Key Takeaways
rent ’s say you ’re the tycoon of England in the thirteenth hundred . You enjoy inviolable power and authority , but only if you could keep your clench on the throne , and there are all kind of plotting shammer and rebellious radicals groovy on topple your reign and seeing you numb .
So , what can you do to scare them off ? You ca n’t put up a bunch of threatening Tweets ( heck , the printing press is still a few centuries away ) . But perchance , just perhaps , you may devise a form of punishment so twisted and sadistic that only a lunatic would even nurse the intellection of commit high treason .
That ’s how historian believemedievalmonarchs came up with the wildly violent execution method know ashanging , sop up and quartering . If you ’ve seen the film " Braveheart , " then you ’ve had a ( nauseating ) taste of just how torturous and roughshod the practice was . The Scottish rebelWilliam Wallacewas hang , drawn and quartered in 1305 ( accuse of being a traitor to King Edward I ) and in the movie we see him disembowel — his stomach thin out subject and his intestines removed — while still very much alive . And that was only one part of the ordeal !
From the thirteenth one C all the way until the 19th century , hundreds of Englishmen convicted of high treason were sentenced to give-up the ghost by this very public and grisly display of downright baron , admit rebels like Wallace , political terrorist likeGuy Fawkesand Catholic martyr who refuse to distinguish the authority of the Church of England .
Drawing First, Then Hanging and Quartering
Richard Clark is the creator of the first-class history websiteCapital Punishment U.K.and the author of " Capital Punishment in Britain . " He read that hanging , drawing and quartering was the " ultimate " penalisation , but that the name create some confusion .
Here ’s the existent text of the English practice of law ( on the Holy Scripture until 1870 ) outlining the dying conviction for anyone convicted of high treason :
The " draw " part really get along first , and it involve the con being tied to a type of sled that ’s " drawn " or dragged behind a buck all the agency from the prison to the gallows . For many centuries , that journeying was a full 3 miles from Newgate Prison in London to Tyburn , a remote localeoutside of the city whose name became inextricably yoke with public death penalty .
" It was probably a good three - hour drag , " say Clark , and the streets would have been pack with riotous crowds gibe and throwing garbage at the pitiable sap as he ready to meet his Divine in the bad way potential .
Hanged Until ‘Mostly Dead,’ Then Comes the Really Bad Part
Fans of " The Princess Bride " know that there ’s a large conflict between being " all dead " and " mostly dead , " and so did gothic public executioner . After being dragged to Tyburn , the condemned serviceman was hung from a rope ( from a gallows or just a tall ladder ) , but not drop down the necessary distance to crack his neck opening . After a few terrifying minutes of good - suffocation , the world was trim down while only mostly dead .
Boy , did he wish he was all dead ! Because what come next was downright rage . As the law of nature dictated , his " privy member " were reduce off first — that means ( ahem ) his phallus and testicles — and tossed in a yaup ardor . Next , his abdomen was slit heart-to-heart from groin to sternum and his intestine were displume out .
" At what point people lost knowingness and died , exactly , we ’ll never acknowledge , " says Clark , but if the " de - privying " and disemboweling did n’t do the trick , the next part certainly did — the man ’s inwardness was bring down from his chest and also bite .
Quartering as a Publicity Stunt
In England , the final step of fall , drawing and quartering was to cut off the condemned human being ’s headspring and then " quarter " his remaining clay by carve it into four pieces . According to graphical medieval drawings , that essentially think cut off the legs and arms .
Clark says that the cut off limbs were parboil in a blend of spices design to preserve the flesh for as long as possible . That ’s because the dead man ’s body percentage would next be take on a " publicity tour " of sorts to let everyone screw what happens to people who challenge the authority of the king .
" One of the main points of doing all of this was to demonstrate the absolute power of the monarchy , " read Clark . " Because there was no medium or newspapers back then , the quartering could deal the body parts to the surrounding Town as a warning . "
The severed head was the sternest warning sign of all . The heads of large traitors like Wallace and Fawkes were placed on spikes onLondon Bridgeor the Tower of London .
What about the practice of canton a victim ’s body by tying his limb to four sawhorse and spurring them to run in four different direction ? Clark say that was never done in England , butthere ’s evidencethat the French pander , at least as torture . In 1610 , King Henry IV of France was assassinated and the perpetrator , a man named François Ravaillac , was publicly torture to reveal his accomplice . In accession to being scourged with hot chela and liquefied lead , he was " torn to spell by four horses , " according to a written report .
A Contemporary Account of a 1782 Execution
The very first mortal to be condemn to hanging , drawing and quartering in England was a literary pirate named William Maurice in 1241 , but there are scant item about his crimes or his executing . Even the noted executions of Wallace and Fawkes lack much information beyond a few surviving exemplification .
But in 1782 , a naval salesclerk name David Tyrie was convict of high treason for sell information to the French , and this time there were newspaper around to record the event for descendants . Tyrie ’s execution is believed to be the last time that the three - part dying sentence was carried out in full , and it tie a descent - hungry bunch of 100,000 to the British coastal town of Portsmouth . TheHampshire Chroniclereported Aug. 31 , 1782 :
Why The Ugly Practice Ended
Over time , Clark tell , " the more grisly part of the punishment were omitted , " as with the executions of the five men convicted in theCato Street Conspiracyin 1820 . Although the men were sentenced to be hung , drawn and quarter in the traditional grisly fashion , the sheriff of London did n’t want to bind up traffic with a long rise and the executioners devised a more effective way of choreographing the killing , says Clark .
The five were hang for 30 minutes to ensure they were completely beat . Then they were put down one by one in coffins handily placed atop the gallows . At the oral sex of each casket was a raise block upon which each man ’s head was remove by a train surgeon or bungler . In this more " civilized " version of the execution , the severed pass was put forward to the crowd along with the pronouncement , " This is the head word of a traitor , " but the rest of the body was left integral .
By the mid-19th 100 , there just were n’t as many acts of insurrection , enounce Clark , plus Victorian - geological era Londoners set about taking a " not in my backyard " posture on public capital punishment .
" The gentrification of places like Tyburn and Newgate had taken position by then and multitude did n’t want that kind of matter materialise in their neighborhood , " says Clark . " They no longer found these form of horrific punishments something they wanted to see . "
In 1870 , the condemnation of hanging , take out and quartering was officially remove from English law of nature as part of the Forfeiture Act of 1870 .
