had suffered for high-treason ill London, wasj with few ex- 
 ceptions, wholly or partially exercised in favour of Temple Bar. 
 Thus the City Bar became the City Golgotha,* 
 Afflictive as was the criminal jurisprudence of the country at 
 this period, it was rendered still more so by the irregular manner 
 
 upon earth, and that all human government, except that bi the saints, was 
 presently to cease. 
 
 He looked upon Cromwell and Charles the Second as usurpers upon Christ's 
 dominion, and persuaded his weak brethren that it was their duty to rise 
 and seize upon the kingdom in his name. Accordingly a rabble of them, 
 with Venner at their head, assembled in the streets, and proclaimed King 
 Jesus. They were attacked by a party of the mihtia, whom they resolutely 
 epgaged, as many believed themselves invulnerable. They were at length 
 overpowered by numbers, and Venner and Roger Hodgkin, a button-seller 
 in St. Clement's Lane, Lombard Street (another fanatic), were executed before 
 their meeting-house in Swan Alley, Coleman Street, in the City, on the 19th 
 January, 1661. On Monday the 21st nine more were executed, at five several 
 places, by one executioner ; two at the west end of St. Paul's, two at the 
 Bull and Mouth, two at Beech Lane, two at the Eoyal Exchange, and a notable 
 feUow, the last, by name Leonard Gowler, at Bishopsgate. Their heads were 
 placed upon London Bridge. 
 
 * The erection of the present bar commenced in the year 1670, and was 
 completed in 1672. The design is stated to be by Sir Christopher Wren. 
 
TEJIPLE BAB. 
 
 in which it was administered. " Reasons of state," rather than 
 the acknowledged principles of law, influenced the decisions of the 
 courts. Judges dependent for the duration of their office on the 
 pleasure of the Crown, made it their pleasure, by slavishly obeying 
 its mandates, to prolong their tenure of office, and thus degrade 
 the character of the judicial bench — a bench over which the in- 
 human Jefferies presided, whose natural element seemed to be amidst 
 death and destruction: his most joyous moments those in which 
 he sent a patriot to the block, or rejected, with a coarse, unfeeling 
 jest, the last heartbroken supplication for mercy or justice. 
 
 Suspicion, conviction, and execution, ever constituted an unholy 
 trinity in the mind of this judge. 
 
 We are convinced, that no language we can employ can ade- 
 quately depict the character of one who has left so foul a blot 
 on the judicial records of the country ; we shall, therefore, abandon 
 the attempt, and proceed at once with our narrative to those occur- 
 rences of the year 1683, in which he took so prominent and so 
 atrocious a part. 
 
 In the summer of the year we have named, the discovery of 
 a real or pretended conspiracy to assassinate the King on his return 
 from the races at Newmarket, and to alter the form of Government, 
 commonly known as the Rye -House Plot, evinced the most un- 
 scrupulous determination on the part of the Crown and of the 
 
10 TEMPLE BAJt. 
 
 Chief Justice to proceed against those upon whom scarcely a shadow 
 of imphcation could rest, with a relentless severity of purpose, 
 and a total disregard of the principles of law or of justice. 
 
 The sole object of the Government being the conviction of 
 the accused, the law was to be made, by strained interpretation, the 
 instrument to effect that end. The mockery of a trial might have 
 been, in all instances, and actually was in one, dispensed with. 
 This unconstitutional course, while it inflicted an indelible stigma 
 on the Government, greatly elevated the character of its victims. 
 
 William Lord Russell, eldest son of the noble house of Bedford, 
 had displayed the heroic character of a patriot on the scaffold in 
 Lincoln's Ima Fields — Algernon Sidney had prayed for his mur- 
 derers on Tower HiU — Hollo way had been hurried from the West 
 Indies to the triple tree at Tyburn — when the last remaining 
 victim. Sir William Armstrong, was delivered up to the English 
 Government by the payment of a large bribe, and transferred from 
 a foreign soil to the common gaol of Newgate. His history — being 
 the first associated with the criminal records of Temple Bar — we 
 shaU, in accordance with the plan we have formed, proceed to give 
 more at length. 
 
 Sir Thomas Armstrong, descended from an ancient and loyal 
 family, was born at Nimeguen, in Holland. As he advanced in 
 years, he discovered a vigorous, maxtial disposition, and possessed 
 
TEMPLE BAK. 1 1 
 
 a warm heart and a good head. During the exile of Charles II., 
 his strong royalist predilections rendered him ohnoxious to the 
 Protector, Cromwell, who confined him a whole year, in Lambeth 
 House,* at that time a prison. Fortunately, however, he recovered 
 his hberty, and the usage he had received not having abated his 
 loyalty, he undertook the hazardous service of conveymg to his 
 majesty, at Brussels, biUs of exchange and other papers of great 
 importance. This he executed so much to the satisfaction of the 
 King, that he conferred upon him the honour of knighthood. On 
 his return, however, Cromwell, who had received intelligence of 
 this journey, seized and sent him to the Gatehouse,! where he 
 again suffered a lengthened imprisonment Subsequently he was 
 confined in the Tower, and regained his liberty only on the death 
 of the Protector. Charles II., on his return, received him into great 
 favour, promoted him to the rank of lieutenant in one of the troops 
 of Horse Guards, and conferred upon him the honourable post of 
 Gentleman of the Horse to his Majesty. An unfortunate quarrel 
 at the theatre, in which a person of some importance, of the name 
 
 * This palace of tlie Archbisliops of Canterbury was during the Oommon- 
 wealth converted into a prison. 
 
 t Gatehouse ; Tothill Street, Westminster, is so called from two gates 
 erected there in the reign of Edward III. Here is a prison for debtors and 
 criminals. — London and its Environs, hy Dodsley. 
 
12 TEMPLE BAK. 
 
 of Scroop, was killed, rendered, it expedient for him to leave the 
 kingdom. This he was enabled to do as an attendant on the king's 
 natural son, the Duke of Monmouth. He served with him in 
 Flanders, and acquired a high military reputation, and was held 
 in much esteem by the friends of the Duke. On the termination 
 of the war he returned to England, and, to all appearance, was as 
 high in favour and credit with the court as ever. 
 
 This prosperity was of short duration ; for, owing to the unsettled 
 state of the country, and the violent factions which agitated society, 
 he had the misfortune to countenance such measures as at first 
 occasioned his removal from office, and, ultimately, his dismissal 
 from the court. We may trace the ruin of Sir Thomas to his 
 long and friendly intercourse with the Duke of Monmouth. The 
 known vigour of his mind, and the constancy of his attachment 
 to the person of the Duke, caused him invariably to be regarded 
 as his pruicipal adviser. In connexion, however, with the Rye 
 House Plot, — to which period we have now brought his history, — 
 no other positive proof could be adduced than the solitary one of his 
 having been present at a meeting, at a Mr. Sheppard's, towards the 
 latter end of October, 1682, when, in conversation, a design of a 
 " rising " in Dorsetshire had been mentioned. This was considered 
 sufficient evidence to complete the ruin of the fallen favourite ; and 
 every imaginable pains were taken to secure his person. For a 
 
TEMPLE BAH. 13 
 
 time, however, from having received notice of the intention of the 
 Government, he was enabled to elude their vigilance, and after 
 having been concealed for some time in England, he withdrew to 
 Holland, where, under the assumed name of Henry Lawrence, he 
 trusted to continue safe from the pursuit of his enemies. 
 
 The King's minister, Mr. Chudleigh, in the mean time, having 
 obtained a warrant from the States for apprehending such of the 
 Conspirators as had fled from England, Sir William was taken 
 at Leyden, and, for a present of 5000 guilders (about 5001.) to 
 the schout, or sheriff of the place, delivered to the King's minister, 
 who placed him on board a royal yacht, and sent him to England. 
 He neglected, probably owing to his confusion, to plead being a 
 native of Holland; which, had he done, there is little doubt, 
 would have ensured, his safety. 
 
 During his absence, an indictment had been preferred against 
 him, in London, for high treason, upon which he had been outlawed. 
 On his arrival, the Government resolved to proceed against him 
 upon this outlawry, without allowing him the benefi.t of a trial. 
 On the 10th of June, therefore, the day on which he reached 
 London, he was committed to Newgate under a warrant from the 
 Secretary of State, and on the 14th of the same month was carried 
 to the King's Bench at Westminster, when the Attorney General, 
 Sir Robert Sawyer, moved the Court for an award of execution 
 
14 TEMPLE BAB. 
 
 upon the outlawry. The scene that followed between the prisoner 
 and the Chief Justice (the inhuman Jefferies) is of a character too 
 remarkable to be slightly passed over. The Clerk of the Crown 
 having arraigned him upon the outlawry. Sir Thomas Armstrong 
 addressed the Chief Justice : — 
 
 "My lord, I was beyond seas at the time of the outlawry, 
 and beg I may be tried. 
 
 " Lord Chief Justice. That is not material at all to us ; we have 
 here a record of an outlawry against you, Sir Thomas. 
 
 "Sir Thomas Armstrong. I desire to be put upon my trial, 
 my lord. 
 
 "Lord Chief Justice. We cannot allow any such thing; we have 
 nothing to do upon this record before us but to award execution. 
 Captain Richardson, which are your usual days of execution? 
 
 " Captain Richardson. Wednesdays and Fridays, my lord." 
 
 Sir Thomas Armstrong having afterwards called the attention 
 of the Chief Justice to an Act made in the sixth year of Edward 
 VI., which allowed a party a twelvemonth to surrender to an 
 outlawry, contended that that period had not expired. In doing 
 this he was repeatedly interrupted by the Chief Justice, who mani- 
 fested the greatest impatience to pronounce sentence upon him; 
 and Sir Thomas having finally urged that he should have the 
 benefit of the law, " That you shall have," jeeringly exclaimed 
 
TEMPLE BAE, 15 
 
 the Chief Justice, "by the grace of God; see that execution be 
 done on Friday next, according to law : you shall have the full 
 benefit of the law." 
 
 Thus terminated a proceeding, alike disgraceful to the judge 
 that pronounced and to the sovereign that could permit such a 
 sentence to be carried into effect. 
 
