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Hanging, drawing and quartering
by King George
Friday, Sep. 21, 2007 at 9:00 AM
To be hanged, drawn, and quartered was the penalty once ordained in England for treason. It was only applied to male criminals. Women found guilty of treason in England were burnt at the stake.
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Until 1870, the full punishment for the crime was to be "hanged, drawn, and quartered"
(picture)
in that the convict would be:
- Dragged on a hurdle (a wooden frame) to the place of execution. (drawn)
- Hanged by the neck, but removed before death (hanged).
- Disembowelled, and the genitalia and entrails burned before the victim's eyes (often mistaken for drawing).
- 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, town, or, in famous cases, country, 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.
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.
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