Chapter 1

Transcriber’s Note: Corrections have been made to a small number of
evident typos, but otherwise the text is as printed, with inconsistent
spelling, hyphenation, punctuation and general style. Italic text is
indicated _like this_, bold =like this=.

TYBURN TREE

ITS HISTORY AND ANNALS

TYBURN TREE
ITS
HISTORY AND ANNALS

BY
ALFRED MARKS

AUTHOR OF “WHO KILLED SIR EDMUND BERRY GODFREY?”
“HUBERT AND JOHN VAN EYCK: THE QUESTION OF
THEIR COLLABORATION CONSIDERED,”
ETC., ETC.

Who … began diligently and earnestly to prayse that strayte
and rygorous iustice, which at that tyme was there executed
vpon fellones, who as he sayde, were for the most part xx
hanged together vpon one gallowes.—Sir THOMAS MORE, _Utopia_,
about 1516.

LONDON
BROWN, LANGHAM & CO.
78, NEW BOND STREET, W.

Ther bith therfore mo men hanged in Englande in a yere ffor
robbery and manslaughter, then ther be hanged in Ffraunce ffor
such maner of crime in vij yeres.—CHIEF JUSTICE FORTESCUE,
about 1476.

* * * * *

Than stele they, or Rubbe they. Forsoth they can nat chuse,
For without Londe or Labour hard is it to mentayne,
But to thynke on the Galows that is a careful payne.

But be it payne or nat: there many suche ende.
At Newgate theyr garmentis are offred to be solde.
Theyr bodyes to the Jebet solemly ascende,
Wauynge with the wether whyle theyr necke wyl holde.

ALEXANDER BARCLAY, _The Ship of Fools_, 1509.

* * * * *

Je suis persuadé que dans les treize cantons et leurs alliés,
on pend moins de voleurs dans un an, que l’on ne fait à Londres
dans une seule assise.—CÉSAR DE SAUSSURE, _Lettres et Voyages_,
1725-1729.

* * * * *

Many cart-loads of our fellow-creatures are once in six weeks
carried to slaughter.—HENRY FIELDING, _Enquiry_, etc., 1751.

* * * * *

The following malefactors were executed at Tyburn … John Kelly,
for robbing Edward Adamson in a public street, of sixpence and
one farthing.—_Gentleman’s Magazine_, March 7, 1783.

* * * * *

It is frequently said by them [the prisoners in Newgate] that
the crimes of which they have been guilty are as nothing when
compared with the crimes of Government towards themselves: that
they have only been thieves, but that their governors have been
murderers.—Mrs. FRY, 1818, quoted in _Romilly’s Life_, ii.
486-7.

PREFACE

How our fathers lived is a subject of never-failing interest: of some
interest it may be to inquire how they died—at Tyburn. The story has
many aspects, some noble, some squalid, some pathetic, some revolting.
If I am reproached with dwelling on the horrors of Tyburn, I take refuge
under the wing of the great Lipsius, who, in his treatise De Cruce, has
lavished the stores of his appalling erudition on a subject no less
terrible.

But the subject has an interest other than antiquarian. We are to-day far
from the point of view of Shelley—

“Power like a desolating pestilence
Pollutes whate’er it touches.”

The general tendency is all towards extending the power of governments.
Some would fain extend the sphere of the State’s activity so as to give
to the State control over almost every action of our daily lives. It may
therefore be not without use to recall how governments have dealt with
the people in the past. The State never voluntarily surrenders anything
of its power. Less than a hundred years ago, ministers stoutly defended
their privilege of tearing out a man’s bowels and burning them before
his eyes. The State devised and executed hideous punishments, sometimes
made still more hideous by the ferocity of its instruments, the judges.
All mitigation of these punishments has been forced on the State by
“idealists.” The State dragged its victims, almost naked, three miles
over a rough road. The hands of compassionate friars placed the sufferer
on a hurdle—not without threats of punishment for so doing. In the end,
the State adopted the hurdle. So it has always been. Not a hundred years
ago, Viscount Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, could see no reason for
altering the law which awarded the penalty of death to one who had stolen
from a shop goods to the value of five shillings. To Romilly, though he
did not live to see this result of his untiring labours in the cause of
humanity, we may gratefully ascribe the abolition of the extreme penalty
for this offence.

On this field, as on others, the victories of civilisation have been won
by the individual in conflict with the community.

* * * * *

I desire to thank Mr. C. W. Moule, the Librarian of Corpus Christi
College, and the College authorities, for permission, most courteously
granted, to reproduce the drawing by Matthew Paris showing Sir William de
Marisco being drawn to the gallows.

