Wasn't the “capital punishment” bit an incidental to the overall action?
I thought the subject person was hung alive and then drawn (entrails removed?) and finally quartered... the capital punishment was an incidental effect.
Here is the inscription from the side of The Hung Drawn and Quartered.
“I went to see General Harrison Hung Drawn and Quartered. He was looking as cheerful as any man could in that condition.”
Samuel Pepys
The date was October 13 sixteen-hundred and something.
Incidentally, you can purchase t-shirts inside. Both kids got one! LOL
Hey, thanks for the great memory!
From WiKi, but with the links to the citations on the page:
Until reformed under the Treason Act 1814, the full punishment for the crime of treason was to be hanged, drawn and quartered in that the condemned prisoner would be:
1. Dragged on a hurdle (a wooden frame) to the place of execution. This is one possible meaning of drawn.
2. Hanged by the neck for a short time or until almost dead (hanged).
3. Disembowelled and emasculated and the genitalia and entrails burned before the condemned’s eyes.
4. The body divided into four parts, then beheaded (quartered).
Typically, the resulting five parts (i.e. the four quarters of the body and the head) were gibbeted (put on public display) in different parts of the city, town, or, in famous cases, in the country, to deter would-be traitors who had not seen the execution. After 1814, the convict would be hanged until dead and the mutilation would be performed post-mortem. Gibbeting was later abolished in England in 1843, while drawing and quartering was abolished in 1870.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanged,_drawn_and_quartered