The Newgate calendar improved : being interesting memoirs of notorious characters who have been convicted of offences against the laws of England ... To which is added a correct account of the various modes of punishment of criminals in different parts of the world, v.1-2 / by George Theodore Wilkinson.

  • Wilkinson, George Theodore
Date:
[1819?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Newgate calendar improved : being interesting memoirs of notorious characters who have been convicted of offences against the laws of England ... To which is added a correct account of the various modes of punishment of criminals in different parts of the world, v.1-2 / by George Theodore Wilkinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    In the year 1700, Holliday was indicted in the name of Simpson for a burglary in the house of Elizabeth Gawden, and stealing thereout two feather beds, and other articles; to which he pleaded guilty, and was, for that offence, hanged at Tyburn While under sentence of death he made the fol- lowing confession of the singular and daring robbe- ries he had committed—his officers—the church— nay the king himself, were plundered by this daring villain. He said that his name was not Simpson, but Holliday; and that, during a great part of the war in the reign of king William, he was a soldier in Flanders, where he used to take frequent oppor- tunities of robbing the tents of the officers: and once, when the army lay before Mons, and his Ma- jesty commanded in person, Simpson happened to to be one of those who were selected to guard the - royal tent. On an evening when the king accom- panied by the Earl (afterwards duke) of Marlborough and Lord Cutts, went out to take a view of the si- tuation of the army, Simpson, with a degree of im- pudence peculiar to himself, went into his Majesty’s tent, and stole about a thousand pounds. It was some days before this money was missed; and, when the robbery was discovered, Simpson escaped all suspicion. He said he had committed more robberies than he could possibly recollect, having been a highwayman as well as a house-breaker. He committed numerous robberies in Flanders, as well as in England, and he affirmed that the gates of the city. of Ghent had been twice shut up within a fortnight to prevent his escape; and that when he was taken, his arms, legs, back, and neck, were secured with irons; m which condition he was car- ried through the streets, that he might be seen by the crowd. Simpson, and two of his companions, used fre- quently to stop and rob the Roman Catholics at five o’clock in the morning, as they were going to mass; he repeatedly broke mto the churches of Pa “ah ere 3
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