Green’s Dictionary of Slang

the gallows, orig. that sited at Tyburn, London; thus ext. to other gallows.

c.1500		‘Robin Hood Rescuing Will Stutly’ in Ritson Robin Hood (1832) II 108: Will Stutly hanged must be this day / On yonder gallows-tree.
1575		Appius and Virginia in Farmer (1908) 41: Let Claudius for tyranny be hanged on a tree.
1589		Nashe Death and Buriall of Martin Mar-Prelate in Works I (1883–4) 203: To take reall, and actuall possession, not of the single gibbet, but of the triple trestle, your vndouvbted inheritance.
1594		Gesta Grayorum in J. Nichols Progresses and Processions of Queen Elizabeth (1823) III 336: Let him but once use the exercise of swingeing, and stretching himselfe uppon the soveraigne tree of Tiburnia.
1600		N. Breton Pasquil’s Passe, and Passeth Not in Grosart (1879) I 9/1: The cursed fall into a fellons trippe, / And from the ladder by the rope to skippe, / Where execution makes the fatall tree.
1613		Rowlands Knave of Hearts 78: Though pyrates exempted be / From fatall Tyburne’s wither’d tree, / They have an harbour to arrive, / Call’d Wapping, where as ill they thrive, / As those that ride up Holbourne-hill.
c.1626		Dick of Devonshire in Bullen II (1883) V i: Ile rather suffer on the Gallow Tree.
1630		J. Taylor ‘Necessitie of Hanging’ in Works (1869) II 133: Which after by a Cutpurse bought might be; / And make another iourney to the Tree.
1641		R. Brome Jovial Crew I i: What they may do hereafter under a triple tree is much expected.
1651		T. Randolph Hey for Honesty II iii: To shake hands from the ladder, and take leave Of their dear Chremylus at the fatal tree? [Ibid.] IV i: This is a rascal deserves to ride up Holborn, And take a pilgrimage to the triple tree, To dance in hemp Derrick’s coranto: Let’s choke him with Welsh parsley.
1660		S. Marmion Soddered Citizen I iii: Ile nere be saved [...] for the fatall Tree, I shall.
1661		Mercurious Caledonius 30 Jan., cited in Caledonian Mercury 13 Mar 18104/1: When these Carcasses [i.e of Oliver Cromwell et al] were at Tyburn, they were pull’d out of their Coffins and hang’d at the several angles of that Triple Tree, where they hung till the Sun was set; after which they were taken down, their heads cut off, and their loathsome Trunks thrown into a deep hole under the Gallows.
1663		Wandring Whores Complaint 5: Are all the black trades of a gentleman Thief, / Who (though a good workman) is seldom set free, / Till he rides in a Cart to be Nuc’d on a Tree.
1671		‘L.B.’ New Academy of Complements 205: All the black Trades of a Gentleman Thief; / Who though a good Workman, is seldom made free, / Till he rides on a Cart to be nooz’d on a Tree.
1681		‘Fitzharris, his Farewell to the World’ in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads (1885) V:1 45: What’s worse than injuring Sacred Majestie, / For which he suffer’d on the fatal Tree?
1685		S. Wesley Maggots 125: He is a Fool that thinks it good / To laugh at all that’s made of Wood / And eke in time may lifted be / Unto the fatal wooden Tree.
1694		Motteux (trans.) Rabelais IV xvi 291: That very hour, from an exalted triple tree, two of the honestest gentlemen in Catchpole-land had been made to cut a caper on nothing.
1701		Cibber Love Makes a Man V i: I may come to the Tree, and sing a Stave or two with thee.
1707		J. Shirley Triumph of Wit 181: He fell sick of a filching Fever, for which the Doctor of the Tripple-Tree applied the powerful Cordial of Hemp to his Jugular Vein, so that the strength of Application not being allayed in time, cast him into a dead Sleep, and for ever spoiled his drinking at the Boozing-ken.
1711		N. Ward Vulgus Britannicus I 18: That e’ry pace the Rake might be / The nearer to the fatal Tree.
1714		A. Smith Lives of Most Noted Highway-men, etc. I 190: Her Soul [...] had been dead and rotten in Trespasses and Sin, long before she made her Exit on the Triple-Tree.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy II 257: And when the jesuits you see, / Dangling upon the Tripple Tree.
1724		‘John Sheppard’s Last Epistle’ in Dly Jrnl (London) 16 Nov. 1: I am ambled from Witt to the Tree, / As order’d by my sad Sentence.
1724		Hist. of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard 3: This she Lyon; who by the sequel will appear to have been a main loadstone in attracting of him up to the fatal Tree.
1728		Defoe Street Robberies Considered 49: I think we have many Incorporated in their Companies as fit for the Tripple Tree, as any that have Grac’d that Structure.
