Execution E-Book

Simon Webb

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Judicial hanging is regarded by many as being the quintessentially British execution. However, many other methods of capital punishment have been used in this country; ranging from burning, beheading and shooting to crushing and boiling to death. Execution: A History of Capital Punishment in Britain explores these types of execution in detail. Readers may be surprised to learn that a means of mechanical decapitation, the Halifax Gibbet, was being used in England five hundred years before the guillotine was invented. Boiling to death was a prescribed means of execution in this country during the Tudor period. From the public death by starvation of those gibbeted alive, to the burning of women for petit treason, this book examines some of the most gruesome passages of British history. This carefully researched, well-illustrated and enthralling text will appeal to those interested in the history of British executions.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Introduction

1.Beheading by Sword, Axe and Rope

2.The Rise of Hanging

3.Mechanical Decapitation: A British Invention

4.Shot at Dawn: The British Firing Squad at Work

5.Burning at the Stake

6.The Bloody Code: The Heyday of British Hanging

7.Drawing and Quartering: Variations on the Theme of Hanging

8.The Nineteenth Century: The Birth of Modern Hanging

9.Lesser Known Methods of British Execution: Crushing, Breaking and Boiling to Death

10.Unofficial Death Sentences: Flogging and the Pillory

11.The Twentieth Century: The Decline of the Death Penalty in Britain

12.The End of Capital Punishment in Britain

13.A Gallery of British Executioners

Bibliography

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

It is a sobering thought that for all but the last twelve or fifteen years Britain’s courts have been able to impose the death penalty for a variety of offences; both military and civil. Although the last murderers were hanged in 1964, death remained the punishment for a number of crimes, ranging from arson in Royal Dockyards and piracy on the high seas to treason, espionage and inciting mutiny in the army during time of war. It was not until a few months before the end of the twentieth century that the death penalty was finally abolished in this country for all offences. Even beheading was only removed from the statute book as recently as 1973.

This book is an account of capital punishment in Britain from the Roman occupation up to the present day. It charts the rise, decline and final abandonment of a practice which many other countries today have also rejected; that of killing those who transgress against the laws of the land, rather than fining or imprisoning them. It is almost fifty years since the last execution in this country and despite occasional demands for the return of capital punishment, usually following some particularly disgusting murder by terrorists or child abusers; the majority of us seem content that the grisly ritual of execution should remain a historical curiosity.

Most people, if asked about executions in this country, will think at once of hanging. This is perhaps inevitable; nobody has been put to death in this country by any other method since the shooting of two men at Shepton Mallet Prison in Somerset in 1944. Hanging is all that most of us can recall. However, a variety of other methods for killing criminals have been used in this country over the centuries. These range from beheading with the axe and block, to boiling in a cauldron and crushing to death. It is worth asking ourselves at this juncture what the point was of executing people in such dreadful ways as burning them alive or cutting out their hearts? The answer is simple enough, although based upon a massive misunderstanding of human nature.

It was believed, at one time, that if the penalties for committing a crime were made harsh enough, then people would be discouraged from committing them in the first place. They would see the awful consequences for the perpetrators who were caught and punished, and the result would be a reduction in the rate of this particular offence. However, we will see that when the so-called, ‘Bloody Code’ was in force and death was the penalty for over 200 offences, crimes were still committed with reckless abandon. Indeed, the crowds which gathered to watch the executions at Tyburn were generally acknowledged to be full of thieves and pickpockets, who took the opportunity presented by public executions to ply their trade, running the risk of being hanged themselves if detected in the act of theft.

It is not frightful punishments which deter crime, but the likelihood of detection. As long as the chances of being caught are slight, people will risk committing a crime. If one is likely to be caught, then even if the penalty faced is only a year or two in prison, rates for this particular crime will fall. It was not the Bloody Code which reduced crime in Britain, but rather the creation of an efficient police force.

Despite the fact that hanging was by far-and-away the most common method of capital punishment used in Britain, there is no record of its use before the coming of the Anglo-Saxons in the fifth century AD. The first named victims of capital punishment, recorded in this country, died not by the rope but by having their heads struck off with swords. It seems appropriate then to begin our investigation of executions in this country with decapitation.

