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Show MATCHES UNDER THE GALLOWS. In 1727 a woman petitioned King George I, praying she might win pardon for a malefactor by wedding him under Tyburn Tree. The belief that a condemned felon could be thus rescued from the hands of the executioner is placed by Darrington in the category of legal vulgar errors. It is one of course, but such a singular idea could hardly, one would think, have taken possession of the popular mind unless there had been some foundation for it. Supposing such a custom ever prevailed anywhere, it is difficult to decided if it were complimentary or uncomplimentary to the saving sex. Women might, indeed, claim it as an acknowledgment that love is lord of all, when the professed love of a woman was held powerful enough to override the decree of justice, while on the other hand, it might be argued that the criminal had only a choice of equal punishments. If Manningham, himself a lawyer, gives a true version of the condition the latter view is the correct one, for marriage in such a case might well prove worse than hanging. He says-"It is the custom, not the law, in France and Italy that if any harlot will beg for a husband a man who is going to execution, he shall be reprieved, and she may obtain a pardon and marry him, that both their ill lives may be bettered by so holy an action. Hence grew a jest, when a scoffing gentlewoman told a gentleman she heard he was in some danger of being hanged for some villainy, he answered, "Truly madam, I was afraid of nothing so much as you would have begged me!" In England it hath been used that if a woman will be a condemned person for her husband, she must come in her smock only, and a white wand in her hand, as Sterill said he had seen." Among the ballads preserved in the Roxburghe collection is one dating from the early part of the seventeenth century, setting forth how a merchant of Chichester killed a German at London Town, and how, after he had made his last dying speech on the scaffold, no less than ten goodly maidens begged for his hand and life. "‘This is our law,' quoth they: ‘We may your death remove, If you in lieu of our good will, Will grant to us your love.'" None of the compassionate virgins, however, were goodly enough for his taste, and he quietly asked the executioner to do his office; then another damsel intervened, and by force of her charms or her eloquence persuaded the merchant to accept her kind offer; so, "Hand in hand they went Unto the church that day And they were married presently In sumptuous rich array." Less impressionable was the fellow whose obdurate ungallantry is commemorated in the lines: "‘Come, marry a wife and save your life,' The judge aloud did cry. ‘Oh, why should I corrupt my life!' The victim did reply. ‘For here's a crowd of every sort, And why should I prevent their sport? The bargain's bad in every part, The wife is worst. Drive on the cart!'" |