THE GREAT HANGING OF 1741

A Story by featherstone

Based on an actual happening

The Great Hanging of 1741

A story based on an actual happening.

(4,300 words.)

Jack Straw rose early that chilly March morning. He’d managed to abstain of the gin the night before which was no easy task, for ‘Jack the Lad’ liked his liquor, but it wouldn’t do to have a fogged head on this; the day that should see out his greatest caper to date. He will have need of all his wits.

Sarah slept on. She was grateful for the rest of the blanket they’d been sharing. Their four children shared the second of the two blankets that formed the bulk of their possessions. Not much but they felt want for little else. It was as well. Though Jack was a good earner, he was a better spender. Still, it had been a long time since any of their meagre belongings had lain in hock at Solly’s pawnbroker shop, for Jack had been diddling well of late.

He twiddled the six shillings in his pocket, scooping them up and dropping them back one at a time as he scanned the dimly lit room, wondering what he may have forgotten. His body told him it was near as damn it five o’clock. He knew it would still be dark outside, though even at noon little daylight ever penetrated the tiny soot grimed window. .

Their room was in the fourth floor shilling a week attic of Solly’s boarding house in Clock Street. Jack twiddled the coins again. He needed just sixty more to secure the nice little ground floor apartment with the bit of a yard Sarah so much desired. It was two streets further away from the Fleet and the stink of the neighbourhood s**t that flowed, when it rained, down the gutters to the turgid river below their window. Solly the Jew man was their landlord. He was also Jack’s fence so knew ‘The Lad’ was good for his rent, but he still wanted a secure guarantee. Nothing was more secure to Solly than three guineas, cash.

Darling Sarah, thought Jack as he watched her sleeping. Darling Sarah, deserving of so much better. She was deserving of someone better, but happy with the man she had.

She’d fallen for him ten years before that coming summer.

“Hello me little Doxie, how yer diddling?” he’d said, as he passed her on his way to The C**k Tavern that warm, light evening. It was his opening line and became his term of endearment ever since.

“Diddling well Jack,” she’d replied.

“You know me?”

“O’course I do. You’re a legend up the Gate.”

“That’s Billin’sgate the fish market I hopes, not Newgate the gaol.”

His wit tickled her fancy and made Sarah laugh. Her laugh made Jack fall in love.

Sarah laughs a lot, he thought again. Only Christ will know why. Poor little cow gets not much to laugh about.

She sighed, a soft moan as he looked at her in the candlelight of dawn. He was tempted to slip back inside the blanket; Very tempted indeed. Snap outta that Jack me lad, he commanded himself. Got to get meself up to Tyburn for the hanging. Be gettin‘ crowded soon. If it weren’t so bleedin’ cold I’d have slept up there with the spot floggers. Still, should make it by six.

Jack slipped the knot on the scarf that hung permanently around his neck. The action, not the cold air, made him shiver. How’d he managed to give the hangman’s knot the slip all these years he couldn’t imagine. “Used me one plead of clergy. Next time I’ll be dancin’ the Tyburn Jig meself for sure,” he said quietly under his breath. “Better be no next time then.” He opened the window, emptied the piss bucket, and looked once more at his beloved family.

“I swear this,” he whispered. “I swear before this day is out you’ll never want for nuffing again.”

With the prayer said, he pulled down his cap, snuffed the candle and shuffled his way to, and out the door.

The landing and stairs were in darkness. They were always in darkness. “Shut me eyes and save me sight.” He repeated his ritualised maxim as he descended the steps to the outside world. The world outside was equally dark. With only the faint silhouette of his familiar surroundings to guide him, he made his way along the east bank of the Fleet River to the bridge, with its access to the fields beyond, and promises of his future good fortune.

Mary Young was at her prayers as Jack stepped, full of his purpose, over the planks bridging the Fleet. She too needed a clear head, but one cleared of her wicked transactions and repented of her past sins. The Rev. Mr. Broughton was there to see that she was attentive to prayers and serious in her devotion. The Ordinary of Newgate stood behind, as was his duty, to witness and give account of the behaviour, confessions and dying words of the malefactors, a score in number that day due to there having been no hangings for three months . They were all predestine to their fate at the hands of the ‘Lord of the Manor of Tyburn’, convicted by their peers so Our Lord God Jesus Christ may give them His last judgment.