I am indebted to Mr. Herbert Sieveking for permission to reproduce, from
a photograph taken for him, the print from the Gardner Collection showing
an execution at Tyburn. I am in an especial degree obliged to him for
calling my attention to Norden’s map of Middlesex, the subject of an
article by him in the _Daily Graphic_ of September 4, 1908.

CONTENTS

PAGE

WHOM TO EXECUTE? WHO IS TO EXECUTE? HOW TO EXECUTE? 6

DRAWN, HANGED, AND QUARTERED 27

TORTURE AND THE PEINE FORTE ET DURE 35

THE HANGMAN 44

AFTER TYBURN 49

ORIGIN AND SITE OF THE TYBURN GALLOWS 54

THE CHRONOLOGY OF TYBURN 71

ANNALS 73

INDEX 269

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE REV. MR. WHITEFIELD PREACHING ON KENNINGTON COMMON _Frontispiece_

From a print in the Crowle Pennant, Print Room, British
Museum, Part VIII., No. 242. Probable date, 1748, or
somewhat later. The triangular gallows is probably that
erected for the execution in 1746 of the rebels of
1745. The bodies on the gibbet are those of highwaymen
or murderers.

FACING PAGE

THE FIRST KNOWN REPRESENTATION OF THE TRIPLE TREE 62

A portion of a map of Middlesex engraved by John Norden
for William Camden’s “Britannia,” edition of 1607.

THE TRIPLE TREE ABOUT 1614 64

The illustration reproduces the frontispiece of a book.
The gallows is shown in the uppermost lozenge on the
left.

THE RUINS OF FARLEIGH CASTLE 66

From Sir Richard Colt Hoare’s “Hungerfordiana; or,
Memoirs of the Family of Hungerford,” 1823.

THE TRIPLE TREE IN 1712 66

From a broadsheet published by the Rev. Paul Lorrain,
the Ordinary of Newgate, containing an account of an
execution at Tyburn, on September 19, 1712.

THE TRIPLE TREE IN 1746 68

Reduced from Rocque’s 24-sheet Map of London, etc.,
begun in March, 1737, and published in October, 1746.

THE SITE OF TYBURN TREE 70

Showing the locality before the alterations of 1908.
Reduced from the Ordnance large-scale map of 1895.

SIR WILLIAM DE MARISCO (OR WILLIAM MARSH) DRAWN TO TYBURN IN 1242 90

From a contemporary drawing by Matthew Paris in the MS.
“Chronica Majora,” in the possession of Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge. Reproduced here by permission of
the Librarian and authorities of the College.

DRAWING TO TYBURN ON HURDLES, _temp._ ELIZABETH 166

From “The Life and Death of Mr. Genings.” (_See
illustration facing p. 64._)

EXECUTIONS AT TYBURN, _temp._ ELIZABETH 168

From “The Life and Death of Mr. Genings.” (_See
illustration facing p. 64._)

THE TRIPLE TREE ABOUT 1680 198

From a print in the Gardner Collection. Reproduced,
with Mr. Gardner’s permission, by Mr. Herbert
Sieveking, who allows this reproduction from a
photograph taken for him.

THE PEINE FORTE ET DURE 230

William Spiggott under the press in Newgate, in 1721.
From the (anonymous) “Newgate Calendar,” 5 vols., 1773.

THE TRIPLE TREE IN 1747 240

Reduced from the last plate of Hogarth’s series of
“Industry and Idleness,” showing the execution at
Tyburn of Thomas Idle.

THE INTERIOR OF SURGEONS’ HALL 246

Showing the body of a murderer after dissection, in
accordance with the provisions of the Act of 1752. From
“The New and Complete Newgate Calendar,” by William
Jackson, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law, 6
vols., 1795.

DRAWING TO TYBURN ON A SLEDGE 248

Showing Dr. Cameron being drawn to Tyburn in 1753. From
“The Old Bailey Chronicle,” by James Montague, of the
Temple, 4 vols., 1783.

THE EXECUTION AT TYBURN OF EARL FERRERS IN 1760 252

From a print in the Crace Collection, Print Room,
British Museum, Views, Portfolio XXX., No. 3. This
was one of the earliest executions on the new movable
gallows.

THE NEW GALLOWS AT NEWGATE, 1783 266

From “The Old Bailey Chronicle,” as above.

ADDENDA.

