Throughout the Tudor Period there were dozens of thousands of executions.
3 Queens of England lost their heads inside of the Tower of London, and many of the closest
friends and advisors of the Tudor monarchs could be turned on at any time.
Henry VIII it’s believed executed around 70,000 people during his reign as King, and
some of his best friends such as Thomas Cromwell would be sent to Tower Hill and the public
beheading spot.
Often heads of those people executed on Tower Hill were also then placed above London Bridge
as a warning, but there were many frightful and shocking execution methods deployed during
the period.
One Queen even became known for her burnings of people at the stake in horrific scenes.
Today we look at 5 Tudor Execution Methods that will give you nightmares.
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Mary I, the Eldest daughter and child of Henry VIII became known as Bloody Mary for her burnings
of heretics.
She blamed Protestants in England for the fact God was allegedly punishing her as she
could not have a child.
But Burning Alive was a horrendous and tragic execution method which was used by all of
the Tudor monarchs, and not just Mary.
Mary executed 284 people at the stake, but it was a punishment that for centuries had
been closely linked to heresy or religious crimes.
Throughout history it has also been linked to witchcraft, but if someone was condemned
to death and was to be executed by burning, this in London would take place at Smithfield.
Burnings occurred in public squares and towns, and often there were many onlookers who watched
the proceedings.
Victims would be brought out in front of the crowd, and they would then be tied to a wooden
stake in the middle of a square, where a bonfire was being built around them.
Sometimes the executioner would take pity on these people, and would secure a small
pouch of gunpowder around the persons neck, so when the flames rose their suffering would
be ended by an almighty bang and explosion.
The victim would be tied to the post, and then when everything was ready the fire would
be lit.
Some people were considered lucky as they were sometimes strangled first and were then
burned, but many others were forced to face the flames fully conscious and alive.
During the reign of Henry VIII, Anne Askew a Protestant was burned alive following being
racked, and the stake had to be adapted to allow her to be sat down as she had been brutalised.
Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer were two bishops condemned during Mary I’s reign,
and these men were burned together in Oxford on one big bonfire, and it was said that one
of these men took a lot longer to succumb to the fire.
The pain was immense and huge, and often if things went wrong as in the fire struggled
to light, then this could cause someones ordeal to last hours.
There were accounts of many people also being burned on one fire in some times, with these
burnings taking some time.
But it would have been a harrowing site for people to have witnessed.
One rarely used execution method in the Tudor times was crushing, in which someone would
be pressed to death using weights.
This was used in exceptional circumstances in which someone who was accused would not
confess or plead innocent or guilty to a crime.
It was an attempt to get a plea, however during the Tudor times it became an execution method
as it became sadistic with more weight being added.
It was referred to as ‘one of the cruellest deaths that may be,’ but some people even
opted for this ordeal, and they knew they would die but they used it as a form of sacrifice
to protect their family from punishment.
One woman who was pressed to death was Margaret Clitherow, who was referred to as the Pearl
of York.
She was pressed to death as she refused to enter a plea for the charge of hiding and
harbouring priests.
Near to York, Margaret was taken out to the Toll Booth on the Ouse Bridge, and she was
to be crushed by her own door.
Her door was fetched, and four beggars were hired to carry out the execution.
Margaret was stripped and a handkerchief was tied across her face, and then a sharp rock
the size of a fist was placed on under her back, and the door was laid on top of her.
Then with the rock jabbing into her back, the weight and stones were added.
With more immense and huge weight which was added, Margaret suffered greatly, and within
15 minutes she died.
However her body was left out for 6 hours before the weight was removed.
It was said that the Queen Elizabeth I was disgusted when she found out about what happened
to Margaret Clitherow.
But crushing to death was a barbaric practice.
One of the most famous execution methods used during the Tudor Period was beheading by axe,
and in rare times sword.
It is remembered for being the execution method that 3 Tudor Queens lost their heads with,
and some of the most famous Tudor figures died by the axe.
Famously in London, the axe was used to take the heads of treasonous individuals on Tower
Hill.
Victims would be held at the Tower of London, before they were taken on the short walk north
to Tower Hill and the public beheading spot where an execution with his deadly weapon
greeted them.
Thomas Cromwell, Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher along with the brother of Anne
Boleyn all lost their heads by axe on Tower Hill in tragic but brutal scenes during Henry
VIII’s reign.
Very few were allowed a private execution by axe and sword inside the walls of the Tower
of London, and this was reserved for royalty and for very noble people.
Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, the two wives of Henry VIII lost their heads inside
the Tower, as did Margaret Pole the Countess of Salisbury and Jane Boleyn, Anne Boleyn’s
sister in law.
Executions by axe followed a very similar pattern.
Someone would be brought to the scaffold flanked by guards, and then they would be led up onto
the scaffold.
Usually the scaffold was covered in hay as this was used to soak up the blood.
But then the executioner would ask the condemned for their forgiveness for what they were about
to do, and often the victim would hand over money to make sure that the job was performed
quickly and smoothly with no suffering.
Often the condemned were also allowed to make speeches to the public, and then they were
given blindfolds before they rested their head on the block.
They then would stretch out their arms giving the executioner the message to strike with
their deadly weapon.
As mentioned the axe sometimes took more than one swing to take a head, for example Thomas
Cromwell’s execution it was said was butchered by a miserly youth who was inexperienced.
