Hanging, Drawing and Quartering

The Ultimate Penalty for High Treason

Hanging, drawing, and quartering was the ultimate capital sentence available in English law for men convicted of High Treason.

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Women convicted of High Treason or Petty Treason were spared this ritual and were instead sentenced to burning at the stake—a substitution made by the judiciary to avoid the public exposure of the female body during evisceration and dismemberment.

Peers of the Realm convicted of High Treason were traditionally granted the privilege of decapitation by the axe on Tower Hill rather than suffering on the gallows.

The punishment of hanging, drawing, and quartering was first devised in 1241 specifically to punish William Maurice, a nobleman’s son convicted of piracy.

The Full Statutory Sentence

Up until statutory revisions in the 19th century, the full sentence pronounced by the judge upon men convicted of High Treason was:

“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.”

The Meaning of “Drawing”

As demonstrated by the wording of the formal judicial sentence, the ritual should properly be designated as drawing, hanging, and quartering.

The condemned traitor was “drawn” to the place of execution, tied securely to a wooden hurdle or sledge dragged behind a horse through the streets.

This legal definition is confirmed by contemporary legal treatises and court registers.

In this statutory context, “drawing” does not refer to the removal of the intestines from the body; drawing upon a sledge remained a mandatory element of treason sentences long after post-mortem disembowelling and dismemberment had been abandoned.

The hurdle consisted of a flat panel of interwoven wicker branches or wooden fencing to which the prisoner was bound face-up to endure the journey through the streets to the scaffold.

The Execution Process

Upon arrival at the scaffold, the condemned prisoner was hanged using the traditional short drop without a kinetic fall, ensuring that the neck was not broken.

While still conscious, the prisoner was cut down from the beam.

The executioner severed the prisoner’s genitals (privy members) and slit open the abdomen.

The intestines and heart were extracted and burned before the prisoner’s eyes in an open fire on the scaffold.

The remaining internal organs were torn out, followed by decapitation and the division of the torso into four quarters.

To prevent rapid decomposition, the severed head and quarters were parboiled in a cauldron containing brine and cumin seed before being impaled on iron spikes over city gates—such as London Bridge, Temple Bar, and Aldgate—as a public warning against rebellion.

During this process, the prisoner died from a combination of asphyxiation, massive arterial hemorrhage, neurogenic shock, and catastrophic organ trauma.

Notable Historical Cases

Dafydd ap Gruffydd, Last Native Prince of Wales (1283)

In 1283, Dafydd ap Gruffydd (David), the last sovereign Prince of Wales, was tried for treason at Shrewsbury before King Edward I. He was sentenced:

“To be drawn to the gallows as a traitor to the King who made him a Knight, to be hanged as the murderer of the gentleman taken in the Castle of Hawarden, to have his limbs burnt because he had profaned by assassination the solemnity of Christ’s passion and to have his quarters dispersed through the country because he had in different places compassed the death of his lord the king.”

The Tyburn Catholic Martyrs (1500s)

During the Tudor Reformation in the 16th century, a total of 105 Roman Catholic priests and laymen were hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn for “spiritual treason”—refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy or acknowledging the spiritual authority of the Pope over the English Crown.

The Gunpowder Plot Conspirators (1606)

Guy Fawkes and his confederates in the 1605 Gunpowder Plot remain the most famous historical figures subjected to this penalty.

Captured beneath the House of Lords and subjected to the rack in the Tower of London to extract confessions, Fawkes and six co-conspirators were tried in Westminster Hall in January 1606 and sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

The executions were conducted across two days:

30 January 1606: Sir Everard Digby, Thomas Bates, and Robert Wintour were executed in St. Paul’s Churchyard;
31 January 1606: Guy Fawkes, Ambrose Rookwood, Thomas Wintour, and Robert Keyes suffered in Old Palace Yard, Westminster, opposite the Parliament building they had plotted to destroy.

Fawkes, weakened by torture, jumped or slipped from the ladder as the noose was adjusted, breaking his neck in the fall and dying before the executioner could begin the disembowelling.

Their severed heads were mounted upon spikes on London Bridge.

Although annual Bonfire Night celebrations burn effigies of Guy Fawkes upon bonfires, Fawkes was not burned at the stake.

The Restoration Regicides (1660)

Following the restoration of King Charles II in August 1660, Parliament passed the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, granting general amnesties to supporters of Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth while specifically exempting those who had participated in the trial and execution of King Charles I.

In October 1660, the Regicides were brought before a Special Commission.

Ten were convicted of High Treason and sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered: Thomas Harrison, John Jones, John Carew, Hugh Peters, Adrian Scroope, Thomas Scot, Gregory Clement, Francis Hacker, Daniel Axtell, and John Cooke.

Major-General Thomas Harrison was the first to die, executed at Charing Cross on Saturday, 13 October 1660, enduring the full rigours of the sentence while conscious.

