To be hanged, drawn and quartered was the penalty for high treason in medieval England, and remained on the statute book but seldom used in the United Kingdom[citation needed] and Ireland until abolished under the Treason Act of 1814. It was a spectacularly gruesome and public form of torture and execution, and was reserved only for this most serious crime, which was deemed more heinous than murder and other capital offences. It was applied only to male criminals, except on the Isle of Man.[1] Women found guilty of treason were sentenced to be taken to a place of execution and burned at the stake, a punishment changed to hanging by the Treason Act of 1790 in Great Britain,[1] and 1796 in Ireland. It was also practiced, with variations, in other countries. The variations involved the torturing process and the crimes for which it was reserved.
Details
Until reformed under the Treason Act 1814,[1] the full punishment for the crime of treason was to be hanged, drawn and quartered in that the condemned prisoner would be:
- Dragged on a hurdle (a wooden frame) to the place of execution. This is one possible meaning of drawn.[2]
- Hanged by the neck for a short time or until almost dead (hanged).
- Disembowelled and emasculated and the genitalia and entrails burned before the condemned's eyes (this is another meaning of drawn—see the reference to the Oxford English Dictionary below)[3][4]
- The body beheaded, then divided into four parts (quartered).
Typically, the resulting five parts (i.e., the four quarters of the body and the head) were gibbeted (put on public display) in different parts of the city, town, or, in famous cases, in the country, to deter would-be traitors who had not seen the execution. After 1814, the convict would be hanged until dead and the mutilation would be performed post-mortem. Gibbeting was later abolished in England in 1843, while drawing and quartering was abolished in 1870.
There is debate among modern historians about whether "drawing" referred to the dragging to the place of execution or the disembowelling, but since two different words are used in the official documents detailing the trial of William Wallace ("detrahatur" for drawing as a method of transport, and "devaletur" for disembowelment), there is no doubt that the subjects of the punishment were disembowelled.[5]
Judges delivering sentence at the Old Bailey also seemed to have had some confusion over the term "drawn", and some sentences are summarized as "Drawn, Hanged and Quartered". Nevertheless, the sentence was often recorded quite explicitly. For example, the record of the trial of Thomas Wallcot, John Rouse, William Hone and William Blake for offences against the king, on 12 July 1683 (see Rye House Plot) concludes as follows:
Then Sentence was passed, as followeth, viz. That they should return to the place from whence they came, from thence be drawn to the Common place of Execution upon Hurdles, and there to be Hanged by the Necks, then cut down alive, their Privy-Members cut off, and Bowels taken out to be burned before their Faces, their Heads to be severed from their Bodies, and their Bodies divided into four parts, to be disposed of as the King should think fit.[6]
The Oxford English Dictionary notes both meanings of drawn: "To draw out the viscera or intestines of ... a traitor or other criminal after hanging" and "To drag (a criminal) at a horse's tail, or on a hurdle or the like, to the place of execution". It states that "In many cases of executions it is uncertain [which of these senses of drawn] is meant. The presumption is that where drawn is mentioned after hanged, the sense is [the first meaning]."[7]
The condemned man would usually be sentenced to the short drop method of hanging, so that the neck would not break. The man was usually dragged alive to the quartering table, although in some cases men were brought to the table dead or unconscious. A splash of water was usually employed to wake the man if unconscious, then he was laid down on the table. A large cut was made in the gut after removing the genitalia, and the intestines would be spooled out on a device that resembled a dough roller. Each piece of organ would be burned before the sufferer's eyes, and when he was completely disembowelled, his head would be cut off. The body would then be cut into four pieces, and the king would decide where they were to be displayed. Usually the head was sent to the Tower of London and, as in the case of William Wallace, the other four pieces were sent to different parts of the country. The head was generally par-boiled in brine to preserve the appearance of the head in display, while the quarters were more often prepared in pitch, for longer-lasting deterrent displays.
History
Middle Ages
H. Thomas Milhorn states that hanging, drawing and quartering was first used against William Maurice, who was convicted of piracy in 1241.[8] This would make Henry III the first practitioner.
The punishment was more notoriously and verifiably employed by King Edward I ("Longshanks") in his efforts to bring Wales, Scotland, and Ireland under English rule.
In 1283, it was inflicted on the Welsh prince Dafydd ap Gruffydd in Shrewsbury. Dafydd had been a hostage in the English court in his youth, growing up with Edward and for several years fought alongside Edward against his brother Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the Prince of Wales. Llywelyn had won recognition of the title, "Prince of Wales", from Edward's father King Henry III, and both Edward and his father had been imprisoned by Llywelyn's ally, Simon de Montfort, the Earl of Leicester, in 1264.
Edward's enmity towards Llywelyn ran deep. When Dafydd returned to the side of his brother and attacked the English Hawarden Castle, Edward saw this as both a personal betrayal and a military setback and hence his punishment of Dafydd was specifically designed to be harsher than any previous form of capital punishment. The punishment was part of an overarching strategy to eliminate Welsh independence. Edward built an "iron ring" of castles in Wales and had Dafydd's young sons incarcerated for life in Bristol Castle and daughters sent to a convent in England, whilst having his own son, Edward II, assume the title Prince of Wales. Dafydd's head joined that of his brother Llywelyn (killed in a skirmish months earlier) on top of the Tower of London, where the skulls were still visible many years later. His quartered body parts were sent to four English towns for display.
Two decades later, on 23 August 1305, Sir William Wallace was the next person to be hanged, drawn and quartered, which occurred as a result of Edward I's Scottish wars. This established the precedent as the ultimate penalty for treason against the English crown. Both Dafydd ap Gruffydd and William Wallace asserted at their trials that they were not traitors for having fought in defence of Wales and Scotland against foreign invaders.[9] Wallace, unlike his Welsh counterpart, had never fought for Edward before fighting against him.
