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The procession of Jack Sheppard from Newgate to Tyburn
George Cruikshank
February 1840
Three Etchings each 4.5 by 9.7 cm
14.3 x 9.7 cm
"Epoch the Third, 1724. The Prison Breaker," Vol. 3, for Chapter 31, "The Procession to Tyburn" in William Harrison Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard. A Romance, facing page 303.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"Farewell!" blubbered the executioner's wife, pressing his hand to her lips. "Here are a pair of gloves and a nosegay for you. Oh dear! — oh dear! Be careful of him," she added to her husband, "and get it over quickly, or never expect to see me again."
"Peace, fool!"cried Marvel, angrily. "Do you think I don’t know my own business?"
Austin and Langley then advanced to the prisoner, and, twinning their arms round his, led him down to the Lodge, whither he was followed by the sheriffs, the ordinary, Wild, and the other officials.
Meantime, every preparation had been made outside for his departure. At the end of two long lines of foot-guards stood the cart with a powerful black horse harnessed to it. At the head of the cart was placed the coffin. On the right were several mounted grenadiers: on the left, some half dozen javelin-men. Soldiers were stationed at different points of the street to keep off the mob, and others were riding backwards and forwards to maintain an open space for the passage of the procession.
The assemblage which was gathered together was almost countless. Every house-top, every window, every wall, every projection, had its occupants. The wall of St. Sepulchre's church was covered— so was the tower. The concourse extended along Giltspur Street as far as Smithfield. No one was allowed to pass along Newgate Street, which was barricaded and protected by a strong constabulary force.
"The first person who issued from the Lodge was Mr. Marvel, who proceeded to the cart, and took his seat upon the coffin. The hangman is always an object of peculiar detestation to the mob, a tremendous hooting hailed his appearance, and both staves and swords were required to preserve order. — Chapter 31, "The Procession to Tyburn," p. 292-294.
Sheppard looked round, and exchanged kindly glances with several of those who addressed him.
"My limbs feel so light, now that my irons are removed," he observed with a smile, "that I am half inclined to dance."
"You'll dance upon nothing, presently," rejoined Jonathan, brutally.
"Farewell for ever," said Jack, extending his hand to Mrs. Marvel.
"Farewell!" blubbered the executioner's wife, pressing his hand to her lips. "Here are a pair of gloves and a nosegay for you. Oh dear! — oh dear! Be careful of him," she added to her husband, "and get it over quickly, or never expect to see me again."
"Peace, fool!" cried Marvel, angrily. "Do you think I don't know my own business?"
Austin and Langley then advanced to the prisoner, and, twinning their arms round his, led him down to the Lodge, whither he was followed by the sheriffs, the ordinary, Wild, and the other officials.
Meantime, every preparation had been made outside for his departure. At the end of two long lines of foot-guards stood the cart with a powerful black horse harnessed to it. At the head of the cart was placed the coffin. On the right were several mounted grenadiers: on the left, some half dozen javelin-men. Soldiers were stationed at different points of the street to keep off the mob, and others were riding backwards and forwards to maintain an open space for the passage of the procession. — Chapter 31, "The Procession to Tyburn," p. 292-293.
In this way, they reached Holborn Bridge. Here a little delay occurred. The passage was so narrow that there was only sufficient room for the cart to pass, with a single line of foot-soldiers on one side; and, as the walls of the bridge were covered with spectators, it was not deemed prudent to cross it till these persons were dislodged.
While this was effected, intelligence was brought that a formidable mob was pouring down Field Lane, the end of which was barricaded. The advanced guard rode on to drive away any opposition, while the main body of the procession crossed the bridge, and slowly toiled up Holborn Hill.
The entrance of Shoe Lane, and the whole line of the wall of St. Andrew's church, the bell of which was tolling, was covered with spectators. Upon the steps leading to the gates of the church stood two persons whom Jack instantly recognised. These were his mistresses, Poll Maggot and Edgeworth Bess. As soon as the latter beheld him, she uttered a loud scream, and fainted. She was caught by some of the bystanders, who offered by her every assistance in their power. As to Mrs. Maggot, whose nerves were more firmly strung, she contented herself with waving her hand affectionately to her lover, and encouraging him by her gestures.
