Capital Punishment in Britain

Often a macabre, graphic exercise in physical mutilation, capital punishment was once a highly popular form of entertainment for the masses, as well as serving the death penalty to criminals - man, woman and child alike - and it has played its part as the ultimate judicial penalty in Britain for centuries. The author reveals the many horrific guises of this final punishment from execution by hanging, drawing and quartering, to other sickening alternatives including burning, boiling alive and use of the dreaded Halifax gibbet, precursor to the Guillotine. Witches fell to watery graves through violent drownings, whilst damned women were often pressed slowly to death. Modern developments are also taken into account with a detailed look at the reduction of executions, 20th century executions and reprieves, as well as vivid descriptions of the last executions in Britain and its final abolition.