All illustrations are from the author’s collection unless stated otherwise.

Simon Webb, 2011

1

BEHEADINGBY SWORD, AXEAND ROPE

Britain has a very ancient tradition of decapitation (as beheading is more technically known). The Celts, who inhabited these islands before the Roman invasion, were enthusiastic head-hunters, who collected and preserved human heads as trophies. According to some classical writers, they pickled these grisly souvenirs in cedar oil and passed them round to be admired during banquets. Almost invariably though, the severing of these heads from their bodies took place after death. The subjects of such mutilations were enemies slain in battle, rather than convicted criminals. The first recorded judicial execution by beheading, in this country, did not take place until the end of the third century AD, during the Roman occupation.

The Romans regarded death by beheading as the only honourable form of execution. It was the most dignified, and least painful, mode of capital punishment used in the Roman Empire. This was a death which was associated with the nobility; it was seldom inflicted upon common criminals. Both Mark Anthony’s grandfather and also his son were executed in this way, as were a number of famous statesmen such as Cicero. These decapitations were achieved by using a sword rather than an axe.

Before we go any further, it is perhaps worth mentioning that executions by beheading are unusual in that they typically require a good deal of cooperation from the victim if they are to be carried out successfully. The condemned person must remain perfectly still and not move, flinch or even distract the headsman at any time. Even so, accidents and miscalculations can occur and the consequences can be horrific. An example from France illustrates this point perfectly.

In 1699, Angelique Ticquet arranged to have her husband murdered. This resulted in her being sentenced to death; the execution to take place by beheading with a sword in public. On the day of the execution, a thunderstorm broke just as Ticquet was about to ascend the scaffold. She then had the thoroughly unnerving experience of having to shelter from the rain with Charles Sanson, the public executioner who was to remove her head. Sanson did not wish to risk carrying out an execution while it was raining. The heavy, double-handed sword required considerable dexterity to wield effectively and swinging it round while keeping one’s footing on a wet scaffold, during heavy rain, was asking for mishaps.

Once the storm had ended, the executioner and his victim climbed the steps to the scaffold and prepared to play their different parts. The condemned woman knelt down and asked Sanson what she should do. He replied that she should arrange her hair so that it was piled up on her head, clear of her neck. She did so and then, just as he was whirling the sword around his head, Angelique Ticquet cried out, ‘Be sure not to disfigure me!’ This startled the executioner and his blow went awry, merely gashing the woman on the head. He was so taken aback by this, that it took him a further three blows to take off her head.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, the earliest record of a judicial beheading was during the Roman occupation in AD 283. The incident involved a Christian priest who sought shelter with a young man called Alban. They both lived in the British city of Verulamium, not far from London. Christianity was being suppressed at this time, and the priest was in fear of his life. Alban not only let the man stay in his house, but he was converted and subsequently baptised by him. In order that the priest could escape, Alban suggested that they exchange clothes. The result was that Alban was sentenced to death and was beheaded with a sword on the site of what later became St Alban’s Abbey.

For the next 800 years or so, beheading was used as an occasional punishment by the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. It was not until William I invaded Britain in 1066 that decapitation became an established and respectable means of undergoing capital punishment. The first, named, victim was Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland, who had taken part in the Revolt of the Earls against William’s rule. He was convicted of treason and paid the price for his rebellion at St Giles’ Hill, near Winchester. He was beheaded with a sword on 31 May 1076. This began a very British tradition of cutting off the heads of noblemen and women who fell foul of the monarch; a tradition which was to last for the next 700 years.

Although beheading with a sword was not unknown in later years, by far the most common method of separating heads from bodies, at least in this country, was by means of an axe and block. The reasons for the use of this technique are purely practical. For one thing, using a sword to remove somebody’s head requires the complete and willing cooperation of the victim. One must stand, or kneel, perfectly still, without moving a muscle. The sword itself must be heavy and razor sharp. Not only this, but the executioner must be very skilled and highly practiced. There are many gruesome anecdotes, like the one at the beginning of this chapter, of victims who moved at the wrong moment or executioners who slipped on a wet scaffold. On the plus side, when such executions were carried out skilfully and without mishap, they could be very neat. There is a, perhaps apocryphal, story of one of the Sanson dynasty, who were the hereditary executioners of France. He was supposedly executing a nobleman who insisted on standing upright for the process, as he objected to dying on his knees. Sanson swept the sword round his head and it passed effortlessly through the man’s neck. He remained standing, however, with his head still in place, balanced on the stump of his neck. It is said that Sanson murmured to him, ‘Shake yourself monsieur, the job is done’.

