There are better and more effective methods of capital punishment. If William Wallace can die in the following way, so can thugs in America. Walace was stripped naked and dragged through the city at the heels of a horse to the Elms at Smithfield. He was hanged, drawn and quartered — strangled by hanging, but released while he was still alive, emasculated, eviscerated and his bowels burnt before him, beheaded, then cut into four parts. His preserved head (dipped in tar) was placed on a pike.
Wallace was not unique in experiencing that form of execution. That was the typical traitor’s death. For a long time there was a saying in England that “if you did not have an ancestor quartered, you are not a gentleman.” Which is to say that the ordinary footsoldier in the armies of any rebellion would not receive such an elaborate execution; only rebellious nobles and other ringleaders of insurrection would be treated this way.
I recall reading of one man executed for religious reasons. He was permitted to die by hanging, but the rope broke. As the executioner organized a fresh rope, the condemned man ran back up the steps of the gallows. He was asked why he hastened to die, and he replied eagerly, “If you had seen what I saw as I was hanging, you would want to die, too.” Or words to that effect. I think he was an English Catholic martyr. Perhaps another Freeper recalls the name of the dead man and has a more accurate account.
Means of execution say more about those executing than the desire to inflict torture
Civilized folks prefer their executions humane
Boy, were those guys strict!