 We novsr approach the closing scene of his varied hfe. On 
 the 20th of June, about nine iu the morning, he was placed on 
 a sledge, and, attended by the sheriffs and a nmnerous guard, 
 conducted from Newgate to Tyburn. On his way, he employed 
 his time in reading the " Whole Duty of Man," and having reached 
 the appointed place, he laid aside the book, and requested that 
 Dr. Tennison might be permitted to come near him, to whom he 
 delivered a paper for the sheriff, and knelt down with him for a 
 few minutes. He then resigned himself, with perfect composure of 
 mind, into the hands of the executioner. After hanging about 
 half-an-hour, he was cut down, and, pursuant to his sentence, his 
 heart and bowels were taken out and committed to the flames, his 
 body divided into four parts, which, with his head, were conveyed 
 back to Newgate, to be disposed of according to his majesty's 
 pleasure, and were afterwards publicly exposed. His head being 
 set up upon Westminster Hall, between those of Cromwell and 
 Bradshaw (note, p. 6), one of the quarters upon Temple Bar, 
 
16 TEMPLE BAE. 
 
 two others on Aldersgate and Aldgate, and the fourth was sent 
 down to Stafford, which Borough he had represented in par- 
 liament. 
 
 Shortly after this event, when JefFeries had an interview with 
 the King at Windsor, Charles took from his finger a diamond 
 ring of great value, and gave it to him ; this ring was ever after 
 called the " bloodstone." His majesty prudently added this advice, 
 to be careful not to drink too much wine on circuit. The attention 
 the Chief Justice paid to this recommendation, let the "Bloody 
 Assizes" testify.* 
 
 Charles the Second was of an indolent and selfish disposition, 
 but was, when uninfluenced by others, neither vindictive nor un- 
 
 * The assizes held by the Chief Justice Jefferies in the West of England in 
 the year 1685, after the defeat of Monmouth, which ior cruelty and infamy 
 are unparalleled in the criminal records of the country, and which obtained 
 for them the epithet of "bloody." The historian Hume thus describes 
 them : — " The juries were so struck with his (Jeffieries) menaces, that they 
 gave their verdict with precipitation^ and many innocent persons, it is said, 
 were involved with the guilty. And on the whole, besides those who were 
 butchered by the military commanders, 251 are computed to have fallen by 
 the hand of justice. The whole country was strewed with the heads and 
 limbs of traitors. Every village almost beheld the dead carcase of a wretched 
 inhabitant. And all the rigours of justice, unabated by any appearance of 
 clemency, were fully displayed to the people by the inhuman Jefferies." — 
 History of Ungland, 8vo. vol. viii. p. 233. 
 
TEMPLE BAB, 17 
 
 generous. The following anecdote, forming an agreeable contrast 
 to the cruel, repulsive character of the Chief Justice, will show 
 that, unlike the judge, he occasionally possessed some sense of 
 moral right and justice. 
 
 A report of the condemned malefactors being once made to 
 him, one nobleman interceded for one, another for another, until 
 they were all pardoned excepting one. The King, looking round 
 upon the coimcil, asked of them if nobody would speak in behalf 
 of this man ? They all keeping silence, his majesty said, " Cod's 
 fish, my lords ! this is some poor devU who has, I suppose, neither 
 money nor friends: come, I'll be his friend myself!" by which 
 they were all saved. And it turned out afterwards, to his majesty's 
 great consolation, that the man whom he had pardoned by his 
 own royal motive proved an object more worthy of compassion 
 than any of the others. 
 
 They who have hitherto believed, with the witty Rochester, 
 that Charles never did a wise act, may, perhaps, be now inclined 
 to modify that opinion ; so far, at least, as to allow him the credit 
 of wisdom in the one instance we have just narrated. 
 
 Twelve years elapsed before the Bar had another occupant. 
 
 In that interval great events had taken place — the house of 
 Stuart had ceased to reign. The brutal Jefferies having with diffi- 
 culty escaped the fury of the mob at Wapping, had sought the 
 
 D 
 
18 TEirPLE BAE. 
 
 protection afforded in the Tower of London; there disease and 
 drunkenness speedily terminated a hfe of vice and infamy. Wil- 
 liam the Tliird had ascended the throne, not as a conqueror, but 
 by express compact with the nation. Reciprocity of ties were 
 claimed and admitted as existing between the Crown and the 
 people. Constitutional liberty, trampled upon by the Tudors and 
 the Stuarts, revived with the House of Orange, and hence- 
 forward became the acknowledged imperishable right of every 
 Englishman. 
 
 Amidst this improved position of affairs there were, however, 
 some who, from interest or affection, maintained their attachment 
 to the fallen house. By the treaty of Limerick, in 1691, James 
 had lost all footing in the British dominions, and hope alone re- 
 mained to him — the equal privilege of majesty and misery. On 
 his return, however, to the Continent, intrigues were, both in 
 England and Scotland, carried on in his favour. These intrigues 
 received encouragement from the French ministry, who, although 
 they had suspended all open attempts in his favour, scrupled not 
 to employ the most atrocious means to promote his cause. Assassi- 
 nation was resorted to. Chevalier de Granvale, taken in the con- 
 federate camp in Flanders, in 1692, having confessed the charge, 
 was speedily hanged; 2000 livres, and the Cross of St. Lazare, 
 were to have been the reward of his villany. 
 
TEJIPLE BAH. 19 
 
 Notwithstanding this discouragement, three years afterwards, 
 in the year 1695, a new plot was discoyered at London; the 
 object heing to carry off' the King (as it was expressed) on his 
 return from Richmond, where he usually hunted on Saturdays.* 
 Sir George Barclay, a warm adherent to the house of Stuart, 
 had the chief direction of this conspiracy, in which about forty 
 were engaged. Fortunately, however, the hope of reward, or the 
 timidity of some of the subordinate actors, frustrated their dia- 
 bolical purpose. On the 14th February, 1695, Thomas Pender- 
 grast revealed the whole scheme to the Earl of Portland; and 
 La Rue, on the same day, did the like to Brigadier Leveson. 
 The Government adopted the most vigorous measures to secure 
 the conspirators. Several, however, suspecting their plans had 
 failed, had already withdrawn from danger. In this number was 
 Sir George Barclay ; others, less fortunate, were captured. Robert 
 Chamock, a Fellow of Magdalen College, was the first to suffer ; 
 and, shortly afterwards. Sir John Friend and Sir William Parkins 
 were placed on their trials before Chief Justice Holt, at the Sessions 
 House in the Old Bailey. This took place on the 23d and 24th 
 of March, 1696. 
 
 * The place selected was a marshy bottom between Brentford and Tum- 
 ham Green, by which road the king used to return to Kensington from 
 Richmond, very slightly guarded. 
 
20 TEMPLE BAE. 
 
 We must, however, pause for a few moments, in order to 
 take some notice of the two last-named parties, who, as they con- 
 spired together in hfe, in death were not to be far separated; 
 the head and Umbs of one, and the headless trunk of the other, 
 being the next ornaments Temple Bar received. 
 
 Sir John Friend, from an humble position, had, by iudustry 
 and perseverance, arisen to considerable wealth and credit, and 
 had enjoyed, during the last reign, a lucrative situation in the 
 Excise. He was, at the time of his death, the proprietor of a 
 large brewery near Tower Hill.* He had always remained 
 faithful to the interest of James,, and his purse was ever at his 
 service. To his wealth, however, rather than to his abilities^ 
 
 * The brewery, after tlie death, of Sir Thomas Friend, was taien by the 
 notorious swindler Joseph Crook, alias Sir Peter Stranger, Bart. He was the 
 last person tried and convicted under the statute of the 5th Elizabeth, c. 14, 
 entitled "An Act against Forgers of false Deeds and "Writings." The instrument 
 he had forged was the wiU of a Mr. Thomas Hawkins, and having been found 
 guilty, the sentence provided by the statute was carried into effect. On 
 June 10, 1731, he stood in the pUlory at Charing Cross, and the common 
 hangman cut off his ears and sUt up his nostrils and seared them. He was 
 then in his 70th year. The 2d George II. c. 25, recently passed, made this 
 offence felony ; and Richard Cooper, a victualler at Stepney, was the first 
 person (in London) to suffer the new penalty, for the forgery of a bond of 25Z. 
 in the name of Holme, a grocer in the neighbourhood of Hanover Square. 
 This execution took place at Tybxun, on Wednesday, June 16, 1731. 
 
TEMPLE BAB. 21 
 
 he was indebted for the consideration he received. He readily- 
 entered into the proposed plans of invasion ; and so soon as James 
 should have effected a landing, with a force sufficient to give a 
 probability of success, had engaged to join him with 2000 horse. 
 This appears to have been the extent of his criminality: he re- 
 pudiated all idea of assassination, nor, in fact, was this aggravation 
 of his offence alleged against him, no count in the indictment 
 charging him with it 
 
 Sir "William Parkins was also a gentleman of property, and 
 had warmly espoused the interests of the Stuarts. He had been 
 educated to the profession of the law, and, during the last reign, 
 had received the valuable appointment of one of the Six Clerks 
 in Chancery; rather than lose which he had, on the accession of 
 William, taken all the oaths to the Government* He was not 
 only a consenting party to the design of assassination, but had 
 promised to bring five men to assist in it 
 
 The names of these parties, to the last moment of his life, he 
 firmly refused to reveal to the Government, declining to save his 
 
 * As regards the moral obligation of an oath, Sir WiUiam. would appear to 
 coincide with Sir Hudibras : — 
 
 " He that made and forced it broke it, 
 Not he that for convenience took it." 
 
 Evdikras, Part II. Canto 2, p. 276. 
 
22 TEMPLE BAK. 
 
 own life ty the sacrifice of his associates : a redeeming trait in a 
 character otherwise darkened by many vices. 
 
 The jury at once found them guilty, and the usual sentence 
 was passed upon them as traitorsi 
 
 The following account of their execution is extracted from the 
 newspaper of the day: — 
 
 " Yesterday being the 3d of April, Sir "William Parkins and 
 Sir John Friend were drawn in a sledge from Newgate to Tyburn, 
 where they were hanged and quartered. They had books in 
 their hands the whole way, and Sir John seemed more penitent 
 than Sir William. They prayed very heartily, being assisted by 
 three non-jurant ministers, Mr. Cook, Mr. CoUier, and Mr. Snatt: 
 they both confessed a knowledge of the plot. Sir WiUiam Parkins 
 was observed several times to smile in the sledge, and seemed to 
 take much notice of the spectators. Sir John Friend confessed 
 having heard of the assassination, but that he abhorred it. 
 