But execution by sword was considered more reliable than the axe and it was only really
Anne Boleyn who was executed using this weapon, as Henry VIII summoned a French swordsman
to perform the job.
The axe used to perform the job was often large also, and executioners needed to be
skilled to use this to perform the job properly.
Some executions took more than one swing, and this was known to have been savage and
unprofessional.
Lady Jane Grey, the 9 Day Queen was executed by axe inside the Tower of London during the
reign of Mary I, for being too dangerous for the Catholic monarch to have alive.
Elizabeth I also used the execution method to take the head off her huge rival, Mary
Queen of Scots who many Catholics wanted on the throne instead of Elizabeth.
Inside of Fotheringhay Castle, Mary’s head was taken off by an executioner, and then
he held up her head to the crowd.
But Mary was wearing a wig, and her head then fell to the floor.
It was a brutal and savage execution method, and was one which was considered shocking,
but thousands of people would flock to see beheadings in many different towns and cities
around England.
Hanging, Drawing and Quartering was an execution method which dated back to the Medieval times,
but it was used horrifically during the Tudor Period to put the enemies of the monarchy
to death.
It was the standard sentence for treason, and was a method that throughout the centuries
took the lives of infamous leaders such as William Wallace, Braveheart.
But during the Tudor Period, it was used on a huge scale.
It was an execution method that had a number of steps.
First a prisoner would be fetched from their place of imprisonment, and they were then
tied to the back of a horse, and were dragged through the streets of a town of city which
could be very painful.
They were usually carried on a sledge with this part, and the crowds would jeer and hurl
abuse at the person.
Then the victim was taken to a place of execution, where they were then hanged from a gallows
until almost dead.
They were cut down before they died, and then their entrails were cut out, and their private
parts cut off and burned in front of them on a fire.
Sometimes people were even alive at this point, but then they were beheaded and their remains
were quartered and were cut into four pieces before they were sent to different parts of
the kingdom and were displayed.
The head of the victim would be displayed in a prominent place too.
Sometimes the condemned were also forced to watch others be executed in there same way
so they would see what was coming their way.
Some of the victims of this during the Tudor Period were very pious and religious men who
were very peaceful, however they were subjected to hanging, drawing and quartering.
During the reign of Elizabeth I, many men who were implicated in the Babington Plot,
the plot which resulted in the execution were hanged, drawn and quartered.
These included the ringleader Anthony Babington.
But as mentioned many priests who refused to support the King or Queen’s religious
policies were subjected to this after being condemned for treason.
These were very peaceful people who had committed no crimes except having their own opinion.
It was an execution method that had a number of steps, combining beheading and disembowlling,
and it was this execution method that really hit home about the Tudor Period being a brutal
and barbaric method.
Women were not subjected to this, and they were instead hanged at execution sites such
as Tyburn.
But one execution method which was completely barbaric and tragic that occurred inside of
the Tudor Period was boiling alive.
This was performed a few times throughout History, but Henry VIII’s notorious reputation
was made incredibly harrowing by executions such as boiling alive.
Henry VIII even changed the laws of his country to ensure that boiling alive could be used
as a method of execution.
This was performed upon a cook named Richard Roose, who was accused in 1531 of poisoning
members of the household of Bishop John Fisher.
Fisher was hated by Henry VIII and some people have attributed Henry VIII or Anne Boleyn
as being behind the poisoning plot.
But two people died from poisoning and many more became ill, John Fisher was not affected
as he did not eat the porridge which had been spoiled.
But shortly after this, Richard Roose the cook was arrested and he was taken to the
Tower of London and was tortured on the rack.
He admitted that he had introduced what he thought was a laxative as a joke, and he claimed
that no one could have died from this.
It was said, On the Eighteenth day of February, 1531, one Richard Roose, of Rochester, Cook,
also called Richard Cooke, did cast poison into a vessel, full of yeast or Baum, standing
in the kitchen of the Bishop of Rochester's Palace, at Lambeth March, by means of which
two persons who happened to eat of the pottage made with such yeast died.
But Henry VIII himself was incredibly fearful of poisoning, and with this Roose was not
tried and he was not able to defend himself.
The King instead spoke to the Lords of Parliament for an hour and a half about the poisonings
and he himself condemned and organised Roose’s death.
But what he did next was extraordinary, as he changed the definition of treason in the
law, that said that anyone who carried out a poisoning was committing treason, and the
punishment for this would be boiling alive.
For Richard Roose there was a symbolic element of his execution, as with him being boiled
alive in a pot could be interpreted as he being the poison added to the pot or food.
But also it can be seen that as he was a cook, the King was mocking his work and livelihood
as he was being cooked in a pot.
The execution of boiling alive took place on the 15th April 1532 at Smithfield, and
it took 2 hours.
Richard Roose was tied up in chains and was gibbeted and then lowered in and out of the
boiling water three times until he was dead.
One witness said of the proceedings, ‘He roared mighty loud, and divers women who were
big with child did feel sick at the sight of what they saw, and were carried away half
dead; and other men and women did not seem frightened by the boiling alive, but would
prefer to see the headsman at his work.’
It was a truly harrowing execution method rarely used during the Tudor Period, but it
was certainly one of the most barbaric.
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