While this was taking place, another and more serious interruption occurred. The advanced guard had endeavoured to disperse the mob in Field Lane, but were not prepared to meet with the resistance they encountered. The pavement had been hastily picked up, and heaped across the end of the street, upon which planks, barrels, and other barricades, were laid. Most of the mob were armed with pikes, staves, swords, muskets, and other weapons, and offered a most desperate resistance to the soldiery, whom they drove back with a shower of paving-stones.
The arrival of the cart at the end of Field Lane, appeared the signal for an attempt at rescue. With a loud shout, and headed by a powerfully-built man, with a face as black as that of a mulatto, and armed with a cutlass, the rabble leapt over the barricades, and rushed towards the vehicle. An immediate halt took place. The soldiers surrounded the cart, drew their swords, and by striking the rioters first with the blunt edge of their blades, and afterwards with the sharp points, succeeded in driving them back.— Chapter 31, "The Procession to Tyburn," p. 297-300.
At length, the train approached St. Giles's. Here, according to another old custom, already alluded to, a criminal taken to execution was allowed to halt at a tavern, called the Crown, and take a draught from St. Giles's bowl, "as his last refreshment on earth." At the door of this tavern, which was situated on the left of the street, not more than a hundred yards distant from the church, the bell of which began to toll as soon as the procession came in sight, the cart drew up, and the whole cavalcade halted. A wooden balcony in one of the adjoining houses was thronged with ladies, all of whom appeared to take a lively interest in the scene, and to be full of commiseration for the criminal, not, perhaps, unmixed with admiration of his appearance. Every window in the public house was filled with guests; and, as in the case of St. Andrew's, the churchyard wall of St. Giles's was lined with spectators.
A scene now ensued, highly characteristic of the age, and the occasion. The doleful procession at once assumed a festive character. Many of the soldiers dismounted, and called for drink. Their example was immediately imitated by the officers, constables, javelin men, and other attendants; and nothing was to be heard but shouts of laughter and jesting, — nothing seen but the passing of glasses, and the emptying of foaming jugs. Mr. Marvel, who had been a little discomposed by the treatment he had experienced on Holborn Hill, very composedly filled and lighted his pipe.
One group at the door attracted Jack's attention, inasmuch as it was composed of several of his old acquaintances—Mr. Kneebone, Van Galgebrok, and Baptist Kettleby — all of whom greeted him cordially. Besides these, there was a sturdy-looking fellow, whom he instantly recognised as the honest blacksmith who had freed him from his irons at Tottenham.
"I am here, you see," said the smith.
"So I perceive," replied Jack.
At this moment, the landlord of the Crown, a jovial-looking stout personage, with a white apron round his waist, issued from the house, bearing a large wooden bowl filled with ale, which he offered to Jack, who instantly rose to receive it. Raising the bowl in his right hand, Jack glanced towards the balcony, in which the group of ladies were seated, and begged to drink their healths; he then turned to Kneebone and the others, who extended their hands towards him, and raised it to his lips. Just as he was about to drain it, he encountered the basilisk glance of Jonathan Wild, and paused.
"I leave this bowl for you," he cried, returning it to the landlord untasted.
"Your father said so before you," replied Jonathan, malignantly; "and yet it has tarried thus long."
"You will call for it before six months are passed," rejoined Jack, sternly. — Chapter 31, "The Procession to Tyburn," p. 297-300.
The narrative climaxes with Jack's being carried from Newgate to Tyburn for riotous public execution. (Cruikshank's triptych of this episode is probably the best fiction illustration he did.) — John Sutherland, p. 324.
