“In 1238, King Henry III., being at Woodstock, a certain learned squire came to the court. He feigned madness, and demanded of the king that he should give up the crown. The king’s attendants sought to drive him away, but the king forbade this. In the middle of the night the man came again, bearing an open knife. He made his way into the king’s bed-chamber, but the king was not there, being with the queen. But one of the queen’s maids, Margaret Bisseth, was awake, and, sitting by the light of a candle, sang psalms (for she was a holy maid, and one devoted to the service of God). Margaret gave the alarm, and the man was secured. He declared that he had been sent by William Marsh on purpose to kill the king. On learning this, the king ordered that, as one guilty of an attempt to kill the king’s majesty, he should be torn by horses limb from limb, a terrible example, and a lamentable spectacle to all who should dare to plot such crimes. In the first place he was drawn asunder, then beheaded, and his body was divided into three parts, each of which was dragged through one of the greatest cities of England, and afterwards hung on the robbers’ gibbet.”[45] We come now to the question of the punishment for high treason, regarded as the greatest of all crimes, one therefore to be punished with all possible severity. Treason was elaborately defined by 25 Edward III., st. 5. c. 2, but the statute does not prescribe punishment for the offence. Treason seems to have been held to include a number of distinct crimes, to each of which a distinct punishment was allotted. This is the sentence when it had been settled in a form which, with an alteration to be noted presently, endured for centuries:— “1. That the aforesaid … be drawn to the gallows of … 2. He is there to be hanged by the neck, and let down alive. 3. His bowels are to be taken out, 4. And, he being alive, to be burnt. 5. His head is to be cut off. 6. His body is to be divided into four parts, 7. And his head and quarters are to be placed where our lord the king shall direct.” There is no doubt that, originally, the prisoner was drawn to the gallows immediately after trial, but later, the first clause was made to run that the prisoner should be taken from the court to the place whence he came (the prison), and from thence to the place of execution. The sentence is given in this later form by Sir William Stanford in his work, “Les Plees del Coron.” 1560, fols. 182, 182b. It is difficult to say when the sentence, as given above, was first carried out. In relating the execution in 1283 of David, Prince of Wales, the chroniclers give the several punishments in this order: drawing, hanging, beheading, disembowelling, quartering.[46] This is not quite conclusive, as will be seen by the next instance.