_Pages 62-65, and illustration._

Norden’s map of 1607 gives the first indication of the site of the
triangular gallows, but, in writing of the map as giving the earliest
known representation of the gallows, I had forgotten Richard Verstegen’s
“Theatrum Crudelitatum Haereticorum nostri temporis,” Antwerp, 1587. The
Triple Tree is shown quite correctly as to form, without indication of
site, on p. 83.

_Page 170, “put them to the manacles.”_

This instrument of torture is shown in the above-mentioned book, in
an engraving on page 75, the description, here translated, being: “An
instrument of iron which presses and doubles up a man into a globe-shape.
In this they put Catholics, and keep them in it for some hours.”

TYBURN TREE

Its History and Annals

HISTORY

INTRODUCTION

Looking back down the long vista of six hundred years, we see an
innumerable crowd faring to their death from the Tower of London or
from the prison of Newgate to the chief of English Aceldamas, the field
of blood known as Tyburn. Of this crowd there exists no census, we can
but make a rough estimate of the number of those who suffered a violent
death at Tyburn: a moderate computation would place the number at fifty
thousand. It is composed of all sorts and conditions of men, of peers
and populace, of priests and coiners, of murderers and of boys who have
stolen a few pence, of clergymen and forgers—sometimes of men who in
their person unite the two characters—of men versed in the literature of
Greece and Rome, of men knowing no language but the jargon of thieves.
Cheek by jowl are men convicted of the most hideous crimes—men whose only
offence it is that they have refused to renounce their most cherished
beliefs at the bidding of tyrant king or tyrant mob. As a final touch of
grim humour the ex-hangman sometimes figures in the procession, on the
way to be hanged by his successor.

They fare along their Via Dolorosa in many ways. Some bound and laid on
their back are dragged by horses over the rough and miry way, three
miles long; a few are on horseback; some walk between guards; the most
are borne in carts which carry also due provision of coffins presently
to receive their bodies. All make a halt at the Hospital of Saint
Giles-in-the-Fields, where they are “presented with a great bowl of ale,
thereof to drink at their pleasure, as to be their last refreshment in
this life.”

It is for the most part a nameless, unrecorded crowd. For hundreds of
years only a single figure emerges here and there from the throng.
During a few decades only of the history of Tyburn do we see clearly
and in detail the figures in these dismal processions. They go, in
batches of ten, fifteen, twenty, laughing boys, women with children at
the breast, highwaymen decked out in gay clothes for this last scene of
glory; men and women drunk, cursing, praying. Some of the women are to
be burnt alive; of the men, some are to be simply hanged; others, first
half-hanged, are to have their bowels torn out and burnt before their
eyes; some are to be swung aloft till famine cling them. The long road
is thronged with spectators flocking in answer to the invitation of the
State to attend these spectacles, designed to cleanse the heart by means
of pity and terror. To-day Tyburn—what Tyburn means—is, in spite of the
jurists, at its last gasp. After a struggle of a hundred years hanging
is all but abolished. The State has renounced its attempt to improve our
morals by the public spectacle of violent deaths. The knell of capital
punishment was rung when Charles Dickens compelled the State to do its
hanging in holes and corners.

The “Histories of England” do not tell us much about Tyburn. “The far
greater part of those books which are called ‘Histories of England,’”
writes Cobbett, “are little better than romances. They treat of battles,
negotiations, intrigues of courts, amours of kings, queens, and nobles;
they contain the gossip and scandal of former times, and very little
else.” Nor do we find much more in those most dismal of books called
“Constitutional Histories.” They mention Tyburn only in connection
with the execution of some one who infringed the rules as at the time
understood, of The Game played at Westminster, before the establishment
of the present perfect accord between the Ins and the Outs, between those
whom Cobbett irreverently calls the rooks at the top of the tree and the
daws on the lower branches.

The story of Tyburn is one of the strangest, surely one also of the
saddest, in the history of the people. To understand it, we must consider
the social and legal conditions which found their outcome at Tyburn.

WHOM TO EXECUTE? WHO IS TO EXECUTE? HOW TO EXECUTE?

These questions have, after much experimenting, been so completely
answered that it is to-day difficult to realise that each question has
presented serious problems. We hang only those found guilty of murder, to
the regret of jurists like Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, who thought that
the punishment of death ought to be inflicted in _many_ other cases.[1]
But in times not very remote there were on the Statute Book, as has been
reckoned, no fewer than two hundred capital offences. No man is now
hanged except after trial and conviction by a Court of Assize, or by the
Central Criminal Court. A person so convicted is executed by the common
hangman in the simple manner invented long ago by some one who discovered
that a rope tied about a man’s neck is held in position by the projecting
mass of the head.

In old times the country swarmed with courts of inferior jurisdiction,
each, however, with the power of hanging thieves. There is a satirical
story telling how a man who had suffered shipwreck scrambled up a cliff,
and, seeing a gallows, fell on his knees, and thanked God that he found
himself in a Christian country. In the England of the thirteenth century
he would not have had to travel far into the interior to find this mark
of Christian civilisation. The right to erect a gallows was frequently
granted, and perhaps even more frequently assumed without legal right.
In the grants of franchises to monasteries we find, together with
the concession of assize of bread and beer, and judgment of fire and
water—together with these we find franchise of “swa full and swa forth,”
&c., of sac and soc, tol and theam, flem and fleth, blodwith, grithbrith,
flemensferd, infangethef and utfangethef. And among such franchises,
some of which are a puzzle to the learned, we find a franchise easily
understood, of “furca et fossa,” of gallows and pit, gallows for men,
pit, full of water, for women.[2] All these numerous franchises were
rights of the crown—jura regalia—often granted to monasteries and to
individuals. In a record of which more will have to be said, we read that
at the end of the thirteenth century there were no fewer than fifteen
gallows in the hundred of Newbury alone, mostly belonging to religious.
Among them we find one belonging to a prioress, a not uncommon case.
It is distressing to think that Chaucer’s tender-hearted prioress, who
“wolde weepe if that sche sawe a mous caught in a trappe, if it were deed
or bledde,” had a gallows on which—by the hands of her bailiff—she hanged
thieves. There is little doubt that she had her gallows.

But one’s first surprise at the enormous number of gallows subsides
when we consider the conditions of life in early times. The country was
thickly wooded: immense forests gave shelter to robbers, thieves, to all
under the ban of the law. One of the laws of Ina runs, “If a far-coming
man, or a stranger, journey through a wood, out of the highway, and
neither shout nor blow his horn, he is to be held for a thief, either
to be slain, or redeemed.” To come to later times—there is a tradition
that the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds was instituted for the
purpose of putting down thieves. Tradition it may be called, for the
conjecture is not supported by evidence. Thus, in a Parliamentary paper
issued in 1894, there are some notes on the history of the stewardship.
As to its origin, these notes do not go behind Wharton’s Law Dictionary,
and Chambers’s Encyclopædia. Here is the story of the origin of the
stewardship, or as it would be more properly called, the wardenship.
Leofstan, the abbat here named, was a friend of Edward the Confessor; it
is known from an old record that he was abbat in 1047. In reading the
narrative we must remember that the “Ciltria” of the story was a wider
district than that to which we now give the name of Chiltern.

“THE STORY OF THE CHILTERN HUNDREDS.

“This same abbat Leofstan, also called Plumstan, being a
simple and pious man, full of compassion for all persons
in peril, in order to make the roads safer for travellers,
merchants and pilgrims faring to the church of the Blessed
Alban, whether for the expiation of their sins, or for their
worldly profit, caused to be cut down, chiefly along the royal
road called Watling Street, the dense forests stretching from
the border of Ciltria almost as far as to the north side of
London: he also cleared the rough places, made bridges and
levelled the way. For there were at that time all over Ciltria
vast, dense forests, giving shelter to many different kinds
of wild beasts, namely, wolves, wild boars, wild bulls, and
stags, and, more dangerous still, to robbers, thieves by day
and thieves by night, men banished from the realm, fugitives
from justice. Wherefore abbat Leofstan—not to the loss, but to
the good of this church—made over to a certain most stout and
valiant knight, Turnot by name, and to two of his companions,
Waldef and Thurman, the manor of Flamstude [Flamstead lies a
little to the west of Watling Street], for which Turnot gave
privately to the abbat five ounces of gold, a most beautiful
palfrey, and a desirable greyhound. Which was done on these
conditions—that the said Turnot, with his fellow-knights before
named, and their followers, should protect the western parts,
most haunted by robbers, and effectually guard the same, with
the stipulation that they should make good any loss arising
from their negligence. And if a general war should break out in
the kingdom, they should use their utmost diligence, and do all
in their power to protect the church of St. Alban. And these
covenants Turnot and his companions faithfully observed, as did
also their heirs up to the time when King William conquered
England. Then, because they disdained to come under the yoke
of the Normans, the manor was taken from them. Refusing to
submit, they chose rather to betake themselves to the forest,
and laid ambushes for the Normans who had taken possession
of their lands, burnt their houses, and killed many of them.
But, the king’s affairs going well, some made their peace with
him, some were captured and punished.… However, a certain
noble, Roger de Thoni by name, who, in the distribution of
lands, came into possession of the manor, did not refuse to
acknowledge the right of St. Alban’s, and zealously performed
the before-mentioned duty. He was highly renowned in arms, a
Norman by race, of the stock of those famous soldiers who are
called after the Swan.”[3]

As the chronicler, who is supposed to have written before 1259, says
nothing of any lapse of the agreement, it seems probable that it
was still in force in his day, and that the wardenship has existed
continuously from the eleventh century to our own days.