Jenny Diver, when alone in her cell, made her final preparations. She discarded the mantle of remorseful Mary Young. She’d not been known as Mary since a forgotten day, long ago. She’d found it difficult to respond to her birth name as it was used at her trial. She was diving Jenny, as everyone well knew. But today was the day both Jenny Diver and Mary Young would die as one.

The chant of the turnkey’s lament had finished. The sound of his bell faded and the toll of St. Sepulchre’s succeeded as it announced the loading of the carts with the condemned.

A full hour had passed by the time Jenny emerged into the press yard at Newgate Gaol to board her coach and four. She was top of the bill. The wealth afforded by her life of crime as London’s thief supreme paid for grand style, including the fine black silk gown with bonnet and veil. There would be no white cap for Jenny, and no sharing a cart to the ‘fatal tree’. The ballyhooing and the throwing of mud and brickbats were for the other pitiful souls. The nineteen, haltered, but with hands free and held in prayer, some a joking, most in tears as they sat astride their coffins of pine to trundle the two miles on their chariots of rough oak.

Jenny heard the cheers and cries of the pressing throng as she emerged, at last, for her trip to the ‘stool’. She was gleeful of the spectators that lined the road a dozen deep, calling, “Die well Blessed Jen,” and “Good dying Great Jenny.” She waved, as would any other royalty, each movement of her hand bringing the crowd nearer to frenzy. Her escort, having upon several occasions to close ranks and rattle their swords, saw them back good naturedly enough. The Marshall was still fearful in spite of thwarting the smugglers’ gang’s attempt to make an escape for their accomplices the day before.

He had needed to thank Jenny for the information. She said she couldn’t see the murder of the good turnkeys be done, as was their plan, to benefit those villains and deprive the Devil his fuel for Hell’s Eternal Fire. The Marshall had his doubts to her true motive for she’d never given tuppence before for anyone else’s life but her own. Mary Young said she was repented of her past wicked ways. Only Jenny Diver, in his company, knew the truth.

Jack reached the Mason’s Arms, as planned, in good time. The heads of the four gangs of Spittlefields, Tower, Wapping and Cheapside sat there already awaiting and soon they were joined by Geoffry Munns himself. Jack let Munns take the lead of the meeting since Munns had immediately assumed the role.

“Right, you knows what you’re all to do this great day?”

“Yeh, my lads ‘ave bin up at the stool all night. We got it covered afronta ‘Mother Proctor’s pew’,” said Billy Bods of Spittlefields.

“Tyburn Street’s as tight as me mother-law’s arse,” affirmed Grott from Tower.

“Ain’t that tight of a Friday night” chipped in The Bleach. They all laughed except Jack.

“Listen, this ‘ere’s a big caper, let’s do it a stifle.”

“Jack’s right. Be a plenty to crackle tonight. If ‘n we ‘as a good day today.” Munns emptied his pot of ale. “One more ‘fore the road, then we best be on our marks.”

The lead cart had already neared The Mason’s Arms as Jenny, with the good Rev. Mr. Broughton, entered The Bowl at St. Giles. A file of Musquereers stood outside with ten of Light Horse, bayonets and swords at the ready. Forty afoot entered the inn afore and aft.

“You won’t be a chaining me in the cellar I hopes,” she said.

“Jen, if you’re a buying, you can sit in me lap,” quipped a corporal at arms. He received a stern look in reward for his wit, but the sergeant let it pass.

“Fill them bowls and keep ‘em coming,” called Jenny.

“You’ll have to empty ‘em yourself,” said the sergeant. “My men have their duty to perform. We’ll drink your good death tonight.”

“Then take these ten Georges, I want them well drunk when The Diver is dead.”

The sergeant took the coins and pledged his oath that he’d not see a man sober for a week.

“’Tis a sight I’d like to see. Is it true Mr. Broughton, there’s not a drop to be ‘ad in The Lord’s tavern where I’m a heading?”

“Now Mary, don’t add blaspheming to your list of wicked sins.”