Col. Daniel Axtell, Captain of the Parliamentary Guard at the capital trial of King Charles I at Westminster Hall, 1649. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered on 19 October 1660.
During the Wars of Scottish Independence, it became a much used sentence and numerous Scots were so executed including Sir Alexander Seton, three of King Robert Bruce's brothers: Alexander, Thomas and Nigel Bruce, and Sir Simon Frasier.[10]
Tudor era
The leaders of the first Cornish Uprising of 1497, Michael An Gof and Thomas Flamank, were hanged, drawn and quartered on 27 June 1497 at Tyburn, London.[11]
In an attempt to intimidate the Catholic clergy into taking the Oath of Supremacy, Henry VIII ordered that John Houghton, the prior of the London Charterhouse, be hanged, drawn and quartered, along with two other Carthusians. Henry also famously condemned Francis Dereham to this form of execution for being one of Catherine Howard's lovers. Dereham and the King's good friend Thomas Culpeper were both executed shortly before Catherine herself, but Culpeper was spared the cruel punishment and was instead beheaded. Sir Thomas More, who was found guilty of high treason under the Treason Act of 1534, was spared this punishment; Henry commuted the execution to one by beheading.
In the aftermath of the Babington Plot to murder Queen Elizabeth I and replace her on the throne with Mary, Queen of Scots, the conspirators were condemned to this method of execution in September 1586. On hearing of the appalling agony to which the first seven condemned were subjected while being butchered on the scaffold, Elizabeth ordered that the remaining conspirators, who were to be dispatched on the following day, should be left hanging until they were dead. Other Elizabethans who were executed in this way include Elizabeth's own physician, Dr. Rodrigo Lopez, a Portuguese Jew who was convicted of conspiring against her in 1594, and the Jesuit Edmund Campion.
Seventeenth century
Other notable deaths from the punishment include Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot to assassinate James I in 1605. Fawkes, though weakened by torture, cheated the executioners. When he was to be hanged until almost dead, he jumped from the gallows, so his neck broke and he died. A co-conspirator, Robert Keyes, had attempted the same trick, but the rope broke, so he was drawn fully conscious. Jesuit Father Henry Garnet was executed on 3 May 1606 at St. Paul's. His crime was to be the confessor of several members of the Gunpowder Plot. Many spectators thought that his sentence was too severe. Antonia Fraser writes:
With a loud cry of 'hold, hold' they stopped the hangman cutting down the body while Garnet was still alive. Others pulled the priest's legs ... which was traditionally done to ensure a speedy death.[12]
Early in the English Civil War, John Lilburne, a prominent Parliamentarian who because of his radical views was known as "Free Born John", was captured by the Royalists while serving as a captain in the Parliamentary army. Moves were taken to try him and some other prisoners of war as traitors, but when on 17 December 1642 Parliament declared lex talionis (to retaliate in kind) he was instead exchanged for Royalist prisoners.[13] From then on in England during the war Royalist prisoners of war were not tried and executed as traitors, but the Parliamentary side were well aware of what could happen if they lost the war, as the Earl of Manchester a Parliamentarian general said "We may beat the king 99 times, and yet he will be king still. If he beats us but once, we shall be hanged".[14]
Under the Commonwealth, Miles Sindercombe a member of a plot to assassinate the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell only avoided being hanged, drawn and quartered because he took poison before the sentence could be carried out.[15] St John Southworth, being a priest, was prosecuted under the Elizabethan anti-priest legislation which prescribed the sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering. He was hanged but spared the drawing and quartering.
Over six days in October 1660, after the Restoration of Charles II, nine of those convicted of the regicide of Charles I in 1649 were executed in London in the prescribed manner. Those executed were: Thomas Harrison, John Jones, Adrian Scroope, John Carew, Thomas Scot, Gregory Clement, Daniel Axtel, Hugh Peters, and John Cooke. Three more regicides suffered the same fate within two years: John Okey, John Barkstead and Miles Corbet. Additionally, the corpses of Oliver Cromwell, John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton were disinterred and hanged, drawn and quartered in posthumous executions for their involvement in the regicide.
Only a few months later on 6 January 1661, about fifty Fifth Monarchists, headed by a wine-cooper named Thomas Venner, made an effort to attain possession of London in the name of "King Jesus". Most of the fifty were either killed or taken prisoner, and on 19 and 21 January, Venner and ten others were hanged, drawn and quartered for high treason.[16]
In October 1663 twenty-six men were arrested, imprisoned, and tried in York for their participation in The Farnley Wood Plot. Twenty three were hanged, drawn and quartered in York, but three rebels escaped from prison only to be recaptured in Leeds early the next year where they were then executed in a similar manner.[17]
In 1676, Joshua Tefft was executed by this method at Smith's Castle in Wickford, Rhode Island. He was an English colonist who fought on the side of the Narragansett during the Great Swamp Fight battle of King Philip's War. He may be the only person ever hanged, drawn and quartered in North America. Metacomet, leader of the Narragansett, was himself beheaded and quartered, but not hanged, after his death.
Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh and the Roman Catholic primate of Ireland, was arrested in 1681 and transported to Newgate Prison, London, where he was convicted of treason. He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn, the last Roman Catholic to be executed for his faith in England. He was beatified in 1920 and was canonized in 1975 by Pope Paul VI. His head is preserved for viewing as a relic in St. Peter's Church in Drogheda, while the rest of his body rests in Downside Abbey, near Stratton-on-the-Fosse, Somerset.