Guy Fawkes’ punishment was one of the most severe in English history – here’s what happens when a body is hung, drawn and quartered

LIKE POOR WILLIAM WALLACE

GUY FAWKES THE ONLY MAN TO ENTER PARLIAMENT WITH HONEST INTENTIONS

OLD ANARCHIST SAYING

Michelle Spear, Professor of Anatomy, University of Bristol
Tue 5 November 2024 

Fawkes and his co-conspirators were sentenced to hanging, drawing and quartering. Crispijn van de Passe the Elder/ Wikimedia Commons

After their infamous plot to destroy parliament was foiled, Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators received one of the most severe judicial sentences in English history: hanging, drawing and quartering. According to the Treason Act 1351, this punishment involved:

That you be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck and being alive cut down, your privy members shall be cut off and your bowels taken out and burned before you, your head severed from your body and your body divided into four quarters to be disposed of at the King’s pleasure.

This process aimed not only to inflict excruciating pain on the condemned, but to serve as a deterrent – demonstrating the fate of those who betrayed the Crown. While Fawkes reportedly jumped from the gallows – which meant he avoided the full extent of his punishment – his co-conspirators apparently weren’t so lucky.

By dissecting each stage of this medieval punishment from an anatomical perspective, we can understand the profound agony each of them endured.

Torture for confession

Before his public execution on January 31, 1606, Fawkes was tortured to force a confession about his involvement in the “gunpowder plot”.

The Tower of London records confirm that King James I personally authorised “the gentler tortures first”. Accounts reveal that Fawkes was stretched on the rack – a device designed to slowly pull the limbs in opposite directions. This stretching inflicted severe trauma on the shoulders, elbows and hips, as well as the spine.

The forces exerted by the rack probably exceeded those required for joint or hip dislocation under normal conditions.

Substantive differences between Fawkes’ signatures on confessions between November 8 and shortly before his execution may indicate the amount of nerve and soft tissue damage sustained. It also illustrates how remarkable his final leap from the gallows was.

The rack slowly pulled a prisoner’s limbs in opposite directions. Wellcome Collection/ Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Stage 1: hanging (partial strangulation)

After surviving the torture of the rack, Fawkes and his gang faced the next stage of their punishment: hanging. But this form of hanging only partially strangled the condemned – preserving their consciousness and prolonging their suffering.

Partial strangulation exerts extreme pressure on several critical neck structures. The hyoid bone, a small u-shaped structure above the larynx, is prone to bruising or fracture under compression.

Simultaneously, pressure on the carotid arteries restricts blood flow to the brain, while compression of the jugular veins causes pooling of blood in the head – probably resulting in visible haemorrhages in the eyes and face.

Because the larynx and trachea (both essential for airflow) are partially obstructed, this makes breathing laboured. Strain on the cervical spine and surrounding muscles in the neck can lead to tearing, muscle spasms or dislocation of the vertebra – causing severe pain.

Fawkes brought his agony to a premature end by leaping from the gallows. Accounts from the time tell us:

His body being weak with the torture and sickness, he was scarce able to go up the ladder – yet with much ado, by the help of the hangman, went high enough to break his neck by the fall.

This probably caused him to suffer a bilateral fracture of his second cervical vertebra, assisted by his own bodyweight – an injury known as the “hangman’s fracture”.
Stage 2: Drawing (disembowelment)

After enduring partial hanging, the victim would then be “drawn” – a process which involved disembowelling them while still alive. This act mainly targeted the organs of the abdominal cavity – including the intestines, liver and kidney, as well as major blood vessels such as the abdominal aorta.

The physiological response to disembowelment would have been immediate and severe. The abdominal cavity possesses a high concentration of pain receptors – particularly around the membranous lining of the abdomen. When punctured, these pain receptors would have sent intense pain signals to the brain, overwhelming the body’s capacity for pain management. Shock would soon follow due to the rapid drop in blood pressure caused by massive amounts of blood loss.

Stage 3: quartering (dismemberment)

Quartering was also supposed to be performed while the victim was still alive. Though no accounts exist detailing at what phase victims typically lost consciousness during execution, it’s highly unlikely many survived the shock of being drawn.

So, at this stage, publicity superseded punishment given the victim’s likely earlier demise. Limbs that were removed from criminals were preserved by boiling them with spices. These were then toured around the country to act as a deterrent for others.

Though accounts suggest Fawkes’s body parts were sent to “the four corners of the United Kingdom”, there is no specific record of what was sent where. However, his head was displayed in London.

Traitor’s punishment

The punishment of hanging, drawing and quartering was designed to be as anatomically devastating as it was psychologically terrifying. Each stage of the process exploited the vulnerabilities of the human body to create maximum pain and suffering, while also serving as a grim reminder of the consequences of treason.

This punishment also gives us an insight into how medieval justice systems used the body as a canvas for social and political messaging. Fawkes’s fate, though unimaginable today, exemplifies the extremes to which the state could, and would, go to maintain control, power and authority over its subjects.

The sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering was officially removed from English law as part of the Forfeiture Act of 1870.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Michelle Spear does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

What is the weather forecast for Guy Fawkes night? Scotland set for mild evening
Mark McDougall
Mon 4 November 2024 at 1:12 am GMT-7·2-min read


The festival will be held at the Royal Highland Centre (Image: Fawkes Festival)

Scotland is set to experience a mild but cloudy Guy Fawkes night on Tuesday with temperatures sticking at around 10 degrees throughout the day and evening across the country.

Glasgow could even experience it being warmer, with suggestions from the Met Office that the temperature could reach as high as 12 degrees Celsius, and it’s due to get even warmer as the week goes on with the potential for high teens.

It’s good news for anyone celebrating Guy Fawkes night, which commemorates a failed attempt to blow up the UK parliament in 1605.

People across the UK celebrate it with fireworks displays and bonfires and they may be able to do so without the need to get as wrapped up as they normally would at this time of year.

The Met Office says Tuesday will be “remaining dry with a good deal of cloud and also some brighter interludes. Staying mild. Maximum temperature 12 °C.”

It’s a similar story in Edinburgh with temperatures expected to be a degree or two lower than in the west of Scotland, while it’s likely to be a bit colder in the Highlands too but still not at freezing levels.

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Tom Morgan, a meteorologist with the Met Office, said: “It’s going to be mild for this time of year, so you won’t necessarily need hats and scarves and gloves.

“With temperatures expected to be probably still in the double figures for many places in the evening hours.”

Mr Morgan also said the UK would be unaffected by the recent weather patterns that have brought heavy rain and flash flooding to Spain.

He said: “You’ve got contrasting fortunes whether you’re living in north-west Europe and down across southern Europe.

“It’s very different weather patterns affecting Iberia.

“It’s a slow-moving area of low pressure that’s bringing the very unsettled thundery weather with heavy rain and thunderstorms.

“Across the UK, we’ve got high pressure, which acts as a lid on our weather.

“It causes the air to descend, and as that happens, there’s no upward motion in the air, so it means there’s no recipe for clouds to produce rain, and it also means the winds are going to be light.”

REMEMBER, REMEMBER
THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER