Having written such serious pieces the last couple of days, I think it's time we had something a little more lighthearted. It is also absolutely pouring with rain - horrible, slanted, icy rain, the kind that hits you from every angle and soaks through your waterproof - so I think it's also time we took a trip to Wales. On this day in 1283, the Prince of Gwynedd - Dafydd ap Gruffydd - became the first person to be executed by being hanged, drawn and quartered. A dubious honour indeed.
What exactly is hanging, drawing and quartering, I hear you ask? Let me explain. [Those of weak heart/mind/stomach should probably skip this paragraph.] First, you take your criminal and attach him to a horse - or maybe two horses, if he was a bit chubby - via a hurdle.You then draw him on the hurdle across town, to his place of execution. (So I guess it really should be called drawing, hanging and quartering...) Next, you string up your criminal (who is having this done to him because he's been convicted of High Treason by the way) and hang him until he's almost dead, before cutting him down. Then (and here comes the really gory bit), you cut off his 'privy members' and take out his bowels 'and burn them before him'. You would then have him (and it was always him - women were merely burned at the stake, for the sake of 'decency') beheaded, and his body chopped into quarters and sent to various parts of the country, as a warning to anyone else who might have been considering committing a treasonous act.
All this, of course, took place in a public arena - partially to maximize the indignity the criminal had to suffer, and partially because it was a great form of entertainment in Medieval Britain. (Anyone who is tutting about the uncivilized barbarians who make up medieval society should think carefully about the sorts of films people nowadays like to watch - the kind which have wimps like me hiding behind the sofa and sleeping with the light on for days, and imagine what they might think of us.)
And what had good old Dafydd done to deserve such a fate? 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".
You see, after his brother died in 1282, Dafydd was proclaimed Prince of Wales and decided to attack Hawarden Castle in Shropshire as a display of power, which didn't exactly go down too well with Edward I, to whom Dafydd was supposed to be paying homage. Edward amassed an army, and by January 1283, had captured most of the heartland of Wales. Dafydd and his supporters held out for another six months or so, hiding in the valleys, but were eventually captured on 22 June. He was tried for high treason against the King (again, the first person to suffer this fate) in Chester, and naturally found guilty. His sons were imprisoned in Bristol Castle, for the rest of their lives, where they died in circumstances which can best be described as mysterious; his daughters sent to convents around the country.
Because of this, Dafydd not only holds the title of a famous first, but also a famous last - he was the last Welsh Prince of Wales. Edward I made his eldest son (also called Edward) Prince of Wales on his birth, and the title has been held by the current monarch's eldest son ever since.
One can understand why the Welsh may not be so happy about this arrangement...
All this, of course, took place in a public arena - partially to maximize the indignity the criminal had to suffer, and partially because it was a great form of entertainment in Medieval Britain. (Anyone who is tutting about the uncivilized barbarians who make up medieval society should think carefully about the sorts of films people nowadays like to watch - the kind which have wimps like me hiding behind the sofa and sleeping with the light on for days, and imagine what they might think of us.)
And what had good old Dafydd done to deserve such a fate? 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".
You see, after his brother died in 1282, Dafydd was proclaimed Prince of Wales and decided to attack Hawarden Castle in Shropshire as a display of power, which didn't exactly go down too well with Edward I, to whom Dafydd was supposed to be paying homage. Edward amassed an army, and by January 1283, had captured most of the heartland of Wales. Dafydd and his supporters held out for another six months or so, hiding in the valleys, but were eventually captured on 22 June. He was tried for high treason against the King (again, the first person to suffer this fate) in Chester, and naturally found guilty. His sons were imprisoned in Bristol Castle, for the rest of their lives, where they died in circumstances which can best be described as mysterious; his daughters sent to convents around the country.
Because of this, Dafydd not only holds the title of a famous first, but also a famous last - he was the last Welsh Prince of Wales. Edward I made his eldest son (also called Edward) Prince of Wales on his birth, and the title has been held by the current monarch's eldest son ever since.
One can understand why the Welsh may not be so happy about this arrangement...
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