The Consequence of Treason

There were more notable executions in Tudor times, Henry V111 had a number of high ranking catholic priests put to death by hanging, drawing and quartering this was done in order to subdue the catholic church. Cathrine Howard was executed by beheading but one of her lovers Francis Dereham and his friend Thomas Culpepper were not so lucky they were sentenced to the full punishment, Culpepper’s sentence was however later commuted to a mere beheading.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but calling names can’t hurt me, or so the saying goes but it could have serious consequences if you were a writer of bygone days, as William Collingbourne found out to his cost, he was hung drawn and quartered in 1485 at the order of King Richard 3rd his crime was penning the couplet “The cat, the rat and Lovel the dog all rule England under the hog”, at least these days the critics only crucify writers in a metaphorical sense.

Back to Tudor times, and the Babington plot of 1586 when a group of conspirators plotted to murder Queen Elizabeth 1st and replace her with Mary Queen of Scots, the culprits were caught, tried and found guilty of high treason, they were of course sentenced to the prescribed punishment for their crime, the executions took place over two days, on day one  seven of the prisoners suffered the full pain of their execution, on hearing of the agony the victims went through her majesty showed mercy to the remaining victims, and allowed them to be hung until they were dead before they were dismembered, after this show of compassion she was known as the Queen of Hearts.

Guy Fawkes and “the gunpowder plot” has got to be the most famous case of treason in British history, in the year of our lord 1606 Guy Fawkes and his accomplices attempted to assassinate King James 1st by blowing up The Houses of Parliament, after the failed attempt Guy and his co-conspirators were tried and sentenced to death, Fawkes was to be the first to meet his gruesome fate, but he cheated his executioners, for when the noose was placed around his neck, he jumped from the scaffold and broke his neck, one of his co-conspirators tried the same ploy but he was not so lucky, as the rope snapped, and he had to suffer the rest of his execution fully conscious.

The last man to be hung drawn and quartered on English soil was David Tyrie, he was tried and found guilty of spying for the French and was executed in August 1782.

The last execution by hanging, drawing and quartering on English soil was in 1782. But in Ireland In 1803,  one of her most famed and revered sons suffered this fate, Robert Emmett, poet, nationalist, and leader of the 1803 rebellion, some time after the failed uprising Robert was captured, and on September 19th he was tried and found guilty of treason, he was executed the next day, his speech from the dock after his conviction is one that is told time and again in Ireland. Five years previous to Emmett’s failed insurrection, fellow countryman Theobald Wolf-Tone was tried for treason for leading the 1798 rebellion, he was of course found guilty and sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered, but rather than submit to this fate he took his own life, both these men are revered in Ireland, and indeed by Irish people around the world.

After 1803 more victims were sentenced to to be hung drawn and quartered, but these were commuted to hangings, and be headings, and the method of execution was abolished entirely in 1867

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