Hello. I(f you enjoyed our video on burning at the stake, and frankly who wouldn't?
Then you may recall that we said that we'd bring you a video on hanging, drawing and quartering,
probably the best known horrific execution method. It's not the most horrific in history, now we're
going to get to those later in the series, but it is certainly the most well-known traitor's death.
Now for the uninitiated amongst you hanging drawing and quartering involves
being dragged to a place of execution, hanged but not until dead, being disembowelled in front
of a live audience, and then having the body separated usually into four quarters and a head,
hence the name. Now mutilation of the body has been a punishment, well since the dawn of time,
but hanging drawing and quartering as an official punishment is actually relatively modern by the
standards of punishment. It was brought into law in the Treason Act of 1351 by Edward III.
It had happened before that, plenty of times, William Wallace suffered it on the orders of
Edward's grandfather, and Hugh Despenser the younger suffered it on the orders of Edward's mother.
That's a happy family don't you think? now before the Treason Act you could, technically, hand this
down for absolutely any crime, but Edward's Act of Parliament made this very treason specific. When we
think of treason though, we think of trying to kill the king. Like the gunpowder plotters. But there's
actually quite a few crimes that fall under that banner even before we get to the bloody code.
These are: planning or imagining the death of the king, his wife or his eldest son and heir. Sleeping
with the king's wife his eldest daughter, if she were unmarried, or the wife of his eldest son.
Making war against the king in his realm. Giving aid and comfort to the king's enemies
anywhere. Counterfeiting the great seal or privy seal or the king's coinage.
Knowingly importing counterfeit money
or killing the Chancellor, Treasurer or one of the King's Officers while performing their
duties. That's quite an impressive list, and money counterfeiters you better beware.
So, once sentenced, the condemned is dragged to the place of execution. It's debated among some
people whether this is the drawing referred to in the description but we'll come to that.
In later years this would be somebody tied to a hurdle, or a board, and pulled through the
streets. But in earlier sentences it could be just dragged behind a horse to the place of execution,
and that journey would be through sand, grit, cobblestones, and by the time you reach the
execution site you may well be suffering several broken bones and other injuries.
If we look at Francis Dereham, who's one of those executed for relations with Catherine Howard, the
report of his execution in Wriothsley's Chronicles states "Culpepper and Dereham were drawn from the
Tower of London to Tyburn". Take a look at the map. That's four miles. Over an hour, and during this
time you're pretty much at the mercy of the crowd. William Wallace was pelted with food and waste
while he was dragged by his feet from the Tower to Smithfield, where his monument stands today.
Sometimes the condemned man will be barely alive by the time he reached the gallows.
Then, after the condemned had had a chance to confess his crimes and sins before the crowd,
he would be hanged. Not your typical hanging though, he will be hanged to a point just before death.
In practice this was not that long. Because executioners at the time were hardly the cream
of the intelligence corps, and it was important that the victim was still alive at this stage.
Because now is where it starts to get graphic. So just be warned we're going to talk some gruesome
stuff here. I'm sure you're not worried because you've purposefully clicked into
a video about hanging, drawing and quartering, but as i say viewer discretion is advised.
Once the body's cut down, alive and still conscious then the process of public dismemberment begins,
and we do mean 'dismemberment'. The member, the genitals, are the first thing removed and they're
usually burnt in front of the victim. Because this is supposed to be a degrading punishment.
Then the body is cut open, and the inner organs and entrails drawn out of the body and again burnt,
and do note at this point they are still attached to the body. This is described in
the sentence passed on Major General Harrison, who had signed the death warrant of Charles the First.
The sentence was that "to be led to the place from whence you came,
and from thence be drawn upon a hurdle to the place of execution, and then you shall
be hanged by the neck and, being alive shall be cut down, and your privy members to be cut off,
and your entrails to be taken out of your body, and you living, the same to be burnt before your eyes.
This is the other 'drawing' that people debate about, although it's rather a pointless debate
in my opinion. As in pretty much all cases of hanging, drawing and quartering, both the
drawing by hurdle to the gallows, and the drawing out of the entrails while alive, both occurred.
Which one the title actually refers to is pretty immaterial when you think about it.
Now following this the potentially alive, yes it did happen more often than you think.
Thomas Blount executed in 1400 for plotting against Henry IV was still
capable of replying to taunts after his bowels had been cut out and burned.
He said "Te Deum Laudimus. Blessed be the day on which i was born, and blessed be this day
for i shall die in the service of my sovereign lord, the noble King Richard. That's Richard II.
So following this, the potentially alive victim would be beheaded, and then the body separated into
pieces. The quartering as it were. Some accounts describe this as cutting. Some across accounts
describe this as tearing apart by horses, and what happens to the body parts varies.
Typically the head would be displayed somewhere prominent, the other body parts might be displayed
around the country as a warning to others, but just as often they'd be disposed of as at the whim of
the monarch. It could even be back to the family members of the deceased. At the execution of the
Monmouth Rebels in 1663, the body parts were then boiled, tarred, and displayed on lampposts, trees
and poles, and this strikes me that somebody has had a good look at that punishment and thought
"hanging, drawing and quartering? Too damned good for him"! But, you know, James II can be like that.
You would think against this backdrop that the witnessing members of the public will be quite
horrified and outraged. Well not so much. If we look at this extract from famous diarist Samuel Pepys,
he wrote his eyewitness account of the execution of Major General Harrison on the 13th of October
1660. "I went out to Charing Cross to see Major General Harrison hanged, drawn and quartered,
which was done there. He looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition. He was
presently cut down and his head and heart shown to the people, at which there was great shouts of joy".
He describes the rest of his day as putting up shelves. Now the early 19th century saw a time
of great penal reform and thankfully hanging, drawing and quartering saw its last. The last
man to be hanged, drawn and quartered in the UK was David Tyrie in 1782. He was a Scotsman convicted
of being a French spy, and while the sentence was passed on a number of people a number of times
subsequently, it was really only hanging followed by beheading, and it wasn't done publicly either.
It was nowhere near the gruesome spectacle that had been seen in earlier times.
Now with the development of more effective policing law enforcement and the end of
the Bloody Code punishments began to be more associated with reform and rehabilitation
rather than deterrent, and a softening descended over the UK's criminal justice system.
But officially hanging, drawing and quartering was not officially abolished until as late as 1870
That is about halfway through Queen Victoria's reign. Hanging remained the execution method
of choice for treason, and would stay on the statute books all the way until 1998 when the
final abolition of capital punishment was passed through parliament, and that truly closed the door
on a gruesome chapter of our history. But we're by no means the most gruesome and we'll come to those
in future episodes. I do hope you'll join us then. Thanks for listening. Bye