Hanging drawing and quartering: Encyclopedia II - Hanging drawing and quartering - History

Hanging drawing and quartering - History

This gruesome penalty was first used by King Edward I ('Longshanks') in his efforts to bring all of Great Britain under English rule. It was first inflicted in 1283 on the Welsh prince Dafydd ap Gruffydd, and on Sir William Wallace two decades later.

One of the most savage uses of this method of execution was carried out in September 1586 in the aftermath of the Babington plot to murder Queen Elizabeth I and replace her on the throne with Mary Queen of Scots. On hearing of the appalling agony which the first seven conspirators were subjected to while being butchered on the scaffold Elizabeth ordered that the remaining conspirators, who were to be despatched on the following day, should be left hanging until they were quite dead. Other Elizabethans who were executed in this way include Shakespeare's uncle, Elizabeth's own physician Dr Lopez, a Portuguese Jew, who was convicted of conspiring against her in 1594, and the Jesuit Edmund Campion. It is a rather disturbing fact that more Catholics were hung, drawn and quartered in Elizabeth's reign for 'treason' than the number of Protestants who had been burnt at the stake by her predecessor Mary I for heresy.

Other notable victims of the punishment include Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot to assassinate James I in 1606. The Gunpowder Plot conspirator, Robert Keyes, tried to kill himself by jumping when the noose was placed around his neck. Unfortunately for him the rope broke, so he was drawn fully conscious. Fawkes, though weakened by torture, cheated the executioners. When he was to be hanged until almost dead, he jumped from the gallows, so his neck broke and he died. Henry Garnet was executed on 3rd May 1606 at St Paul's. His crime was to be the confessor of several members of the Gunpowder Plot. Many spectators thought that his sentence was too severe. Antonia Fraser writes:

"With a loud cry of 'hold, hold' they stopped the hangman cutting down the body while Garnet was still alive. Others pulled the priest's legs ... which was traditionally done to ensure a speedy death".

During the English Civil War (1639-1651) the first prominent Parliamentarian captured by the Royalists was John Lilburne. Proposals to try him for treason were dropped when the Parliamentary side threatened to retaliate against captured Royalists. Instead Lilburne was freed in an exchange of prisoners.

Over six days in 1660, at the Restoration of Charles II, nine of those convicted of the regicide of Charles I in 1649 were executed in London in this manner. Three more would suffer the same fate within two years. Additionally, the corpses of Oliver Cromwell, John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton were disinterred and hanged, drawn and quartered in posthumous executions for their involvement in the regicide.

Oliver Plunkett, archbishop of Armagh and the Catholic primate of Ireland, was arrested in 1681 and transported to Newgate Prison, London, where he was convicted of treason. He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn, the last Catholic to die for his faith in England. He was beatified in 1920 and was canonized in 1975 by Pope Paul VI. His head is preserved for viewing as a relic in St. Peter's Church in Drogheda.

Edward Marcus Despard and his six accomplices were sentenced to hanging, drawing and quartering for allegedly plotting to assassinate George III but their sentence was commuted to 'simple hanging and beheading'.

If there was a large rebellion against the Crown, only a few of the ring leaders would be "hanged drawn and quartered", most would either be hanged, sent to penal colonies, or pardoned. The Bloody Assizes of Judge Jeffreys after the Monmouth Rebellion is a notorious post Civil War English example, but in the aftermath of rebellions in Ireland and Scotland punishment was often just as ruthless.

During the American war of independence (1775–1783) notable captured colonists such as signers of the Declaration of Independence were subject to being hanged, drawn and quartered as traitors to the King. Those taken in arms (military) would be treated as prisoners of war.

By 1817 the three leaders of the Pentrich Rising, convicted of high treason, suffered hanging and beheading only.

The sentence was last carried out in England against French spy Francis Henry de la Motte, who was convicted of treason on 11th July 1781. In 1820, Arthur Thistlewood and other participants in the Cato Street Conspiracy were condemned to this punishment, though the court record shows that the drawing and quartering was omitted from the completion of the sentence. The sentence was passed on the Irish rebel leader William Smith O'Brien in 1848 but commuted to transportation. Some sources state that the sentence was still used as late as 1867 but this is unconfirmed.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki