Posted on 09/09/2020 8:54:56 PM PDT by CheshireTheCat
On this date in 1731, a double execution of 50-year-old Catherine Bevan and her young servant perhaps lover Peter Murphy was nightmarishly marred by Bevans burning alive.
Such was indeed the sentence upon her for petty treason, a now-archaic legal category that compassed the betrayal in practice, murder of an authority. (Compare to high treason, meaning the betrayal of the ultimate authority, the sovereign; the legal categories show that these offenses are analogues.) Quite often in such cases the authority in question was the man of the house, and so it was here too: Bevan and Murphy beat and throttled to death her husband, Henry Bevan. Both wife-on-husband and servant-on-master homicide qualified as petty treason...
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
Fun read!
Yeah, any justice system without the death penalty is mere barbarism. Still. A fun read.
Sounds legit ....
i wouldn’t mind doing this to cheating spouses and their lovers
gotaa have enough proof though, no heresay
The Tallahassee bridge hanging wasn’t invented yet...
Does servant mean slave in this situation?
She turned me into a newt.
Interestingly, this seems to have been heavier in Calvinist areas. I wonder what was the social reason (ignoring the religious one)
It was predestined, see, and if they didn't go along and do their part THEY'D be guilty of something - blasphemy, maybe, and then they'd be the ones getting roasted for failing to roast someone else.
Like Michael Cervantes, for example, who Calvin his own self must have taken a personal liking to, when he said "Come on, guys, I actually kinda like Michael, can't we just let him off easy and behead him?", and the other Calvinists rose in acclamation and said "No, the law says he's gotta be roasted alive!", and then Michael Cervantes got roasted alive.
It was predestined. See?
Well... I got better.
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