Execution: A History of Capital Punishment in Britain by Webb Simon

Author:Webb, Simon [Webb, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2011-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

That you be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution where you shall be hanged by the neck and being alive cut down, your privy members shall be cut off and your bowels taken out and burned before you, your head severed from your body and your body divided into four quarters to be disposed of at the King’s pleasure.

During Mary’s reign, which followed a short time after her father’s, religious crimes were punished by burning at the stake. Hundreds of Protestants met their deaths in this way. On the succession of her sister Elizabeth though, there was an abrupt reversal. Elizabeth was a Protestant and declared herself head of the Church in England. It was the turn now of the Catholics to be persecuted. This persecution was undertaken not on religious grounds, but rather the political one of refusing their full allegiance to the monarch. The main targets were priests themselves, rather than Catholics per se. Elizabeth had, as she famously said, no desire, ‘to make windows into men’s souls.’ In other words, she did not care if a person was Catholic or Protestant, just so long as he acknowledged her as being head of the Church. This was just what many Catholics could not do.

In 1586, a priest called John Ballard conspired with a group of Catholic gentry, led by Anthony Babington, to launch an insurrection against Queen Elizabeth I. They wanted to install her imprisoned cousin, the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, on the throne in her place. This was High Treason by any definition, and when the plot was uncovered, those involved expected no mercy. During their trial, when it had become plain that the verdict would be guilty, the Queen enquired if it would be possible for some especially painful death to be devised for these men, so serious was their offence. She spoke at length to Sir William Cecil, Baron Burghley, about this. Since he was one of the commissioners actually trying the case, this was hardly a correct thing to do, but then the Tudor monarchs were never noted for over-adherence to the law. Writing of this conversation later, in a letter to Sir Christopher Hatton, Burghley said that he had explained to Elizabeth that when done efficiently, hanging, drawing and quartering was more terrible than any other sort of execution. This was quite true, as was seen on 20 September 1586, when the first batch of seven conspirators was dispatched at St Giles’ Circus, near modern day Tottenham Court Road tube station.

Ballard, the priest, was the first to be executed and the hangman had evidently received very precise instructions. The priest swung for only a moment before he was cut down and dragged to the butcher’s block. He was given time to recover his breath, so that he was fully aware of what was going to be done to him, before the mutilation began. His penis and testicles were sliced off and his stomach was cut open. Then the executioner

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