Hanging, Drawing, and Quartering.

Hanging, drawing, and quartering, with their attendant horrors, have
been termed "godly butchery," on account of the divine authority which
was adduced to support their continuance. Lord Coke finds in the Bible a
countenance for each of the horrid details of the punishment. We see
that the texts supposed to bear upon the subject are raked from all
parts of the Scriptures with great ingenuity, but with, in our modern
eyes, not much of either humanity or probability of there being anything
more than a forced reference. The sentence on traitors was pronounced as
follows: "That the traitor is to be taken from the prison and laid upon
a sledge or hurdle [in earlier days he was to be dragged along the
surface of the ground, tied to the tail of a horse], and drawn to the
gallows or place of execution, and then hanged by the neck until he be
half dead, and then cut down; and his entrails to be cut out of his body
and burnt by the executioner; then his head is to be cut off, his body
to be divided into quarters, and afterwards his head and quarters to be
set up in some open places directed." The headsman, or hangman, commonly
sliced open the chest and cut thence the heart, plucking it forth and
holding it up to the populace, saying, "Behold the heart of a traitor."
The members were disposed on the gates of the cities, and in London on
London Bridge, or upon Westminster Hall.

It is asserted that this mode of capital punishment was first inflicted
in 1241, on William Marise, pirate, and the son of a nobleman.

For a long period this disgusting punishment was the penalty for high
treason. A late instance, and the last in the provinces, occurred at
Derby in 1817. At this period distress prevailed to an alarming extent
in many parts of the country, but no where was it more keenly felt than
in the Midland counties. At the instigation of paid government spies,
the poor, suffering people were urged to overthrow the Parliament. The
plot was planned in a public house called the White Horse, at Pentrich,
Derbyshire. A few half-starved labouring men took part in the rising,
being assured by the perjured spies that it would simultaneously occur
throughout the breadth and length of the land, and that success must
crown their efforts. The deluded men had not advanced far before they
were scattered by the Yeomanry, and the chief movers taken prisoners. It
was the object of the government to terri