1732		Grub St Jrnl 6 Apr. 3/1: A very villain, void of grace and fear, / Take to the Road - an arrant Ruffian be, / And swing, at last, on Tyburn’s triple Tree.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 191: When he saw the fatal Tree, he wept, and wrang his Hands like a Child.
1740		Trial of Charles Drew 40: When he came to the Tree, he expressed the utmost Reluctance at parting with Life driving off the fatal minute. [...] Then he was turned off.
1742		Scots Mag. 7 May 24/1: Their lives shall vulgar villains end, / At Tyburn’s triple tree?
1754		Oxford Jrnl 2 Feb. 3/1: On Thursday the 17th the pictorial Representation of a Gentleman formerly eminent for Honesty and Patriotism, was maliciously hung on the Triple Tree near Stephens-Green, Dublin.
1764		Bloody Register I 132: If ev’ry rogue throughout the nation, / Should die like Hall, by suffocation, / Some now in chambers would in carts, / At Triple-tree receive deserts.
1772		C. Crinkum AEnigmatical Repository 33: Thieves first were sentenc’d to be hung / Upon the fatal tree.
1777		Leeds intelligencer 8 July 4/2: That auspicious morn, which [...] rewarded the great Triumvirs Hancock, Adams, Lee, with the high honours of the Triple Tree.
1780		Derby Mercury 7 July 2/4: Jack Ketch’s Deputy, when he thought of being promoted to the chief command of the fatal tripod [etc.].
1780		Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser 29 Mar. 1/3: And would not a triple tree be as salutary a remedy for the one as a scrubbing-post is pleasant and convenient for the other.
1786		Mr Thompson Female Amazon 11: This very identical fellow who was [...] rescued from the fatal tree.
1788		‘The Irish Robber’s Adventure’ Irish Songster 3: Their sighs nor tears will not save me, / Nor keep me from the sad gallows tree.
1791		‘A London Ken-cracking Song’ Confessions of Thomas Mount 21: Would’nt it grieve your hearts to see / Five clever lads hung on a tree.
1802		Sussex Advertiser 19 Apr. 3/3: 3,000 spectators [...] many of whom all the neighbouring trees [...] occupied, to obtain a more commanding view of [...] the fatal tree.
1803		Sporting Mag. Sept. XXII 318/1: He said to the gaoler, he imagined that was the tree – pointing at it – that he was to die on.
1823		Account of Mary M’Kinnon 52: About the age of thirty-three, I must die upon this fatal tree.
1825		C.M. Westmacott Eng. Spy I 254: Dependent upon royal grace / Or triple tree of Tyburn.
1826		Portfolio (London) 19 Nov. 59/2: Printers being the miserable sinners they are [...] there is a place [...] called ‘The fatal tree’ to which many of them come at last.
1830		Lytton Paul Clifford II 100: First, a toast, – ‘May those who leap from a hedge never leap from a tree!’.
1839		(con. 1715) W.H. Ainsworth Jack Sheppard (1917) 55: tom waters, your doom is the triple tree.
1841		‘Bon Gaultier’ ‘The Faking Boy to the Crap is Gone’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 124: The faking boy ne’er spoke again, / For they pulled his legs from under. / And there he dangles on the tree, / That sort of love and bravery.
1851		C.G. Leland ‘Two Friends’ in Knickerbocker mag. Feb. 185/2: For whether I sink in the foaming flood, Or swing on the triple-tree, [...] Is all the same to me!
1863		‘Execution of Alice Holt’ in Henderson Victorian Street Ballads (1937) 35: A hanging for the mother’s sake / On Chester’s fatal tree.
1864		London Standard 21 Nov. 3/7: The gallows tree [...] What lessons does it teach [...] To that foul crowd, who laugh aloud, Bneath the gallows-tree.
1874		J. Greenwood Wilds of London (1881) 169: Let’s swear to be faithful, if such our end be, / And manfully drop, like ripe fruit, from the tree.
1891		Star (Guernsey) 24 Feb. 4/1: But Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Bough / And the grisly Dreams that tend you / [...] / They may tug in line at your hempen twine [etc.].
1894		M. Roberts Red Earth 289: If she lost it she ’ad to be ’ung in a gallus tree, ’ung by the neck till she was dead.
1900		C.J.C. Hyne Filibusters 6: There’s no consolation prize to look for, except a platoon, or a cable of hempen tow, and a tree.
1922		John O’London’s Weekly 7 Jan. 450/3: That sinister spot, at the junction of what are now the Bayswater Road and Edgeware Road, [stood] the Triple Tree, on which two notorious highway men had been hanged.
1926		Exter & Plymouth Gaz. 20 Sept. 8/4: The Gallows Tree [...] Prisoners [...] have been strung up on trees near that spot where Mr Rosenthal was murders.
1933		(ref.to 1735) Cornishman 19 Jan. 3/8: In 1735 [...] the speech which the murderer made at the foot of the triple tree in Launceston.
2009		J. Mabus ‘Charlie Birger’ 🎵 There’s many a poor boy hung from the gallows tree.