She turned to him and said in reply, “Is so, I was born a Mary after the sweet mother of Christ, but I shall die today a Jenny, after... The Devil knows who, but my list of sins is yours, not my Merciful True Lord’s. I have never stole from those who could not afford the loss. I have never lain with a man whose wife was true to him. I have never put my dagger to anyone who didn’t deserve to be killed. Above all else, I have never taken the Lord my God’s name in vain, for I believe Him to know good comedy, which for your disgrace, you do not.”

The Rev. Broughton’s face flushed at Jenny’s astonishing rebuke. Without waiting for him to compose his response, she turned again to the sergeant and said, “Come let’s be off to The Mason’s Arms, where I chance my humour will be restored.”

Geoffry Munns, with ten of the heaviest men from over forty of the combined five gangs, approached the surgeon’s assistants. The crowd, numbering in tens of thousands, jostled around in growing anticipation of the greatest hanging since that of Jack Sheppard. Most were but children when ‘Gentleman Jack’ took his drop at that very same spot.

“Mr. Sheppard Sir, ‘twas your plan we’ll be seeing through today. To successful conclusion this time however,” spoke his namesake, Jack to himself as Munns held a cloaked blade to the belly of the body snatchers’ leader.

“Now listen well,” grunted Munns, his scarred and broken veined face amplifying his words. “There will be nineteen other corpses and you’re welcome to take ‘em all if you can. But anyone comes near that of Jenny Diver and it’ll be me what does the surgeon’s job. On whoever touches her. An’ I’ll do yourself into the bargain as well.”

The terrified man felt the two dozen eyes bore into him as sharply as would a dragoon of swords. He tried to voice his assent to Munn’s instructions. His throat full of rising bile prevented a single word from escaping his racing mind and reaching his tongue. He would choke surely, if he tried to speak. He pissed himself instead. Munns felt the warmth of the wetness soaking the smudge’s breeches and knew his threat had reached the man’s heart.

“Just nod. We’ll take it as your word sworn on the soul of your unknown father.”

The man nodded his head.

A cheer burst out and rushed like a huge wave through the eager crowd. Jack could see helmets jogging and glistening in the noon sunshine. It was the forward file of mounted Light Horse. Closely followed by the bayonet tips fixed atop the firelocks of the Musquereers. The cheers became a roar, with whistling from those who knew how, followed by a bellowing of jeers. Jack knew that meant the first of the carts had arrived, and the criminals must have looked a sorry sight. If only one of them stood and waved, the sound would have changed back to cheers.

Jack went into action. His orchestra was assembled, he was their conductor and responsible for a fine performance. It was his plan, he had to be sure each player, and instrument was in place, well tuned and waiting for him to raise his baton. Even Geoffry Munns allowed him his position. It would be he who’d slit Jack’s throat if things went ballsome.

More helmets, blades and bayonets came into Jack’s view. The second cart was arriving. He still didn’t know which of the three stages Jenny would be loaded onto for her ‘drop’. She will be the last to arrive, the main attraction. Jack knew that. He knew then it would but a half hour at most after her appearance till the end of the show. He got the nod from The Bleach.

The third cart entered the stage as he reached the ‘pew’. Bods was in position. A vendor, racing to reach a beckoning hand before his competitor, pushed Jack aside and into the milling throng pressing all around him. He had to get through to Tyburn Street to see on Grott of the Tower gang.

The spring sun felt as hot as it ever did mid July. Sweat poured from his cap. The crowd swayed but would not part. Jack searched for an escape, frantic for Bods’s eye. Bods saw Jack’s dilemma and sent two of his men to help. They assumed the role of constables and used their staves, quite roughly on the lower classes, to make the room for Jack to get through to Grott’s group. Everyone was in position as Jack had instructed. All his men were in place. Except Jack himself.

The crowd made a crush. Those at the back wanted to get forward. Those already forward, afeared of the passing procession, pushed back. Jack was the grape in the press. He counted the seventh cart pass by. Jenny in her hearse would be next. He was fifty yards from his spot. It may as well be fifty miles, he thought, with fifty thousand heaving bodies between him and the stool, where his plan could die along with the twenty condemned.

A horse shied and rose. He saw his chance. Not a good chance, but he felt it would be the only one he’d get. As the crowd pulled away from the flaying hooves of the rearing horse, Jack ducked through the gap. The horse came down, its iron shoe clipped his shoulder and made him stumble. He further slipped on the horse piss sodden cobbles, pulled himself up and darted along the street making the most of the gap between the parade and spectators.