 " When they came to the press-yard. Sir John said to Sir 
 William, ' We shall soon be in a glorious state.' At the gaUows, 
 before the cart was drawn away, they kneeled down, and the 
 three ministers* laid their hands on their heads, and so they 
 went off." 
 
 * " Collier, Snatt, and Cook, three non-jurant clergymen, waited on them at 
 Tyburn, and the three at the place of execution joined to give them public 
 
TEMPLE BAE. 23 
 
 The quarters of Sir William Parkins and Sir John Friend, 
 together with the head of the former, were placed on Temple Bar. 
 
 Evelyn, in his "Diary," referring to this melancholy scene, 
 remarks, — "A dismal sight, which many pitied. I think there 
 never was such a Temple Bar till now, except once in the time 
 of King Charles the Second, viz. Sir Thomas Armstrong." 
 
 The head of Sir John Friend was set up on Aldgate; on 
 accoimt, it is presumed, of that gate being in the proximity of 
 his brewery. 
 
 Pendergrast, the principal discoverer of the plot, received from 
 the King a present of 3000Z. in money ; an annuity of 500^. was 
 likewise settled upon him and his heirs, and he had also conferred 
 upon him a colonel's commission in the army. 
 
 Nearly the last person to suffer on account of this conspiracy 
 was Sir John Fenwick, of Fenwick Castle, in the county of 
 Northumberland, a man of considerable talent but of a restless 
 disposition, and who, twenty years previously, had commanded a 
 
 absolution, with an imposition of hands, in the view of all the populace, 
 though they died avowing the evil doings in which they had been engaged, 
 and expressing no sort of repentance for them. 
 
 "For this offence Cook and Snatt were committed to Newgate, CoUier 
 absconded. The dispute lasted some time, but they were ultimately released." 
 — History of the Reign of WiUiam. 
 
24 TEMPLE BAK. 
 
 Tegiment in the service of William the Third, when Prince of 
 Orange. His history, excepting that he was a participator in 
 ±he crime of those whose limbs were then exposed, is not asso- 
 ciated with Temple Bar; as, after his decapitation on Tower 
 HUl, on January 23, 1697, his remains were removed to the 
 Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and there deposited in the 
 family vault. We merely take notice of him, as, by a remark- 
 able coincidence, the death of William was not altogether un- 
 associated with the execution of this northern baronet. 
 
 The partiality of the King for his palace at Hampton Court 
 is well knoM'n; and in the improvement of the gardens he had 
 projected a new canal, near that which is at present in existence. 
 On the morning of February 21, 1702, he rode into the Home 
 Park to inspect the progress of the work, and was mounted on 
 a sorrel pony, which had formerly been the property of the un- 
 fortunate Sir John Fenwich. 
 
 His Majesty having reached the spot where the operations 
 were being carried on, the pony accidentally placed his foot in 
 a mole-hill, and fell. The King's collar-bone was fractured by 
 the fall, and having been removed first to Hampton Court Palace, 
 and subsequently by his desire to Kensiagton, he expired after 
 much suffering, on the morning of Sunday, the 8th day of March, 
 1702, in the fifty-second year of his age, and the thirteenth of 
 
TEMPLE BAD. 25 
 
 his reign. The adherents of James eulogised their beloved " Sor- 
 rel;" and the wit of Pope was shown in the {olloyviag jeu d'esprit, 
 contrasting the safety of Charles in the oak at Boscobel, with the 
 accident to William in the gardens at Hampton: — 
 
 " Angels, who watched the guardian oak so well, 
 How chanced ye slept when luckless Sorrel fell 1 " 
 
 In breathless haste — the historian informs us — the courtiers 
 hastened from the palace to announce to Anne her exaltation to 
 the throne. 
 
 "We must now resume our narratiA'e. With the peace of 
 Ryswickj in 1697, ended all attempts in favour of the exiled 
 king, who, from ambition, turned his attention to religion, trusting 
 to secure a heavenly crown as a recompense for the loss of his 
 earthly one; and in the p:tactice of the austerities of an ascetic 
 course of Kfe, he died of a lethargy, at St. Germams, July 6, 1701y 
 at the age of sixty-eight, and was buried in the English Benedictine 
 monastery at Paris. As we have seen, a few months subsequent to 
 this event, WiUiam the Third had expired at Kensington. Anne, 
 the second daughter of James by his first wife, the daughter of the 
 great Lord Clarendon, by vktue of the Act of Settlement ascended 
 the throne, and was speedily engaged in contmental wars to check 
 the power of France ; Louis the Fourteenth having, by a family 
 
26 TEMPLE BAR. 
 
 marriage, connected the crown of Spain with the House of Boiirbon. 
 The Peace of Utrecht, in 1713, effected this object, and, moreover, 
 compelled Louis to send James Francis Edward, the son of the 
 late exiled monarch (w:ho had been openly acknowledged by him by 
 the title of James the Third), out of his dominions. If we except 
 an abortive effort to land troops in Scotland, the reign of Queen 
 Anne passed over without any open attempt to disturb her throne, 
 and she had the good fortune not to be called upon to execute the 
 rigour of the laws on any of the supporters of her family. 
 
 After a reign of nearly thirteen years, made glorious by the 
 victories of Marlborough, the Queen breathed her last at Ken- 
 sington, on the 1st day of August, 1714, and was, on the 24th 
 of the same month, buried in Henry the Seventh's chapel in 
 Westminster Abbey. - 
 
 The herald proclaimed over her tomb her earthly titles; to 
 which the nation," in affection for her memory, added another, by 
 which she has been generally distinguished — that of the good 
 Queen Anne. 
 
PART 11. 
 
 Feom thk Accession of the House of Hanotee, 1714, to the 
 Thcrteenth Yeak of the Reign of George IIL, 1772. 
 
 George the First had no sooner ascended the throne than the 
 slumbering embers of loyalty to the exiled family burst again into a 
 flame, and many of the Scotch, as also of the Enghsh nobility, 
 openly declared for the Pretender ; by which name the heir of that 
 family was now called. His standard was raised in Scotland ; but 
 divided councDs and hesitation at the moment when the greatest 
 unanimity and decision were requisite, combined with other causes, 
 for which we must refer the reader to the historians of that period, 
 rendered all their attempts abortive. A very considerable force, 
 however, penetrated as far as Preston in Lancashire, which town 
 surrendered to them without offering any resistance. Notwith- 
 standing this success, the leaders of the Pretender's forces, satis- 
 fied of the inutility of continuing longer the contest, (the King's 
 
28 TEMPLE BAE. 
 
 troops having been reinforced in the night), resolved at once to 
 capitulate, without having further recourse to arms — a resolution the 
 brave Highlanders resented as cowardly — and declared themselves 
 ready to make a sally, sword in hand, and either cut their way 
 through the King's troops or perish in the attempt. This was 
 overruled, and the Pretender's force surrendered at discretion. All 
 the noblemen and leaders were secured. Some were immediately 
 tried by a court-martial, and executed; whilst others, among them 
 Lords Derwentwater, Kenmuir, and other officers of distinction, 
 were sent to London, marched through the streets, pinioned like 
 malefactors, and committed to the Tower and other metropolitan 
 prisons. It may be interesting to have from an eye-witness — a 
 prisoner at the time in Newgate — some account of this mournful 
 procession. 
 
 "The day now was come," he observes, ''when those unfor- 
 tunate noblemen and gentlemen who, by a surrender at discretion, 
 had entertained vain notions of saving life and estate, were to be 
 led in triumph, as an example to deter other incautious and rash 
 persons from the like attempt, through crowds of spectators to 
 their respective prisons, which the Government had appointed to 
 be the Tower of London, the Marshalsea Southwark, Newgate, 
 and the Fleet. Wherefore all things being prepared for them, 
 especially in that mansion-house where my ill stars obliged me 
 
TEMPLE BAH. 29 
 
 to take up my abode, I got leave of tlie Governor thereof to take 
 a view of them as they came through the gate, from a room over it 
 on the master's side. And here it may not be from the purpose 
 of an historian to say, that the respective prisoners, in their journey 
 from Preston to London, having been used with the utmost civility 
 and decency, according to their qualities, on their arrival at High- 
 gate were to know what they were to expect ; which, indeed, was 
 no more than the laws of our own, and the common practice of 
 other nations, in like cases authorised and allowed. 
 
 "Accordingly, Major-general Tatton, with two battalions of 
 the Royal Foot Guards, completely armed, attended their coming 
 to the place just mentioned; and haAong brought cords sufficient 
 to pinion each of them, after the fashion of condemned criminals, 
 and to lead their horses with (since, from the lord to the footman, 
 they were to have every one a grenadier for that end), they were 
 ordered to proceed on their march in fom* divisions from the Hill, 
 under safe conduct, to their several places of confinement. 
 
 "The Major-general led the way (being preceded by several 
 citizens of more loyalty than compassion, who made repeated huzzas 
 to excite the mob to do the like), at the head • of a company of 
 the First Regiment of Guards, who made a very fine appearance ; 
 after which came the divisions that were appointed to take up 
 their abode in the Tower, two by two. The Earl of Derwentwater 
 
30 TEMPLE BAE. 
 
 and Lord Widdrington in the first rank, and the other lords and 
 noblemen following, with haltered horses, and their riders, like 
 common malefactors, reviled and hooted." 
 
 Robert Dalziel, earl of Carnwath, and Wilh'am Gordon lord 
 Kenmuir, upon the same authority, occupied the third rank. The 
 gates of the gloomy fortress had scarcely been closed on these 
 unfortunate' noblemen, than they were to be again opened to deliver 
 over to the sheriffs the youthful Earl of Derwentwater and the 
 more aged Lord Keimiuir, who, having been impeached by the 
 House of Commons, had • pleaded . guilty to the articles exhibited 
 against them, and on the 24th of February, 1716, were, by the 
 forfeiture of their lives, to pay the penalty of their misplaced 
 zeal and loyalty to the. son of their former sovereign. The loss 
 of these noblemen was deeply felt in the north, where their estates 
 were situated. By their bounty the poor and needy had been fed, 
 and to them the widow and . the fatherless had never appealed in 
 vain for protection. In expressing commiseration, however, for 
 their fate, let us not forget the admonition contained in the words 
 of one of the greatest ornaments of the judicial bench. Judge Hale, 
 who was accustomed to remark, " When I find myself inclined to 
 pity a criminal, let me remember there is likewise a pity due to 
 the country." 
 
