Hanging, drawing and quartering
To be
hanged, drawn, and quartered was the
penalty once ordainedin
England for
treason. It is considered by many to be the epitome of
"cruel" punishment, and was reserved for the crime of
treason, which was deemed more heinous than
murder and other
capital crimes. It was only applied to male criminals: women found guilty of treason in England were
burnt at the stake, a punishment which was abolished in
1790.
Until
1870, the full punishment for the crime was to be
"hanged, drawn, and quartered" in that the convict would be:
#Dragged on a hurdle (a wooden frame) to the place of execution.#
Hanged["Hanging. The use of hanged is preferable to that of hung [which has considerable other connotations, as in 'hung like a horse'], when reference is had to death or execution by suspension, and it is also more common." See Webster's 1913 Dictionary] by the neck, but removed before death (
hanged).#
Disembowelled, and the genitalia and entrails burned before the victim's eyes (
drawn).
[Extracts from the transcript of the October 1660 trial and execution of 10 regicides At the end of the article there is a description of the executions. They were all hanged drawn and quartered apart from Francis Hacker who was hanged.]#
Beheaded and the body divided into four parts (
quartered).
Typically, the resulting five parts (i.e., the four quarters of the body and the head) were
gibbeted (put on public display) in different parts of the city or town to deter would-be traitors. Gibbeting was abolished in England in
1843.
There is confusion among modern historians about whether "drawing" referred to the dragging to the place of execution or the disembowelling, but since two different words are used in the official documents detailing the trial of
William Wallace (
"detrahatur" for drawing as a method of transport, and
"devaletur" for disembowelment), there is no doubt that the victims of this extraordinarily cruel form of punishment were in fact disembowelled.
[George Neilson, Drawing, Hanging and Quartering published in Notes and Queries, 15 August 1891; s7-XII: 129 - 131.]Judges delivering sentence at the
Old Bailey also seemed to have had some confusion over the term "drawn", and some sentences are summarised as "Drawn, Hanged and Quartered". Nevertheless, the sentence was often recorded quite explicitly. For example, the record of the trial of Thomas Wallcot, John Rouse, William Hone and William Blake for offences against the king, on
12 July, 1683 concludes as follows:
"Then Sentence was passed, as followeth, viz. That they should return to the place from whence they came, from thence be drawn to the Common place of Execution upon Hurdles, and there to be Hanged by the Necks, then cut down alive, their Privy-Members cut off, and Bowels taken out to be burnt before their Faces, their Heads to be severed from their Bodies, and their Bodies divided into four parts, to be disposed of as the King should think fit."[Thomas Wallcot, John Rouse, William Hone, William Blake, offences against the king: treason, 12th July, 1683. The Proceedings of the Old Bailey Ref: t16830712-4. See Proceedings of the Old Bailey]
This gruesome penalty was first used by
King Edward I ('Longshanks') in his efforts to bring Wales, Scotland and Ireland under English rule.
It was first inflicted in
1283 on the
Welsh prince
Dafydd ap Gruffydd in
Shrewsbury. Dafydd had been a hostage in the English court in his youth, growing up with Edward and for several years fought alongside Edward against his brother
Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the
Prince of Wales. Llywelyn had won recognition of the title, 'Prince of Wales', from Edward's father
King Henry III, and both Edward and his father had been imprisoned by Llywelyn's ally,
Simon de Montfort, the Earl of Leicester in 1264. Thus Edward's enmity towards Llywelyn ran deep. When Dafydd returned to the side of his brother and attacked the English Hawarden castle, Edward saw this as both a personal betrayal and a military setback and hence his punishment of Dafydd was specifically designed to be harsher than any previous form of capital punishment. The punishment was part of an overarching strategy to eliminate Welsh independence. Edward built an 'iron ring' of castles in Wales and had Dafydd's young sons incarcerated for life in
Bristol Castle and daughters sent to a nunnery in England, whilst having his own son,
Edward II assume the title Prince of Wales. Dafydd's head joined that of his brother Llywelyn (killed in a skirmish months earlier) on top of the
Tower of London, where the skulls were still visible many years later. His quartered body parts were sent to four English towns for display.
