Hi my name is Kevin Hicks and welcome to my YouTube channel
the History Squad. Now today's video is about a character I’ve been fascinated with for years,
the executioner Jack Ketch which in my opinion is one of the most bloodthirsty public servants that
England has ever had. So Jack Ketch appointed as public executioner 1663. He was a public servant,
paid to do the job. We know very little about his early life, we know he was married,
uh we also know his wife I think regarding him as a bit of a bungling idiot but that's between those
two. He was famous as the hangman for the Tyburn triple tree and that could hang dozens of people
at once but he appeared to play to the crowd, the more I read about him the more I think to myself
this this guy was a showman, a sadist or was he just a simpleton playing to the crowd, however his
victims could be made to suffer. You didn't have a long drop on the Tyburn tree and then snap this
is what Ketch used to do. You will have already come the distance from Newgate prison in London to
the outskirts to the triple tree Tyburn. The rope will be tied up to the beam put around your neck
tightened this is the knot they used yeah but a much thicker rope, this is just for you to see
you would then be stood on the edge of a cart, a horse and carr, nothing else no long drop
and the cart would simply be pulled away and you will swing off it and you will choke to death. He
could make you dance, dangle and people had this love-hate relationship with Jack Ketch,
you know was he this evil man was he sadistic or was he just giving everybody,
you know a performance for their money. It's awful to think isn't it because he was playing with life
and death. Well this got into the psyche of the Londoners so much so that the Punch and
Judy shows that used to be around they changed the villain. Punchinello used to beat the devil,
but they changed it he beat Jack Ketch. He used to beat him with a slap and a stick
where they get the same slapstick for slapstick comedy but there's actually an image showing
Punchinello, Punch and Judy hanging Jack Ketch and showing him how to hang someone correctly.
Now Jack Ketch already notorious as a hangman on the 21st of July 1683 he becomes an axe man,
this is the execution of Lord Russell uh it was part of a plot to assassinate both Charles II
and James II. This is uh quite a period of history, becomes the Monmouth rebellion. Well Lord
Russell he is found guilty of treason, there's this whole plot around him. Jack Ketch he's simply
told you're gonna have to cut off his head. He'd never wielded an axe before in his life and poor
Lord Russell can smell beer, ale on the breath of Ketch. He's nervous. So he gives him 10 guineas
and asks him to do a good job he then kneels down and what happens now he's actually awful.
The first blow misses the head and the neck completely but splits the shoulder. Can you
imagine the agony of having an axe, woof, straight through your shoulder,
he then pulls it out. Now I know from experience using an axe, not on somebody's head, but once
it's in the ground, it's in the wood or it's in a piece of meat, you've got to really pull it back.
He then brings the axe down again misses the head misses, the neck but almost severs
Lord Russell's ear he must have been in agony there must have been blood all over the place.
Lord Russell turns his head to Ketch and calls him 'you dog'. Ketch then brings the axe down
again and again, so many times, nobody can tell you exactly how many times he brought the axe
down upon the head. He fails to sever it with the axe, he tries to give up but the sheriff
tells him 'get on with the job you dog'. He then uses one of these, a short saw, to finish off
the job, he holds up the head. The public are absolutely going berserk, this was terrible,
but hey he did the job and what he becomes now is the executioner, the hangman,
the axe man for the Bloody Assizes, Judge Jeffreys, over the Monmouth rebellion
and this is interesting because I have possibly a personal connection to this Dr John Hicks,
he was executed so I understand at Glastonbury in the west country there home drawn and quartered
by Ketch. So Jack Ketch's fame is assured the execution of poor Lord Russell
people can remember it so two years later, July 1685 the execution of the Duke of Monmouth for
his part in the Monmouth Rebellion on Tower Hill there, the crowd are gathering. They want to see
another show, another famous gentry is going to be executed, but this is so important that there is
a circle of guards around the execution block. The crowd presses in and Jack Ketch is there. Now
the Duke of Monmouth turns to Jack Ketch and says here are six guineas don't hack me like you did my
friend Lord Russell, my servant has more gold for you if you do a good job. So the Duke of Monmouth
bows his head to the block, kneels down, places his head over the block.
The first blow didn't hit the neck squarely, neither did the second. This man the Duke of
Monmouth must have been in agony, blood spurting everywhere. Now scuffles break out in the crowd,
there is gonna be trouble, the guards have to turn away from the execution to put down people, push
them back. They say took five blows to actually sever their head. Now Jack Ketch has struck again,
he will now have to be escorted from the scene by armed guards so angry were the crowd.
So this business with Jack Ketch is interesting, isn't it? You know this the execution of the Duke
of Monmouth if he'd have done it right, if it had severed their head one maybe two blows,
he'd have had an extra bag of gold, so it begs the question doesn't it, was he bribed ordered by
the king to make these executions as violent and painful as possible? Or did he just not care about
the money? Did he hate the aristocracy? Or was he a bit of a bumbling fool like his wife thought?
Let's have your opinion let me know in the comment section what you think about Jack Ketch,
the infamous executioner. So we have a bit of an insight into what Ketch may have really been like,
uh it's talks about Ketch's kitchen which was the place where he took the severed heads and
the quartered bodies to be prepared for public display and we have an eyewitness account,
Thomas Elwood who was a friend of John Milton the poet who was in um prison in Newgate prison for uh
something he'd done he was a religious reformist and he bore witness to Jack Ketch bringing in the
severed heads of some of the victims and this is what he had to say. "When they were brought
up to be boiled, the hangman fetched them in a dusty dirty basket out of some place, and setting
them down among the felons he then made sport with them. They took them by the hair flouting,
jeering and laughing at them and then giving them some ill names boxed them on the ears and cheeks
which done, the hangman put them in his kettle and parboiled them with bay salt and cumin seed, that
to keep from putrification and this to keep off the fowls from seizing on them. The whole sight
as well as that of the bloody quarters first as this of the heads afterwards was both frightening
and loathsome and begat an abhorrence in my nature." So I’ll just clarify this, basically then
Thomas Elwood witnesses Ketch bringing the heads of the victims, I’ve got one here,
of course I have. But then amongst the felons, the other prisoners, they make fun they slap them,
hold them by the hair, give them names before he boils them. Now they're boiled with um bay salt
that preserves the body so they won't putrefy because the public previously had complained
how the quarters and, and heads stank the places out and then there is the, the cumin which
actually keeps um the birds from pecking these things to pieces, they don't like it apparently.
So Jack Ketch he would play with the heads, he would have sport with them,
so was he a sadist? 23 years reign as the public executioner it finished in 1686 he actually died
in the December but earlier on in the year he got into trouble and he was put into Bridewell Prison
for insulting the sheriff. Now his replacement Pascha Rose who was a butcher by trade wasn't in
office for very long because he himself was hanged for burglary so they had to fetch Jack Ketch out
of prison but he didn't last long December of that year he died. His legacy for the next 200
years at least, every executioner in England, possibly Britain will be known as Jack Ketch.
So I hope you enjoyed our little video there, if you did don't forget like,
share and subscribe and don't forget to turn on the notification button so you know when there's
a new video coming through but now I must give a shout out to two of my patrons there we've got
Sean Keohane and Ryan Partington. I did something the first time the other
day with my Patreons, we had a Zoom hangout and I’m determined to do some more of these
we had some fun, really did and it was great to see the faces, but for now, thank you very much.