Throughout History there have been many different execution methods, and in England some such
as hanging, drawing and quartering were completely barbaric.
But there have been a few which have sent chills down the spines of history students
who have learned about them, including boiling alive when Henry VIII boiled a cook in front
of a large crowd in Tudor England for allegedly poisoning a bishop.
However the Tudor times were barbaric, and it was a time of great execution across the
country as Henry VIII would execute around 70,000 of his population during the decades
he spent on the throne.
This included two of his wives, and one of them would lose her head inside of the Tower
of London by an instrument of death which was not readily used inside of the country.
The executioner’s axe was always preferred in England, but Henry VIII would order one
special execution to take place by sword.
But is this one of history’s most brutal execution methods?
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An executioner’s sword as an instrument throughout the years is rather different to
a sword which would be used in hand to hand combat.
These swords were usually intended for two handed use to allow an executioner with both
hands to get a quick and sharp swing of it.
They had a hilt like a Norman sword, but the blade lacked a point and was flat, meaning
that the side of the sword would need to be sharp to take the head clean off.
In the Medieval period, executioners did use normal swords to do this, and it was roughly
around the 16th century when swords in this manner emerged on the scaffolds across Europe.
They were used in 17th century Europe quite prominently, but they fell out of use rather
suddenly as other devices in the 18th century such as the guillotine were favoured in lands
such as France and Germany.
The final execution using sword in Europe took place in Switzerland when a man was executed
for murder, but still today in Saudi Arabia it is used to carry out executions.
The executioner’s sword would be a weapon which was special to them, and they would
need to get familiar with its weight and size to be able to perform executions in a swift
manner.
The blades were often decorated with different symbolic designs, but after their use on the
scaffold was done they often were used as swords of justice and as items stored inside
of country houses or castles.
They are very intimidating weapons when you see them up close, and what is interesting
is that the sword was considered the more reliable method of execution and beheading
over the axe.
The commoner’s axe which was used more prominently in England to take the head off a criminal
or a victim was considered sharp justice.
But it did have a propensity to go wrong at times.
The crowds who would flock to executions may have been blood thirsty and rather uncivilised
at times, but they expected a certain level of class from an executioner.
For example the London Axeman Jack Ketch during the execution of the Duke of Monmouth took
so many swings of his axe that at one point he gave up, and the crowd were so angry many
wanted Ketchs’ head on the block next as he performed his job poorly.
But a lot could go wrong with the axe, from the swing not generating enough velocity to
come down onto the victim, to hair being caught in it.
Even Mary Queen of Scots’ execution went tragically wrong during the reign of Queen
Elizabeth I.
But for many years before executions by axe had been going wrong, and this is probably
what prompted Henry VIII to summon a swordsman from France to execute his second wife Queen
Anne Boleyn.
Anne had been found guilty of trumped up and false charges of adultery, incest and treason
and for this she faced the death penalty.
But Henry VIII would order a specific number of items for his wife’s execution, he did
not want a queen to die in the same way as a commoner, so he ordered very expensive black
velvet fabric to cover the scaffold which was erected inside of the Tower of London.
But he also paid a man from Calais to do the job, known as the Swordsman of Calais.
This man it’s believed was very skilled, and Anne Boleyn herself had heard of the reputation
of the man who would take her head from her shoulders.
But the executioner had never taken the head off someone so prominent, usually dealing
with thieves and murderers but here now he was executing an English Queen.
The swordsman of Calais arrived from France and lodged inside of the Tower of London until
the day came to take Anne Boleyn’s head.
As Anne made her way to the scaffold a few hundred witnesses watched her as she was accompanied
by her ladies in waiting.
The swordsman was waiting, but the sword was nowhere to be seen, and when Anne greeted
the executioner on the scaffold she gave him a bag of coins as payment, for hopefully completing
the job quickly.
But as Anne knelt down a blindfold was placed over her head, and the swordsman took his
shoes off so he could not be heard.
The executioner’s assistant made a noise to distract Anne and she looked one way, and
from the other, the executioner emerged with his huge sword and swung it quickly and in
one swift strike Anne Boleyn, the Queen of England was dead.
Execution by sword was considered much more reliable than the axe, but as mentioned it
never really took off across England.
The King Charles I would face the axe, as would prominent people such as Thomas Cromwell,
Sir Thomas More and Catherine Howard Henry VIII’s fifth wife.
It was an execution method which was speedy and rapid, and when performed correctly would
be a brutal administering of the King or Queen’s justice.
The exact identification of the swordsman of calais who took Anne Boleyn’s head is
unknown, and the sword has been lost to time and it’s possible that the executioner’s
family kept this as an heirloom as it was the weapon that took the Queen of England’s
head, or that the executioner sold it on later.
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