Two decades later
Sir William Wallace, the Scottish '
Braveheart', was the next to suffer the fate, as a consequence of Edward I's Scottish wars. The precedent had been set and the punishment became the ultimate penalty for treason against the English crown. However it can be argued (and indeed was by Dafydd ap Gruffydd and William Wallace in their trials) that these first two victims of the penalty were not traitors as they fought in defence of Wales and Scotland.
In the aftermath of the
Babington plot to murder
Queen Elizabeth I and replace her on the throne with
Mary Queen of Scots, the conspirators were condemned to this method of execution in September 1586. On hearing of the appalling agony which the first seven victims 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 dead. Other Elizabethans who were executed in this way include Elizabeth's own physician Dr.
Rodrigo Lopez, a Portuguese Jew, who was convicted of conspiring against her in 1594, and the Jesuit
Edmund Campion.
Other notable victims of the punishment include
Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators in the
Gunpowder Plot to assassinate
James I in 1606. 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. A co-conspirator,
Robert Keyes, had attempted the same trick, but unfortunately for him the rope broke, so he was drawn fully conscious.
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".[Antonia Fraser, Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot, Anchor, 1997. ISBN 0385471904]
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
John Pym,
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
23rd 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.
The crime of
treason, or
offences against the king (or
queen) is often thought of in terms of attempted regicides, such as Guy Fawkes and others mentioned above. However, the crime was interpreted at different periods of English history to include a variety of acts which, at the time, were deemed to threaten the constitutional authority of the monarchy.
For example, on
12 December 1674, William Burnet, was condemned to this punishment for offences against the king: namely that he "had often endeavoured to reconcile divers of his Majesties Protestant subjects to the Romish Church, and had actually perverted several to embrace the Roman Catholique Religion, and assert and maintain the Popes supremacy." In other words, he had come to England and attempted to convert
Protestants to
Catholicism. In similar vein, John Morgan was also sentenced to this punishment on
30 April 1679, for having received orders from the
See of Rome, and coming to England: there being "very good Evidence that proved he was a Priest, and had said Mass".
On the same day in 1679, two other people were found guilty of offences against the king, at the Old Bailey. In this case, they had been "Coyning and Counterfeiting". Again, they were sentenced to be Hanged, Drawn, and Quartered.In a similar case on
15 October 1690, Thomas Rogers and Anne Rogers were tried for "Clipping 40 pieces of Silver" (in other words, clipping the edges off silver coins). Thomas Rogers was hanged, drawn and quartered and Anne Rogers was burnt alive.
Men convicted of the lesser crime of
petty treason were dragged to the place of execution and hanged until dead, but not subsequently dismembered. Women convicted of treason or petty treason were
burnt at the stake rather than being subjected to this punishment.
In Britain, this penalty was usually reserved for commoners, including knights; noble traitors were "merely" beheaded, at first by sword and later by axe. The different treatment of lords and commoners was clear after the
Cornish Rebellion of 1497: lowly-born
Michael An Gof and
Thomas Flamank were hanged, drawn and quartered at
Tyburn, while their fellow rebellion leader
Lord Audley was beheaded at
Tower Hill.
This class distinction was brought out in a
Commons debate of 1680, with regard to the Warrant of Execution of Lord Stafford, which condemned him to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Sir
William Jones is quoted as saying "Death is the substance of the Judgment; the manner of it is but a circumstance...No man can show me an example of a Nobleman that has been quartered for High-Treason: They have been only beheaded". The House then resolved that "Execution be done upon Lord Stafford, by severing his Head from his Body."
[Anchitell Grey, Grey's Debates of the House of Commons: volume 8, London, 1769]Dismemberment of the body after death was seen by many contemporaries as a way of punishing the traitor beyond the grave. In western European Christian countries, until relatively recently, it was believed that to rise on
judgment day the body had to be whole and preferably buried with the feet to the east so that the person would rise facing God. A Parliamentary Act from the reign of
Henry VIII stipulated that only the corpses of executed murderers could be used for dissection. Being thus dismembered was viewed as an extra punishment not suitable for others. There are cases on record where murderers would try to plead guilty to another capital offence so that, although they would be hanged, their body would be buried whole and not be dissected.
