Note 641 — Chapter XL · CRIME.

But this was nothing to the marvellous resuscitation of Anne Greene, who was hanged at Oxford, Dec. 14, 1651, and was afterwards revived—and got quite well. She was condemned for the murder of her child, which was afterwards discovered to have been stillborn; and that there was no deception in her execution her history[641] assures us, for she was hanging by the neck for the space of almost half an hour, some of her friends in the meantime thumping her on the breast, others hanging with all their weight upon her legges; 'sometimes lifting her up, and then pulling her down againe with a suddaine jerke, thereby the sooner to despatch her out of her paine; insomuch that the Under-Sheriff, fearing lest thereby they should breake the rope, forbad them to do so any longer.'