YOU KEEP ME HANGING ON

The Lowdown on Witches with Leonard Low Have We Got Noose for You...

Ahangman / executioner was always the most hated profession, the man who pulled the lever or pushed the victim from the stage to dangle and strangle on the end of a rope. The man who hid his identity wearing masks as he yielded the executioners’ axe. The man who tightened the ligatures around the neck on Witches about to be burned at the stake. All the courts decisions ended up in his hands, and all he had to do was carry out the sentence. Easy eh?

Well history dictates otherwise. Maybe the thousands watching are booing the hangman making him a tad nervous? Maybe the victim about to be beheaded is so important it gets the better of him? Maybe the hangman lit the fire before strangling his Witch, and the flames take the Witch alive! Maybe the hangman got the wrong length of rope and the victim ended up on his feet!

All this did indeed happen.

In 1541 Lady Margaret de la Pole, otherwise known as Lady Salisbury. Daughter of the Duke of Clarence was sentenced to death in the

Courts of King Henry VIII for her Catholic sympathies. The 67-year-old lady had spent two miserable years in the Tower and was led to her execution at Tower Hill London.

With thousands of bystanders watching the old woman refused to kneel down to the block. So, the executor and his servant grabbed her and wrestled her down flat…bang went the axe! The crowd screamed…as did Lady Salisbury! The Axeman had only nicked her. Bang went the axe again….(screams from the crowd again) now even louder screams from the Lady as he nicked her again…a further 9 blows of the axe were needed to execute the Lady as she wriggled around the stage with the executioner raining blow after blow down on her, all watched by the crowd as they were sprayed with blood!

The Duke of Monmouth in 1685 suffered the same indignity. The executioner who had a reputation renown for botched executions was paid a shiny gold coin to make swift work on the day by James Scott the Duke!.....8 blows with an axe later someone else had to finish the job with a knife! Jack Ketch the axeman had to run for his life as the crowd chased him off.

A Witch burning “session” in Brechin, Scotland in 1608 had the Hangman set the fire alight before strangling a Witch. A big mistake! The fire spread far too fast and engulfed the victim in flames, whilst still alive. Who, then, managed to break free of her restraining ropes, climbed out of the flames on her hands and knees (still alive and on fire!) The horrified clergy and villagers watched as the hangman threw her back in and held her down with sticks as she screamed her end in vicious flames! This happened more than once as reports from those times indicate:

“others half burnt brake out the fire, and were cast quick in it again, until they were burnt to the death”

In Kirkliston, Scotland, 1655, William Barton and his Wife were to be burned at the stake for being “witches”. The usual process was to tie the Witch atop a tar barrel fixed to a pole, they would be strangled first then the fire would be lit to burn the Witch as the crowd watched. As the hangman went to collect his victims from the jail cell, he suffered a terrible heart attack! He dropped down dead on the spot! The town’s Minister, with great sympathy, decided to cheer up the executioner’s heartbroken wife by giving her his final unfinished task. An absolute honour to be given,

apparently. She duly carried out the task set to her, single handily strangled both witches and then the Bartons’ were toast!

It was the year 1700 in the city of Edinburgh where our title for this story takes shape. A riot had taken place in the streets of the city due to the interference of the English Government on Scotland’s failed attempt at colonisation (nothing changes eh? – Editor). The Darien Scheme had collapsed with Scotland losing a third of its budget in the process. An English trade blockade stopped trade to the colony and disease and disaster followed, it became a huge financial disaster with many stockholders in Edinburgh ruined. Anger spread to violence and before long the Edinburgh guard were arresting many culprits.

The usual procedure was a few nights in the dreaded Tollbooth then a public whipping. The problem is public opinion was with the accused and when sentences of whippings were handed out by the Judges, the hangman given the task of carrying out the whippings gave the culprits a soft dusting of the whip, much to the delight of the packed crowd, cheering at every weak whip because of the hangman’s contempt for the punishment. The Magistrates, seeing this mockery of justice, sentenced the Hangman himself to receive a flagellation of his own for the contempt of court!

Another Hangman was brought forward to deal out the punishment, but the audience broke out in further anger, to the point the new hangman scared for his very life leapt from the punishment platform and ran screaming into the shadows.

The magistrates now needed a third hangman to punish the hangman who refused to punish the hangman who refused to whip the criminal, you still with me??? At this point the sitting Magistrates, mocked intensively by the crowd in hoots and laughter, decided to drop the whole matter and free the villain.

Leonard Low

Sources: Brechin Witch burning, Pitcairn’s criminal trials, p97, (1833) Edinburgh Hangman flogged, Traditions of Edinburgh, p66, by R. Chalmer (1825) Kirkliston Witch heart attack, Satan’s Invisible world, by George Sinclair (1685)