Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders Read Online Free PDF Page A

instance, that ‘in 1660 Alexander Davidson is to mainteane it all the dayis of his life.’ The city accounts reveal that in 1600 the lokman was paid ‘twelve shillings and eightpence for one barrell to salt the quarteris with salt thareto’, while thirty shillings and fourpence was forthcoming to the lokman ‘for the executing and putting up [on display] of the heidis and quarteris.’
    Despite its name it showed no favours to females, its blade descending on Isabell and Ann Erskine in 1614 for poisoning their two nephews; Marion Astein for adultery in 1631; and Janet Embrie, found guilty in 1643 of committing incest with two of her brothers.
    All executions took place in public, the machine usually being positioned near the City Cross in Edinburgh’s High Street, although it could be transported by cart to other cities as required, and many Scottish heads fell beneath its blade between 1564 and 1710, when its use was discontinued.
     
    The Execution Sword
     

     
    Execution By The Sword (Hans Froschel By Franz Schmidt)
     
    Although rarely used for judicial executions in England, the sword was widely employed on the Continent for dispatching those condemned to death; had it been adopted in England, much unimaginable suffering by the axe’s victims could have been avoided, for the execution sword was a finely honed and superbly balanced instrument of death. About three feet or more in length, it weighed approximately four pounds; the blade, two inches wide, had parallel cutting edges and a broad, blunt tip, no point being necessary to achieve its purpose. A ‘fuller’, a wide groove, ran longitudinally along each side to allow the blood to flow towards the handle and not coagulate and so blunt the razor-sharp edges. The comparatively long handle, designed to be gripped with both hands, was covered with leather or fish skin to provide a non-slip surface. The quillons, the guards, were wide and straight.
    Contrary to popular belief, the victim did not kneel over a block. Had they done so, the headsman himself would also have had to kneel and deliver a vertical blow inevitably lacking the force necessary to decapitate his victim. And if, instead of kneeling, he had stood erect, the blade would have struck the further edge of the block rather than the victim’s neck. The procedure therefore was for the victim to kneel upright or to stand, the executioner swinging the blade horizontally around his head once or twice to gain the necessary momentum before delivering the fatal stroke. If undue suffering and horrific flesh wounds were to be avoided, ‘cooperation’ by the victim was essential, for if he or she swayed or trembled too violently, more than one blow would be required.
    As the eighteenth-century French executioner Charles-Henri Sanson pointed out,
     
    ‘It must be taken into account that when there are several condemned persons to be executed at the same time, the terror produced by this method owing to the immense amount of blood that is shed and flows everywhere, creates fear and weakness in the hearts of those who are waiting to die. An attack of faintness forms an invincible obstacle to an execution. If prisoners cannot hold themselves up, and yet the executioner continues with the matter, the execution becomes a struggle and a massacre.’
     
    It was reported that Anne Boleyn, executed by the sword, continued to move her eyes and lips when her severed head was held high. It has been conjectured by some eminent pathologists and neurobiologists that when the head is severed by a sword or a rapidly falling guillotine-type blade, there is sufficient oxygen remaining in the brain to prolong consciousness for perhaps two, three or even more seconds after decapitation.
    It is a proven fact that after a person has died, organs surgically removed for life-saving transplant purposes continue to function; hearts to beat, kidneys to produce urine. So if, after being beheaded, the body is not dead, is the severed