20,000 SEE WOMAN BURNED AT THE STAKE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 5 October 1936, Page 3

20,000 SEE WOMAN BURNED AT THE STAKE

On a summer day no more than a century and a half ago, the 30-year-nld daughter of a Nottingham woman was burned at the stake before 20,000 spec valors. Such events arc associated mere readily with the 16th century, when religious zealots were purging infidel souls in the fires of Smithfield. h: 1780 Phoebe Harris, “small in stature rather stout and of a good figure, pale complexion and pleasing features,” paid the price of coining. Two constables led her to the open space in front of Newgate, London, where an lift stake was fixed on the ground. The prisoner was placed upon a stool u ,ik her back to the stake, a halter was placed round her neck and the stool removed, leaving her suspended by the neck. Two cart loads of faggots were heaped about her and fired. When the halter burned through the body was sustained by a chain passed round the waist, and so the sentence of !he court ran its grim course until all that was left of the “good figure” c f Phoebe was a heap of ashes.