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

off his wig and coat, refused to be blindfolded, and knelt down with his neck on the block before raising himself back up again. 'Prithee, let me feel the axe,' he said. Ketch proffered it and Monmouth felt the edge. 'I fear it is not sharp enough,' he said. 'It is sharp and heavy enough,' said Ketch.
    This exchange did little for the executioner's composure. His first swing inflicted only a flesh wound. Monmouth got to his feet and looked reproachfully at him before kneeling back down. After two more strokes, the head had not been severed and the body was still moving. After the third stroke, Ketch threw down the axe and said, 'I cannot do it; my heart fails me'. He offered forty guineas (over £5,000 today) to anyone who would finish the job for him. 'Take up the axe, man,' the sheriff told Ketch. 'Fling him over the rails!' cried the mob, swearing to kill Ketch if he did not finish off the job.
    After another couple of blows, Monmouth had stopped moving and Ketch finished the job with a knife. It had taken at least five strokes and maybe more than eight to despatch Monmouth. By this time, the mob was in a frenzy. They dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood, because many of them considered Monmouth a martyr of the Protestant faith. Ketch was in danger of being torn to pieces by the crowd and had to be escorted away.
    Monmouth's remains were taken to the Chapel Royal in the Tower of London, where he was to be buried. However, his head was sewn back on first so that, as son of the former king, he could sit for a royal portrait. The following year, Ketch was hanged for killing a woman. John Price, his executioner, later died on the same gallows.
    31 May 1718: English executioner Jack Ketch, notorious for his incompetent or sadistic execution technique, is himself taken to be hanged for the murder of Elizabeth White

Jacobite Rebels
    Another unlucky victim was Arthur Elphinstone, Lord Balmerino. Captured after the Jacobite rising of 1746, he was put down at the Battle of Culloden. With fellow Jacobites, the lords Kilmarnock and Lovat, he was brought to London where they were tried, found guilty of treason, and sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. Although they refused to ask for clemency due to their aristocratic status, the sentence was commuted to beheading.
    Balmerino and Kilmarnock were to go to the scaffold first. The warrant of execution was announced by the Deputy Lieutenant of the Tower, Lieutenant-General Adam Williamson, over dinner. Lady Balmerino promptly fainted. 'Lieutenant,' barked Balmerino. 'With your damned warrant you have spoiled my lady's stomach!'
    On 18 August 1746, the two lords were allowed a farewell breakfast with their family and friends. They tossed a coin to see who got to go first. Kilmarnock won. Guarded by yeoman warders and soldiers with fixed bayonets, and followed by two hearses, Kilmarnock and Balmerino walked the short distance to the scaffold on Tower Hill. The prisoners had requested a block two feet high with a post underneath the scaffold to absorb the impact. Williamson noted that 'a piece of red Bais was supplied in which to catch their heads and not let them fall into the sawdust and filth of the stage'. Balmerino and Kilmarnock were admirably calm and composed. Unfortunately, John Thrift, the executioner, was not. He was a perfectly adequate hangman but beheading had become a rare event. Bizarrely enough, he wore white for the occasion.
    The execution of the Jacobites drew a huge crowd which assembled before dawn. They filled balconies, scaled roofs, and clung to the masts and the rigging of ships in the Pool of London. As the prisoners approached the scaffold, a huge roar went up. It was all too much for Thrift and he fainted. The officials on the scaffold revived him with a glass of wine.
    Kilmarnock went first. When he mounted the scaffold, Thrift burst into tears. He gulped down more wine to steady his nerves. The earl stiffened him further by slipping a bag of money