66 THE HISTORY OF THE DORCHESTER GALLOWS. 



the year 1703. It was a peculiar case of murder that brought 

 her to this end, but the punishment was not unusual. One 

 female at least suffered in this way 18 years before, after 

 the Monmouth Rebellion ; and the worthy Lady Lisle was 

 condemned to this death on the same account at Winchester, 

 though her sentence was altered to hanging after petition to 

 the King. But the burning of Mary Channing was made a 

 kind of county fete; 10,000 spectators gathered to view it. 

 No doubt the nature of the spot chosen and the good view 

 of the stake provided in this well-arranged theatre, accounted 

 largely for the crowd that gathered, and that made the event 

 so memorable. 



The earliest recorded executions of note were those of 

 Roman Catholics in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, on the 

 charge of high treason. Hutchins gives the names of six 

 that died on the gallows. Four of these suffered on the same 

 day, July 4th, 1594 ; one, John Cornelius, the principal 

 rebel, was hung, drawn, and quartered. His head was nailed 

 to the gallows, but the Sheriff removed it at the prayer of 

 the townsmen, who suffered ill-luck, it was thought, in conse- 

 quence of it. Cornelius was born at Bodmin, but was 

 captured while resident at the house of Lady Arundel, near 

 Chideock. In Alfred Mark's " Tyburn Tree " a curious 

 account is given in Strype's words of the finding of his skull 

 together with three others, in Blackfriars, when clearing away 

 rubbish after the Fire of London. It had evidently been 

 carried away from Dorchester by some sympathising co- 

 religionist. Strype narrates the discovery of four pewter 

 oases containing a head each. He says, " one of these pots I 

 saw, with the head in it, in October, 1703, being in the custody 

 of Mr. Presbury, then sope maker in Smithfield, which pot 

 had inscribed in the inside of the cover, in a scrawling character 

 (which might be used in the time of Henry VIII.), I. Cornelius. 

 This head was without any neck, having short red hair upon 

 it, thick, and that would not be pulled off ; and yellow hair 

 upon the temples ; a little bald on the top (perhaps a tonsure), 

 the forepart of the nose sunk, the mouth gaping, ten sound 



