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many of the prisoners limbs would be destroyed by the limb crushe rs (and of course, which limbs); the more heinous the crime, the more limbs would be crushed before you were put out of your misery. Once all the limbs had been destroyed, the prisoner would still be very much alive. At this point it was time for the executioner to bring in the skull crusher!
 
    The principals of the device were, of course, remarkably similar, but given what is contained inside the skull, the impact was a whole lot more gory! As the device tightened, the pressure on the skull increased, and eventually this would cause the skull to crack. Usually the teeth would give way first, and this would weaken the skull sufficiently for the top part of the skull to crack too.
 
    Now cracked, the integrity of the skull’s structure was seriously weakened, and the cracks also meant the skull had more, shall we say, “give”. This allowed the skull to be squeezed tighter than before, squashing the skull’s contents as it tightened further. First, the eyeballs would explode from the eye socket, with the person still alive ! But this wasn’t the end, not by a long shot. With the skull now considerably weakened, there was little resistance as the skull crusher continued to close in: this began to squash the brain too. With nowhere else for the brain to go, it would begin to ooze from the ears, killing the person.
 
    Not a very desirable way to go, in my opinion.

 
     
     
     
     
    3 – Hanged, Drawn and Quartered

 
    This method of execution was reserved for men found guilty of high treason in Medieval England – Women were burned at the stake instead ( see 19 ).
 
    Death by hanging, drawing and quartering is considered amongst the most barbaric ways to die of all: probably because to the three distinct phases of the punishment, each more brutal than the last.
 
    The first recording of this form of capital punishment was in the 1200s, with many hundreds of men meeting their maker this way.
 
    The first step was to transport the condemned from their prison cell to the location of the execution; this was the drawing phase of the execution. Horses were used for speed, but, unfortunately for the condemned, they weren’t placed inside a carriage: they were tied to a wooden plank and then dragged along the ground to the hanging site behind the horse. There were no paved roads back in those times, and the surface of the road would have been incredibly uneven. Each bump would have caused serious damaged to the prisoner’s back. If the horse slowed down, it was also possible for the condemned to be kicked by the horse, causing further damage.
 
    Second, we have the hanging. The condemned man was hung in public, though only for a short duration of time, and not for long enough to kill him.
 
    Finally, we have the gruesome quartering stage, though there was actually a little more to this than simply cutting the person up into quarters. First the condemned was emasculated and disembowelled: this means they had their genitals cut off and their guts pulled out). The person was still alive at this point, and this process, when done quickly, wouldn’t kill him. The person would therefore witness this happening, and once the guts and genitals had been removed they were tossed onto a fire and burnt in front of his very eyes - what a truly unpleasant final few moments.
 
    The executioners would then have mercy on the convict and end his life by beheading him. After this, his abdomen would be cut into four pieces. The lumps of body were then displayed prominently around the city, as a way of discouraging others from committing heinous crimes against the King. In fact, London Bridge was notorious at the time for displaying the severed heads of the deceased.
 
    In the 1700s the discomfort of the prisoner’s final moments was reduced, with the person being hanged until death, meaning they would not have to experience the quartering part.
 
    Guy