Tyburn

The tall man winces as he gingerly dismounts. Sheriff Nicodemus Skellington slides a dragoon pistol back into a saddle holster and takes a walking cane. He approaches the silent stagecoach, stepping softly among the corpses. "Black deeds, Sir Nicodemus," says the constable, "I sent for you as soon as the Vicar stumbled into town. Murder and robbery, my lord Sheriff, here in Kent. Who would dare? They say it was Fitzgibbon himself."Sheriff Nicodemus Skellington says nothing as he pokes around in the high grass by the stagecoach. He bends down and pulls an object from ground. It is a woman's yellow straw hat drenched in blood."Who indeed?" replies Skellington.TYBURN takes you to the West London Road outside Canterbury. The Dover Royal Mail Stagecoach, team unhitched, blocks the lane. The flickering side-lamps highlighting a scene of bloodshed and carnage. Driver, mail guards, and passengers are dead or wounded. Sir Edmund Rose, MP, is slain by a stiletto thrust to the heart. The notorious Irish highwayman Captain James Fitzgibbon, Deborah King, and a gang of cutthroats have stolen 50,000£ in gold and notes. Skellington, aided by The Shadows, tracks down and apprehends Fitzgibbon and King. They are indicted, tried, and sentenced to death. The brigands are dispatched in chains to Newgate Prison, to await Hanging Day, January 21st, 1747. Before Christmas, Skellington receives an urgent summons from Magistrate Henry Fielding to come to London. Things are not as they appear.TYBURN whisks you through the sounds, smells, tastes, as well as through the streets, inns, brothels, taverns, docks, gaming dens, theaters, and coffee houses of 18th Century England. In Newgate, the condemned are trussed for the journey through the packed London streets. The throngs are massing at the TYBURN gallows. Time is running out.Jack Ketch, the hangman, awaits.