[15] Madeley's "Some Obsolete Modes of Punishment," Warrington, 1887.
[16] "Criminal Chronology of York Castle," 1867.
[17] Cox's "Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals," 1888.
[18] See "Bygone Leicestershire," edited by William Andrews, 1892.
Hanging, Drawing, and Quartering.
Hanging, drawing, and quartering, with their attendant horrors, have
been termed "godly butchery," on account of the divine authority which
was adduced to support their continuance. Lord Coke finds in the Bible a
countenance for each of the horrid details of the punishment. We see
that the texts supposed to bear upon the subject are raked from all
parts of the Scriptures with great ingenuity, but with, in our modern
eyes, not much of either humanity or probability of there being anything
more than a forced reference. The sentence on traitors was pronounced as
follows: "That the traitor is to be taken from the prison and laid upon
a sledge or hurdle [in earlier days he was to be dragged along the
surface of the ground, tied to the tail of a horse], and drawn to the
gallows or place of execution, and then hanged by the neck until he be
half dead, and then cut down; and his entrails to be cut out of his body
and burnt by the executioner; then his head is to be cut off, his body
to be divided into quarters, and afterwards his head and quarters to be
set up in some open places directed." The headsman, or hangman, commonly
sliced open the chest and cut thence the heart, plucking it forth and
holding it up to the populace, saying, "Behold the heart of a traitor."
The members were disposed on the gates of the cities, and in London on
London Bridge, or upon Westminster Hall.
It is asserted that this mode of capital punishment was first inflicted
in 1241, on William Marise, pirate, and the son of a nobleman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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