Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders (5 page)

Three and a quarter feet from the ground a crossbar joined the two posts, serving as a support for the victim’s neck. This beam had a wide groove cut in its upper surface and filled with lead to resist the impact of the falling blade after it had passed through the flesh, muscle and spinal column. To prevent the victim withdrawing their head, an iron bar, hinged to one upright, was lowered and secured to the other upright before the peg was withdrawn and the sentence carried out.

It was operated by the official executioner, the lokman, who was also responsible for its serviceability, it being recorded, for instance, that ‘in 1660 Alexander Davidson is to mainteane it all the dayis of his life.’ The city accounts reveal that in 1600 the lokman was paid ‘twelve shillings and eightpence for one barrell to salt the quarteris with salt thareto’, while thirty shillings and fourpence was forthcoming to the lokman ‘for the executing and putting up [on display] of the heidis and quarteris.’

Despite its name it showed no favours to females, its blade descending on Isabell and Ann Erskine in 1614 for poisoning their two nephews; Marion Astein for adultery in 1631; and Janet Embrie, found guilty in 1643 of committing incest with two of her brothers.

All executions took place in public, the machine usually being positioned near the City Cross in Edinburgh’s High Street, although it could be transported by cart to other cities as required, and many Scottish heads fell beneath its blade between 1564 and 1710, when its use was discontinued.

The Execution Sword

Execution By The Sword (Hans Froschel By Franz Schmidt)

Although rarely used for judicial executions in England, the sword was widely employed on the Continent for dispatching those condemned to death; had it been adopted in England, much unimaginable suffering by the axe’s victims could have been avoided, for the execution sword was a finely honed and superbly balanced instrument of death. About three feet or more in length, it weighed approximately four pounds; the blade, two inches wide, had parallel cutting edges and a broad, blunt tip, no point being necessary to achieve its purpose. A ‘fuller’, a wide groove, ran longitudinally along each side to allow the blood to flow towards the handle and not coagulate and so blunt the razor-sharp edges. The comparatively long handle, designed to be gripped with both hands, was covered with leather or fish skin to provide a non-slip surface. The quillons, the guards, were wide and straight.

Contrary to popular belief, the victim did not kneel over a block. Had they done so, the headsman himself would also have had to kneel and deliver a vertical blow inevitably lacking the force necessary to decapitate his victim. And if, instead of kneeling, he had stood erect, the blade would have struck the further edge of the block rather than the victim’s neck. The procedure therefore was for the victim to kneel upright or to stand, the executioner swinging the blade horizontally around his head once or twice to gain the necessary momentum before delivering the fatal stroke. If undue suffering and horrific flesh wounds were to be avoided, ‘cooperation’ by the victim was essential, for if he or she swayed or trembled too violently, more than one blow would be required.

As the eighteenth-century French executioner Charles-Henri Sanson pointed out,

‘It must be taken into account that when there are several condemned persons to be executed at the same time, the terror produced by this method owing to the immense amount of blood that is shed and flows everywhere, creates fear and weakness in the hearts of those who are waiting to die. An attack of faintness forms an invincible obstacle to an execution. If prisoners cannot hold themselves up, and yet the executioner continues with the matter, the execution becomes a struggle and a massacre.’

It was reported that Anne Boleyn, executed by the sword, continued to move her eyes and lips when her severed head was held high. It has been conjectured by some eminent pathologists and neurobiologists that when the head is severed by a sword or a rapidly falling guillotine-type blade, there is sufficient oxygen remaining in the brain to prolong consciousness for perhaps two, three or even more seconds after decapitation.

It is a proven fact that after a person has died, organs surgically removed for life-saving transplant purposes continue to function; hearts to beat, kidneys to produce urine. So if, after being beheaded, the body is not dead, is the severed head still alive? And if the head is still living, is the ‘owner’ still conscious? If so, could the victim actually see the ground or basket coming up to meet them – even perhaps have sufficient time to witness the gloating faces of those clustered round the scaffold as their head is brandished by the executioner? Alas, like death itself, only those who personally experience decapitation can know what happens and within what timescale.

The Wheel

Being ‘broken on the wheel’ was an agonising and prolonged way in which to die, and was used mainly on the Continent in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, although isolated cases reportedly took place in Scotland.

The felon was secured, spread-eagled, face upwards, on a large cartwheel mounted horizontally on an upright which passed through the hub, the wheel sometimes being slightly canted in order to give the spectators a better view of the brutal proceedings. The wheel could be rotated in order to bring the particular part of the human target within reach of the executioner, thereby eliminating the need for him to walk round to the other side. Some versions of the device required the victim to be bound to the spokes, others to two lengths of timber in the form of a St Andrew’s Cross nailed to the upper side of the wheel.

Breaking On The Wheel Or Cross

Death was meted out by the executioner wielding a heavy iron bar, three feet long by two inches square, or using a long-handled hammer. Slowly and methodically he would shatter the victim’s limbs; the upper and forearms, the thighs and the lower legs; nor would other parts of the body escape being pulverised, until eventually the
coup de grâce
, known as the retentum, a final blow to the heart or the neck, would be delivered. Alternatively, a cord around the throat would be pulled tight, depriving the victim of what little life was left in them. On being removed from the wheel the corpse would resemble a rag doll, the various short sections of the shattered limbs being completely disconnected from each other.

