Getting the chop - Tudor style

As those of you who read Derrick's excellent blog will already know, this year marks the 500th anniversary of Henry the eighth's accession to the English throne. By way of commemoration, there are any number of events occurring this year (there is an exhibition at the British Library that I fully intend to visit), as well as an excellent TV series on Channel 4, presented by David Starkey.

Much has been made of Henry's transition from slim and handsome Renaissance prince to bloated monster. And there's no getting away from the fact that he did get a little tetchy as he became older. Author Philippa Gregory believes he may have suffered from Cushing's syndrome, which causes obesity and mental instability, and there is little doubt that he had chronic constipation. This latter could well have been brought on by over-consumption of meat; people were somewhat suspicious of fresh fruit and veg at the time, believing they promoted 'the Bloody Flux'. Poor old Hal also had open sores on his legs, and possible brain damage from a fall whilst jousting in 1536, that had left him unconscious for two hours. All of these go some way to explain why a fair number of executions occurred during his reign. According to chronicler Ralph Holinshead, it's believed that around 72,000 were despatched on the orders of 'Good' King Henry.

A good proportion of executees suffered their fate for treason; in other words, daring to disagree with the king. Those of noble birth could look forward to a swift beheading - Anne Boleyn was famously dispatched by an adept swordsman from France - and generally in 'private' before a selected audience. However, Henry's increasingly erratic behaviour as his reign progressed could explain why he chose to have Thomas Cromwell, one of his closest advisers, executed by an inexperienced teenager with a blunt axe. Generally, however, a beheading was preferable to the fale meted out to commoners; to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

There is some debate as to the meaning of the word 'drawn'. Some say it refers to the fact that the subject was pulled (or drawn) on a hurdle to the place of execution; others, that it denotes the act of pulling or 'drawing' the subject's entrails from their body. Be that as it may, the subject was first hanged for a short period of time, then cut down, revived, and placed on a large table. The executioner would use a large knife to slit the subject open, and his organs would be removed and generally burnt before his eyes. Sometimes his 'privy parts' would also be removed. Finally, the subject's head was cut off, the body quartered, and parts dispatched to various bits of the kingdom to be displayed as a warning. It's believed around ten thousand met their end in this way.

I have also discovered one rather less common method of capital punishment. This was placed on the statute books in 1531 as a direct result of an incident that occurred in the household of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. In February that year, a number of members of the household were taken ill after eating porridge, and two, Benett Curwen, a gentleman of the household, and a widow called Alice Tryppytt, died as a result. The latter was one of the poor people who were regularly fed at the kitchen door by the Bishop as an act of charity, as was the custom of the time. The King expressed great indignation at the crime, and declared that henceforth poisoning would be regarded as High Treason, ordering that

'the said Richard Roose shalbe therfore boyled to deathe withoute havynge any advauntage of his clargie.'

The sentence was duly carried out at Smithfield in London on the 15th April 1532. I can find no account of the execution itself, which is probably just as well.

Something interesting strikes me. The population of the kingdom during Henry's reign was around three million. It's about twenty times that now. If we projected a still bloodthirsty Henry into the twenty first century, he would have to dispatch 1,440,000 souls in order to match the proportion of the population done to death during his reign. Should a freak wormhole open in space and you suddenly find yourself confronted by the larger-than-life Tudor monarch, just do yourself a favour...agree with everything he says!