 Forming a part of the melancholy procession we have described 
 
TEMPLE BAE. 31 
 
 were those destined to be confined in the prison of Newgate. In 
 this number were Colonel Henry Oxburg and Richard Gascoign. 
 Of the former we have to take some notice, as his head was shortly 
 to be placed on the top of Temple Bar. 
 
 Colonel Henry Oxburg, previous to the year 1715, had resided 
 on his property in Lancashire, and from his attachment to the 
 cause of the Pretender had, immediately on the breaking out of 
 the rebellion, joined his forces in the north. Whilst serving in 
 the French army some years prior to this event, he had acquired 
 a distinguished character for. his gallant conduct, and was by 
 General Forster,* who held the chief command in the Pretender's 
 army, immediately made a colonel. To him had been consigned 
 the humiliating task of proposing the capitulation of Preston. 
 
 * General Forster had been confined in Newgate, with several of the 
 iprisoners taken at the surrender of Preston. The following account of the 
 manner in which he effected his escape is taken from the diary of a prisoner 
 confined in the same prison with him : — 
 
 "April 10, 1716. — Mr. Forster abused the hberty which was allowed him 
 by Governor Ktt,* and made his escape as follows : — ^His servant had taken an 
 impression in wax of the key of the outer door, and got one made accordingly. 
 While Forster and Anderton were drinking French wine with Mr. Pitt, Forster 
 sent his own man for a bottle of his own wine to make up the treat, and on 
 
 * Mr. Forster and Mr, Anderton, another prisoner for the same offence, paid 6L 
 a-week each for their lodging and diet in the Governor's house. 
 
32 TEMPLE BAR. 
 
 We have already recounted the brief, and to them disastrous, issue 
 of this campaign. On the 9th of May he was placed on his trial 
 at Westminster, before Chief Justice Parker, on the charge of 
 high treason; and the jury, considering the evidence produced 
 conclusive of his guilt, returned a verdict to that effect Pursuant 
 to his sentence, he was, on the 14th of the same month, executed at 
 Tyburn; his body was buried in the churchyard of St. Giles-in- 
 the-Fields, and his head placed upon Temple Bar. This was on 
 the 16th of May, "which is a circumstance," remarks a writer 
 
 * 
 
 of the day, " which we chose to mention, that the rebels may 
 place it among their other saints' days." He met death without 
 the slightest trepidation, and had attained such a remarkable serenity 
 and temper of mind during his imprisonment, that when, in the 
 language of one who had frequent opportunities of conversing with 
 him, " he declared his sentiments, they seemed to ghde ia upon 
 
 pretence of going to the vault, he went out of the room. The fellow, according 
 to order, had looked up Mr. Pitt's black in the cellar, as he went down with 
 him to bring up the bottle, and then stayed at Mr. Pitt's outer door until 
 Forster came, and both went out together, having locked the door on the 
 outside, and left the false key in the lock to prevent them being suddenly 
 pursued. They got to Prettlewell, in Essex, next morning by four o'clock, 
 with two more horsemen that were ready to attend them, and having a vessel 
 provided at Leigh went over to France." — Secret History of the Rebels in 
 Newgate, 1716. 
 
TEMPLE BAE. 33 
 
 you like a gleam from the true God: you received comfort from 
 the man you came to comfort." 
 
 Richard Gascoigne shortly followed his friend and companion 
 to the grave, having been executed at Tyburn the 25th day of 
 May, 1716. He was likewise buried in the churchyard of St. 
 Giles-in-the-Fields. 
 
 It forms no part of the plan of this narrative to trace, step 
 by step, the history of these troubled times, except so far as may 
 be sufficient to elucidate either the history of the Bar or the bio- 
 graphical notices of those connected with it. We shall, therefore, 
 not enlarge on the fate of many consigned to an ignommious death, 
 whose youth, and consequent inexperience of the world, might 
 justly have pleaded for a mitigation of the capital punishment;* 
 but George the First knew little of the English people, and cle- 
 mency formed no part of the policy of his muiisters. They 
 sought to govern by the fear, and not by the affection, of the 
 nation. Tower Hill and Tyburn had already witnessed the closing 
 scenes of many of the supporters of the former family, and yet 
 the same disaffection to the existing Government remained, — still 
 
 * James Shepperd, executed for high treason at Tyburn, the 17th March, 
 1718, at the age of eighteen. 
 
 John Matthews, a printer, for printing and pubhshing a seditious Ubel, 
 executed at the age of nineteen, at Tyburn, November 6, 1719. 
 
34 TEMPLE BAR. 
 
 more victims were to be offered up as peace-offerings; and it was 
 only at length by the extinction of the House of Stuart, in the 
 direct line, that the Crown was quietly to rest with the House of 
 Hanover. 
 
 Such poor supporters of a cause are the axe and the rope ! 
 
 To a young and enthusiastic mind, an enterprise fraught with 
 danger, difficult of accomplishment, and having a chivalrous issue, 
 will always prove a powerful attraction, successfully to resist which 
 will not only demand that the duty and obedience which every 
 citizen owes to the laws "^f his country should be ever present in 
 his mind, but that these obligations should be eriforced by the 
 principles derived from religion and reason. 
 
 Of such a character was the cause of the Pretender: an exile 
 from his infancy from the kingdom over which his ancestors had 
 ruled — dispossessed of that throne which, for nearly a hundred 
 years,* they had occupied — for no fault committed by him, for 
 no crime that could be alleged against him. 
 
 * James the First of England, and the Sixth of Scotland, ascended the 
 throne of England March 24, 1603. James the Second abdicated that same 
 throne, by leaving the country, December 23, 1688. 
 
 If, however, we include in our calculation the period of their occupation of 
 the throne of Scotland, we should extend the sovereignty of the House of 
 Stuart to upwards of three hundred years. 
 
TEMPLE BAE. 35 
 
 The nation, by the Act of Settlement, had visited the sins of 
 the father upon the children. That they had a clear right to do 
 so, will always be maintained by those who hold that the sentiments 
 of the majority must in all cases be binding and conclusive on the 
 rest of the community. To reason otherwise would, in this instance, 
 be to revive the doctrine of the "right divine of Idngs to govern 
 wrong," which has long since been consigned to that "Limbo" 
 described by Milton, to serve as an amusement to " the eremites 
 and friars, white, black, and grey," who, according to the same 
 authority, are to be found there.* 
 
 Strongly imbued with feelings of the enthusiastic character we 
 have described, was Christopher Layer, who trusted alone to effect 
 that change which, as we have seen, armies in the field had failed 
 to accomplish. We shall proceed to give our readers some inform- 
 ation relative to this individual, whose head frowned from the 
 summit of the arch for a longer period than any other occupant. 
 
 Christopher Layer was descended from an honourable family, 
 and after having completed his education at the University of 
 
 * " Eremites, and friars 
 WMte, black', an4 grey, with all their trumpery. 
 
 All these, upwhirl'd aloft. 
 Fly o'er the backside of the world far off, 
 Into a Limbo large and broad, since called 
 The Paradise of Fools." — MdjIOn's Paradise Lost, book iii. 
 
36 TEMPLE BAE. 
 
 Cambridge, was admitted a student of the Inner Temple. Having 
 kept the requisite number of terms, he was called to the Bar, 
 and from the large practice he speedily obtained, and his high 
 reputation and abilities, would have risen to fame and fortune, 
 had not the political tendency of his principles, and his inter- 
 course with females of disreputable character, entirely blasted 
 these prospects, and consigned him shortly to ruin and a dis- 
 honourable grave. 
 
 In the early part of the year 1722, Francis Atterbury, the 
 witty Bishop of Rochester, had been arrested on suspicion of 
 treasonable practices and confined to the Tower, and upon his 
 trial, shortly afterwards, before the House of Commons, on a Bill 
 of Pams and Penalties, had been found guilty by a large majority, 
 and banished the kingdom for life, and at the same time disabled 
 from holding his preferments in the Church. 
 
 The example given by this eminent divine was closely fol- 
 lowed by Layer, who proceeded to Rome, then the residence of 
 the Pretender, and had several conferences with him, in which 
 he engaged, on his return to England, to effect a revolution in 
 so secret a manner that no one in authority should be apprised 
 of the scheme until its actual accomplishment. 
 
 Full of these chimerical notions, he returned to England, and 
 formed the dastardly plan of hiring an assassin to murder the 
 
TEMPLE BAB. 37 
 
 King as lie returned from Kensington. This being effected, the 
 guards were to be seized, and, during the confusion that this 
 event would naturally produce, the chief officers of state and 
 the royal children were to be secured. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive how any person of the penetration 
 and abilities of Layer could, for one moment, believe in the prac- 
 ticability of a scheme so wild and dangerous. He had, however, 
 induced Lord Grey, an aged nobleman of the Roman Cathohc 
 faith, to give his concurrence to it. Fortunately, the death of 
 this nobleman in confinement, before the necessary legal proceed- 
 ings could take place, obviated, in all probabihty, the sad spectacle 
 of a public execution on Tower Hill. 
 
 Layer now entered into a correspondence with several Roman 
 Catholics, Non-jurors, and other persons disaffected to the Govern- 
 ment ; and Ukewise engaged the assistance of a few disbanded 
 soldiers, who were to be the chief instruments in carrying the 
 plot into execution. These soldiers he met at a pubhc-house at 
 Stratford, in Essex, when he finally gave them their instructions 
 for seizing the King on his return from Kensington, and the day 
 was even fixed for carrying their plan into execution. 
 
 Secret as may have been the concoction of this scheme, it 
 was not sufficiently so to ensure its accomphshment. The treason- 
 able conversation had been overheard by some persons connected 
 
38 TEMPLE BAE. 
 
 with the house, who had spoken of it pubhcly in the neighbour- 
 hood. Suspicion immediately fell upon Layer. His known pre- 
 dilection to the cause of the Pretender, combined with other 
 circumstances, induced the Secretary of State at once to issue a 
 warrant, by virtue of which he was taken into custody. Mention 
 has been made of his attachment to women : at the time of his 
 apprehension he had two mistresses, to both of whom he had 
 given intimation of the proposed scheme. On searching their apart- 
 ments, many papers of a treasonable character were found. On 
 this being communicated to the Counsellor, and also that the women 
 were bound over to give evidence against him, he sent to the 
 Secretary of State, expressing his readiness to disclose all the 
 particulars of the conspiracy, if he were indulged with the requi- 
 site materials for writing. 
 
