Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders

by Abbott, Geoffrey

  The last public execution in England took place on 26 May 1868 when Michael Barratt was hanged by executioner William Calcraft for attempting to blow up the Clerkenwell House of Correction in order to rescue colleagues imprisoned therein; the explosion resulted in twelve fatalities and many innocent members of the public were injured. After that date all executions took place behind prison walls, a state of affairs deplored by the public at thus being deprived of what they considered to be their rightful – and free – entertainment, and equally deplored by those who supported the abolition of capital punishment altogether, claiming that being in private, without independent witnesses, executions would become even more brutal.

  Hanged, Drawn and Quartered

  This was the penalty in England and Scotland for those who, by plotting to overthrow the sovereign by whatever means, were charged with high treason. The method of execution was barbaric in the extreme, as exemplified by the death sentence passed on the regicides who had signed the death warrant of Charles I in 1649. At their trial in 1660 it was ordered:

  ‘that you be led to the place from whence you came, and from there drawn upon a hurdle [a wooden frame] to the place of execution, and then you shall be hanged by the neck and, still being alive, shall be cut down, and your privy parts to be cut off, and your entrails be taken out of your body and, you being living, the same to be burned before your eyes, and your head to be cut off, and your body to be divided into four quarters, and head and shoulders to be disposed of at the pleasure of the King. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul.’

  Such appalling punishments were inflicted only on men; women were excused on the grounds of modesty, the reason being, as phrased by the contemporary chronicler Sir William Blackstone, ‘for the decency due to the sex forbids the exposure and publicly mangling their bodies.’ They were publicly burned instead.

  The ‘cutting off of the privy parts’ was a symbolic act to signify that, following such mutilation, the traitor would be unable to father children who might inherit his treasonable nature; hardly necessary in view of his imminent decapitation.

  After the half-strangling, evisceration and dismembering of the victim, the severed body parts were displayed in public as deterrents to others who might attempt such foolhardy acts against the sovereign. The heads, after being boiled in salt water and cumin seed to repel the attentions of scavenging birds, were exhibited in the marketplace or a similar venue in the cities in which the traitors had lived and plotted, the quarters being hung on the gates of those cities. In the capital they were spiked on London Bridge where they remained for months until thrown into the River Thames by the Bridge watchman, usually to make room for new arrivals. As at Tyburn, the grisly exhibits were visible warnings to all entering the City from that direction, of the awful retribution meted out to those who came with criminal intent, or sought to overthrow the realm.

  Hanged, Drawn & Quartered

  From about 1678 the venue was moved, the heads being displayed within the City itself. Although today Westminster is taken to be just another part of London, it was not always so; originally both were separate cities, one demarcation line between them being an archway named Temple Bar positioned approximately at the juncture of the Strand and Fleet Street. The royal coat of arms was emblazoned above the central arch and the stone heads of the four statues which adorned the edifice, those of Charles I and II, James I and Elizabeth I, were soon joined by the human ones from the Bridge, the prominent position of the archway on such a busy thoroughfare guaranteeing maximum publicity and hopefully deterrence.

  Heads On London Bridge

  Lethal Injection

  More a hospital operation than an execution, the process commences with the condemned person initially receiving an injection of saline solution and a later one of antihistamine; the former to ease the passage of the drugs, the latter to counteract the coughing experienced following the injection of those drugs.

  A rapid acting anaesthetic is then administered via a sixteen-gauge needle and catheter inserted into an appropriate vein. The victim next receives pancuronium bromide; this not only has the effect of relaxing the muscles, but also paralyses the respiration and brings about unconsciousness. One minute later, potassium chloride is injected, which stops the heart. This sequence results in the victim becoming unconscious within ten to fifteen seconds, death resulting from respiratory and cardiac arrest within two to four minutes – but only if the correct dosages and intervals between injections are strictly adhered to, otherwise the chemical make-up of the drugs changes adversely.

  The risk of such mishaps were ever-present when the drugs were manually administered, but were eliminated to a great extent by a talented technician named Fred Leuchter who invented an automatic, computer-controlled machine which, by controlling an intricate system of syringes and tubing, injects the correct amount of chemicals at precisely the right moment. Fail-safe devices and a manual back-up arrangement are also incorporated into the system and a doctor, stationed behind a screen, constantly monitors the victim’s heart condition, thereby being able to confirm the moment of death.

  Just as in an execution by firing squad, where a conscience-salving let-out is provided by an unloaded gun, so in an execution by lethal injection, two identical systems are used, neither operator knowing which one is functioning.

  Apart from problems brought about by human error or the malfunctioning of components of the system, difficulties also arise in inserting the syringes into the correct vein, especially where it is narrow or unattainable due to prolonged drug taking by the criminal. It is frequently necessary to make an incision in the flesh and lift out the vein in order to insert the needle.

  The Scottish Maiden

  The Scottish Maiden

  It is traditionally believed that James Douglas, Earl of Morton, Regent of Scotland, while returning home following a visit to the English court, passed through Halifax, Yorkshire, and in doing so saw the Halifax Gibbet, a guillotine-type machine, although it predated the French device by many decades. Whether an execution was actually taking place at the time is not known, but suffice it to say that so impressed was the Earl that on arriving in Edinburgh he ordered a similar machine to be constructed. It became known as the Scottish Maiden (Madin or Maydin), a name perhaps derived from the Celtic mod-dun, the place where justice was administered.

  The axe blade, an iron plate faced with steel, thirteen inches in length and ten and a half inches in breadth, its upper side weighted with a seventy-five-pound block of lead, travelled in the copper-lined grooves cut in the inner surfaces of two oak posts and was retained at the top by a peg attached to a long cord which, when pulled by means of a lever, allowed the blade to descend at ever-increasing speed.

  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, 6th 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.’