The beauty of the British system is that it required brute strength, rather than skill and finesse. Neither did it matter if the condemned person fainted at the last moment; the neck was secure and in a convenient position. Another benefit was that an execution by axe and block could be undertaken effectively by any able-bodied man, without prior training; this was neatly demonstrated in March 1330. Roger Mortimer had assumed the position of dictator in Britain, although nominally acting on behalf of the teenage King Edward III. Feeling threatened by the King’s uncle, Edmund, Duke of Kent, Mortimer had him arrested on a trumped up charge of treason. The duke was swiftly sentenced to death and his execution was supposed to follow immediately. He was led out in the presence of a body of soldiers, and prepared himself for death. However, a hitch occurred. Because he was the King’s uncle, the executioner refused to behead him on the grounds that it might later be construed as an act of treason. Roger Mortimer then ordered an ordinary soldier to chop off the duke’s head, but he too refused. Not one of the soldiers would agree to have anything to do with the execution; even the officers refused to act. Mortimer then sent to the prison to see if anybody at all would wield the axe; but there were no takers.

Several hours passed with messengers going back and forth, but still no executioner could be found. It was beginning to look as though Roger Mortimer might have to undertake the job himself. Eventually, however, by offering a pardon to anybody, under sentence of death themselves, who would cut off the Duke’s head, a volunteer was found. He was a latrine cleaner who was due to be hanged the next day. In exchange for his release, he was handed the axe and told to get on with it. With no prior experience at all, he managed to remove the Duke of Kent’s head with only one stroke.

Two different blocks were used for beheadings in this country; the low and the high. The high block was preferred by most victims. It consisted of a 2ft-high block of hardwood with concave depressions scooped out on either side. The advantage of the high block for the victim was that one was able to kneel gracefully and then simply lay one’s head on the block, without having to sprawl across the scaffold in an undignified fashion. The low block was used in cases where resistance was expected, and when it might be necessary to hold the condemned person in place. It was seldom more than a foot high, making it necessary for victims to lie stretched out on their stomachs. This certainly looked less elegant than kneeling. It was also harder for the executioner to swing the axe at the correct angle.

We touch here upon a very remarkable aspect of British beheadings; it was assumed that those about to lose their heads would play their assigned part sportingly and not cut-up rough or struggle. It helped that most of those put to death like this belonged to a class with very fixed ideas about how to behave. It was also an advantage that many of the men had taken part in wars, and were expected to face death with a little more detachment than the average person. Even so, the ritual was heavily dependent on the assumption that everybody concerned – from headsman to victim – would behave properly and observe the rules of the game. On the rare occasions that these conventions were not observed, the consequences were disastrous. Take the case of Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, for instance.

Margaret Pole came from a very ancient and aristocratic family. She was a lady-in-waiting of Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Life during Henry’s reign was like a bizarre game of snakes and ladders, and the Countess of Salisbury had the misfortune to slide down one of the longer snakes. Her son became a Roman Catholic cardinal, after Henry VIII’s break with Rome, and this ultimately led to his mother’s imprisonment and death.

After the failed Catholic uprising, which became known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, in which her son was implicated, the Countess of Salisbury was sent to the Tower of London. On 27 May 1541, she was told that she had been sentenced to death in her absence and was to die that morning. She was sixty-seven years old and, by all accounts, becoming a little vague. It is by no means impossible that she was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. At any rate, the scene on the scaffold was ghastly. The woman did not seem to realise what was happening to her. Instead of kneeling and allowing the headsman to do his job, she wandered around the scaffold distractedly, refusing point-blank to lay her head on the block. There is some dispute about the precise sequence of events. Some claim that the elderly Countess was pursued around the block by the executioner, who eventually hacked off her head. Others say that she had to be held in place, struggling frantically, on the block. What is not in dispute is that the first swing of the axe merely gashed her shoulder. It took a further ten strokes to remove her head!

The eleven blows needed to remove the Countess of Salisbury’s head might be a British record, but it pales into insignificance beside some continental executions. In 1626, Count Henri de Chalais became involved in a plot to assassinate King Louis XIII of France. He was sentenced to be beheaded; the business to be carried out by the traditional French method, using a sword. It took an almost unbelievable twenty-nine strokes to remove the Count’s head, and witnesses were certain that it was not until the twentieth blow that he stopped showing any signs of life.

The great majority of beheadings in this country took only one blow of the axe; this type of execution depending upon physical strength rather than any sort of skill. A heavy axe, swung over the head at a stationery target, will deliver more than enough force to cut through a human neck, provided of course that it is sharp enough. The perils of a blunt axe were neatly illustrated in 1685, during the execution of Charles II’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth.

The Duke of Monmouth led a rebellion in the West Country, attempting to overthrow his uncle, James II. He was convicted of treason and his execution took place at the Tower of London, on 15 July 1685. When he walked up the steps to the scaffold, the first thing he did was pick up the axe and run his finger along the edge. At once, he expressed the fear that it was not sharp enough. The executioner, Jack Ketch, whose name has become synonymous with hangmen and executioners, reassured him. The Duke was still dubious, but nevertheless tipped the headsman with a purse containing seven guineas. It was customary to do this, in the same way that we might tip a barber or hairdresser today. As he handed over the purse, he told Ketch, ‘Pray do not serve me as you did my Lord Russell. I have heard you struck him four or five times; if you strike me twice, I cannot promise you not to stir.’ This was reference to a recent execution which had taken place in London. Once again, the executioner assured him that everything was fine.

The Duke of Monmouth’s misgivings were soon shown to be justified. The first blow of the axe glanced off the back of his head, and he turned round to glare reproachfully at the man wielding the axe. After another two strokes, the Duke’s head was still attached to his body and Jack Ketch threw down his axe, declaring that he could not continue with the job. What the Duke of Monmouth was feeling during all this can only be imagined. It is a great tribute to the British stiff upper-lip that he was able to wait patiently with his head on the block during this proceeding. The Sheriff told the headsman sternly that he had better continue what he had started. The wretched man then struck twice more, before finishing the job off with a knife!

After the Duke of Monmouth’s head had been cut off, the Keeper of the King’s Pictures suddenly realised that he had no official portrait of the executed man. Beheaded as a convicted traitor he may have been, but he had still been the son of King Charles II and nephew of the present king. It seemed wrong to leave such a gap in the pictorial history of the House of Stuart, and so the Duke’s head was quickly stitched back onto his neck, and his corpse propped up in a chair. Sir Godfrey Kneller, the German-born portrait painter, was then summoned to record the Duke of Monmouth for posterity.

Few executions were as gruesome as the examples given above. In most cases, the man who was to suffer had practiced his lines and many came up with witty remarks for the occasion. Walter Raleigh, for instance, asked to see the axe and then, like the Duke of Monmouth, ran his finger over the edge. He smiled grimly, saying casually, ‘It is a sharp medicine, but a sure remedy for all ills.’ Thomas More went one better than this with not one but two grim jokes. He asked for a hand when mounting the scaffold, saying to an official, ‘I pray you Mr Lieutenant, see me safe up and as for my coming down, let me shift for myself.’ When the time came to lay his head on the block, he ostentatiously moved his beard out of the way, saying that as he knew of no treason that his beard had committed; it was a shame for it to suffer the same penalty as he faced himself.

There were a few recognised places for public executions in Britain. One of the most popular was the area around the Tower of London. For private executions, Tower Green, which was actually within the grounds of the Tower of London, was popular. For more public occasions, Tower Hill was used. Of course, the vicinity of the Tower was not the only place in London for beheadings. Lincoln’s Inn Fields was also used for this purpose, as was Tyburn. South of the river, Kennington Common was a popular spot for beheadings, while Charles I was executed in Whitehall. Although most important beheadings took place in London, it was by no means uncommon for aristocratic prisoners to be executed in other cities, such as York. Because of the portability of the instruments needed to undertake this mode of execution, beheading could really be done anywhere. Perhaps the most important decapitation that this country has ever known, that of the reigning monarch, took place not at Tower Green, nor even within the Tower of London itself. Instead, it was staged in the very heart of Westminster; outside the banqueting house in Whitehall. Since this was such an important beheading and has several curious features, we shall examine it in detail.

