Public Executions: From Ancient Rome to the Present Day by Nigel Cawthorne Read Free Book Online

seemingly old and was thought to be Richard Brandon, the public executioner. It was rumoured he was a reluctant regicide, and had to be 'fetched from his bed by a troop of horses and escorted to the scaffold site'. The other was a young, fair-haired man thought to be William Lowen, a former dunghill cleaner. They wore masks, false beards, and thick coats to prevent anyone from recognizing them. If the monarchy was restored, they would have been guaranteed a terrible death.
    Charles handed his cloak and his Order of the Garter to Juxon. While he was having a word with the archbishop, he noticed someone trying to touch the axe. Afraid that this person might blunt the edge and cause a repetition of the agonizing death of his grandmother, Mary Queen of Scots, he pleaded, 'Hurt not the axe, that it may not hurt me'. He complained that the block was too low, making him lie face down in a humiliating position. 'It might be a little higher,' he said. 'It can be no higher,' the executioner replied.
    The reason the block was so low was that fixings had been made to the boards around it in case the king refused to submit and had to be tied down. They need not have worried. Like all those with breeding, who were allowed a beheading instead of a more gruesome death, Charles knew how to die with dignity and no restraints were necessary. He asked his executioner to deliver the blow when he gave a sign by stretching out his arms. 'Yes, I will, as it please your Majesty,' said the executioner. 'Does my hair bother you?' asked Charles, tucking it under a white satin cap. He urged the executioner to do his work and not put him in any pain. The man agreed.
    Charles lay down and started to pray. Realizing that the executioner was now standing in position above him, he declared, 'Wait for the sign – wait for the sign'. According to one eyewitness, he stretched his arms out after some time and the executioner brought down the axe: 'Then suddenly with one blow, his head sped from his shoulders, and a universal groan, the like never heard before, broke from the dense and countless multitude'. The executioner's assistant held up the head: 'Behold the head of a traitor'. Britain was a republic.
    A week later, Charles I was buried at Windsor. The republic was short-lived. In 1660, following the death of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England for the duration of the English Republic, Charles's son returned to the throne as Charles II. Although the executioners were never identified, the remaining regicides – those who had signed the death warrant – were rounded up and executed. No mercy of the axe for them: they were hanged, drawn, and quartered. The three men who had already died, including tOliver Cromwell and John Bradshaw, president of the court that had condemned Charles I, were dug up and hanged at Tyburn. The bodies were then nailed to London Bridge, where they were left to decay.

Jack Ketch the Bungler
    Charles I's grandson, the Duke of Monmouth, had an even worse time of it than his great-great-grandmother Mary Queen of Scots. The illegitimate son of Charles II, Monmouth proclaimed himself king after the death of his father but his rebellion was crushed by James II, Charles's brother, the legitimate heir to the throne. Monmouth went to the scaffold on Tower Hill on 15 July 1685 and was unlucky enough to get as executioner one Jack Ketch, a man so notorious for his barbarous incompetence that for the next two centuries the nickname 'Jack Ketch' was given to all England's hangmen.
    'Here are six guineas for you,' said Monmouth, handing over the coins (about £800 in today's money). 'Pray do your business well. Do not hack me as you did Lord Russell. I have heard you struck him three or four times.' Russell had in fact been struck only twice although a knife had been used to finish off the job. 'If you strike me twice, I cannot promise not to move,' he continued. 'My servant will give you some more gold if you do the work well.' He took