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Execution

A History of Capital Punishment in Britain

The History Press

Beheading by Sword, Axe and 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 pointblank 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.

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Excerpted from Execution by Simon Webb. Copyright © 2011 Simon Webb. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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