 No time was lost in complying with this requisition, and had 
 he fulfilled the promise he had made, he would, in all proba- 
 bility, have been admitted as evidence against his accomphces. 
 At that moment, however, his mind was engaged on a very 
 different project. The back -yard of the house in which he was 
 confined commimicated with the yard of the adjoining public- 
 house; and it occurred to the fertile brain of Mr. Layer, that 
 if he could descend from his room into this yard, he should 
 find it a very easy matter to escape through the tap-room. 
 
TEMPLE BAK. 39 
 
 where there was very little probability of his being recog- 
 nised. 
 
 This plan he determined to carry, if possible, into execution; 
 he ciit, therefore, the blankets of his bed Into long pieces, and 
 fastened them together, and in the dusk of the evening descended 
 from his window ; unfortunately, however, he fell upon a bottle-rack 
 in the yard, and upset it, and the noise occasioned by the breaking 
 of the bottles was such that it alarmed the family. Layer, how- 
 ever, amidst the confusion which ensued, effected his escape. An 
 active search was instantly conunenced by the almost distracted 
 ■ messenger, who, tracking him to the Horseferry at Westminster, 
 where he had taken a boat, crossed the water after him, pursued 
 him through St. George's Fields, and ultimately succeeded in 
 recapturing him at Newington. Layer was now again lodged in 
 the messenger's house, and securely guarded for the night. The 
 next day he underwent an examination by the Secretary of State, 
 and was committed to Newgate. The Government having decided 
 that no delay should take place in bringing him to trial, a grand 
 jury was at once empanneUed at Romford, in Essex, by a warrant 
 from the Sheriff, who found a true bill against him for high 
 treason ; which biU was made returnable into the Court of King's 
 Bench. 
 
 Wednesday, the 21st of November, was the day appointed 
 
40 TEjVIPLE BAK. 
 
 for the trial of Layer. The Lieutenant of the Tower brought 
 him up to the bar of the Court, and upon a motion made by 
 Mr. Hungerford (who, together with Mr. Ketilby, had been ap- 
 pointed his counsel), the Lord Chief Justice, Sir John Pratt, or- 
 dered his irons to be removed. Every point that could be urged 
 in favour of the prisoner was, with much talent and pertinacity, 
 pressed on the attention of the Court, and on the termination of 
 a trial which lasted upwards of sixteen hours, the jury, after a 
 short consultation, returned a verdict of guilty. 
 
 In order that he might have time to arrange his own affairs, 
 as also the affairs of his clients, his execution was postponed for ■ 
 many months after his condemnation ; doubtless it was also expected 
 that disclosures would be made by him relative to his accom- 
 phces, and to this we may partly attribute the numerous reprieves 
 -he received. At length, on the 17th of May, nearly seven months 
 after his trial at Westminster, he was conducted from the Tower 
 to Tyburn, seated in a sledge, habited in a full-dress suit, and a 
 tie-wig. On taking leave of Colonel Williamson, the Deputy- 
 governor of the Tower, he told him he intended to die like a 
 man: to which the Colonel replied, "And, he hoped, like a 
 Christian." At the place of execution he openly declared his 
 adherence to King James (as he called the Pretender), and ad- 
 vised the people to take up arms on his behalf; he professed 
 
TEMPLE BAD. 41 
 
 himself willing to die for the cause, and expressed his confidence 
 that Providence would effectually support the right heir to the 
 throne on some future occasion, though he had failed of being 
 the happy instrument of placing him upon the throne. 
 
 The streets were never more crowded than on this occasion, 
 and many fatal accidents occurred from the breaking down of 
 the stands erected to accommodate the spectators anxious to wit- 
 ness the last moments of Counsellor Layer, as he was familiarly 
 named. 
 
 The day subsequent to his execution, his head was placed on 
 Temple Bar J there it remained, blackened and weatherbeaten 
 with the storms of many successive years, until, as we have re' 
 marked, it became its oldest occupant. Infancy had advanced 
 into matured manhood, and stiU that head repulsively looked 
 down from the summit of the arch. It seemed part of the 
 arch itself. 
 
 It was not, however, alone during the latter part of its occu- 
 pancy. Battles had again been fought for that cause for which 
 Layer, on dying, had expressed so warm an attachment; defeats 
 had again been sustained by its friends. Once more the axe and 
 the rope, the fire and the fagot, had been busy, and two addi- 
 tional heads had been borne from Kennington Common to the 
 City Bar, there to convey, by their cold, apathetic gaze, to the 
 
42 TEMPLE BAE. 
 
 passers along that great thoroughfare, a? lesson more powerfully 
 instructive on the vanity and hoUowness of all human expecta- 
 tions, than could fall from the lips of the most eloquent 
 preacher. 
 
 We, however, must not anticipate the " Rising of '45," hut must 
 proceed, in order not to interrupt hereafter the thread of this 
 narrative, at once to give some further account of the head of 
 the unfortunate Counsellor. 
 
 For upwards of thirty years it had remained fixed on the 
 summit of the arch: at the close of that period, the elements 
 accompUshed what the improving taste of the public had in vain 
 demanded. 
 
 On one stormy night, a summary ejectment was served, and 
 the head of Layer left its long resting-place, and descended from 
 the arch into the Strand. We shall extract from Mr. Nicholl's 
 "Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century," the sequel of 
 this curious history. " When the head of Layer was blown 
 from Temple Bar, it was picked up by a gentleman in the neigh- 
 bourhood (Mr. John Pearce, an attorney), who showed it to some 
 persons at a public-house, imder the floor of which, I have been 
 assured, it was buried. Dr. Rawlinson, meanwhile, having made 
 inquiries after the head, with a wish to purchase it, was imposed 
 upon with another instead of Layer's, which he preserved as a 
 
XEMPLE BAH. 43 
 
 valuable relique, and directed it to be buried in his right hand."* 
 We learn from another source that this request was compHed 
 with. 
 
 We shall have now to pass over several years, during which 
 the supporters of the doctrine of indefeasible hereditary right made 
 no open attempts to promote the cause of the exiled house; and 
 it is to some extent gratifying to remark, that it was owing alone 
 to the result of these misguided principles that, with the solitary 
 exception in the reign of Charles the Second, we have any cri- 
 minal associations with the Bar to which this history relates. 
 
 Scotland had suffered deeply from the effects of the Rebellion of 
 1715, and from its disastrous issue it might have been presumed 
 that any renewed attempt would have found no encouragement 
 there. Pandora's box had been opened, and its contents poured 
 over the length and breadth of that devoted country; fire and 
 sword had wasted her hUls, and in many parts her valleys wanted 
 
 * "On April 5, 1756, died Richard Rawlinson, LL.D. and F.E.S., and one of 
 the first promoters of the Antiquarian Society. He was the third son of Sir 
 Thomas Rawlinson, lord mayor of London, 1706. By his will he ordered his 
 body to be buried in a vault in St. Giles's Churchyard, Oxford, and his heart 
 in St. John's College, as a mark of his affection. 
 
 " A few days subsequently died Mr. Benjamin Bourn, author of ' The Sure 
 Guide to HeU ;' a young man of the most promising expectations." — Oenh 
 Mag. vol. xxvi. 
 
44 TEMPLE BAE. 
 
 the labourer to cultivate them. Still hope remained, and this was 
 shortly to reillumine the torch of civil war, to obliterate the recol- 
 lections of past sufferings, and to lead on the devoted adherents 
 of Charles Edward, from their victory at Carhsle to their defeat 
 at Culloden. 
 
 We must, however, be very brief in our relation of these events 
 — "the Rising of '45," as it has been usually designated; we are 
 chiefly interested in its results, and those results of a very restricted 
 character. After the reduction of Carhsle, on November 15, 1745, 
 Charles Edward, with his little army, advanced towards the south. 
 Lancaster was taken, Preston surrendered, Manchester was occu- 
 pied, Derby opened its gates to him ; and, previous to his eiFecting 
 that retreat to the north which, for talent and abilities, will bear 
 favourable comparison with any recorded in ancient or modem 
 history, he had advanced within one hundred miles of the metro- 
 polis. When the news of this success reached London, conster- 
 nation was seen in every face. In hot haste the citizens left their 
 homes, to form armed associations ; the Warder stood on the 
 Tower wall with his match lighted, ready to give the appointed 
 signal of the approach of the enemy ; a solemn fast was proclaimed, 
 and, like Israel of old, the nation, in humiliation and sorrow, bowed 
 down to Israel's God, 
 
 The Battle of Culloden was fought. A great victory was 
 
TEMPLE BAS. 45 
 
 acliieved, the enemy was prostrate, the vanquished were suppliants 
 for mercy. We shall presently see how a Christian nation, who, 
 on every Sunday in their churches, had besought the God of 
 mercy "to show pity on all prisoners and captives," applied this 
 divine petition to those who, by the fortune of war, were now 
 placed in their power. The plea of mercy — so far at least as to the 
 sparing of their lives — should never have been urged with greater 
 success than in the case before us.* Here were misguided men — 
 rebels, if you please — whose crime (and a very grave one we will 
 allow it to be) was their maintaining their fidelity intact to a line 
 of kings to whom their ancestors had sworn fealty and obedience, 
 but whom the nation, in its wisdom, had excluded from the suc- 
 cession to the throne. May the tear of the Recording Angel 
 obliterate many of the dark pages in the history of our country I 
 
 Mention has been made of the Battle of CuUoden. This de- 
 cisive engagement was fought on the 16th of April, 1746. The 
 King's forces were commanded by William, duke of Cumberland, 
 
 * " The benefit wMch. is hoped from terror, for the future, appertains not 
 to the giving of a right to kill. For a more obstinate affection to one's own 
 side, if the cause is not altogether dishonourable, deserves not punishment ; 
 or if there is any punishment thereof, it ought not to amount to death, for an 
 equal judge ■would not so determine." — Gkotius, Law of Peace and War, 
 Part III. c. xlvii. 
 
