It will be noticed that the gallows is shown a short distance from the
town.

It is twenty-six miles from London to East Grinstead, and in that short
distance were three of these hideous instruments of death on the
highway, in addition to gibbets erected in lonely bylanes and secluded
spots where crimes had been committed. "Hangman's Lanes" were by no
means uncommon. He was a brave man who ventured alone at night on the
highways and byways when the country was beset with highwaymen, and the
gruesome gibbets were frequently in sight.

Hanging was the usual mode of capital punishment with the Anglo-Saxons.
We give a representation of a gallows (_gala_) of this period taken from
the illuminations to Alfric's version of Genesis. It is highly probable
that in some instances the bodies would remain _in terrorem_ upon the
gibbet. Robert of Gloucester, _circa_ 1280, referring to his own times,
writes:--

"In gibet hii were an honge."

[Illustration: ANGLO-SAXON GALLOWS.]

"The habit of gibbeting or hanging in chains the body of the executed
criminal near the site of the crime," says Dr. Cox, "with the intention
of thereby deterring others from capital offences, was a coarse custom
very generally prevalent in mediaeval England. Some early assize rolls of
the fourteenth century pertaining to Derbyshire that we have consulted
give abundant proof of its being a usual habit in the county at that
period. In 1341 the bodies of three men were hung in chains just
outside Chapel-en-le-Frith, who had been executed for robbery with
violence. In the same year a woman and two men were gibbeted on Ashover
Moor for murdering one of the King's purveyors."[8]

An early record of hanging in chains is given in Chauncy's "History of
Hertfordshire." It states, "Soon after the King came to Easthampstead,
to recreate himself with hunting, where he heard that the bodies hanged
here were taken down from the gallowes, and removed a great way from the
same; this so incensed the King that he sent a writ, tested the 3rd day
of August, Anno 1381, to the bailiffs of this borough, commanding them
upon sight thereof, to cause chains to be made, and to hang the bodies
in them upon the same gallowes, there to remain so long as one piece
might stick to another, according to the judgment; but the townsmen, not
daring to disobey the King's command, hanged the dead bodies of their
neighbours again to their great shame and reproach, when they could not
get