Originally posted by ChickenHawk
Actually Guy Fawkes cheated his executioners by jumping from the scaffold and breaking his neck. A co-conspirator tried the same trick but the rope broke and so he was disemboweled while fully conscious.
Interesting...I've been lied to by my English educators.
You're right, I looked it up.
He wasn't "drawn and quartered" while alive...but he was hung. He did the runner when they revived him according to what I read. No doubt they quatered him after he was dead though.
Anyway...his mates certainly suffered the abominable mode of execution/torture:
"The condemned man would usually be sentenced to the short drop method of hanging, so that the neck would not break. The man was usually dragged alive to the quartering table, although in some cases men were brought to the table dead or unconscious. A splash of water was usually employed to wake the man up if unconscious, then he was laid down on the table. A large cut was made in the gut after removing the genitalia, and the intestines would be spooled out on a device that resembled a dough roller. Each piece of organ would be burnt before the sufferer's eyes, and when he was completely disembowelled, his head would be cut off. The body would then be cut into four pieces, and the king would decide where they were to be displayed. Usually the head was sent to the Tower of London and, as in the case of William Wallace, the other four pieces were sent to different parts of the country."
Man, horror writers couldn't have thought up something so nasty.