46 TEMPLE BAB. 
 
 son of the reigning monarch. The carnage was terrific; no 
 quarter was given, none expected.* 
 
 In one decisive hoiir the young Chevalier beheld his hopes 
 blasted, his family doomed to perpetual exile, and himself a fugitive 
 and a wanderer.f 
 
 The unhappy Earl of Kilmarnock and Lord Balmerino were 
 among the prisoners whom this victory dehvered over to the 
 Government, and were beheaded on Tower Hill, on the 18th 
 day of August, 1746. 
 
 The execution, however, of a few noblemen, the attainder of 
 others and confiscation of their property, were alone considered 
 inadequate to ensure the safety of the throne. The blood of a 
 whole hecatomb of victims was requisite to cement a fabric wliich 
 had been so rudely assailed. The King of Terrors, therefore, was 
 to hold his high court of justice ; and before him were placed, in 
 
 * It is stated that Ms royal highness, on viewing the field of battle on the 
 following day, was heard to exclaim, " Lord, what am I that I am spared 
 when so many men lie dead on the spot !" The severities practised after- 
 wards acquired for him, in Scotland, the appellation of " BiUy the Butcher." 
 
 + " The young Chevalier, after moving from place to place for nearly five 
 months, at the commencement of September, 1746, escaped on board the 
 Heureux privateer of St. Malo, with several of his adherents, and landed on 
 the- 29th at Eoscart, near Morlaix, in Brittany, from whence he set out for the 
 Court of France." — Sistori/ of the Rebellion, 1745. 
 
TEMPLE BAE. 47 
 
 grim array, the only acknowledged reformers of this period — the 
 axe and the rope. Had any one suggested milder measures, if 
 he escaped a prison for his presumption, he would have been 
 consigned to a lunatic asylum for his folly. 
 
 The nation, in acquiring greatness, had omitted the lesson of 
 generosity. 
 
 Special commissions for the trial of the unfortunate prisoners 
 were shortly opened in various parts of the country ; and on the 
 23d of June, at a Sessions held for this purpose at St. Margaret's 
 Hill, in the borough of Southwark, Francis Townley, colonel of 
 the Manchester Regiment, and George Fletcher, holding a captain's 
 commission in the same force, were, with several others, placed 
 on their trials, and convicted of high treason. The awful sentence 
 awarded by the law was passed upon them. 
 
 Before we proceed to the last sad scene of their lives, we must 
 give our readers some account of these brave and gallant men, 
 who, as they had stood undaunted amidst the blaze of battle, 
 blanched not at the fearful preparatives of death on the scaffold. 
 
 Francis Townley was of an old and honourable family, who 
 had long resided in Lancashire, and whose descent may be traced 
 from the earhest periods of English history. 
 
 His grandfather, an able cavalier, had fought and died for 
 King Charles at the fatal battle of Marston Moor; his brother. 
 
48 TEMPLE BAR. 
 
 John Townley, Knight of St. Louis, was tutor to the son of 
 James the Second, the Chevalier St. George, and was known as 
 the translator of Hudihras into French.* 
 
 His uncle, Mr. Townley, of Townley Hall, had been, to some 
 extent, implicated in the former rebellion (1715); and although 
 on his trial acquitted by a jury, was not thereby fuUy exculpated 
 in the opinion of the public, f 
 
 Francis Townley, the subject of the present notice, entered 
 early in life into the service of France, and displayed, at the 
 siege of PhiUipsburg, in 1734, whilst serving under the command 
 of the Duke of Berwick,f a bravery and courage under the fire 
 
 * We have taken the account of the family of Colonel Townley from a very 
 meritorious work, recently published by Peter Burke, Esq., of the Inner 
 Temple, called " The Romance of the Forum." From the near relationship 
 subsisting between that gentleman and the talented editor of the " Peerage," 
 Mr. Bernard Burke, there is no doubt of its strict accuracy. 
 
 •j- " May 10, 1717. Townley of Townley paid them (the rebels in Newgate) 
 a visit, with great pomp and splendour, after his discharge from the Mar- 
 shalsea, but he could not well expect that all of them should have the hke 
 good fortune for the like causes, because he knew they had not so much 
 money. 
 
 " May 23, 1717. Mr. Townley came again to visit in great pomp."— (Sfecrei 
 History of the Rebels, p. 38. 
 
 % The Duke of Berwick was the natural son of James the Second by 
 Arabella Churchill. 
 
TEMPLE HAD. 49 
 
 of the enemy, and an acquaintance so extensive with mihtary 
 tactics, as raised him at once in the esteem of all those with 
 whom he was associated. 
 
 It was at this siege, whilst visiting the trenches, that the 
 Duke of Berwick, of whom mention has been made, one of the 
 most experienced genex'als ui the French service, was killed by 
 a cannon-ball. Townley was near him at the moment. 
 
 For nearly sixteen years he remained abroad, serving with zeal 
 and fidelity in the armies of France, and acquiring for hunself 
 increasing honour and military reputation. Desirous, however, 
 of once more visiting a country which, amidst all the changes of 
 his life, was still first in his thoughts and aifections, he returned, 
 about the year 1740, to England, and quietly resided with his 
 . family in Lancashire. This tranquillity, however, was to be of 
 short duration. The year '45 arrived ; the son of him whom he 
 considered as his lawful sovereign had advanced to Lancaster, 
 his banner waved over Preston. Townley was not one ever to 
 permit the probability of personal danger to interfere with the 
 discharge of what he considered a positive duty. He, therefore, 
 immediately ofi"ered his services to the young ChevaUer, which 
 offer was at once accepted, and a colonel's commission conferred 
 upon him. He quickly placed himself at the head of 200 men, 
 and entered Derby with the victorious army. On the retreat to- 
 
 H 
 
50 TEMPLE BAE. 
 
 Scotland, he was invested with the important post of Governor 
 of the town of CarKsle ; and upon that place capitulating to the 
 Duke of Cumberland, on the 30th December, 1745, he, and about 
 114 other Enghshmen, were made prisoners of war, and confined 
 in the various prisons of the country. 
 
 We must now take some notice of his faithful companion in 
 arms and misfortune, George Fletcher, who had been brought 
 up at Salford, near Manchester, where his parents had resided, and 
 were substantial people. His father had been for some time dead ; 
 but his mother, whose business he managed, was still living. So 
 enthusiastically was he attached to the cause of the Pretender, 
 that all her entreaties were fruitlessly exerted to induce him not 
 to join an enterprise, in her opinion, of so desperate a character : 
 with the affection of a parent, she even offered him lOOOZ. to 
 follow her advice. So far from doing this, he gave Mr. Murray, 
 the Prince's Secretary, 50Z. for a Captain's commission. He might, 
 with much truth, remark at a subsequent period, that to his own 
 obstinacy he could alone attribute the misfortunes that had befallen 
 him. 
 
 At two o'clock in the afternoon of the 29th July, the fatal 
 warrant was forwarded from the Secretary of State's office for 
 the execution, on the following day, of these unfortunate men: 
 it fomid them chained to the floor of their cells. The communi- 
 
TEMPLE BAB. 51 
 
 cation was received with cheerfulness and resignation. The only 
 expression that escaped their hps was, "God's will be done!" 
 That night they went to bed and slept soundly. 
 
 The next morning, at ten o'clock, the sledges being in readi- 
 ness, each drawn by three horses, the mournful procession was 
 formed in the following order: first, a party of dragoons; next, 
 a party of foot-guards; the three sledges then followed, in the 
 first of which was placed Colonel Townley and two others. In 
 the front seat sat the executioner, with a drawn scimitar; and in 
 this manner they proceeded to Kennington Common. 
 
 In the rear of the procession, in a street coach, followed one 
 who mourned in earnest; that one was a woman. Her whole 
 feelings were concentrated in the fate of a being, the occupant 
 of one of those sledges, — young James Dawson. His life was 
 hers : in agony she had watched his trial, had listened to his con- 
 demnation, and in the dark frenzy of despair was now resolved 
 to witness his death. Through the vast multitudes of human 
 beings which the event had collected, the procession moved on 
 to the Common — that coach followed:, it drew up near to the 
 fatal spot — her head was extended from the window —she gazed 
 as those who see not. The rude hand of the executioner tore from 
 its bosom the heart which she fondly imagmed had beat only for her, 
 and round which all her warm, womanly feelings were entwiiaed. 
 
52 TEMPLE BAIt. 
 
 A moment's consciousness returned : she beheld him throw that 
 heart into the fire. One wild, hysteric shriek — one piercing, 
 agonising cry — and her gentle spirit ascended with his to the 
 Throne of Mercy. 
 
 We trust we shall be excused for inserting this short but 
 mournful episode. We must now proceed with our narrative. 
 Townley was the first to suffer. The executioner performed his 
 mournful ofiice, the knife was applied to the yet breathing body, 
 the head was severed from it, and, with the warm blood still gushing 
 from its unclosed veins, held up to the vulgar gaze of the popu- 
 lace, and the God of Mercy was invoked to save King George! 
 A murmur of approbation ran through that great assembly — a 
 shout of exultation rose to the skies — the crowd was chanting 
 its Te Deum for the victory of Culloden ! 
 
 We must draw a veil over a scene so replete with painful 
 associations, at which the heart sickens whilst the pen describes 
 — a scene we should have considered suited only to afford grati- 
 fication to the worshippers of Moloch, when ''ahenated Judah" 
 passed her offspring through the fire to his grim altar, 
 
 " Besmeared with blood 
 Of human sacrifice ;" 
 
 or to the Manicheans of Central America, in the hideous worship 
 of their devil god. 
 
TEMPLE BAB. 53 
 
 It is scarcely requisite to add, that towards the other sufferers 
 the same revolting ceremony was repeated. 
 
 The heads of Townley and Fletcher were removed, as already 
 stated, to Temple Bar, and there placed in the positions indicated 
 in the print at the commencement of this chapter. For several 
 weeks, curiosity induced numbers to gather about the arch, to 
 gaze on those livid features which life and health had so recently 
 animated ; glasses were let on hire, that the morbid feelings of 
 the masses might be indulged by a closer examination. There 
 were many whose very souls, brutalised by these revolting exhi- 
 bitions, seemed to derive a savage pleasure from the contemplation. 
 One elderly person expressed his loyalty and humour in the fol- 
 lowing impromptu: — 
 
 " Three heads here I spy, 
 Wliich the glass did draw nigh, 
 
 The better to have a good sight ; 
 Triangle they are placed, 
 Are bald and barefaced, — 
 
 Not one of them e'er was upright." 
 