The judges might mitigate the sentence by permitting the death blow to be administered either following a certain number of strokes or after a certain length of time had elapsed; for example, one John Calas of Toulouse was not to receive a blow to the heart until two hours after he had been strapped to the wheel.

In some states in Germany the regulation number of blows was forty. Franz Schmidt, executioner of Nuremberg in the sixteenth century, wrote in his diary that on 11 February 1585 he ‘dispatched Frederick Werner of Nuremberg, alias Heffner Friedla, a murderer who committed three murders and twelve robberies. He was drawn to execution in a tumbrel [a cart], twice nipped with red-hot tongs and afterwards broken on the wheel.’

This multiple murderer was in fact Schmidt’s brother-in-law and, probably in view of their relationship, the judges decreed that only thirty-one blows need be struck. One wonders whether, after that number, there was anything worthwhile left to aim at.

PART TWO:

THE UNFORTUNATE VICTIMS

The Axe

Arthur Elphinstone, 6
^th
Baron Balmerino

After the battle against the Scots at Culloden in 1745, Lord Balmerino, Colonel of the Horse Guards, was captured and imprisoned in the Byward Tower of the Tower of London. He was taken to face trial in Westminster Hall, not by being marched through the streets but, unusually, by coach. This departure from tradition caused the authorities some problems, one being where Mr Fowler, the Gentleman Gaoler of the Tower, would travel, for his role was to escort the prisoner at all times. His Lordship solved the dilemma by inviting the officer to accompany him in the coach, not realising that the Gaoler would be carrying the cumbersome Ceremonial Axe, the traditional symbol by which the sentence of the court would be indicated to the crowds waiting outside the Hall; if borne with the edge pointing towards the prisoner, he had been found guilty, and rare it was that it was held facing in the opposite direction.

Carrying the sixteenth-century weapon, its wooden shaft over five feet long, its blade twenty inches wide and ten inches long, the Gaoler climbed awkwardly into the coach, tripping over Balmerino’s feet as he did so, whereupon the nobleman shouted, ‘Look out – take care, or you’ll bark my shins with that damned axe of yours!’

He was evidently fascinated by the weapon however, for as reported by Horace Walpole, ‘at the bar, during his trial, he plays his fingers upon the axe while he talks to the Gaoler, and when someone came up to listen, he took the blade and held it like a fan between their faces.’

In his
Official Diary
, Lieutenant-General Adam Williamson, Deputy Lieutenant of the Tower of London, 1722–1747, described the proceedings:

‘The two Earles [Lords Balmerino and Kilmarnock] had pleaded Guilty the first day and being now calld to shew cause if they could why Sentence of death should not pass upon them, they spoke their Several Speeches in Mittigation of their crime and to move the Lords to recommend them to the Kings mercie. By the King’s command, however, they were ordered to be beheaded.’

The scaffold on Tower Hill was entered via a house on the site which was draped in black for the funereal occasion,

‘all at the expense of the Sherrifs, and on 18 August 1746 they [the sheriffs] came at ten o’clock precisely and knockt at the Outer Gate of the Tower and demanded the prisoners. We immediately set out from their apartments and I had the doors Lockt after them and the Keys given to Me, that if any Valuable thing was left in them I might secure it as my Perquisite.’

Then followed details of his arrangements for the actual executions:

‘By the Lords’ [the prisoners’] direction the block was desired to be two feet high, and I ordered a good Stiff upright post to be put just under it [to reduce the bounce caused by the impact of the axe]; also a piece of red baize to be had, in which to catch their heads and not to let them fall into the Sawdust and filth of the scaffold, which was done.’

The first execution was that of Lord Kilmarnock,

‘who had his head sever’d from the Body at one Stroke, all but a little skin which with a little chop was soon separated. He [Kilmarnock] had ordered one of his Warders to attend him as his Vallet de Chambre and to keep down the body from struggling or violent Convulsive Motion, but it only flounced backward on the Separation of the head and lay on its back with very little Motion.’

Meanwhile Balmerino had been escorted to a small room in the house adjoining the scaffold, where he sipped some wine and nibbled a piece of bread. He was dressed in his regimental uniform, the blue coat with red facings he had worn in the Pretender’s Army, and beneath the uniform he wore a woollen shirt which, he said, would serve as his shroud. When the officer in charge delivered the usual speech and concluded with the customary ‘God save King George!’ Lord Balmerino immediately contradicted the salutation by exclaiming ‘God bless King James!’, the man he had fought unsuccessfully to place on a Scottish throne.

Another chronicler described how, on being escorted out of the house, ‘he saluted the company gathered there and hastened to the scaffold, which he ascended with so undaunted a step as to surprise every spectator.’ Once there, he walked around it, bowed to the crowd and read the inscription on his coffin which had been placed at one side in readiness. Then, taking out his spectacles, he read out a paper in which he declared his unshakeable adherence to the House of Stuart, sheer force of habit then causing him to breathe on and wipe them before putting them away in their case. Only then did he turn to the executioner who, dressed in white and wearing a white apron, was waiting nearby. The executioner was John Thrift, a man with a highly nervous disposition; indeed so nervous that he had had to be given a glass of wine before his victim appeared.