Catherine Hayes (murderer)

[1] Several years into their marriage, the couple moved to London and set up a small shop in Oxford Road, Tyburn, while renting lodgings.

It was displayed in the churchyard of St Margaret's, Westminster, for several days, which resulted in John Hayes being identified.

At the trial, Hayes pleaded 'not guilty', but was convicted of petty treason, and sentenced to be burned at the stake.

After 1652, it was the practice in these cases to strangle the condemned woman on a low gibbet before covering her with faggots and setting the stake alight; however, the execution of Hayes was to be botched.

[5] One early report stated that "the executioner was foiled in an endeavour to strangle her by the burning of the rope, and the woman was finally killed by a piece of wood which was thrown at her head and dashed out her brains".

[6] Later it was stated that Hayes was "the last woman in England to be burnt alive for petty treason (though the burning of women's bodies after execution continued until 1790)".