boilman

Updated: November 26, 2024

One rustic, who was forced to steep the remains in the black pot, was ever afterwards called 'Tom Boilman. The hangman has ever since been called Jack Ketch, because a man of that name went hanging and hanging, all day long, in the train of Jeffreys. You will hear much of the horrors of the great French Revolution.

Charles Dickens - A Child's History of England

The peasant who had consented to perform this hideous office afterwards returned to his plough. But a mark like that of Cain was upon him. He was known through his village by the horrible name of Tom Boilman. The rustics long continued to relate that, though he had, by his sinful and shameful deed, saved himself from the vengeance of the Lambs, he had not escaped the vengeance of a higher power.

Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay Macaulay - The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 1