history of torture pt 8 - hanged, drawn, and quartered ~heather

the fate of criminals deemed so dire that mere death was not enough was barbarous. the process of hanging, drawing , and quartering was as severe as executions became.

the sentence pronounced on the duke of buckingham in 1521 was horrifically detailed.."you shall be taken to the king's prison, the tower of london, and there laid on a hurdle and so drawn to the place of execution, and there to be hanged and cut down alive, your members to be cut off and cast into the fire, your bowels burnt before your eyes, your head smitten off and your body quartered and divided at the king's will. and god have mercy on your soul"

**for i will have none on your body LOL ~heather

such judgement was the dreadful consequence of treachery for men in england, for more than five centuries (women were hanged and burnt). david, prince of wales, is thought to have been the first to face such appalling treatment, at shrewsbury in 1283. under edward III the punishment was instituted more widely. cratwell, an executioner during the reign of Henry VIII, was praised by the lord chancellor as 'a conninge butcher in the quarteringe of men'.

although some victims were drawn to scaffold by a horse, the "drawn" part of the punishment refers to the drawing of the intestines from their stomach. a small slit was made and the innards slowly and painfully extracted, and sometiems burned. if carefully done, the butchered person remained conscious throughout and death only came when the body was quartered with axe blows.

**think of that scene in "the Cell" when he was drawing the guys innards out on the turning thing in that dream sequence..that's a bout like it~heather

guy fawkes and other members of the gunpower plot suffered the grim indignity after they were caught on november 5, 1605. protestant followers of the duke of monmouth were similarly dealt with 80 years later, after an attempted uprising against james II. it was a black spot in british history, thanks largely to the callous judge sir george jeffreys. traveling around the southwest, from where most of the rebels had been drawn, jeffreys conducted the 'bloody assizes" that ended in approximately 250 people being hung, drawn and quartered.

following the jacobite rebellion of 1745, catholics again felt the wrath of law. their punishment was further embellished, as their heads were spiked over temple bar gateway, london but the merciful executioner ensured they were dead before carving up their bodies.

but shockingly the sorry method of execution continued as last as 1820, albeit in a diluted form. following the Cato street conspiracy that threatened to overthrow the government, eight condemned men were decapitated rather than quartered, and the executioners ensured the initial hanging killed them.

commentators at the time believed a surgeon carried out the task. at last it was no longer felt necessary to cut out the traitor's heart for symbolic effect.

a crowd estimated at 100,000 gathered to see the cato street conspirators die outside newgate prison. the spectators included many from the higher orders of society who felt directly threatened by the plans of arthur thistlewood, the idealistic leader of the plotters.

afterward, an overhaul of the system of punishments meant the ax was never raised again in such a manner. although the mob disapproving of the punishment, the executions caused little public condemnation or adverse newspaper comment.

successive executioners were not moved by the horror of their tasks. they ensured there was plenty of sawdust on the scaffold to soak up the blood and kept a knife at hand in case the ax proved too blunt. if they fumbled it was because they were unfamiliar with the procedure, as beheadings became ever rarer.

history of torture and execution by jane kellaway

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