At the end of the English Civil War in 1647, Charles I was held by the Parliamentary forces. While in captivity, he engaged in secret negotiations with the Scots, encouraging them to invade England. This triggered the Second Civil War, and brought home to those holding him that it was never going to be possible to release the King. The decision was accordingly made to put him on trial for treason. Kings of England had been deposed before, and done to death, but these had always been hole-and-corner affairs; murder, rather than judicial execution. The trial of Charles I was quite different. He was accused of treason against the English people, by putting his own personal interests above those of his subjects. This is not the place to go into the legality of such a move, which has been hotly debated over the succeeding centuries, but on Saturday, 27 January 1649, Charles Stuart was found guilty and sentenced to death by beheading.

He was returned to St James’ Palace for a few days, until arrangements had been made for his execution. There is still uncertainty as to the identity of the man who actually took off the king’s head. It is said that Richard Brandon, the London hangman, was offered the job, but refused. There are claims though, that Brandon admitted on his deathbed that he had, indeed, carried out the execution. Other accounts suggest that two relatively inexperienced men were engaged for the job at £100 each. Whatever the truth, the executioner and his assistant both wore masks on the scaffold. In view of the vengeance wrought upon all connected with the trial, following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, this was probably a shrewd move.

On the morning of Tuesday, 30 January, the king was escorted by soldiers from St James’ Palace to Whitehall. A scaffold had been erected at first-floor height, so that it was necessary to enter the Banqueting House, climb the stairs, and then step out of one of the windows onto the scaffold itself. A low block was used for the execution of Charles I, and he realised at once that this would force him to lay full length on the straw-covered floor. He was to remark on this later, but first made sure that the executioner would allow him to give the signal for his own death. He told the sinister, masked figure, ‘I shall say but very short prayers and when I thrust out my hands…’

He then indicated his long, flowing hair and asked, ‘Does my hair trouble you?’ For a clean beheading, at one stroke, it was necessary to have an unobstructed part of the bare neck at which to strike. Following the advice given, he then tucked his hair into a cap. He exchanged a few words with Bishop Juxton, who had accompanied him onto the scaffold, saying, ‘I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown.’

It was almost time for the closing scene of the tragedy that had been the English Civil War. After asking the executioner, ‘Is my hair well?’ the king looked dubiously at the low block, saying, ‘You must set it fast’, to which the man replied, ‘It is fast, Sire.’ Charles then said somewhat peevishly, ‘It might have been a little higher.’ The executioner was embarrassed and told him apologetically, ‘It can be no higher, Sire’. Nobody wished to explain to the king that the reason for the low block was born out of concern over the extent to which he would cooperate with his own execution. Provisional plans had been made for binding him and securing him to the scaffold, with iron staples! In the words of a contemporary writer:

It must be dreadfully remembered, that the cruel powers did suspect that the king would not submit his head to the block, and therefore to bring him down to violence to it, they had prepared hooks and staples to haul him as a victim to the slaughter.

Still not entirely satisfied, the king told the headsman, ‘When I put out my hands this way then…’ at the same time demonstrating how he would give the sign.

Charles then laid his head on the block and began to pray. Hearing the executioner shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and thinking that the man was about to strike, he warned him, ‘Stay for the sign’. The headsman assured him, ‘I will and it please your Majesty.’ A few seconds later, the king stretched out his arms and the axe came down, severing his head cleanly with one blow. His head dropped into the zinc-lined basket placed to receive it. Except for the use of the low, rather than high block, this execution was typical of this type of death.

The procedure for executions by beheading followed the same general pattern, no matter where and when they took place. To begin with, they were, as mentioned above, reserved in the main for nobility. Commoners might be granted this type of death, but only as a favour. Mark Smeaton, a musician at the court of Henry VIII, was such a person. He was convicted of having an adulterous affair with Ann Boleyn, which normally would have brought a sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering for treason. This was the accepted penalty for commoners. However, since Smeaton cooperated fully during his interrogation, he was granted the favour of being beheaded instead. He was put to death at Tyburn, where common criminals were disposed of, instead of Tower Hill.

