Chapter L: M. Thornton

14. Philip Street, Bath.

[The "Isle of Beauty" is by Thomas Haynes Bayly, and is given among his
_Songs, Ballads, and other Poems_, edited by his widow, vol. i. p. 182.
edit. 1844.]

_Edmund Lodge._--Can you give me the date of the death of Edmund Lodge, the herald? I suppose there will be some account of him in the Obituary of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, to which I wish to refer. Was he a descendant of the Rev. Edmund Lodge, the predecessor of Dawes in the Mastership of Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School at Newcastle-upon-Tyne?

E. H. A.

[Edmund Lodge died January 16, 1839. An account of him is given in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ for April, 1839, p. 433.]

_King John._--Baines, in his _History of Liverpool_, p. 77., says King John "was at Lancaster on the 26th February 1206, and at Chester on the 28th February following." What route did he take from the first to the second-named town, and what was the object of his visit?

PRESTONIENSIS.

[Upon reference to the Introduction to the _Patent Rolls_, it appears
that John was at Lancaster from Monday the 21st to Sunday 27th, from
Monday 28th to Wednesday 1st March at Chester, on Thursday 2nd at
Middlewich, Friday the 3rd at Newcastle-under-Lyne, and from the 4th to
the 8th at Milburn.]

* * * * *

Replies.

HAS EXECUTION BY HANGING BEEN SURVIVED?

(Vol. ix., pp. 174. 280.)

The copious Notes of your correspondents on this subject have only left the opportunity for a few stray gleanings in the field of their researches, which may, however, not prove uninteresting.

The compiler of a curious 12mo. (_A Memorial for the Learned_, by J. D., Gent., London, 1686) records, among "Notable Events in the Reign of Henry VI.," that,--

"Soon after the good Duke of Gloucester was secretly murthered, five of
his menial servants, viz. Sir Roger Chamberlain, Knt., Middleton,
Herber, {454} Artzis, Esq., and John Needham, Gent., were condemned to
be hanged, drawn, and quartered; and hanged they were at Tyburn, let
down quick, stript naked, marked with a knife to be quartered; and then
the Marquess of Suffolk brought their pardon, and delivered it at the
place of execution, and so their lives were saved."--P. 77.

The following document from the Patent Rolls of the forty-eighth year of the reign of King Henry III. (skin 5.) affords conclusive evidence of the affirmative:

"Rex omnibus, etc. salutem. Quia Inetta de Balsham pro receptamento
latronum et imposito nuper per considerationem curie nostre suspendio
adjudicata, et ab hora nona diei Iune usque post ortum solis diei
martis sequen. suspensa, viva evasit, sicut ex testimonio fide dignorum
accipimus. Nos, divinae charitatis intuitu, pardonavimus eidem Inetta
sectam pacis nostre que ad nos pertinet pro receptamento predicto, et
firmam pacem nostrum ei inde concedimus. In cujus, etc. Teste Rege apud
Cantuar. XVI^o. die Augusti.

"Convenit cum recordo LAUR. HALSTED, Deput. Algern. May. mil."

Plot, in his _Natural History of Staffordshire_, p. 292., quotes this pardon, and suggests that possibly

"She could not be hanged, upon account that the larynx, or upper part
of her windpipe, was turned to bone, as Fallopius (_Oper._, tom. i.,
_Obs. Anat._, tract. 6.) tells us he has sometimes found it, which
possibly might be so strong, that the weight of her body could not
compress it, as it happened in the case of a Swiss, who, as I am told
by the Rev. Mr. Obadiah Walker, Master of University College, was
attempted to be hanged no less than thirteen times, yet lived
notwithstanding, by the benefit of his windpipe, that after his death
was found to have turned into a bone; which yet is still wonderful,
since the circulation of the blood must be stopt, however, unless his
veins and arteries were likewise turned to bone, or the rope not slipt
close."

Besides the account of Anne Green, Denham, in the 4th book of his _Physico-Theology_, quotes the following instance from Rechelin (_De Aere et Alim. defect._, cap. vii.),--

"Of a certain woman hang'd, and in all appearance dead, who was
nevertheless restored to life by a physician accidentally coming in,
and ordering a plentiful administration of the spirit of sal ammoniac."

(See also _The Uncertainty of the Signs of Death, and the Danger of precipitate Interments and Dissections demonstrated_, 12mo., London, 1751.)

A paragraph, stating that Fauntleroy, the notorious forger, had survived his execution, and was living abroad, has more than once gone the round of the newspapers. It is sometimes added that his evidence was required in a Chancery suit,--absurdly enough, as, if not _actually_, he was at least _legally_ dead.

