One of the greatest and most common fears people have is drowning, and throughout history
it has been used as a method of execution for a wide variety of crimes.
During the Medieval period and later centuries, witches were often subject to drowning or
being dunked in rivers.
Some witches were thrown into rivers with stones to weigh them down, and if they rose
up to the surface they were deemed witches, but if they didn’t they would be killed
anyway.
This brutal way of working out if women were witches resulted in dozens of deaths, and
also other tools were used such as ducking stools where women were lowered into water
for a significant time.
Drowning was used for other crimes and reasons, and it has recently been used in the world.
But why is it one of History’s most brutal execution methods?
Remember to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
One reason why different cultures and countries throughout the years used drowning to execute
criminals was because of a belief that shedding the blood of royals, the King Queen or members
of the royal family was wrong.
They did not want to split royal blood, and in Cambodia this was used as a way of putting
the royal family to death.
Execution using drowning was described in Burma also as, ‘When a person of royal extraction
is to receive a capital punishment, it is generally done by drowning; in the first place
the person is tied hands and feet, then sewed up in a red bag, which again is sometimes
put into a jar, and thus the prisoner is lowered down into the water, with a weight sufficient
to sink him.
This practice is resorted to because it is reckoned a sin to spill royal blood.’
But in other Eastern Asian countries, it was done to protect the royal privilege of avoiding
having their blood being spilled, so methods such as beheading, hanging drawing and quartering
and using animals could not be used.
In the Kingdom of Assam, the lower courts of justice could only order executions by
drowning, death by cudgelling with clubs on the head and so on.
This belief of not spilling blood has been linked also with religion as medieval priests
would not spill blood even when they fought, using clubs in battle.
But in other Islamic cultures, the belief of bloodshed of the royals was also found.
One man from Thailand was drowned in the sea, and in the Ottoman Empire it was used to execute
the brothers of the chosen sultan to prevent political succession crisis, drowning other
possible heirs.
They also used strangulation to ensure blood was not shed.
This belief was also found in African cultures, but in Europe drowning had been used for centuries.
It was linked to witchcraft and other crimes, but it was outlawed in many countries during
the 1500s.
The final drownings in some Germany lands came in the 16th century but there were many
cases of drowning.
In 1580, executioner Franz Schmidt managed to get the practice of drowning banned and
instead convinced the local authorities to use beheading or hanging instead.
In 1562, in Rothenburg a woman was drowned for killing her child, and a number of women
guilty of this crime were drowned.
In some lands, drowning was replaced by other execution methods such as using the braking
wheel also, and some countries did outlaw it later.
But in some countries and lands, there were specific pits and areas where drowning executions
took place.
The drowning pits or drowning pools were also known as murder holes of murder pools, and
were specifically used for executing women and girls especially inside of Scotland.
If there was a loch or a river found near to a hill or mound, the local official would
announce the death sentence on the hill to the crowd, before the condemned was taken
to the river and drowned in the pit.
In Scotland in 1057, drowning pits were put into legal use as King Malcolm Canmore said
that every baron should have a well or a pit which was to be used for executing women.
In some of these sites, there have been a collection of bones found, showing that the
people were executed there and then buried next to the river.
Some drowning pits were simply holes with water in them, or some were lochs which were
still.
But some were more advanced and had ladders in them.
The condemned person would be forced to climb the ladder and then the ladder was taken away.
Some other drowning pits had hurdles in them which were used to then hold the person before
they were lowered below the water and drowned.
Men at the time were hanged on the gibbet, and women were drowned in fens, rivers and
pits.
It was considered by some a less violent death succumbing to the rivers or lochs, as opposed
to gibbetting which was brutal and very public with bodies being left on display for some
time.
Some drowning pits were found close to the house of a clan chief or a baron, and also
there were many gallows sits found close to water.
A pit or ditch then did not have to be made, and there are some drowning pits which utilise
ditches and the landscape.
On Gallows Hill in Cruden, criminals were executed but a deep pool was found nearby
in the water where many women were drowned.
In the drowning pools at Balliemore, in the pit there many women criminals, murderers
and even women accused of witchcraft were drowned.
One is also found near Mugdock Castle, where there was a small piece of water at the foot
of a gibbet where women were executed beneath the men.
In Straiton, there is a murder hole which is rather marshy and others can be found across
Scotland.
The practice may also have spread to England, as the owner of Baynard's Castle during the
reign of King John was allowed to drown traitors in the River Thames.
This was used for many people considered pirates, and one example of drowning on the Thames
includes Alice Tankerville.
She was a thief who along with her husband was arrested, but Tankerville then fell in
love with a Beefeater during her imprisonment at the Tower of London.
She convinced him to help her escape, and they did manage to flee the Tower but were
captured shortly after.
Both Tankerville and her husband were then hanged in chains at the low water mark on
the River Thames, and then as the River rose, the pair were drowned and killed.
Also keelhauling used by sailors which was punishment for mutiny, in which sailors were
passed under the keel of the ship resulted at times in drowning as it was so dangerous.
It was also used during the Crusades by Richard the lionheart for any of his soldiers who
killed any fellow soldiers on crusade inside of the Holy Lands.
But drowning was a method of execution used by many different counties to punish a number
of different crimes.
Probably today it is most remembered for being a punishment and brutal death for those women
who were accused of witchcraft.
Sadly over the centuries, thousands of women were drowned across the world after they were
falsely accused of being involved in witchcraft or sorcery.
It was a brutal death, but was regarded by some as kinder than methods applied to others
such as Gibbeting or hanging, drawing and quartering.
But drowning today remains one of people’s most common fears, and the execution method
was a brutal way of killing many different possible criminals and women.
Thanks for watching
To support please subscribe
Thanks for watching.