Note 130 — ANNALS
Reading edition
Several Chronicles mention Tyburn in connection with the execution of Mortimer: “Drawn from the Tower to the Elms and there hanged with contumely,” Chron. of the Reigns of Edward I. and Edward II., ed. Stubbs, i. 352. “Drawn from the Tower of London to the gallows at the Elms, about a league outside the City of London, and there hanged,” Chron. Avesbury, ed. Thompson, p. 285. “Hangyd and drawne at Tyburn for tresoun,” Chron. Grey Friars, ed. Hewett, p. 152. “Hanged at the Elms on the common thieves’ gallows, where he hung two days,” Chron. Murimuth, ed. Thompson, p. 62. Murimuth was a canon of St. Paul’s in 1325; he died in 1347. In another text (Cotton MS. Nero D. x., in the British Museum) quoted in the Chronicle, it is said: “He was drawn by horses, on the common ox-hide, from the Tower of London to the Elms of Tybourne and there hanged.”
This last passage is interesting: the expression “the common ox-hide” indicates that the ox-hide was now regularly used in drawing.
The interesting indictment of Mortimer, in Norman French, is given in Chron. Knighton, ed. Lumby, i. 454-8.