The story of Brodie, executed October, 1788, for an excise robbery at Edinburgh, is probably familiar to most. The self-possession and firmness with which he met his fate was the result of a belief in the possibility of his resuscitation:

"It is a curious fact, that an attempt was made to resuscitate Brodie
immediately after the execution. The operator was Degravers, whom
Brodie himself had employed. His efforts, however, were utterly
abortive. A person who witnessed the scene, accounted for the failure
by saying that the hangman, having been bargained with for a short
fall, his excess of caution made him shorten the rope too much at
first, and when he afterwards lengthened it, he made it too long, which
consequently proved fatal to the experiment."--_Curiosities of
Biography_, 8vo., Glasgow, 1845.

There is a powerfully-written story in _Blackwood's Magazine_, April, 1827, entitled "Le Revenant," in which a resuscitated felon is supposed to describe his feelings and experience. The author, in his motto, makes a sweeping division of mankind:--"There are but two classes in the world--those who are _hanged_, and those who are _not hanged_; and it has been my lot to belong to the former." Many well-authenticated cases might still be adduced; but enough at least has now probably been said upon the subject, to show the possibility of surviving the tender mercies of Professor Calcraft and his fraternity.

WILLIAM BATES.

Birmingham.

In Atkinson's _Medical Bibliography_, A. and B., under the head "Bathurst Rodolphus," is the following:

"Nuremberg, 4to., 1655. On a maid who recovered after being hanged.

"This is the remarkable case of Elizabeth Gren, whom Bathurst and Dr.
Willis restored after being executed, _i. e._ hanged, for infanticide.
'Vena incisa refocillata est.'

"These poor creatures are seldom considered as maids, after being
hanged for infanticide. A similar recovery also happened to a man who
had been executed for murder at York. My father had the body for public
dissection. Whether the law then required the body to be hung for one
hour or not, I cannot say; but I well remember my father's observation,
that it was a pity the wretch had ever been restored, as his morals
were by no means improved. Hanging is therefore by no means a cure for
immorality, and it will be needless (in any of us) trying the
experiment'--P. 255.

H. J.

Sheffield.

There is a record of a person being alive immediately after hanging, in the _Local Historian's Table-book_, vol. ii. pp. 43, 44., and under the date May 23, 1752. It is there stated, Ewan Macdonald, a recruit in General Guise's regiment of {455} Highlanders, then quartered in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, murdered a cooper named Parker, and was executed on September 28, pursuant to his sentence. He was only nineteen years of age, and at the gallows endeavoured to throw the executioner off the ladder. The statement concludes with--"his body was taken to the surgeons' hall and there dissected;" and the following is appended as a foot-note:

"It was said that, after the body was taken to the surgeons' hall, and
placed ready for dissection, the surgeons were called to attend a case
at the infirmary, who, on their return, found Macdonald so far
recovered as to be sitting up. He immediately begged for mercy; but a
young surgeon, not wishing to be disappointed of the dissection, seized
a wooden mall, with which he deprived him of life. It was farther
reported, as the just vengeance of God, that this young man was soon
after killed in the stable by his own horse. They used to show a mall
at the surgeons' hall, as the identical one used by the surgeon."

ROBERT S. SALMON.

Newcastle-on-Tyne.

The case of Anne Green is attested by a _third_ witness:

"In December, 1650, he was one of the persons concerned in recovering
Anne Green to life, who was hanged at Oxford on the 14th, for the
supposed murther of her bastard child."--"Memoir of Sir William Petty,
Knt.," prefixed to _Several Essays on Political Arithmetic_, p. 3., 4th
edit., London, 1755.

CPL.

* * * * *

COLERIDGE'S CHRISTABEL.

(Vol. vii., pp. 206. 292; Vol. viii., pp. 11. 111.)

MR. J. S. WARDEN might well express astonishment at the rash and groundless statement in "Blackwood" (Dec. 1839), that the third part of Christabel which Dr. Maginn sent to that magazine in 1820 "perplexed the public, _and pleased even Coleridge_." How far the "discerning public" were imposed upon I know not; the following extract will show how far the poet-philosopher was "pleased" with the parody.

"If I should finish 'Christabel,' I shall certainly extend it, and give
new characters, and a greater number of incidents. This the 'reading
public' require, and this is the reason that Sir Walter Scott's poems,
though so loosely written, are pleasing, and interest us by their
picturesqueness. If a genial recurrence of the ray divine should occur
for a few weeks, I shall certainly attempt it. I had the whole of the
two cantos in my mind before I began it; certainly the first canto is
more perfect, has more of the true wild weird spirit than the last. I
laughed heartily at the continuation in 'Blackwood,' which I have been
told is by Maginn. It is in appearance, and in appearance _only_, a
good imitation. I do not doubt but that it gave more pleasure, and to a
greater number, than a continuation by myself in the spirit of the two
first (_sic_) cantos (_qu._ would give)."--_Letters, &c._, Moxon, 1836,
vol. i. pp. 94-5.