 Of a character far more refined and intellectual is the fol- 
 lowing anecdote, related by Dr. Johnson, in reference to this sub- 
 ject, "I remember," said the great lexicographer, "being, on 
 
54 TEMPLE BAE. 
 
 one occasion, with Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey; while we 
 surveyed the Poet's Corner, I said to him, from Ovid, — 
 
 ' Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis.' 
 
 "When he got to Temple Bar, he stopped me, pointed to the heads 
 upon it, and slily whispered me, — 
 
 ' Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis. " 
 
 Johnson, we may remark, was strongly imbued with Jaco- 
 bite prejudices. 
 
 These were the last fractions of humanity that Temple Bar was 
 destined to receive. Before other treasonable attempts had subjected 
 their promoters to well-merited punishment, society had undergone 
 a great change. The feelings of the nation had become more re- 
 fined — the Government more enlightened — the idea had gradually 
 acquired the force of conviction, that in order to elevate the moral 
 condition of the people, it was not essential to commence by de- 
 grading it ; and a belief existed, that exhibitions of the disgusting 
 character we have described might tend to that effect.* The twiUght 
 
 * In the "London Post" of August 29th, 1746, is the following horrible 
 account : — " Last Saturday, a chairman who plies in Great Ormond Street, 
 Queen's Square, having got from the fire made at the late execution on 
 
TEMPLE BAD, 55 
 
 of moral improvement had dawned on the world — the advent of a 
 brighter day was to follow. We have not yet arrived at its meridian 
 splendour. We have yet to wait, wait patiently, but not despair- 
 ingly, until the world shall have realised the fulness of the idea ; 
 it will then act with a faith that would remove moimtains. 
 
 Little more remains to be told of the Bar and its ghastly occu- 
 pants. We find, however, the following notice in the "Annual 
 Register" for January 1766. 
 
 " This morning (Jan. 20th), between two and three o'clock, a 
 person was observed to watch his opportunity of discharging 
 musket-balls, from a steel cross-bow, at the two remaining heads 
 upon Temple Bar. On his examination he affected a disorder of 
 his senses, and said his reason for his so douig was his strong attach- 
 ment to the present Government, and that he thought it was not 
 sufficient that a traitor should only suffer death, and that this pro- 
 voked his indignation ; and that it had been his constant practice, 
 for three nights past, to amuse himself in the same manner : but 
 
 Kennington Common, the liver of one of the unhappy sufferers, broiled and 
 eat it, whether out of derision, or to imitate a cannibal, is not known ; but 
 the inhabitants are much displeased both at his banquet and taste." The 
 unhappy sufferers referred to were Donald M'Donald, James Nicholson, and 
 "Walter Ogilvie, who were executed on Kennington Common on the 17th of 
 August, 1746, for rebellion, a fortnight subsequent to the execution of 
 Townley and Fletcher. 
 
56 TEMPLE BAK. 
 
 it is much to be feared that he is a near relation to one of the 
 unhappy sufferers." The account given in the " Gentleman's Maga- 
 zine" further states, " Upon searching him, above fifty musket-balls 
 were foraid wrapped in a paper, with this motto, Eripuit ille 
 lAtamr 
 
 No further efforts appear to have been made, either by the 
 friends or enemies of the reigning family, either by the sane or 
 the insane, to dislodge these grim tenants of the Bar ; there they 
 remained until the 31st of March, 1772, when one of them fell 
 down, and we believe, very shortly afterwards, during a high wind, 
 the remaining head was swept from its lofty position, and Temple 
 Bar remained untenanted. 
 
 Here, in strictness, terminates our task. We have endea- 
 voured — feebly, we are aware — to narrate, in their chronological 
 order, those events of a criminal character with which Temple Bar 
 has been, more or less, directly associated. In so doing, we have 
 not been influenced by any morbid desire to re-open to public view 
 scenes over which an impenetrable curtain should be drawn, if, 
 from the contemplation of them no instruction could be derived — 
 if, in short, no higher object could be attained than the mere grati- 
 fication of curiosity. 
 
 We, however, believe that, in tracing the errors as they are 
 now allowed to be, connected with the former enactments of our 
 
TEMPLE BAH, 57 
 
 penal code, some thoughts may suggest themselves which, if acted 
 upon, would tend still further to humanize our criminal proceedings, 
 and thus, in better adapting them to the spirit of the times, render 
 them far more conducive to the gi'eat end of all legislation, — the 
 repression of crime, and the reformation of the criminal. 
 
 The experience of many centuries had fully demonstrated to 
 the world the complete fallacy of the idea, that any moral benefit 
 could arise from the public exposiire of portions of the lifeless 
 clay of those who had fallen under the vindictive justice of 
 tiie law. 
 
 One result, and one only, had been hitherto attained by these 
 sanguinary exhibitions — moral degradation, not moral improve- 
 ment. 
 
 Still, however, an idea continued to prevail — and a very obsti- 
 nate one it was — that, on the commission of any crime of more 
 than ordinary magnitude, the rigour of the law being carried out 
 on the spot on which such crime had been perpetrated, would prove 
 a more powerfully impressive lesson to evil-doers than allowing the 
 usual course of justice to take place. It did not occur to the minds 
 of the public, that if any impression were produced, it would pro- 
 bably be on the feelings of the unfortunate criminal, and not on his 
 unreflecting associates in crime. As soon as the world closed to 
 the one, the public-houses, or haunts of dissipation and vice, opened 
 
 I 
 
68 TEMPLE BAE. 
 
 to the other. A life of crime must necessarily be one of excite- 
 ment.* 
 
 To carry out, therefore, this reformatory principle, the gibbet 
 was erected in the streets, in the squares, and other public 
 thoroughfares of the metropolis ; and had there been any soundness 
 in the system, from the frequency of its application, rapine and 
 violence would soon have become unknown : on the contrary, how- 
 ever, they continued most fearfully to increase. 
 
 * In the metropolis, at the present day, this excitement is chiefly sought 
 after in those fruitful nurseries for vice and crime, the penny theatres, saloons, 
 and concert-rooms. In the first, the most attractive pieces are those in which 
 a blood-stained career of vice and infamy is most vividly portrayed. Conse- 
 quently, such dramas as "Jack Sheppard," "Claude Duval," the ladies' high- 
 wayman, " Sixteen-String Jack," and " Oliver Twist," invariably draw the largest 
 houses. The Artful Dodger, in the last-named piece, always proves, in thea- 
 trical phraseology, powerfully attractive. From the mischievous residts, how- 
 ever, that have arisen from the representation of " Jack Sheppard," we may 
 fairly claim for it the pre-eminence over all others of its class in its direct 
 tendency to fascinate the young and inexperienced with a life of crime. 
 Within the space of a few weeks, nearly sixty prisoners, committed to the 
 House of Correction at Westminster, attributed their initiation into criminal 
 courses to the habit of frequenting such places. From a great number of 
 letters addressed by the prisoners to one of the excellent chaplains of that 
 prison, we make the following extracts, corroborative of the correctness of our 
 remarks: — "We got our minds tainted by the pieces we see performed at 
 these low theatres. I have even known lads to swear, coming home after 
 
TEMPLE BAR. 59 
 
 So inflexible was the Government in carrying out this schema 
 of reformation, that nothing was . ever permitted to interfere with 
 its execution. 
 
 Notwithstanding that death had entered the palace, and the 
 inanimate form of majestj lay cold and extended on the royal 
 couch, — 
 
 " The shroud its robe of state ;" 
 
 notwithstanding that the hand which signed the warrant was 
 
 seeing such pieces as " Jack Sheppard," and " Oliver Twist," that they would 
 not work any more, but be a thief, and lead a jolly life, like Jack Sheppard 
 did, and hke the Artful Dodger in " Oliver Twist," as the pieces represented 
 to us. I can say as to myself, that after witnessing such plays, I felt as if it 
 would he aglory to bs a thief ; Inever went a-thieving till after." 
 
 Another thus writes : — " I vised to go to the Saloon nearly every 
 
 night in the week, where I saw the play of ' Jack Sheppard,' ' Dick Turpin,' 
 ' Oliver Twist,' and such-like ; and when I and my mates came home of a 
 night, we admired what a jolly life it must be to be a thief, and we agreed 
 together to be a gang. I soon after left my work," &c. 
 
 All further comment on our part would be superfluous. 
 
 A system productive of the most pernicious consequences, and naturally 
 becoming more and more gigantic, — but which our space will only permit us to 
 mention, — is the establishment of " Betting Shops," daily taking place in every 
 part of London. Should not the legislature speedily pass some measure to 
 close these seductive temples of vice, the plundered shopkeepers will be 
 called upon to contribute fresh rates for the enlargement of the metropolitan 
 and county prisons. 
 
60 TEMPLE BAK. 
 
 motionless, and that the crown Lad descended to anotlier sovereign, 
 still, on the very day of the death of George the Second, at the 
 corner of Russell Street, Covent Garden, an unfortunate fellow- 
 creature, convicted of murder, was compelled to utter his last sigh, 
 and offer up his last prayer, to the throne of Him to whom even 
 kings are subject* 
 
 The number of murders, liowever, did not diminish. 
 
 The riots of 1780 took place; and, chiefly owing to the imbe- 
 cility of the chief magistrate of the City, attained to a most alai-ming 
 height. On their ultimate suppression, the executioner and the 
 gibbet again perambulated the streets ; ■ and more numerous were 
 the moral examples supplied to the public on this occasion than 
 on any previous one. 
 
 Nevertheless, riotous conduct was far from being extinct. 
 
 It would be useless to trace further these unsuccessful attempts 
 to deter from the commission of crime by investing its punishment 
 with more than ordinary severity. The last time, we beheve, the 
 gibbet was seen away from its usual locality, was on the 12tli of 
 March, 1817; and a most melancholy sight it was. In Skinner 
 Street, in the City, a person, evidently insane, was, on that day, 
 
 * Patrick M'Caity was executed at the corner of Russell Street, Covent 
 Garden, on Saturday, October the 25th, 1760, for the murder of "William 
 Talbot. George the Second had expired early in the morning of that day. 
 