Two days later, John Carew was executed, though his family was granted permission to bury his quarters rather than having them exhibited on the gates.

On 16 October, Crown prosecutor John Cooke and preacher Hugh Peters were executed; Cooke’s head was spiked on Westminster Hall alongside Harrison’s, while Peters’ head was placed on London Bridge.

On 17 October, Scot, Clement, Scroope, and Jones were executed, followed by Hacker and Axtell on 19 October.

Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton, Thomas Pride, and John Bradshaw—all deceased prior to the Restoration—were posthumously convicted of High Treason.

In January 1661, their bodies were exhumed from Westminster Abbey, drawn on sledges to Tyburn, hanged from the Triple Tree, decapitated, and their torsos buried in a pit beneath the gallows, while their heads were impaled on poles atop Westminster Hall.

17th-Century Coining and Forgery Cases

At the Old Bailey Sessions on 15 October 1690, Thomas Castle was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered for clipping and counterfeiting silver shillings.

The Ordinary of Newgate’s Account recorded Castle’s sentence as “Drawn, Hanged and Quartered,” illustrating that “drawing” referred specifically to transport upon a hurdle.

Castle was spared evisceration, being drawn on a sledge to Tyburn and hanged on Friday, 24 October 1690.

The 1715 and 1745 Jacobite Rebellions

The Jacobite uprisings resulted in numerous executions under High Treason statutes.

Following the 1715 Rebellion, three Jacobite officers—John Dorrell, Captain John Gordon, and Captain William Kerr—were convicted by the Court of King’s Bench on 22 November 1715 and drawn on sledges to Tyburn for execution on 7 December.

The 1745 Jacobite Rebellion led to wholesale trials by Special Commissions.

At Carlisle, ninety-one prisoners were sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

Thirty-three executions were carried out in October and November 1746: twenty at Carlisle, six at Brampton, and seven at Penrith.

A further twenty-two executions were conducted at York Castle in November 1746.

Seventeen Jacobite officers were executed on Kennington Common (now Kennington Park in south London), the execution site for Surrey, between July and November 1746, including Sir John Wedderburn, John Hamilton, Andrew Wood, Alexander Leith, and Captain James Dawson.

The Execution of Colonel Francis Townley (1746)

Thirty-seven-year-old Colonel Francis Townley, commander of the English Jacobite Manchester Regiment that held Carlisle, was executed on Kennington Common in July 1746. A contemporary account records:

“After he had hung for six minutes, he was cut down, and, having life in him, as he lay on the block to be quartered, the executioner gave him several blows on the breast, which not having the effect designed, he immediately cut his throat, after which he took his head off, then ripped him open, and took out his bowels and threw them into the fire which consumed them.

Then he slashed his four quarters, put them with the head into a coffin, and they were deposited till Saturday, August 2nd, when his head was put on Temple Bar, and his body and limbs suffered to be buried.”

Townley’s head was later secretly recovered from Temple Bar by his family and preserved in secret until 1945, when it was finally interred in the Townley family vault in Burnley.

Late 18th-Century Executions

Only four executions under High Treason statutes took place during the second half of the 18th century:

Dr. Archibald Cameron (7 June 1753): Convicted under the 1746 Act of Attainder for his role in the 1745 Rebellion, Cameron was hanged at Tyburn for twenty minutes before being decapitated; his remains were buried in the Savoy Chapel.
François Henri de la Motte (27 July 1781): A French nobleman convicted of espionage and treason for transmitting naval intelligence to France. Hanged at Tyburn for nearly thirty minutes, his head was severed, his heart extracted and burned, and his body symbolically scored with a knife in place of quartering.
David Tyrie (24 August 1782): Tried at Winchester Assizes for communicating naval secrets to the French, Tyrie was executed on the shoreline at Portsmouth, his sentence being carried out in full.
Father James O’Coigley (7 July 1798): An Irish priest and member of the United Irishmen convicted of treasonable correspondence with Revolutionary France, hanged and beheaded on Pennenden Heath outside Maidstone.

19th-Century Treason Executions and Decapitation

During the 19th century, four sets of High Treason executions took place. In all four cases, disembowelling was remitted by royal warrant, and the prisoners were hanged until dead before being decapitated.

The Despard Conspirators (1803)

On Monday, 21 February 1803, Colonel Edward Marcus Despard and six associates—John Francis, John Wood, James Broughton, James Sedgewick, Arthur Wrutton, and John McNamara—were executed atop the gatehouse of Horsemonger Lane Gaol in Surrey for plotting to assassinate King George III and seize the Tower of London.

The men were symbolically drawn around the prison exercise yard on a hurdle before mounting the gallows.

Executioner William Brunskill hanged them until dead, after which their corpses were lowered and decapitated with a knife on the scaffold.

The Treason Act 1814

The brutality of the ritual led Parliament to pass the Treason Act 1814 (54 Geo. 3 c. 146), sponsored by law reformer Sir Samuel Romilly.

