Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/499

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10ᵗʰ S. I. May 21, 1904.]
NOTES AND QUERIES.
411
Prisoners at the bar, be severally taken from hence to the place from whence you came, and from thence be severally drawn on an hurdle to the place of execution, and there be severally hanged by the neck, but not until you are dead, but that you be severally taken down again, and that whilst you are yet alive, your bowels be taken out and burnt before your faces; and that afterwards your heads be severed from your bodies, and your bodies be divided each into four quarters, and your head; and quarters to be at the king's disposal. And may God Almighty have mercy on your souls."

It is necessary to add that the most revolting part of the sentence was not carried out. The king's (Geo. III.) warrant for execution, dated 19 February, 1803, directed as follows:—

"And whereas we have thought fit to remit part of the sentence, viz., the taking out and burning their bowels before their faces and dividing the bodies of [here follow names] severally into four parts, our will and pleasure is that execution be done upon the said [names again repeated] by their being drawn and hanged and having their heads severed from their bodies, according to the said sentence only."

John T. Page.
West Haddon, Northamptonshire.


There does not seem to be any doubt that the proper order of the words is "drawn, hanged, and quartered." This was the form of the sentence. Thus the sentence passed on Edward Coleman, condemned for high treason in November, 1678, runs thus:—

"You shall return to prison, from thence be drawn to the place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck, and be cut down alive, your bowels burnt before your face, and your quarters severed and your body disposed as the king thinks fit."

In the report of the trial of the "five Jesuits," some time later, the recorded judgment (abbreviated) is "to be drawn, hanged, and quartered." The sentence on Fitzharris, tried in June, 1681, is given in Latin in the report of the trial:—

"Ad furcas de Tyborne trahatur, et super furcas illas suspendatur, et vivens ad terram prosternatur, ac interiora sua extra ventrem suum capiantur, ipsoq. vivente comburentur: et quod caput ejus amputatur, quodq. corpus ejus in quatuor partes dividatur, et quod caput et quarter. ill. ponantur ubi nos ea assignare voluerimus."

The drawing was originally a dragging along the ground; this was, later, mitigated by interposing a hurdle, and, later still, a sledge. But the sentences in the Popish Plot trials specified sometimes a hurdle, sometimes a sledge.

The sentences quoted will be found in the 'State Trials.' Alfred Marks.


No one can reasonably doubt that persons condemned to this penalty should strictly have been disembowelled before death. Between the beginning of February, 1577/8, and the end of January, 1585/6, the following Catholic martyrs, according to Challoner's 'Missionary Priests,' were certainly disembowelled while yet alive:—

Beati.—John Nelson, Thomas Sherwood, Everard Hanse, William Hart (and probably Richard Thirkell).

Venerabiles.—George Haydock, James Fenn, Thomas Hemerford, John Nutter, Richard White, Edward Strancham, Nicholas Wheeler (and probably John Munden).

John B. Wainewright.


"The Lord Steward then addressed the prisoners in a pathetic speech, and concluded by pronouncing sentence in the following words:—'The judgment of the law is, and this High Court doth award, that you, William Earl of Kilmarnock, George Earl of Cromarty, and Arthur Lord Balmerino, and every one of you, return to the prison of the Tower from whence you came; from thence you must be drawn to the place of execution; when you come there, you must be hanged by the neck, but not till you are dead; for you must be cut down alive; then your bowels must be taken out and burnt before your faces; then your heads must be severed from your bodies, and your bodies must be divided each into four quarters: and these must be at the king's disposal. And God Almighty be merciful to your souls!'"—Jesse's 'Memoirs of the Pretenders, p. 391.

W. E. Wilson.
Hawick.



Martello Towers (10ᵗʰ S. i. 285, 356)—Since writing my note I have been enabled, in the course of a tour round Cap Corse, to take a close observation of the point and bay of Mortella. I was unable to discern any vestiges of a fort on the point. If it were destroyed in 1793, the work must have been very thoroughly done. The nearest Genoese watch-tower is situated at Farínole, a mile or two to the northward. The myrtle abounds in the neighbourhood, and the vicinity of St. Florent is the only part of Corsica in which the oleander grows wild. It is a pretty Corsican custom to strew branches of myrtle before the residence of a bride, and in driving through Patrimonio, a village near St. Florent, we passed a house from which a marriage procession had just departed, the air being thick with the odour of the crushed leaves. It would be interesting to receive further evidence with regard to the alleged derivation of Martello from Mortella.

Bastia.


I believe the surname Martelli is of considerable antiquity in Florence and other parts of Italy. I do not suggest that the