On conviction, the prisoner might not be executed at once. King Charles spent only three days under sentence of death before his execution, but this was fairly unusual. Those trying him knew that he represented a deadly threat and wished to be rid of him, as soon as was practicable. Sir Walter Raleigh was, after being sentenced to death, held prisoner in the Tower of London for thirteen years; his execution only taking place fifteen years after the original sentence of death had been pronounced. This was admittedly an extreme case, but it was not uncommon for a condemned prisoner to spend a year or two in the Tower, while the monarch decided whether or not to spare his life. We saw earlier the dreadful execution of the Countess of Salisbury. In her case, sentence of death had been passed in 1539, but it was not until 1541 that the execution actually took place. This was a common delay.

This was in sharp contrast to the execution of common criminals; those sentenced to hang for murder or theft. In such cases, the hanging typically took place within a few days, or at the most weeks, of the conviction. Those awaiting death by beheading might easily spend years in captivity, never knowing when the date with the headsman would come. It must have been a tremendous psychological strain. One would go to bed each night for perhaps years on end, without knowing whether or not that day was one’s last. Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury, was not told until the morning of her death that she was to be executed that day. Again, this was fairly typical.

Noble prisoners, under sentence of death, were treated with all the respect due to their status in society. Guards would address them by their correct title, even, in the case of Charles I on the scaffold, as ‘Sire’ or ‘Your Majesty’. The whole proceeding was very polite and formal. There was almost invariably an opportunity for the condemned person to make a short speech to the witnesses, before the execution took place. In a surprising number of cases, the victim praised the mercy of the monarch and acknowledged the justice of the sentence. There were sound practical reasons for this. Most of those who were to be executed in this way were leaving behind high profile families. If it was suspected by the establishment that the noble family left behind felt aggrieved by the court’s verdict, or angry that their relative had not received a pardon from the King, then those people might themselves be seen as a threat to the Crown. By abasing themselves, and agreeing that it was right and proper that they should die for their crimes, the condemned person hoped to avert any future action being taken against those whom they left behind. The repentance displayed by these people, and their evident devotion to the monarch are quite astonishing. John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, said before he was beheaded for treason in 1553, ‘I have deserved one thousand deaths.’ Thomas Cromwell, staunch friend of Henry VIII before falling from favour, declared:

The devil is ready to seduce us and I have been seduced, but bear witness that I die in the Catholic faith of the Holy Church and I heartily desire you to pray for the King’s grace, that he may long live with you in health and prosperity and after him that his son Edward, may long reign over you.

The Earl of Essex, a favourite of Elizabeth I who led an abortive rebellion against her, said before he laid his head on the block:

In humility and obedience to thy commandments, in obedience to thy ordinance and good pleasure, Oh God I prostrate myself to my deserved punishment.

These were just the kind of sentiments which might persuade a revengeful king or queen to spare the family of an executed man.

An exception to these pious and self-serving speeches was the final address of the Scottish noblemen, who rebelled against the Hanoverian Kings in the early eighteenth century. So fierce was their devotion to the Stuart cause, and so great the detestation which they felt for the, as they saw it, Germans who had seized the throne, that they could not bring themselves to mouth the usual platitudes expected under such circumstances. They believed that James II’s son was in fact James III of Britain and that his son, Charles, was the heir to the throne. On the scaffold, shortly before he was beheaded in 1746, Lord Balmerino made a speech in which he referred openly to ‘King James’. He probably guessed, rightly, there was little point in paying lip service to the House of Hanover at that late stage!

The Scottish lords were admired for their good-natured banter, which they maintained to the end. This was seen as being the correct thing to do; to go to one’s death with a jest, combined with a proper degree of resignation. Simon Fraser, the 11th Lord Lovat, joked with the headsman, telling him that he would be angry if the man failed to remove his head at one stroke. Although a remarkably unpleasant individual, even his enemies were forced to admire his courage and good nature during the execution. One biographer said that though he had lived like a fox, he at least died like a lion. He was eighty years old and very fat; needing the assistance of two men to mount the steps to the scaffold. He noticed the huge number of spectators and laughed, saying:

God save us, why should there be such a bustle about taking off an old grey head that cannot get up three steps without three bodies to support it?

