242
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th S. VII. MABOII 30, 1901.
Lastly, we are told that Mr. Stewart had
in one of his catalogues (1863) another book
entitled 'Divinorum Operum Tabula; Tableau
de 1'CEu vre de Dieu,' said to have been printed
in Latin, French, Dutch, and English about
the year 1569. Cotton's account is not very
clear, but he says that Mr. Stewart's copy
was " in French and Latin," and that no copy
of the Dutch or English version is known.
The author, Ant. Corranus, seems to have
been a man of some note in his day, having
been at one time a lecturer in divinity at
Oxford, and afterwards at the Temple in
London ; he was, moreover, a prebendary of
St. Paul's. He is several times mentioned by
Bishop Grindal in his letters to Secretary
Cecil, and more will be found of him in
Strype's ' Life of Grindal.' I cannot find any
catalogue of Mr. Stewart in which the
French-Latin version is mentioned nor any
clue to its present abiding place.
FR. NORGATE.
P.S. Cotton says (1866, p. 158) : " A copy of the Psalter of 1572 [sic] was sold by auction in London, in January, 1862, for twenty pounds." Surely this must be a mistake ; I never heard of a Psalter with the date 1572, nor can I find any sale catalogue for January, 1862, containing anything of the kind.
EXECUTIONS AT TYBURN AND
ELSEWHERE. (Continued from p. 1M.}
THE barbarous execution of William Wal- lace, the renowned leader of the Scots against the domination of Edward I. of England, was carried out (23 August, 1305) at "The Elms." This, the only contem- porary indication of the place of death, is found in the ' Annales Londonienses ' (' Chro- nicles of the Reigns of Edwards I. and II.'), where the trial and condemnation of the unfortunate Scot are recorded at some length. The sentence is, "detrahitur a palatio West- monasterii usque Turrim Londoniarum, et a Turri usque Allegate, et sic per medium
civitatis usque Elmes ibidem suspen-
datur," &c. Observing the route " from the Tower to Aldgate, and thence through the middle of the City to the Elms," it can scarcely be doubted that the Elms were the Elms of Smithfield.
Other chroniclers of the time dp not par- ticularize the place. Adam Murimuth has simply, " 1305. Hoc anno fuit tractus, sus- pensus, et decapitatus, Willelmus W a l evs apud Londonias. And the * Flores Histori- arum,' which bear the name Matthew of
Westminster, have, "Hie vir Belial [the
writer is evidently hostile] per plateas
Londonise ad caudas equinas tractus usque ad patibulum altissimum sibi fabricatum, quo laqueo suspensus." Then follow the details of savage vengeance wreaked on the body of the captive, begun indeed while he was yet living (" semivivus ").
Certain historians have been content to leave the indication of place as they found it e.g., Holinshed, Stow, Speed, Rapin, Henry, Turner; others define the locality. Thus Hume places the execution at Tower Hill, and Lingard has " the Elms at Tyburn"; while Ty tier (' History of Scotland '), Charles Knight, and the 'Dictionary of National Biography' have as I think, with better judgment represented that Wallace suffered at the Elms of Smithfield. This at the time was the common place of execution, and, considering that every possible indignity and cruelty was allotted Wallace by his fiercely vindictive conqueror, it would seem that the gibbet of the vilest malefactor was deemed fittest for him.
John Stow's reference to this place of exe- cution has after the lapse of 300 years become so picturesque that, though it is probably well known, I may be allowed to repeat it :
" This is Smithfield pond which of old times was called Horse Pool, for that men watered horses there, and was a great water. In the 6th of Henry V. [1418-19] a new building was made in the west part of Smithfield betwixt the said pool and the River of the Wells, or Turnemill Brooke, in a place then called the Elmes, for that there grew many elm-trees ; and this had been the place of exe- cution for offenders ; since the which time the building there hath been so increased that now remaineth not one tree growing."
This interesting description, written nearly 200 years after the removal of the gibbet from the Smithfield elms, we take at its value; and having no earlier account of the place, we do value it. It would appear, however, that during the long period when Smithfield was the common place of executions, these occasionally, perhaps when the condemned had special importance, were conducted at Tyburn. For we have yet to notice two hangings at Tyburn earlier than 1418.
Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, was for high treason executed at Tyburn, 29 Nov., 1330. The contemporary evidence rests solely on the chronicle of Adam Murimuth, in one copy of which we have "Comes Marchiae suspensus apud Elmes super communi furca latronum "; and in another copy is found
"Comes Marchise, dictus Bogerus tractus
est de Turri Londoniarum usque ad ulmos
de Tybourue,et ibidem suspensus' (Murimuth,
