Tyburn Tree: its History and Annals. By Alfred Marks. (Brown,
Langham, and Co. 15s. net.)—If any one has a taste for horrors, here he may satisfy it to the full. We do not say that these things should not be recorded, but it should, we think, be in grave treatises, meant for historical reference, not for popular reading. Mr. Marks begins with a mass of details about the modes of punishment ; on p. 54 he comes to Tyburn Tree itself. The earliest Tyburn execution known to history was in 1196, when William Fitz-Osbert was hanged there. Probably it had been used as the place of punishment for nearly a century before. Then comes the great question of the site of the gallows. A map of 1607 throws some light upon it. We are told that it was a league outside the City of London. This agrees well enough with the usually accepted opinion. The precise site appears to be about opposite the Oxford Street end of the Edgware Road. Finally, we come to the annals, which Mr. Marks arranges under years. Some famous names are among the sufferers,—William Wallace, Roger Mortimer, Sir John Salisbury (1388), Perkin Warbeck, and the London Carthusians. After this we have, for the most part, more ignoble sufferers, sometimes, indeed, sufficiently notorious, as Duval, Jack Shepherd, and Jonathan Wild. The last execu- tion at Tyburn took place on March 7th, 1783, when one John Austin was hanged for robbery with violence. Executions after that were carried out at Newgate.
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