“Go on me lad,” called one of Grott’s men, barging a constable in pursuit. The raving rozzer spun into the file of Javelin men and fell to the ground. The soldiers quickly regained ranks and stepped over or on to the prostrate officer, as they saw fit. The driver of the last batch of convicts pulled up sharp. If the horse’s hooves didn’t kill the fallen man, the wheels would for sure.

A prisoner, John Catt of all people, fell off as the cart made its sudden halt. Fearful of another ruse, and under special watch following his bungled escape attempt two days before, officers immediately fell upon him. They clubbed the unfortunate, haltered Catt mercilessly, to great applause from the crowd and hurled him roughly back onto the cart.

Jack hadn’t seen any of the furor behind him, being as he was, that desperate to reach his mark; the spot where he was expected to signal everyone into action.

Jenny’s coach came to a final halt as it reached the arena. It was time for her to alight and mount another carriage: The stage she would share with the other three women, who along with sixteen men on two further carts, were to drop off and hang by their necks ‘til they were dead.

The crowd became strangely hushed as she emerged. Then, as some scrambled for the coins she tossed into the air, a huge cheer erupted. She waived her black, silk handkerchief in acknowledgement, serving further to excite the mass. The Marshall, fearful of the unruly mob, ordered his men into two ranks, to clear a path. They obeyed with full vigour, many of the crowd feeling the weight of musket butts to their bodies, as Jenny made her slow progress to her final place. The Rev. Mr. Broughton walked with her, the alms she had paid him, already spent in his mind. The Ordinary of Newgate followed. John Thrift, the hangman, waited patiently. So did his youngest assistant, sitting on the beam of the three-sided gallows. Jenny was the last to mount. Thrift was swift as he tossed the end of the rope up to his boy. He slipped the knot tightly behind her neck. For a shilling, he would have placed it under her ear to hasten her journey. No tip, no help from him. Still, he calculated, the gown she wore that soon be his would double everything else that formed his fee for the duty he was about to perform.

Jack was still twenty feet from where the others expected him to be. He had to do the best he could from where he stood, and prayed for an obedient response to his signal. He took the plate with the charge from one pocket. The flint and hammer from another. Struck the flint once, twice, thrice, sparks flew, but nothing happened. Beginning to panic he struck again as people became attracted to his odd behaviour. Flash, crack, the charge ignited and exploded, sending up a pall of gunpowder smoke and forty men and women into action. The carters had to reign in hard to prevent their horses making a premature departure from the standing position it was that loud a response. The carts swayed as Thrift’s assistants were placing hoods on the heads of the wailing and feverishly praying nineteen. Jenny insisted on her bonnet and veil. She would have no hood. The Ordinary of Newgate felt obliged to rebuke Elizabeth Davies, a Papist bigot whom he felt was calling out too loudly to her Saints: It being contrary to the Laws of our Land. The woman fell silent only for the cries of the Methodist on the next cart to seem all the louder. The man, in The Ordinary’s mind, appeared to be more of a crazy than a devout and penitent sinner. John Thrift, work done, signalled to the Under Sheriff who quickly raised his sword. He brought it down again swiftly.

The twenty to hang felt their platform begin to shift under their feet. The carts moved away as they went out off their stage calling for God to be merciful to them and for Kind Jesus to receive their spirits. One by one quickly after each other they dropped the short drop brought up with a jerk and hanged there, choking, gurgling, feet frantically paddling the air.

For five, ten, fifteen minutes they danced that way. Some went quickly, others did not, but eventually death entered each of their bodies and tore out their souls.

Jenny Driver too, was dead. The telltale river of urine ran down from under her skirts, onto her boots and fell to the ground: The sure sign that it was over for her. The Under Sheriff nodded. The rope cut, her body fell, as Jack finally reached his spot. He caught her and laid her gently on the ground.