Ironically, the printing house of Bentley and Company, superintended by publisher Richard Bentley's brother, Samuel, was located on Shoe Lane, the scene of Blueskin's leading the mob in an effort to rescue Jack from the tumbrel. As to Sutherland's assessment of the "tryptych," it is probably a little too effusive in its praise, although Sutherland is correct in Cruikshank's technical handling of his material, and his ability to convey the force of the urban mob as a kind of sea, a natural force which, once set in motion, cannot be controlled or diverted. In describing the passage of the hero from the prison-fortress of Newgate in central London to Tyburn beyond the city-limits, Cruikshank crams the three miniature engravings onto the page, using all available space and singling out three moments for realisation in the Ainsworth text. The other great Dickens illustrator, Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne), likewise uses sea imagery in several of his crowd scenes for A Tale of Two Cities in 1859, in the September engraving The Spy's Funeral and in the October engraving The Sea Rises, but whereas Phiz's designs focus on the exemplary postures and expressions of a dozen key figures in each, Cruikshank in the central panel of the tryptych and in all three panels of his next illustration, The Last Scene, presents in panorama a dramatic exposition of an historical moment, with each of hundreds of figures individualised, like the crests of waves upon a turbulent sea, describing visually "that tremendous host, which rose and fell like the waves of the ocean" (311), recalling perhaps for early Victorian readers accounts of the outbreak of the French Revolution. As Meisel remarks,
(Cruikshank's visual rendering of the scene combines revolution and sacred deposition.) Though it borrows its weather from Gothic melodrama and John Martin ("The destroying angel hurried by, shrouded in his gloomiest apparel . . . . . Ten thousand steeds appeared to be trampling aloft, charged with the work of devastation" [p. 63]), the apocalyptic note is more than obligatory convention in this novel. — Note 46, Chapter 13, "Novels in Epitome," p. 277.
The first of the three miniatures describes an almost tranquil and certainly an orderly scene in which the prisoner, under heavy guard, is forcibly conducted to that visual symbol of the French Revolution, waiting tumbrel. With virtually no chance of escape, the hatless prisoner is surrounded by armed agents of the state: five cavalry officers in grenadiers' helmets, twelve grenadiers on foot, and four javelin-men occupy the courtyard of the stone fortress. In the first frame, Wild's not being present contributes to the untroubled atmosphere, whereas, in the second frame, he contributes to the violence by engaging in combat (lower right) below the prison chaplain, whose gesture suggests that he is trying to calm the mob. In the third frame, which Cruikshank has mis-entitled in that Jack does not drink from St. Giles's bowl at the Crown, the viewer has the impression that Wild is gaily bantering with the confident prisoner. An oasis of quiet and good feeling, the courtyard of the inn is not menaced by the crowd in the upper-right register; rather, at this point the peaceful onlookers seem to be merely observing the proceedings, and are not preparing to intervene — witnesses to rather than agents of history.
The massive fortress representing the power of the state in the first frame shrinks to the embattled "watch house" in the second, as Cruikshank suggests the fragility of law and order, which depend for their effectiveness upon the confidence and consent of the populace. A fragile beach-head of order amidst the chaos that Wild's manipulation of the legal system has caused, the watch-house is less conducive to civilised conduct than the local tavern, apparently, for the heraldic symbol of the Crown seems to enjoy a harmonising influence that the watch-house is wholly lacking. in the second frame, visual pandemonium replaces the cold and relentless machinery of the state. At the centre of the central panel are Jack's common-law wives, lamenting his hopeless situation. In the foreground, the dragoons cut and hack at the mob, but, in contrast, the executioner, riding beside the coffin, is assailed on every side. In the final scene, another emotion dominates: conviviality. The Soldiers stop to drink at the public house, where the white-aproned host has presented the prisoner with a brimming bowl, which he now holds aloft, as if preparing to drink. Beside the rotund host, a jolly Jonathan Wild gestures towards Jack, seen clearly because the back railing of the tumbrel has been removed. And the executioner, previously unnerved by the mob, seated on the coffin, now tranquilly puffs on his pipe. Cruikshank, therefore, strikes different moods in these three group studies without telegraphing the outcome of the journey, leaving the reader to wonder whether Thames and Blueskin will be able to rescue Jack, or whether Wild will triumph at last.
Ainsworth, William Harrison. Jack Sheppard. A Romance. With 28 illustrations by George Cruikshank. In three volumes. London: Richard Bentley, 1839.
Ainsworth, William Harrison. Jack Sheppard. Edited by Edward Jacobs and Manuela Mourao. With 31 illustrations. Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 2007.
Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Bradbury and Evans; Chapman and Hall, 1846.
Meisel, Martin. Chapter 13, "Novels in Epitome." Realizations: Narrative, Pictorial, and Theatrical Arts in Nineteenth-Century England. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. Pp. 247-282.
Sutherland, John. "Jack Sheppard" in The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 19893. Pp. 323-324.
Vann, J. Don. "Jack Sheppard in Bentley's Miscellany, January 1839 — February 1840." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. Page 19.
Last modified 1 January 2017