Attitudes towards this issue changed very slowly in Britain and was not manifested in law until the passing of the
Anatomy Act in
1832. However, for many of the British population it was not until the 20th century that the link between the body and resurrection was finally broken. Respect for the dead is still a sensitive issue in Britain as can been seen by the furore over the "
Alder Hey organs scandal" when the organs of children were kept without parents' informed consent
[Alder Hey organs scandal: the issue explained by David Batty and Jane Perrone Friday April 27, 2001 in The Guardian].
An account is provided by the diary of
Samuel Pepys for Saturday 13 October 1660, in which he describes his attendance at the execution of Major-General
Thomas Harrison, who was a
Fifth Monarchist. The complete diary entry for the day, given below, illustrates the matter-of-fact way in which the execution is treated by Pepys, who seems to handle it with less emotion than he devotes to the untidiness of his wife:
"To my Lord's in the morning, where I met with Captain Cuttance, but my Lord not being up 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. It is said, that he said that he was sure to come shortly at the right hand of Christ to judge them that now had judged him; and that his wife do expect his coming again. Thus it was my chance to see the King beheaded at White Hall, and to see the first blood shed in revenge for the blood of the King at Charing Cross. From thence to my Lord's, and took Captain Cuttance and Mr. Sheply to the Sun Tavern, and did give them some oysters. After that I went by water home, where I was angry with my wife for her things lying about, and in my passion kicked the little fine basket, which I bought her in Holland, and broke it, which troubled me after I had done it. Within all the afternoon setting up shelves in my study. At night to bed."[Robert Latham and William Matthews (editors) The Diary of Samuel Pepys. Volume I. Introduction and 1660, Bell & Hyman, London, 1970. ISBN 0713515511]
At 26-27 Great Tower Street, Tower Hill, London, there is a pub called "The Hung [sic] Drawn and Quartered". On the wall is the quotation from
Samuel Pepys, shown above. The pub is close to the site of several executions, but not to Charing Cross.
Shakespeare's play
Henry V features the discovery of a
French plot to kill
King Henry V before he sailed to France. Two of the conspirators (
Henry, Lord Scroop of Masham, and
Richard, Earl of Cambridge) were nobles and were beheaded;
Thomas Grey, Knight of Northumberland, was drawn and quartered.
In
Robin Hobb's "realist" fantasy novels "The Farseer Trilogy" and "The Tawny Man Trilogy", villagers accused of being able to talk to animals are hanged, quartered and burned.
Charles Dickens'
A Tale Of Two Cities also refers to
Charles Darnay possibly being drawn and quartered as a punishment if he was convicted of treason.
The historical execution of the regicide
Robert-François Damiens, including
quartering using horses, drew prominent late-20th-century attention:
* In the 1963 play
Marat/Sade, the playwright
Peter Weiss has his imagined version of the
Marquis de Sade describe it with relish.
* A decade later,
Michel Foucault described and discussed it in the introduction of his
Surveiller et Punir (English edition,
Discipline and Punish).
In
France, the traditional punishment for
regicide (whether attempted or completed) under the
ancien régime (known in
French as
ecartèlement) is often described as "quartering", though it in fact has little to do with the English punishment. The process was as follows: the regicide would be first tortured with red-hot pincers, then the hand with which the crime was committed would be burnt with
sulphur and molten
lead and
wax and
boiling oil poured into the wounds. The quartering would be accomplished by the attachment of the victim's limbs to horses, who would then tear them away from the body. Finally, the often still-living torso would be burnt. Notable examples include:
*
Jean Châtel, who attempted to assassinate
Henri IV*
François Ravaillac (1578 â€"
27 May 1610) was the murderer of
King Henry IV of France and was punished by being "scalded with burning sulphur, molten lead and boiling oil and resin, his flesh then being torn by pincers ..." before he was drawn and quartered.
*
Robert-François Damiens, who attempted the assassination of
Louis XV in
1757 (At least two prominent 20th-century
intellectuals described this execution.)
*
Jacques Clément, the murderer of
Henri III (He was killed in this act of regicide, and his corpse was subjected to the same "punishment".)
*
Balthasar Gérard, assassin of
William the Silent, but only after two days of tenacious
torture.
These executions were carried out (along with most others under the ancien régime) in the
Place de Grève.
*
William Wallace's execution*
Proceedings of the Old Bailey*
The Francis Henry de la Motte Website