TEMPLE BAE. 61 
 
 executed foi; riotous conduct. Those wlio were present and wit- 
 nessed it are not likely to forget tlie horrors of that moment.* 
 
 The period, however, had now arrived when the public mind 
 had become impressed that another great error had been committed ; 
 that no improvement in the moral condition of the people could be 
 expected to arise by habituating them to the horrors of executions 
 conducted in the manner we have described. This lesson, there- 
 fore, which had erroneously been calculated ~ to produce such great 
 moral results, was discontinued. The gibbets were removed from our 
 commons ; the dry bones suspended from them consigned to what, 
 years previously, should have been their destination — the grave ; 
 and the nation advanced another step in the path of truth and 
 social improvement.! We must advance also a few years, when 
 another doubt arose, when another question agitated the public 
 mind, a satisfactory reply to which was imperatively demanded. 
 
 Were the conununity benefited by placing the same value on 
 
 * " The executioner having quitted the platform, the unfortunate wretch 
 
 addressed the crowd nearest him, and exclaimed, ' Now, you , give me 
 
 three cheers when I trip.' And then, calling to the executioner, he cried out, 
 
 ' Come Jack, you , let go the jib-boom.' He was cheering at the instant 
 
 the fatal board fell." — Gent. Magazine, year 1817, p. 270. 
 
 "f We, of course, imply that the practice was discontinued about this period. 
 It was not until the 4th and 5th Will. IV. c. 26, [1834,] that the hanging of 
 the bodies of criminals in chains was made illegal. 
 
62 templt: bar. 
 
 life and property? Whether, in short, it was an offence of equal 
 enormity to pick a man's pocket, as to take his life ? The public, 
 usually in advance of the Government, had long since solved this 
 doubt, had returned a decided negative to the question. In many 
 cases, the plundered refused to prosecute — juries to convict; and 
 from the inequality of the punishment to the offence, too frequently 
 a total impunity for crime followed its detection. At length, he 
 whose untimely death is still felt as a great national loss, and 
 whose judgment had long acquiesced in the decision given by tlie 
 public, the late Sir Robert Peel,* in the year 1827, by a series 
 of wise measures, placed our criminal code on a more rational 
 footing, and in rendering it more in accordance with the unalterable 
 principles of moral rule and justice, adapted it better to promote 
 the true ends, as we have stated, of all legislation, — the repression 
 of crime, and the reformation of the criminal. 
 
 Once more, therefore, the nation acknowledged former errors ; 
 and in abandoning them, a further step was gained towards the 
 elevation of the moral character of the people. 
 
 The year 1848 came, big with the fate of empires, agitated with 
 those political convulsions which shook to their foundations many 
 
 * 7th and 8th Goo. IV. c. 28. Bill brought iu by the late Sir Robert Peel, 
 Fob. 23d, 1827. How would the late. Sir S. llomiUy have rejoiced to see 
 that day ! 
 
TEMPLE BAR. 63 
 
 of the dynasties of Europe ; and, greatly to the credit of the 
 Republic of France, with her prisons filled with political offenders, 
 she at once passed a law erasing from her code the infliction of 
 death for political offences. There was a moral dignity in this 
 course which, amidst much that was reprehensible, reflected honour 
 on the Provisional Government of that period. Could England, 
 then, longer retain in her political code her coercive and sangui- 
 nary enactments ? Was the blood of William Lord Russell longer 
 to remain unavenged? And what retribution for the wrongs he 
 had suffered, could, we ask, be more soothmg to his gentle spirit, 
 than the removal from the statute-book of his country of those 
 vindictive laws, by the strained interpretation of which he had 
 been made to suffer an unmerited and painful death ? 
 
 To Lord John Russell, his honoured descendant, was entrusted 
 this retributive justice; and the national character received no 
 slight addition to its moral gi-andeur, by the passing of that 
 Act by which the punishment of death was interdicted for offences 
 of a political character.* 
 
 By this, and the previous measures of which mention has been 
 
 * The nth and 12th Vic. c. 12. " An Act for the better security of the 
 Crown and Government of the United Kingdom.'' Brought in by Sir George 
 Grey, Secretary for the Home Department, and strongly supported in every 
 stage by the Premier, Lord John Russell. 
 
64 TEJirLE BAE. 
 
 made, death, the greatest evil that man can mflict on his fellow- 
 man, was reserved, with few exceptions, to guard that treasure 
 which if once taken can never be restored — the treasure of life. 
 But do we imagme, that with all these great and manifest improve- 
 ments in our criminal jurisprudence, we have at • length arrived at 
 the last act of this tragedy of errors? If so, we shall be much 
 mistaken. We are still very distant from it. Let us take, however, 
 encom-agement from the success of past efforts ; let us still proceed 
 onwards in the path of improvement ; let us not grow weary in 
 well doing. We live in days of mighty progress, and the muads of 
 men were never better prepared than at present for the per- 
 xeption of truth, and the consequent uprooting of long-cherished 
 errors. 
 
 It may not be in our power to accomplish, at once, all that 
 is required, but much may immediately be done. And one sug- 
 gestion which most powerfully arises from the perusal of the events 
 recorded in this chapter, we would, in all humihty, but in all 
 earnestness, proceed to press on the attention of our readers, — the 
 baneful effects produced on the morals of the people by the public 
 exhibition of the last moments of a criminal. 
 
 Had the lesson intended to be conveyed been attended with 
 liractical benefit, would it not, long since, have evinced itself 
 in the lives of those who have been placed in positions most 
 
TEMPLE BAE. 65 
 
 to benefit by the example? On the contrary, we find several 
 of these gloomy ministers of the law, who so frequently had per- 
 formed the last sad office to others, themselves consigned, for 
 crimes of no inconsiderable magnitude, to a like ignominious death. 
 Let us be convinced of this truth, that no process in this world is 
 more calculated to harden the heart and brutalize the feelings of 
 the public than exhibitions of the character we have mentioned; 
 whilst, in a country professing to regulate its actions by the prin- 
 ciples derived from Christianity, the compelluig an unfortmiate being 
 to offer up his last prayer to the Throne of Mercy amidst the jeers 
 and scoffs of a degraded rabble, to usher a soul into eternity with 
 blasphemies and obscenities sounding in his ears, appears to us so 
 diametrically opposed to all moral consistency, that, were it not 
 for the knowledge that the roots of error strike deep into the 
 mind, it would be difficult to comprehend how, for one moment 
 longer, it could be defended by any reflecting being. What, then, 
 do we propose as an alteration of a system believed to be repug- 
 nant alilce to moral and religious feeling? We would offer then, 
 in all seriousness, for the consideration of the public, the propriety 
 of substituting for the publicity and noise of the open street, the 
 privacy and stillness of the prison court, or of some other suitable 
 locality set apart for the purpose. We propose to invest the solemn 
 scene with every safeguard calculated to insure tlie humane and 
 
 K 
 
66 TEMPLE BAH. 
 
 proper discharge of the mournful duty. Let the Sheriffs^ men of 
 honour aiid probity, be present; let the Reporters for the press, 
 surpassed by none for ifitelligence and judicious discernment, be 
 admitted also ; and we shall possess the strongest and most undeni- 
 able asstifailbe, that every obligation that justice and humanity could 
 impose will be observed.* 
 
 Should any one be disposed to intimate that the infliction of 
 death itself shotild be at once discontinued ; we reply. Not until a 
 
 * It may be urged that the above suggestions are chiefly applicable to 
 executions in the metropohs. We are, however, eonvincedj that little dif- 
 ficulty would arise in maturing some plan, at once so comprehensive in its 
 character as to apply to every part of the kingdom, and at the same time so 
 certain in its operation as to leave the most sceptical without a rational 
 doubt that the dread sentence of the law had been fully and impartially 
 carried out. We would, with pleasure, refer our readers to two letters which 
 appeared in the " Times," immediately after the execution of the Mannings, 
 from the pen of the most graphic and philanthropic writer of the day, Mr. 
 Charles Dickens ; the first bearing date the 15th of Nov. 1849, and the second, 
 the 19th of the same month. From the latter we make the following extract, 
 coinciding fuUy with the views therein expressed : — "From the moment of a 
 murderer's being sentenced to death I would dismiss him to the dread 
 obscurity which the wisest judge upon the bench consigned the murderer 
 Eush. I would allow no curious visitors to hold any communication with 
 him. I would place every obstacle in the way of his sayings and doings being 
 served up in print on Sunday mornings for the perusal of families. His 
 execution, within the walls of a prison, should be conducted with every terrible 
 
TEMPLE BAE. 67 
 
 secondary punlshnleht shall be introduced, adequate to meet the 
 offences for which the capital punishment is at present awarded. 
 Life and property must never again be considered of the same 
 relative value. The law should distinctly mark the several grada- 
 tions of crime, lest an inducement should be offered to the criminal 
 to venture on the commission of offences of a deeper dye by a 
 similarity of punishment awaiting the detection of those of lower 
 turpitude. 
 
 solemnity that careful consideration could devise. Mr. Calcraft the hangman 
 — of whom I have some information in reference to the last occasion — should 
 be restrained in his unseemly briskness, in his jokes, his oaths, and his brandy. 
 To attend the execution I would summon a jury of twenty-four, to be called 
 the witness jury, eight to be summoned on a low qualification, eight on a 
 higher, and eight on a higher still ; so that it might fairly represent all 
 classes of society. There should be present, hkewise, the governor of the 
 gaol, the chaplain, the surgeon, and other officers, the sheriffs of the county 
 or city, and two inspectors of prisons. All these should sign a grave and 
 solemn form of certificate — the same in every case — that on such a day, at 
 such an hour, in such a gaol, for such a crime, such a murderer was hanged in 
 their sight. There should be another certificate from the officer of the prison, 
 that the person hanged was that person and no other ; a third, that that 
 person was buried. These should be posted on the prison gate for twenty- 
 one days, printed in the ' Gazette,' and exhibited on other public places ; 
 and during the hour of the body's hanging I would have the bells of all the 
 churches in the town or city tolled, and all the shops shut up, that all might 
 be reminded of what was being done.'' 
 
68 TEMPLE BAE. 
 
 The day, we trust, may not, however, be distant, when man, 
 with safety to society, may relinquish his right over the life of his 
 fellow-man. "When that shall arrive, another great step will be 
 taken in social and moral improvement, until at length, in the 
 ftJness of time, the sublime wish, expressed in the words of the Bard 
 of Avon, may find its accomplishinent : — 
 
 " I would we were all of one mind, and one mind good. — O 
 there were desolation of gaolers and gallowses." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON : 
 Prialed by 0. Dabclav, Castle St. Loioester Sj.