The 1814 statute formally abolished disembowelling, emasculation, and the burning of internal organs, stipulating that male traitors were to be drawn on a hurdle, hanged until dead, and then subjected to post-mortem beheading and quartering at the monarch’s pleasure.

The Pentrich Martyrs (1817)

On Friday, 7 November 1817, Jeremiah Brandreth, William Turner, and Isaac Ludlam—known as the “Pentrich Martyrs”—were executed outside Friar Gate Gaol in Derby for leading an armed workers’ march in an abortive insurrection.

The men were hanged on the New Drop gallows for thirty minutes until dead.

The executioner severed their heads using a woodman’s axe, holding Brandreth’s head before the assembled crowd while exclaiming:

“Behold the head of the traitor, Jeremiah Brandreth.”

This marked the final historical instance in Great Britain where an axe was used for judicial decapitation.

The Cato Street Conspirators (1820)

The five Cato Street conspirators were the last individuals to undergo hanging and decapitation in England.

Arthur Thistlewood, James Ings, John Thomas Brunt, Richard Tidd, and William Davidson had plotted to assassinate the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, and the entire Cabinet at a dinner in Grosvenor Square.

Arrested in Cato Street off Edgware Road, they were convicted of High Treason at the Old Bailey.

Lord Chief Justice Abbott pronounced the sentence:

“That you, each of you, be taken hence to the goal from whence you came, and from thence that you be drawn on a hurdle to a place of execution, and be there hanged by the neck until dead; and that afterwards your heads shall be severed from your bodies, and your bodies divided into four quarters, to be disposed of as his Majesty shall think fit. And may God of His infinite goodness have mercy upon your souls.”

To avoid severe street congestion outside Newgate Prison, City of London Sheriff Mr. Rothwell remitted the drawing on a hurdle.

On Monday, 1 May 1820, executioner John Foxton (assisted by Thomas Cheshire) conducted the hanging before thousands of spectators.

After hanging for thirty minutes, the bodies were lowered onto the platform and placed across coffins.

A masked practitioner—believed to be a surgeon or London butcher—severed each head using a surgical amputating knife, holding each aloft with the proclamation:

“This is the head of a traitor.”

The quartering of the bodies was remitted, and the remains were buried in unmarked graves beneath the flagstones of Newgate Prison.

The 1820 Radical War in Scotland

The final instance of judicial hanging followed by decapitation in the United Kingdom occurred in Scotland later that year.

Following the abortive “Radical War” of April 1820, twenty-two radical weavers and reformers who had skirmished with government troops at Bonnymuir were tried for High Treason at Stirling.

Radical leaders Andrew Hardie and John Baird were executed outside Stirling Castle on Friday, 8 September 1820.

After hanging for thirty minutes, their bodies were cut down and laid across their coffins, where their heads were severed and displayed to the crowd.

On the scaffold, Hardie declared:

“I die a martyr to the cause of truth and injustice.”

The remaining twenty conspirators had their death sentences commuted to penal transportation to New South Wales.

Legal Abolition and Statutory History

Although full disembowelling had ended in the 18th century, drawing and quartering remained the lawful punishment for High Treason on the British statute book until the passage of the Forfeiture Act 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c. 23).

The 1870 Act eliminated drawing on a hurdle, post-mortem beheading, and quartering, reducing the penalty for treason exclusively to private hanging behind prison walls.

Peacetime capital punishment for treason was completely eliminated in the United Kingdom under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, as outlined in our overview of the abolition of capital punishment in Britain.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the full punishment of hanging, drawing, and quartering?

Under English law, the sentence required a male traitor to be drawn on a wooden hurdle behind a horse to the gallows, hanged by the neck without a drop, cut down while still alive, emasculated, disembowelled with his organs burned before him, beheaded, and his body divided into four quarters to be displayed on city gates.

What did the word “drawing” actually mean in the sentence?

“Drawing” referred to the dragged transit on a hurdle or sledge from the prison to the place of execution. It did not refer to the evisceration of the intestines, as confirmed by contemporary legal texts and sentences where prisoners were drawn and hanged without being quartered.

Why were women not hanged, drawn, and quartered?

Under English common law, disembowelling and quartering were deemed inappropriate for female offenders because public nudity was considered an affront to female modesty. Women convicted of High Treason or Petty Treason were sentenced instead to be burned at the stake until the Treason Act 1790 substituted ordinary hanging.

When was someone last beheaded after hanging in England?

The last instance in England occurred on 1 May 1820 outside Newgate Prison, when the five leaders of the Cato Street Conspiracy (including Arthur Thistlewood) were hanged for thirty minutes and then decapitated on the scaffold using a surgical knife.

When was hanging, drawing, and quartering officially abolished in the UK?

The physical practices of evisceration and burning organs were removed by the Treason Act 1814. All statutory provisions for drawing on a hurdle and post-mortem quartering were formally abolished from British law under the Forfeiture Act 1870.

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