Read Online Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders by Geoffrey Abbott - Free Book Online
Authors: Geoffrey Abbott
Tags: History
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of murder, were hanged, Billings’ corpse being later gibbeted. Catherine Hayes was charged with Petty, or Petit, Treason, and accordingly sentenced to be burned to death (High Treason was the crime of plotting or causing the death of the sovereign, the ‘leader’ of the nation; the penalty was to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Petty Treason was that of causing the death of the husband, the ‘leader’ of the household, and if committed by his wife she was sentenced to be burned).
Catherine Hayes Decapitating Her Husband
Catherine Hayes was drawn on a sledge to Tyburn where she was chained to a stake, kindling and brushwood being piled around her. A rope around her neck was then passed through a hole in the stake, but it was reported that:
‘at the very moment that the fire was put to the wood that was set round, the flames reached the offender before she was quite strangled by the hangman, for, the fire taking quick hold of the dry wood, and the wind being brisk, blew the smoke and blaze so full in the faces of the executioners, who were pulling on the rope, that they were obliged to let go their hold; more faggots were then piled on the woman, and in about three or four hours she was reduced to ashes.’
Saint Laurence, a Christian martyr, was sentenced to death by the Romans in AD 258. He was secured to a gridiron, a rectangular framework of narrow iron bars, and a fire was lighted beneath it. As the cruelly slow grilling took effect he, with defiant humour, called to the executioner, ‘This side is roastyd enough, oh tyrant great; decide whether roasted or raw thou thinkest the better meat!’
St Laurence Tortured On A Gridiron Over The Fire
Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London
Man Burned At The Stake
Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen in 1553, and Nicholas Ridley promptly denounced Princesses Mary and Elizabeth. When Jane was overthrown by Princess Mary, who then became Queen, he was committed to the Tower, deprived of his bishopric, declared a heretic and sentenced to be burned at the stake.
On 16 October 1555 he was taken to Oxford to suffer death by fire. A friend brought a bag of gunpowder and hung it round Ridley’s neck. ‘I will take it sent of God,’ the Bishop said, although in that position the fire would have had to be well alight before it reached the explosive.
Unfortunately the branches had been stacked too thickly over the kindling and so the latter could not burst into flame; instead it continued to smoulder, white-hot, around his legs, prolonging his agony. ‘I cannot burn!’ he exclaimed. ‘Lord have mercy on me, let the fire come to me, I cannot burn!’
With difficulty his brother-in-law threw some more wood on, but this only made matters worse, as it pressed down on the smouldering timber until another bystander seized a long pitchfork and lifted the faggots, so that the flames suddenly burst into an inferno. Whereupon Ridley forced himself into the heart of the fire, and the powder, igniting, did its deadly, albeit merciful, work.
At York in 1634 John Bartendale, an itinerant piper, was sentenced to death for robbery and duly hanged. After three-quarters of an hour the body was cut down and buried near the scaffold, but a passer-by later saw the earth moving and courageously dug the ‘corpse’ out. The muscular development in the throat and lungs brought about by the victim’s profession having cheated the hangman, the judge ruled that, being legally dead, he would not have to be hanged again – and Bartendale no doubt thanked his lucky stars that he hadn’t been a pianist!
John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester
Another clergyman to suffer death in Oxford on the orders of Queen Mary, John Hooper met his end outside the gates of the college in which he used to teach those entering the priesthood. As he knelt to pray, he was brought a box which contained the Queen’s Pardon and was told that if he renounced his religion, he would
Catherine Hayes Decapitating Her Husband
Catherine Hayes was drawn on a sledge to Tyburn where she was chained to a stake, kindling and brushwood being piled around her. A rope around her neck was then passed through a hole in the stake, but it was reported that:
‘at the very moment that the fire was put to the wood that was set round, the flames reached the offender before she was quite strangled by the hangman, for, the fire taking quick hold of the dry wood, and the wind being brisk, blew the smoke and blaze so full in the faces of the executioners, who were pulling on the rope, that they were obliged to let go their hold; more faggots were then piled on the woman, and in about three or four hours she was reduced to ashes.’
Saint Laurence, a Christian martyr, was sentenced to death by the Romans in AD 258. He was secured to a gridiron, a rectangular framework of narrow iron bars, and a fire was lighted beneath it. As the cruelly slow grilling took effect he, with defiant humour, called to the executioner, ‘This side is roastyd enough, oh tyrant great; decide whether roasted or raw thou thinkest the better meat!’
St Laurence Tortured On A Gridiron Over The Fire
Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London
Man Burned At The Stake
Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen in 1553, and Nicholas Ridley promptly denounced Princesses Mary and Elizabeth. When Jane was overthrown by Princess Mary, who then became Queen, he was committed to the Tower, deprived of his bishopric, declared a heretic and sentenced to be burned at the stake.
On 16 October 1555 he was taken to Oxford to suffer death by fire. A friend brought a bag of gunpowder and hung it round Ridley’s neck. ‘I will take it sent of God,’ the Bishop said, although in that position the fire would have had to be well alight before it reached the explosive.
Unfortunately the branches had been stacked too thickly over the kindling and so the latter could not burst into flame; instead it continued to smoulder, white-hot, around his legs, prolonging his agony. ‘I cannot burn!’ he exclaimed. ‘Lord have mercy on me, let the fire come to me, I cannot burn!’
With difficulty his brother-in-law threw some more wood on, but this only made matters worse, as it pressed down on the smouldering timber until another bystander seized a long pitchfork and lifted the faggots, so that the flames suddenly burst into an inferno. Whereupon Ridley forced himself into the heart of the fire, and the powder, igniting, did its deadly, albeit merciful, work.
At York in 1634 John Bartendale, an itinerant piper, was sentenced to death for robbery and duly hanged. After three-quarters of an hour the body was cut down and buried near the scaffold, but a passer-by later saw the earth moving and courageously dug the ‘corpse’ out. The muscular development in the throat and lungs brought about by the victim’s profession having cheated the hangman, the judge ruled that, being legally dead, he would not have to be hanged again – and Bartendale no doubt thanked his lucky stars that he hadn’t been a pianist!
John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester
Another clergyman to suffer death in Oxford on the orders of Queen Mary, John Hooper met his end outside the gates of the college in which he used to teach those entering the priesthood. As he knelt to pray, he was brought a box which contained the Queen’s Pardon and was told that if he renounced his religion, he would
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