There were of course degrees of nobility. This was reflected in the location chosen for the beheading. In London, as we have seen, the vicinity of the Tower of London was popular for executions by beheading. These could take place either publicly or privately. Tower Hill was the place for public decapitation and anybody could come and watch. The crowds at such events could be immense. At Lord Lovat’s execution (he was, incidentally, the last person to die by beheading in this country), stands were erected to accommodate those wishing to watch the entertainment. Contemporary illustrations show them to be like the grandstands at a football ground. One of these stands collapsed while Lord Lovat was giving his speech, causing him to remark in an aside, ‘The more mischief the merrier’. Twelve people were killed.

Private beheadings took place within the grounds of the Tower of London, on Tower Green. ‘Private’ is something of a misnomer really, for many dozens of people were often present. Indeed, at some executions within the Tower, upwards of 150 spectators were present. Women were almost invariably executed within the grounds of the Tower of London. The reason was simple. The sight of a woman having her head hacked off, with all the goriness which this entailed, was thought likely to provoke sympathy for the victim, no matter what she had done. This might be translated into criticism of the monarch, who allowed such a thing to happen. The two wives of Henry VIII who were beheaded, Ann Boleyn and Katherine Howard, were both executed privately on Tower Green. So was the seventeen-year-old Lady Jane Grey, who was manipulated by her family into becoming a pretender to the throne. She was beheaded in the precincts of the Tower of London in 1554.

In the case of Ann Boleyn, the king was worried that even a private execution might not be enough to prevent sympathy for the disgraced queen. There was a discussion with his advisors as to the ramifications of forcing a former queen to kneel down and lay her head on the block. A compromise was reached, whereby instead of using an axe, Ann’s head would be removed with a sword. As has already been mentioned, decapitating somebody with a sword is a lot trickier than using an axe. A great deal of skill and a lot of practice is required to wield a beheading sword effectively. There had been no such execution in Britain in living memory and so it was thought wise to send to the continent, where this technique had been flourishing for many years.

The beheading sword, used widely in Europe, was about 3ft long and weighed around 4lbs. Its blade was wide and ended in a blunt tip; there was no need for a sharp point. This was a double-handed weapon and the grip was covered in rough leather or fish skin. The executioner would whirl the sword around his head once or twice, before slicing through the victim’s neck. The condemned prisoners either knelt upright or were seated in chairs. It was essential that they did not move throughout the whole performance. There are ghastly tales of victims having the top of their heads removed like boiled eggs, because they flinched at the wrong moment.

At the time of Ann Boleyn’s execution, the French city of Calais was still an English possession. An emissary of the court was accordingly dispatched to seek out a top-class executioner for the projected job. They interviewed Jean Rombaud for the post, and he offered to prove his skill in the next few days. Two men lay under sentence of death, and Rombaud decided that while executing them he would provide a virtuoso display of technical skill for the Englishmen offering such an important commission. He arranged for the two condemned men to be seated blindfold in chairs, facing away from each other. He stood between the chairs, whirled the mighty sword around his head a couple of times before cutting off the heads of both men with one sweep. He was awarded the contract on the spot.

Ann Boleyn was beheaded on 19 May 1536. The raised wooden scaffold was set up in the precincts of the Tower of London, which afforded a degree of privacy. There were, however, many witnesses. The executioner was disconcerted by the beauty of the doomed former queen, and felt so sorry for her that he devised a cunning scheme to make her passing as easy as possible. He kept his double-handed sword hidden from view under some of the straw which covered the scaffold. When all was ready and his victim was kneeling upright, blindfolded and with her hair piled up, clear of her neck; Rombaud quietly picked up the sword and prepared to strike. He then scuffed his feet and asked in a stage whisper to be handed his sword. As he did so Ann Boleyn, who was praying quietly, turned her head slightly, thinking that she still had a second or two to live. At that moment, the Frenchman brought his sword sweeping down in a glittering arc, severing the head from the body in one blow.