Catherine Hayes

Half portrait of Catherine Hayes, convicted of petty treason. Etched by John Chapman
In pencil is written around the border is written 'Burnt alive at Tyburn May 9 1726 for murdering her husband.

Catherine's husband John Hayes had been murdered with an axe by Thomas Wood & Thomas Billings in 1726. To make identification of John's body more difficult, they decided to cut off his head, wrap it in a cloth and place it in a bucket, which they later threw into the Thames at Millbank, from where it was soon recovered lying on a sandbank near the Horse-Ferry at Westminster. Catherine was said to have held the candle whilst the dismembered took place. Wood, being a butcher, had the skill to dismember the rest of John's body, the pieces of which they threw into a pond in Marylebone Fields. The recovered head was examined and the scull found to be severely fractured in two places and the face lacerated.
A trial Catherine was found guilty of Petty Treason and sentenced to be drawn to Tyburn on a hurdle and there to be burned alive at the stake. Wood & Billings were sentenced to be hanged at Tyburn and afterwards be hanged in chains. Wood died in prison of fever before the sentence was carried out.
At Tyburn Catherine was secured to a stake, set in the ground a few yards from the gallows, by an iron chain around her body. A cord was put round her neck and passed through a hole bored in the stake, for the purpose of strangling her to ease her death. Two cartloads of dry brushwood were piled around her and at the signal the fire was lit. She begged Arnet to strangle her before the fire reached her and he took the end of the cord and began to pull on it, but the flames blew in his direction burning his hands so he had to let go. She reportedly gave three dreadful shrieks before she was engulfed by the fierce fire and fell silent. She was seen trying to push away the burning faggots with her free hands but to no avail. Contemporary reports claimed that Arnet, seeing her plight, threw a large piece of wood at her head which "broke her skull, when her brains came plentifully out."