Fighting broke out as surgeons’ assistants wrestled each other for the corpses that hadn’t been claimed by family. No one fought for Jenny, though Thrift called out, “The dress is mine.” Bods tossed him a small sack of gold and called back, “Buy your own.” Six of Grott’s gang moved in, liveried as footmen. With Jack, they placed her in her coffin, lifted her with grace and slowly made their way through the masses of on lookers kept at bay by The Bleach and his boys.

Munns was pleased with one mind to see that the accursed body snatchers had obeyed his threat, disappointed with his other that he had no good cause to use his blade. He backed up Jenny’s hearse to meet the party of mourners. Jack smiled as he climbed up and sat next to Munns, who winked back and slapped his reigns on to the backs of the four black stallions. Out runners jogged beside the coach. They parted the waves of sightseers; all caught up with the excitement of the event and with no mind to the security of their purses as Jack’s combined gang for the day, along with their womenfolk, busied themselves dipping for handkerchiefs, fobs, purses and whatever else they could lay their purloining hands on. It was a mighty haul and all were pleased with the way their days work was panning out. Joining in celebration with their ‘marks’ they waved at the accelerating coach and four as it disappeared in front of a cloud of dust that followed them all the way up Tyburn Lane toward the High Gate.

Munns, with Jack at his side, raced the four horses a mile, slowing at the turning for the Church at St. Pancras and its graveyard, where the final resting place of Mary Young awaited. Suddenly, Munns pulled up and swung into the deserted yard of Tibbs the Knackers. A matter of mere seconds passed and the coach pulled out again and continued on its way, witnessed by the single inhabitant of the sleepy hamlet: A piebald bull terrier, too indolent to join the others at the Great Show.

Jack, his day’s work finished, climbed the dark stairs for the very last time, opened the door to his attic room and called out, “How you diddling Doxie.” She appeared and he tossed his heavy purse to darling Sarah.

“My God Jack, what ‘ave you done, robbed the Bank of England?” she exclaimed as she realised what was in her hand. She feverishly fingered the golden guineas. “Gotta be a ‘undred,” she said as young John grabbed a handful.

“There was earlier,” said Jack. “I give three to Solly, one to Tom at the C**k though I only owed nineteen shillings, and there’s one still in me pocket for tonight’s skinful and feast that we shall be enjoying. Let’s pack up and go, for we’ll not spend another night here.”

Sarah sat patiently, as Jack and the sweet fruit of their loins tucked heartily into the pile of chops and slab of roast beef. They ate as if they’d not had a bite for days, which as it happened, was the case. She could only pick at morsels, so strong was her desire to hear Jack’s tale. The wait was too long. “Well,” she finally said.

Jack took one more draught from his tankard, wiped his sleeve across his mouth, and proceeded to tell her in the minutest detail, the events of the day as he knew it. Of the sight, sound, feel and smell of the throbbing masses, “must ‘ave been ‘undred thousand at least.”

He spoke of soldiers by the hundred, helmets gleaming, swords and pikes by the dozen all a glistening, while Sarah and the children listened with barely contained excitement. He told them of his near disaster, of the horse that wanted to stove his head. His voiced hushed as he described Jenny taking the tumble, “with a score or more poor souls”. And of his placing the coins on Jenny’s eyes before closing the lid, and laying her to rest, himself, the Reverend of St Pancras and a hundred beside to see her off.

“That’s where the ‘undred guineas come from. She’d promised an ‘ansome pay, to see ‘er body well sent to heaven, intact, and not cut up by the butchers of St. Bartholomew.”

They sat in silence, said their prayer, and gave thanks to Jenny Diver. Jack said a silent prayer asking forgiveness for the lie he had told. Jack was not at the funeral of Mary Young.

He had no idea how many were there to witness a hindquarter of knackered plough horse laid to rest. Jack was with Munns at Tibbs’s yard. He hadn’t placed any coins on the eyes of Jenny Diver. He’d merely touched her cheek and whispered, “It’s done.”

“Get this bleedin’ contraption off me,” she said in greeting as she opened her eyes.

Jack helped Jenny out of her coffin as its substitute had left the yard. He unlaced the thick leather collar she wore under the neck of her gown. She removed the ruptured bag from under her skirts that had contained her piss of death. Her smile had told Jack she was very much still alive. He’d smiled back as Jenny Diver held out her hand and told him, with a wink in her voice, “You’re a good’un for sure Jack me Lad.”