Method of execution of William Wallace (serious)
Method of execution of William Wallace (serious)
I am deeply disturbed and horrified at this. I'm 100% serious, this is so barbaric, how could people do such a cruel, disgusting thing to anyone? The fact that it went on for so many criminals for so many years makes me sick.
Here's the text. After the text, I posted the video scene.
Wallace was tried in Westminster Hall (which today is part of the Palace of Westminster at the House of Commons entrance and close to the eastern end of the Abbey).
His sentence was read out immediately following the verdict, and included the full details of the punishment usually known as "hanging, drawing and quartering" that Edward Longshanks had introduced as the appropriate penalty for treason. He was then chained prostrate on a hurdle (just a piece of fencing, not a wheeled vehicle as in the film) and drawn by two horses through the filthy streets for the public to mock and stone (this being Edward's subtle idea of combining education with entertainment).
He was drawn first to the Tower, about two and a half miles, and then on to Smithfield via Aldgate, another mile. He was hanged, but cut down while still alive. He was not racked as shown in the film, nor was he allowed a chance to submit to Edward's peace and thereby cut short his suffering (a procedure the screenwriter may have borrowed from the Inquisition).
While held upright by the hangman's rope, he had his privy parts cut away (all of them, and hence emasculation, not castration) and burned in the brazier in front of him. Then, still upright, his stomach was slit open so that he could be ritually disembowelled. His entrails were burnt on the brazier.
The hangman then cut open his chest to pull out his heart. It was considered a manifestation of the hangman's skill that this should still be beating while held in the hangman's hands, but whether he was successful on this occasion is not recorded. It was supposed to be traditional that the hangman should at this point call attention to his achievement by announcing "Behold the heart of a traitor" (in case any in the audience had missed the object of the exercise), but I have never found this stated explicitly in any court record.
The final act was decapitation and quartering. You will note that in effect there are three symbolic deaths here: hanging, evisceration, decapitation. Edward is said to have decreed that treason was a triple crime: against God, against man, and against the King. Hence the triple death sentence.
The grisly, grotesque nature of the killing was explained in the severe language of the law with the intention that it should terrify the listeners and augment the misery of the man whose body was shortly to fulfil the role of lecture aid. When, later, the sentence ceased to be given in Latin, the use of the English equivalent did not change any of its meaning.
This barbaric vivisection was employed by the English for the execution of Scotsmen as late as the 18th century, and as given by Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough (1750-1818) the wording was as follows:
"You are to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, where you are to be hanged, but not till you are dead; for while still living, your body is to be taken down, your bowels torn out and burnt before your face; your head is then cut off, and your body divided into four quarters."
In earlier times the explicit words "your privy parts cut away and burnt before your eyes" were spoken, one priest in Tudor times being recorded as observing that as they had not been of much use to him on earth, they were unlikely to be of much use to him in heaven.
Teachers of history to children, while explaining the meaning of hanging, drawing and quartering, usually hide the horror by exploiting the ambiguity of "drawing", and I have often been questioned by adults who, remembering this, insist that the English never disembowelled anyone, not even Scotsmen. But apart from the words of Ellenborough quoted above, the original sentence in the Wallace case clearly distinguishes between the two types of "drawing", using "detrahatur" for drawing as a method of transport, and "devaletur" for disembowellment. (Hanging is "suspendatur", beheading is "decapitetur", and quartering is "decolletur".)
Now if you would like to watch the film again, you will see that quite early in the proceedings, while the screen is filled by the sun-blocked torso of Gibson and nothing is seen below the waist (for he is fundamentally a modest man), his face gives a sudden little grimace. If you are quick you will catch it. That represents the emasculation.
The disembowellment which followed was extraordinary. I cannot remember a drop of blood anywhere, and it was only after we had left the cinema that I realised the camera's preoccupation with the long steel shaft with the small hook on its end implied to an inspired audience that this was inserted into his bowels via his anus to achieve the deed bloodlessly.
I dont think they pulled out his bowels from his anus. If you watch the midgets messing around on the stage before he comes up, one of them saws at the other's stomach with a stick and then pulls out some rope like his intestines.
The fun part of this? It wasnt just for traitors, but people who attempted suicide and failed. :-)
The fun part of this? It wasnt just for traitors, but people who attempted suicide and failed. :-) That can't be true...
Reminds me of Guy Fawkes, who was being tortured but managed to avoid futher torture by jumping off the scaffold and breaking his neck (the rope was attached to his neck)
I heard the Wallace was a huge fat dude. They had a few portraits hanging of him in a bar in Northern England. Not sure if it's true =P
Braveheart; fantastic film
William Wallace; patriot
Your thread; fails.
Braveheart was an ok film, their was a comedian takin the piss out of William Wallace which was ok, and this thread wins. Cool way to die.
Braveheart; fantastic film
William Wallace; patriot
Your thread; fails. Thread = awesome, you; fail.