About a century later matters had got from bad to worse:—

About 1160. A kind of robbers not before heard of began to
infest the country. Disguised as monks, these men joined
travellers, and when they reached the spot where their fellows
were lying in ambush, they gave a signal, and, turning on the
deluded wayfarers, robbed and murdered them.[4]

Still a century later, in 1249, bitter complaints were made by
certain merchants of Brabant of the unsafe state of the roads in the
neighbourhood of Winchester. These merchants had been robbed of two
hundred marks by men whose faces they had seen about the court. They
threatened reprisals on the goods of English merchants in Brabant. The
king, greatly moved, took strong measures. Twelve persons were selected
and sworn to give up the names of robbers known to them, but after
deliberation they refused to inculpate any one. They were thrown into
prison, and twelve others were chosen. These, finding that the first
twelve were condemned to be hanged, gave up the names of many men, of
whom some thirty were hanged, an equal number being thrown into prison.
It is clear that there existed a widespread organisation in which were
involved some belonging to the king’s household. These put the blame on
the king himself: they had not received their pay, and were compelled to
rob in order to maintain themselves.

The severe measures taken on this occasion did not cure the disease. Four
years later, the king, acting on the advice of certain Savoyards, decreed
that if any one was robbed or injured on a journey, compensation should
be made, according to the custom of Savoy, by those responsible for the
safety of the district. But the new plan came to nothing.[5]

On a calm review of the facts it is difficult to resist the conclusion
that civilisation has been immeasurably more favourable to the predatory
classes than to any other class whatsoever. The coarse, rude methods of
early times have given place to vastly improved ways of “conveying” a
neighbour’s goods. In the Paston Letters we read of nobles and great men
laying siege with an armed force to a coveted house. The appropriation
of “unearned increment” is at once more scientific and more productive.
The arts of engraving and printing have been turned to the greatest
advantage. A design, more or less elaborate, is produced, purporting to
represent a certain value expressed by numerals, as L. 1, L. 50, or L.
100. Persons of high social position are found to assure the public that
the pieces of paper on which these designs are printed are worth much
more than the expressed amount (known as the “face value”). Accomplices
pretend to buy these pieces of paper at an enhanced price, the public
follows suit, and in this way “shares,” as they are called, which will
never bring sixpence of revenue to the holder, have been known to be
eagerly bought at many times the “face value.” Many are the paths opened
by civilisation to rapid accumulation. In addition to the company-monger,
we have the “bucket-shop” keeper, the betting man, the army contractor,
the loan-monger, the owner of yellow and blackmailing journals. Each of
these, if only his operations are on a sufficiently large scale, may and
does rise to high social position. Each generation sees a vast extension
and improvement of method. A man who was in his day the greatest of
the tribe of company-mongers is said to have shed tears of bitter
self-reproach for lost opportunities as he surveyed the operations of his
successors.

It must, in fairness, be admitted that the public finds its account in
the new arts of relieving it of its money. Of old time Dunning, operating
in the forests of Ciltria, too often took the life as well as the
money of his victims. There is to-day no need of violence, and as all
that a man has will he give for his life, the improvement of method is
beneficial to the community generally. Thus all is for the best in the
best of all possible worlds.

Little could the pioneers foresee of the triumphs of their successors.
“William the Sacrist,” if William it was who planned the robbery of the
King’s treasury in 1303, perhaps the greatest burglary ever attempted,
must have been a man of the highest genius. Had he lived in the
nineteenth century he would have adopted more finished methods. He fell
upon evil times, and his skin illustrates a door in the cloisters of
Westminster Abbey (see p. 25).

