{"id":1089,"date":"2025-12-22T11:12:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T11:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naekokozawa.online\/?p=1089"},"modified":"2025-12-22T11:12:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T11:12:10","slug":"the-hanged-drawn-and-quartered-execution-method-was-first-devised-in-13th-century-england-to-punish-men-found-guilty-of-high-treason-and-it-was-only-abolished-in-1870","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naekokozawa.online\/?p=1089","title":{"rendered":"The hanged, drawn, and quartered execution method was first devised in 13th-century England to punish men found guilty of high treason \u2014 and it was only abolished in 1870."},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Hanged<\/p>\n

Public Domain<\/span>Members of the Gunpowder Plot who were hanged, drawn, and quartered in 1606.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In 1484, an Englishman named William Collingbourne was found guilty of high treason. His crime? Writing a couplet that insulted King Richard III and his top advisors. His sentence? Death. But not just any death \u2014 Collingbourne would be executed by being hanged, drawn, and quartered.<\/p>\n

First, Collingbourne was dragged, or drawn, to his place of execution. He was hanged until he was nearly dead and then disemboweled. Still conscious, Collingbourne is said to have cried: \u201cOh Lord Jesus, yet more trouble!\u201d as his intestines were thrown into a fire before his eyes. Then, the final stage of his execution took place when Collingbourne\u2019s limbs were torn from his body.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>The Romanov Family Beyond the Royal Tragedy: 10 Facts You May Not Know<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This gruesome punishment was reserved for men found guilty of high treason, and it was used in England for centuries. Not only did it subject the victim to hours of grisly and painful torture, but it acted as a warning for others \u2014 such executions often drew crowds \u2014 to toe the line and respect the crown.<\/p>\n

So, how did this horrific execution method begin? Who were some of the people who suffered death by being hanged, drawn, and quartered? And how did it finally end?<\/p>\n

Hanged, Drawn, And Quartered: The Gruesome Punishment For Treason Against The Crown<\/h2>\n

Hanging, drawing, and quartering first emerged in the 13th century as a particularly torturous execution reserved for those guilty of treason. Though it was not codified into law until the 14th century, the method usually followed the same steps, subjecting the victim to hours of pain and humiliation.<\/p>\n

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British law informed the victim: \u201cThat you be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution where you shall be hanged by the neck and being alive cut down, your privy members shall be cut off and your bowels taken out and burned before you, your head severed from your body and your body divided into four quarters to be disposed of at the King\u2019s pleasure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Public Domain<\/span>A victim of hanging, drawing, and quartering being dragged to his execution.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It was thus broken into roughly three parts. First, the victim would be dragged to their execution, typically by a horse. Sometimes, they would be tied to a sled (a hurdle). Though this may seem merciful, it was only to ensure that they stayed alive. Some believe that this is the \u201cdrawn\u201d part of the execution.<\/p>\n

Next, the victim would be hanged \u2014 but not until they were dead, only until they lost consciousness. Then, they would be cut down, disemboweled, and castrated (some believe that this, not the dragging, is the \u201cdrawing\u201d part). Often, their entrails would be burned before their eyes.<\/p>\n

At this point, many people \u2014 the lucky ones \u2014 died from shock or other injury. Others were still alive until the moment they were beheaded. But being hanged, drawn, and quartered had one last step.<\/p>\n

After the victims were dead (though some historical depictions of the execution method portray victims with their heads still attached for this step), they would be \u201cquartered,\u201d which meant that their bodies would be torn into four parts. Sometimes, they were simply chopped up by an executioner, but other times, their arms and legs would reportedly be tied to four different horses. The horses would then be spurred to race off in different directions, thus tearing the victim into four pieces.<\/p>\n

These executions were usually held in public before huge, bloodthirsty crowds. However, to make sure the message reached anyone else tempted to defy the king, executioners would also display the victims\u2019 body parts in public spaces like London Bridge.<\/p>\n

\"Heads<\/p>\n

Public Domain<\/span>The heads of traitors displayed on London Bridge.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Indeed, from the 14th century on, being hanged, drawn, and quartered was not only a gruesome execution method \u2014 it was a popular one.<\/p>\n

Men Who Were Hanged, Drawn, And Quartered Throughout History<\/h2>\n

Though there\u2019s some debate over the original execution by hanging, drawing, and quartering, the first mention of the punishment came in the mid-13th century.<\/p>\n