I am deeply disturbed and horrified at this. I'm 100% serious, this is so barbaric, how could people do such a cruel, disgusting thing to anyone? The fact that it went on for so many criminals for so many years makes me sick.
Here's the text. After the text, I posted the video scene.
Wallace was tried in Westminster Hall (which today is part of the Palace of Westminster at the House of Commons entrance and close to the eastern end of the Abbey).
His sentence was read out immediately following the verdict, and included the full details of the punishment usually known as "hanging, drawing and quartering" that Edward Longshanks had introduced as the appropriate penalty for treason. He was then chained prostrate on a hurdle (just a piece of fencing, not a wheeled vehicle as in the film) and drawn by two horses through the filthy streets for the public to mock and stone (this being Edward's subtle idea of combining education with entertainment).
He was drawn first to the Tower, about two and a half miles, and then on to Smithfield via Aldgate, another mile. He was hanged, but cut down while still alive. He was not racked as shown in the film, nor was he allowed a chance to submit to Edward's peace and thereby cut short his suffering (a procedure the screenwriter may have borrowed from the Inquisition).
While held upright by the hangman's rope, he had his privy parts cut away (all of them, and hence emasculation, not castration) and burned in the brazier in front of him. Then, still upright, his stomach was slit open so that he could be ritually disembowelled. His entrails were burnt on the brazier.
The hangman then cut open his chest to pull out his heart. It was considered a manifestation of the hangman's skill that this should still be beating while held in the hangman's hands, but whether he was successful on this occasion is not recorded. It was supposed to be traditional that the hangman should at this point call attention to his achievement by announcing "Behold the heart of a traitor" (in case any in the audience had missed the object of the exercise), but I have never found this stated explicitly in any court record.
The final act was decapitation and quartering. You will note that in effect there are three symbolic deaths here: hanging, evisceration, decapitation. Edward is said to have decreed that treason was a triple crime: against God, against man, and against the King. Hence the triple death sentence.
The grisly, grotesque nature of the killing was explained in the severe language of the law with the intention that it should terrify the listeners and augment the misery of the man whose body was shortly to fulfil the role of lecture aid. When, later, the sentence ceased to be given in Latin, the use of the English equivalent did not change any of its meaning.
This barbaric vivisection was employed by the English for the execution of Scotsmen as late as the 18th century, and as given by Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough (1750-1818) the wording was as follows:
"You are to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, where you are to be hanged, but not till you are dead; for while still living, your body is to be taken down, your bowels torn out and burnt before your face; your head is then cut off, and your body divided into four quarters."
In earlier times the explicit words "your privy parts cut away and burnt before your eyes" were spoken, one priest in Tudor times being recorded as observing that as they had not been of much use to him on earth, they were unlikely to be of much use to him in heaven.
Teachers of history to children, while explaining the meaning of hanging, drawing and quartering, usually hide the horror by exploiting the ambiguity of "drawing", and I have often been questioned by adults who, remembering this, insist that the English never disembowelled anyone, not even Scotsmen. But apart from the words of Ellenborough quoted above, the original sentence in the Wallace case clearly distinguishes between the two types of "drawing", using "detrahatur" for drawing as a method of transport, and "devaletur" for disembowellment. (Hanging is "suspendatur", beheading is "decapitetur", and quartering is "decolletur".)
Now if you would like to watch the film again, you will see that quite early in the proceedings, while the screen is filled by the sun-blocked torso of Gibson and nothing is seen below the waist (for he is fundamentally a modest man), his face gives a sudden little grimace. If you are quick you will catch it. That represents the emasculation.
The disembowellment which followed was extraordinary. I cannot remember a drop of blood anywhere, and it was only after we had left the cinema that I realised the camera's preoccupation with the long steel shaft with the small hook on its end implied to an inspired audience that this was inserted into his bowels via his anus to achieve the deed bloodlessly.
Answer:
I dont think they pulled out his bowels from his anus. If you watch the midgets messing around on the stage before he comes up, one of them saws at the other's stomach with a stick and then pulls out some rope like his intestines.
Answer:
The fun part of this? It wasnt just for traitors, but people who attempted suicide and failed. :-)
Answer:
The fun part of this? It wasnt just for traitors, but people who attempted suicide and failed. :-) That can't be true...
Reminds me of Guy Fawkes, who was being tortured but managed to avoid futher torture by jumping off the scaffold and breaking his neck (the rope was attached to his neck)
Answer:
I heard the Wallace was a huge fat dude. They had a few portraits hanging of him in a bar in Northern England. Not sure if it's true =P
Answer:
Braveheart; fantastic film
William Wallace; patriot
Your thread; fails.
Answer:
Braveheart was an ok film, their was a comedian takin the piss out of William Wallace which was ok, and this thread wins. Cool way to die.
Answer:
Braveheart; fantastic film
William Wallace; patriot
Your thread; fails. Thread = awesome, you; fail.