Yes, William, you and your like lived in cruel times! You were called
harsh names, fures, latrones, vespiliones, raptores, grassatores,
robatores. To extirpate these old-time thieves, to bring them to the
gallows, was, if not the whole duty of man, at least the first duty of
the citizen. “Theft,” writes Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, “seems to
have been the crime of crimes. The laws are inexorable towards it. They
assume everywhere that thieves are to be pursued, taken and put to death
then and there.” Bracton[6] gives instructions for the swearing-in of
the whole male population over fifteen years of age for the purpose of
hunting down malefactors. The justiciaries on their circuits are to call
before them the greater men of the county, and to explain to them how it
has been provided by the king and his council that all, as well knights
as others of fifteen years of age and upwards, ought to swear that they
will not harbour outlaws and murderers, robbers or burglars, nor hold
converse either with them or their harbourers: that if they come to
know any such, they will declare it to the sheriff or his bailiffs. And
if they shall hear the Hutesium—the Hue and Cry—they shall immediately
follow with their household and the men of their land. Let them follow
the track to the boundary of their land, and show it to the lord of the
adjoining land, so that pursuit may be made with all diligence from land
to land till the malefactors are captured. There must be no delay in
following the track; it must be continued till nightfall. Such was the
famous Hutesium—the Hue and Cry—the name of which remains with us to the
present day. One of the old chroniclers tells how, in 1212, the Hue and
Cry was raised causelessly, in a panic, and spread over almost the whole
of England.[7]

The truth is that in the simple life of those days no robber nor thief
had the smallest chance of posing as a great man. The field, too, was
limited. Thieves and robbers could but operate on movable property or
clip the coin. It was the misfortune of the depredators living in “the
dark ages,” that a thief not only was a thief, but was of all men known
to be one.

One begins to understand the fury with which robbers and thieves
were pursued. Mr. Freeman says most justly, “In our settled times we
hardly understand how rigour, often barbarous rigour, against thieves
and murderers, should have been looked on as the first merit of a
governor, one which was always enough to cover a multitude of sins.”[8]
To the same cause we may, no doubt, ascribe the singular fact that
ecclesiastics, forbidden to shed blood, yet hanged men by the hands of
their bailiffs.[9] An abbat, for example, had two parts to fulfil. As an
ecclesiastic he gave shelter to thieves, as lord of the manor he hanged
them. The abbat of Westminster had his servants waiting in Thieving Lane
to show thieves the way to sanctuary: on the other hand, he had sixteen
gallows in Middlesex alone.[10] The contradiction is placed in the
strongest light by the charter of Glastonbury, granted by Edgar (A.D.
958-975). The charter concedes “infangethef and utfangethef,” the right
to try and assuredly to hang thieves. But the very same charter grants
that, if anywhere in the kingdom, the abbat or one of his monks should
meet a thief being taken to the gallows, or otherwise in danger of his
life, he could stay the execution of the sentence.[11]

The insight into the state of the country in the late thirteenth
century, given by the two publications of the Records Commission, Rotuli
Hundredorum, and Placita de Quo Waranto, is so valuable that it may be
permitted to glance at them. The preliminary to the first of these is
the Act of the fourth of Edward I. (1276), the statute for assigning
justices to the work. The statute, called “Rageman,” a term of doubtful
etymology, enacted that justices should go through the land inquiring
into, hearing, and determining all complaints and suits for trespasses
within twenty-five years last past, as well by the king’s bailiffs as by
all other persons whomsoever. These commissioners did their work with
a thoroughness amazing when we consider the difficulty of travel in
the times. The results are recorded in the Rotuli Hundredorum. On the
evidence furnished by the Rotuli Hundredorum was passed the statute of
Gloucester, in the sixth of Edward I. (1278). This Act put the burden
of proof of lawful claim to franchises on the persons exercising them.
The statute enacts that whereas prelates, earls, barons, and others of
the kingdom claim to have divers franchises, persons may continue to
exercise these franchises without prejudice to the king’s rights until
the next coming of the king into the county, or the next coming of the
justices in Eyre, or until the king otherwise order. The sheriffs are to
make proclamation that all who claim to have any franchise by charter or
otherwise shall come at a certain day to a place assigned, to state what
franchises they claim and by what title.

In 1281 was issued, according to the annals of Waverley, a mandate
“called by the people Quo Waranto, directed to certain justices, for
inquiring respecting lands, tenements, rents, alleged to be alienated
from the king, as well as regarding franchises held from him: by reason
of which mandate archbishops, bishops, abbats, priors, earls, barons, and
others holding franchises, as well religious as others, were subjected to
trouble and expense, although the king got little profit thereby.”[12]

The statements found in the presentments of jurors in the Rotuli
Hundredorum are, as might be surmised, somewhat in the nature of hearsay.