In 1238, a would-be assassin of King Henry III was condemned to death in a particularly violent way. According to Benedictine monk Matthew Paris\u2019\u00a0English History, from 1235 to 1273, the man was \u201cdragged asunder, then beheaded, and his body divided into three parts; each part was then dragged through one of the principal cities of England, and was afterwards hung on a gibbet used for robbers.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A few years later, in 1241, a man named William Marise was found guilty of piracy. The son of a nobleman and the first person ever executed for piracy, Marise was condemned to be ripped into four pieces.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Chronicle \/ Alamy Stock Photo<\/span>A man being quartered. If they were lucky, the victims were already dead by this point.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

From that point on, many more people were hanged, drawn, and quartered. Some of them were quite prominent. Take Dafydd ap Gruffydd, a Welsh prince who was sentenced to death for \u201ccompassing,\u201d or imagining the death of the king. In 1283, he was drawn \u201cas a traitor to the King,\u201d hanged \u201cas a murderer,\u201d and quartered for \u201ccompass[ing] the death of his lord the King.\u201d For good measure, the prince\u2019s limbs were also burned for sacrilege.<\/p>\n

But perhaps the best-known case of hanging, drawing, and quartering came two decades later with the execution of the Scottish knight\u00a0William Wallace.<\/p>\n

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In 1305, Wallace was found guilty of treason for his role in the Scottish rebellion against England. He was condemned to die by hanging, drawing, and quartering. But\u00a0William Wallace\u2019s death\u00a0was particularly brutal.<\/p>\n

\"William<\/p>\n

The Print Collector\/Print Collector\/Getty Images<\/span>The most famous case of being hanged, drawn, and quartered, William Wallace\u2019s death was especially brutal.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Scottish leader was stripped naked, tied to a hurdle, and dragged six miles to his place of execution as the jeering crowd threw trash and excrement at him. He was hanged but cut down while he was still alive. Wallace\u2019s executioner chopped off his penis and testicles, cut out his intestines, and burned them all in front of Wallace. Wallace\u2019s heart was then cut out, he was decapitated, and his body was cut into quarters. As if death had not been enough, Wallace\u2019s body parts were then displayed throughout Britain \u2014 with his head stuck on a pike at London Bridge.<\/p>\n

Wallace was far from the last person to die from being hanged, drawn, and quartered. Aside from Collingbourne, who met his grisly end in 1484, and Francis Dereham, who was killed in 1541 (for an alleged relationship with King Henry VIII\u2019s wife\u00a0Catherine Howard), many leaders of revolts were also executed this way, including the heads of the Peasants\u2019 Revolt in 1381 and the men in charge of the Babington Plot against Queen Elizabeth I in 1586.<\/p>\n

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Guy Fawkes\u00a0and his co-conspirators in the\u00a0Gunpowder Plot\u00a0were also condemned to die this way. However, Fawkes escaped the grisly fate when he leaped from the gallows ladder, breaking his neck. (His body was still quartered and put on display, however.)<\/p>\n

So, how did the practice of hanging, drawing, and quartering end?<\/p>\n

The End Of Hanging, Drawing, And Quartering In The 19th Century<\/h2>\n

Though hanging, drawing, and quartering may seem like a\u00a0medieval execution method, it continued up until the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1798, Irish priest James Coigley became one of the last men killed this way in the 18th century for \u201ccompassing\u201d the death of the king and supporting the French.<\/p>\n

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\"Hanging<\/p>\n

Public Domain<\/span>The 1684 execution of Thomas Armstrong, an English politician who was found guilty of treason and hanged, drawn, and quartered.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

His\u00a0condemnation<\/a>\u00a0ordered that: \u201cthe prisoner be taken from the bar to prison, and from thence to the place of execution; there to be hanged, but not until he be dead, to be cut down while yet alive, and then to have his heart and bowels taken out and burnt before his face; his head to be severed from his body; and his body to be divided into four quarters.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 19th century, such executions continued, but victims were no longer disemboweled. Other parts of the execution became symbolic, as when Irishman Edward Marcus Despard and his six accomplices \u2014 sentenced to death for plotting to assassinate King George III \u2014 were symbolically \u201cdrawn\u201d around the prison yard before they were hanged and decapitated.<\/p>\n

From this point on, most of the condemned were hanged and decapitated (not drawn and quartered at all). And when the final sentence of hanging, drawing, and quartering was passed down in 1867, it was not carried out. Three years later, the Forfeiture Act of 1870 abolished the execution method.<\/p>\n

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Still, the history of hanging, drawing, and quartering left its mark. Not only did it make martyrs out of men like William Wallace, but it also showed just how cruel the human mind can be. For centuries, executing criminals wasn\u2019t enough. The powers-that-be in England wanted to see their foes die in the most horrific, painful, and humiliating way possible \u2014\u00a0and, for hundreds and hundreds of years from the 14th century until the 19th century, they did.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n

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