By the statute 25 Edw. III., this crime, which had had a wider application, was restricted to three classes of cases: 1, where a servant killed his master or mistress; 2, where a wife killed her husband; 3, where a clergyman killed his prelate, or the superior to whom he owed canonical obedience. The sentence in the case of a woman was, that she be burned to death, and in the case of a man, that he be drawn to the place of execution and there hanged by the neck until he be dead.[8] To mitigate the sufferings of felons at the stake, the executioner usually fastened one end of a cord to the stake, and bringing this cord around the neck of the woman, pulled it tightly the moment the torch was applied, and continued the strain until life was extinct, which, unless the cord was sooner burnt asunder, generally happened before the condemned had suffered much from the intensity of the flames. [Footnote 8: By stat. 22 Hen. VIII. ch. 9, a person of either sex, who was convicted of murdering another by poison, was to be boiled to death, and the offence was, by the same act, declared high treason; but this act was repealed by 1 Edw. VI. ch. 12, after several executions under it, including that of Margaret Davy, who poisoned her mistress. Though by the common law poisoning was deemed a most atrocious circumstance, it did not alter the punishment of the principal crime involved. The law considered only the crime, and not the manner in which it was committed.] In cases of high treason, other barbarities were practised upon the bodies of the criminals, but these were frequently, and in cases of persons of distinction, generally, remitted. Indeed, even the hanging was dispensed with in these latter cases; and hence we read of the execution of great prisoners of state, male and female, by beheading, which, strictly, is a manner of death unknown to the laws of England, except as an incident to the principal penalty by hanging or burning. After the hanging, the body, according to rule, was to be cut down (if possible, while yet alive) to be eviscerated, then beheaded, and the trunk and limbs divided into four parts, to be disposed of as the sovereign should order. By special writ, under the privy seal, all these circumstances, except decapitation, were, as I have already said, usually omitted.