when they were removing a quantity of earth for the embankment. The
skeletons were afterwards reinterred under an apple-tree in the garden
of the Adderley Arms, Saltley, and the gibbet-irons were taken as
rarities to the Aston Tavern, where, possibly, inquisitive relic-mongers
may now see them. Four persons were hung for highway robbery near Aston
Park, April 2, 1790. Seven men were hung at Warwick, in 1800, for
forgery, and one for sheep-stealing. They hung people at that time for
crimes which are now punished by imprisonment or short periods of penal
servitude, but there was little mercy combined with the justice then,
and what small portion there happened to be was never doled out in cases
where the heinous offence of forgery had been proved. On Easter Monday
(April 19), 1802, there was another hanging match at Washwood Heath, no
less than eight unfortunate wretches suffering the penalty of the law
for committing forgeries and other crimes in this neighbourhood. There
would seem to have been some little excitement in respect to this
wholesale slaughter, and perhaps fears of a rescue were entertained, for
there were on guard 240 of the King's Dragoon Guards, then stationed at
our Barracks, under the command of Lieut.-Col. Toovey Hawley, besides a
detachment sent from Coventry as escort with the prisoners. The last
public execution here under the old laws was that of Philip Matsell, who
was sentenced to be hanged for shooting a watchman named Twyford, on the
night of July 22, 1806. An _alibi_ was set up in defence, and though it
was unsuccessful, circumstances afterwards came to light tending to
prove that though Matsell was a desperado of the worst kind, who had
long kept clear of the punishments he had deserved, in this instance he
suffered for another. There was a disreputable gang with one of whom,
Kate Pedley, Matsell had formed an intimate connection, who had a grudge
against Twyford on account of his interfering and preventing several
robberies they had planned, and it is said that it was his paramour, Kit
Pedley, who really shot Twyford, having dressed herself in Matsell's