Smithfield, where there is a beautifully designed marble memorial telling the reader that this is the very spot where they executed Sir William Wallace, the Scottish Knight who became a rebel and eventually a martyr. A movie was made about his exploits called Braveheart , starring Mel Gibson. The executioner only partially hung him, then drew out his intestines while still alive and finally quartered this poor devil. They sent the arms and the legs to the four corners of England and his head was stuck on a spike on London Bridge. He most certainly went to pieces. How evil is that?
Every time Scotland is playing football at Wembley you will find a crowd of Scottish fans, in their kilts with all the Scottish regalia, laying flowers and standing around this large plaque in silence. I think this is what one calls true patriotism. Wallace died in 1305, the execution ordered by King Edward I, whose nickname was Longshanks. He hated the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish. I think they are all lovely people and they all love the English. Well, most of them do.
Nearby one can find St Bartholomewâs Hospital â Barts for short. Founded by King Henry I, and reformed by Henry VIII in 1546, there has been a hospital here for 900 years. Henry was better known for knocking down churches and chopping off the heads of his many wives and his enemies, so reforming Barts was one of the few good things he did in his turbulent life. There is a statue of him above the main entrance.
*Â Â *Â Â *
Not far away is St Sepulchreâs church, founded in the twelfth century and rebuilt in the fifteenth. There is a large hand bell in a glass case in the church that was always rung just before an impending execution. The cemetery of this church has the only watch-house left intact in London. Erected in the eighteenth century and rebuilt after the last world war, the bereaved had to pay men to watch the grave of a deceased family member to protect the corpse from grave robbers. After a month had elapsed the body was not in a fit state to be sold for dissection so there was no longer any need to keep watch. These body snatchers would dig up a new grave and sell the corpse to Barts. The hospital always needed fresh cadavers to teach anatomy and surgical skills. There was even a price list. The fresh body of a young Jewish girl, for instance, would fetch the highest price. Young corpses were in high demand and sometimes the watchmen had two employers: the bereaved family who would pay them to watch, and the grave robbers who would pay them to turn a blind eye. They could not lose.
The most famous of all grave robbers were Burke and Hare, two nineteenth-century grave robbers who found a lucrative business providing cadavers for an Edinburgh medical school. Hare betrayed the other for immunity from execution and Burke was hanged in 1830. After they were apprehended they told the authorities that they actually only robbed one or two graves but had then started murdering to order, which was apparently less strenuous work. They always had a full order book for bodies. These two murdering scallywags killed sixteen innocent people, including two cripples, some whores and drunks. They never left a mark on their bodies that may have been connected to a murder. A movie was made about the Edinburgh body snatchers showing them digging up a grave in some fog-locked cemetery. It certainly painted a gruesome picture.
The robbing of graves was punishable by death at the end of a rope and I do believe a price list still exists to this day in some museum or other. It may be in the London Hospital museum,where the skeleton of Joseph Merrick the Elephant Man is kept. I remember seeing the list on some television documentary a very long time ago. Itâs hard to imagine a price list for the deceased.
Chapter 26
Referring to the Old Bailey, I recently joined an Over Fiftyâs club in Wandsworth, south west London, and the organisers arranged for an
Every time Scotland is playing football at Wembley you will find a crowd of Scottish fans, in their kilts with all the Scottish regalia, laying flowers and standing around this large plaque in silence. I think this is what one calls true patriotism. Wallace died in 1305, the execution ordered by King Edward I, whose nickname was Longshanks. He hated the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish. I think they are all lovely people and they all love the English. Well, most of them do.
Nearby one can find St Bartholomewâs Hospital â Barts for short. Founded by King Henry I, and reformed by Henry VIII in 1546, there has been a hospital here for 900 years. Henry was better known for knocking down churches and chopping off the heads of his many wives and his enemies, so reforming Barts was one of the few good things he did in his turbulent life. There is a statue of him above the main entrance.
*Â Â *Â Â *
Not far away is St Sepulchreâs church, founded in the twelfth century and rebuilt in the fifteenth. There is a large hand bell in a glass case in the church that was always rung just before an impending execution. The cemetery of this church has the only watch-house left intact in London. Erected in the eighteenth century and rebuilt after the last world war, the bereaved had to pay men to watch the grave of a deceased family member to protect the corpse from grave robbers. After a month had elapsed the body was not in a fit state to be sold for dissection so there was no longer any need to keep watch. These body snatchers would dig up a new grave and sell the corpse to Barts. The hospital always needed fresh cadavers to teach anatomy and surgical skills. There was even a price list. The fresh body of a young Jewish girl, for instance, would fetch the highest price. Young corpses were in high demand and sometimes the watchmen had two employers: the bereaved family who would pay them to watch, and the grave robbers who would pay them to turn a blind eye. They could not lose.
The most famous of all grave robbers were Burke and Hare, two nineteenth-century grave robbers who found a lucrative business providing cadavers for an Edinburgh medical school. Hare betrayed the other for immunity from execution and Burke was hanged in 1830. After they were apprehended they told the authorities that they actually only robbed one or two graves but had then started murdering to order, which was apparently less strenuous work. They always had a full order book for bodies. These two murdering scallywags killed sixteen innocent people, including two cripples, some whores and drunks. They never left a mark on their bodies that may have been connected to a murder. A movie was made about the Edinburgh body snatchers showing them digging up a grave in some fog-locked cemetery. It certainly painted a gruesome picture.
The robbing of graves was punishable by death at the end of a rope and I do believe a price list still exists to this day in some museum or other. It may be in the London Hospital museum,where the skeleton of Joseph Merrick the Elephant Man is kept. I remember seeing the list on some television documentary a very long time ago. Itâs hard to imagine a price list for the deceased.
Chapter 26
Referring to the Old Bailey, I recently joined an Over Fiftyâs club in Wandsworth, south west London, and the organisers arranged for an
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