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SOME DISTINGUISHED VICTIMS
OF THE SCAFFOLD
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The IDLE ‘PRENTICE Executed at Tyburn.
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SOME
DISTINGUISHED VICTIMS
OF THE SCAFFOLD
BY
HORACE BLEACKLEY
WITH TWENTY-ONE ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER, & CO., Ltd.
DRYDEN HOUSE, GERRARD STREET, W.
1905
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To
JOSEPH GREGO
WHOSE MEMORY IS STORED WITH
PICTURES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
THESE MODERN IMPRESSIONS FROM
OLD PLATES ARE
OFFERED
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PREFACE
No apology is needed, save that which the consciousnessof inadequate work may call forth, from him who writesa history of great criminals. Since the lives of somany whose crime is their only title to fame havebeen included in the Dictionary of National Biography,it is inevitable that some of these old stories shall bere-told. Already the books of Charles Whibley andJ. B. Atlay, as well as the newspaper sketches ofW. W. Hutchings, have advanced this portion of ourbibliography to a large extent. By a judicious selectionsome rare human documents and many an entrancingtale may be found in the crimson pages of the TyburnChronicle. The dainty squeamishness that put Ainsworthinto the pillory, not because he had written aclumsy novel, but because he had dared to weave aromance around the grisly walls of Newgate, would beout of place in an age that will listen to ballads of adrunken soldier, and reads our women’s stories of theboudoirs of Mayfair.
Without a knowledge of the Newgate Calendar it isimpossible to be acquainted with the history of Englandin the eighteenth century. On the other hand, to himwho knows these volumes, and who has verified hisinformation in the pages of the Sessions papers andamong the battles of the pamphleteers, the Georgianviiiera is an open book. No old novel gives a moreexact picture of a middle-class household than the trialof Mary Blandy, nor shows the inner life of those onthe fringe of society more completely than the story ofRobert Perreau. While following the fate of HenryFauntleroy we enter the newspaper world of our great-grandfathers.And as we look upon these forgottendramas, the most illustrious bear us company. For atime Wordsworth and Coleridge chat of nothing butthe Beauty of Buttermere and rascally John Hadfield.Dr Johnson thinks wistfully of the charms of sweetMrs Rudd. Boswell rides to Tyburn in the samecoach as the Rev. Mr Hackman, or persuades SirJoshua to witness an execution. Henry Fieldinglashes the cowards who strive to condemn a prisonerunheard. To all who desire to understand theeighteenth century the Newgate Calendar is asessential as the Letters of Walpole.
In making a selection from the dozen or more causescélèbres that stand out in special prom