Execution: A Guide to the Ultimate Penalty (51 page)

TORN APART BY HORSES

‘[S]o strongly was his flesh and joints knit together, that for a long time these four horses could not dismember him… the executioners were constrained to cut the flesh under his arms and thighs with a sharp razor, by which means his body was the easier torn to pieces.’ 

It would seem to be acceptable when society generally, for whatever reason, decides to kill a king, as exemplified by the deaths of Charles I and Louis XVI, but a totally different matter when only one member of that society feels that such an action is necessary. Then the vengeance wreaked on that individual is awful indeed, as Francis Ravaillac found out to his agonising cost in the year 1610, following his assassination of King Henry IV of France.

There was no doubt in the minds of the judges who, on the afternoon of 27 May of that year, had assembled in the Chambre de La-Beuvette in Paris. Found guilty, Ravaillac stood and heard the dreaded sentence read out, a verdict which also condemned him first to be put to the torture, in order to extract the names of any fellow conspirators. An account of the final moments of the trial, extracted and translated from the registers of the Parliament of Paris, 1610, makes grim reading:

‘We, the presidents, and several of the councillors being present, the prisoner Francis Ravaillac, was brought into Court, who having been accused and convicted of parricide [this term included the murder of a royal personage] commited on the person of the late King, he was ordered to kneel, and the clerk of the court pronounced the sentence of death given against him; as likewise that he should be put to the torture to force him to declare his accomplices.

His path being taken, he was exhorted to redeem himself from the tortures prepared for him, by acknowledging the truth, and declaring who those persons were that had persuaded, prompted and abetted him, in that most wicked action, and to whom he had disclosed his intention of committing it. He said, by the salvation I hope for, no one but myself was concerned in this action. He was then ordered to be put to the torture of the brodequins.’

This torture, also known as the ‘bootikins’ or ‘boots’, as their names imply, tortured the victim’s feet and legs. There were several different versions, but the most common method required the victim to be secured in a chair. An upright board was then placed on each side of each of his legs, splinting them from knee to ankle, the boards being tied together by ropes and iron rings, within a frame. With the legs now immovable, wooden wedges were driven with a mallet between the inner two boards, and then between the outer boards and their surrounding frame, crushing and compressing the trapped legs. An alternative method dispensed with the frame: the seated victim had a board tied on each side of each leg; the boards were bound tightly together. For the ‘ordinary’ torture, four wedges were driven between the two inner boards. For the ‘extraordinary’ torture, eight wedges were used, bursting flesh and bone, and mangling the limbs permanently. The account in the registers continued:

‘On the first wedge being driven in, he cried out: “God have mercy upon my soul, and pardon the crime I have committed; I never disclosed my intention to anyone.” This he repeated as he had done in his interrogation.

When the second wedge was driven in, he said with loud cries and shrieks; “I am a sinner; I know no more than I have declared, by the oath I have taken, and by the truth which I owe to God and the Court; all I have said was to the little Franciscan [the priest], which I have already declared; I never mentioned my design on confession, or in any other way. I beseech the Court not to drive my soul to despair.”

The executioner continuing to drive the second wedge, he cried out: “My God, receive this penance as an expiation for the great crimes I have committed in this world; Oh, God, accept these torments in satisfaction for my sins. By the faith I owe to God, I know no more than what I have declared. Oh, do not drive my soul to despair.”

The third wedge was then driven lower, near his feet, at which a universal sweat covered his body, and he fainted away. The executioner forced some wine into his mouth, but he could not swallow it, and being quite speechless, he was released from the torture, and water was thrown on his face and hands. Some wine being forced down his throat, his speech returned, and he was laid upon a mattress in the same place, where he lay until noon. When he had recovered his strength he was conducted to chapel by the executioner and, two doctors of the Sorbonne being sent for, his dinner was given to him, but before the divines entered into a conference with him, the cleric admonished him to think of his salvation, and confess by whom he had been prompted, persuaded and abetted in the wicked action he had committed, and so long designed to commit, it not being probable that he should of himself have conceived and executed it without communicating it to any other.

He said, that if he had known more than what he had divulged to the Court, he would not have concealed it, well knowing that in this case he could not have the mercy of God, which he hoped for and expected; and that he would not have endured the torments he had done, if he had any further confession to make. He said, he acknowledged that he had committed a great crime, to which he had been incited by the temptation of the devil; that he entreated the King, the Queen, the court and the whole kingdom to pardon him, and to cause prayers to be put up to God for him, that his body might bear the punishment for his soul. And being many times admonished to reveal the truth, he only repeated what he had said before.

A little after two o’clock the cleric of the court was sent for by the divines, who told him, that the condemned man had charged them to send for him, that he might hear and sign his confession, which he desired might be revealed and even printed, to the end, that it might be known to the whole world; which confession the said doctors declared to have been, That no one had been concerned with him in the act he had committed; that he had not been solicited, prompted or abetted, by any other person whatever, nor had he revealed his design to anyone; that he had acknowledged that he had committed a great crime, for which he hoped to have the mercy of God, which was still greater than his sins, but which he could not hope to obtain if he concealed any thing.

Hereupon the clerk asked the condemned if he was willing that his confession should be known and revealed; and as above, admonished him to acknowledge the truth for the salvation of his soul. He then declared upon his oath that he had said all he knew, and that no one had incited him to commit the murder.’

At three o’clock Ravaillac, clad only in his shirt, was brought from the prison, bearing in one hand a heavy, lighted torch, and in his other hand the knife he had used to commit the murder, it being attached to his wrist by a chain. He was placed in the tumbril and, standing, was escorted by a strong party of police to a church, for the purpose of doing penance. During the journey, two members of the clergy who accompanied him made futile efforts to induce him to divulge the names of his associates. At last the scaffold was reached, and after further unavailing attempts to persuade him to talk, he was led up the steps. A contemporary chronicler gave this eye-witness account as the horrific scenes unfolded:

‘This was the following of his death, an example of terror made known to all the world, to convert all bloody-minded traytors from the like enterprise. At his first coming on to the scaffold, he crossed himself directly over the breast, a sign that he did not live and dye an obstinate Papist; whereupon, by the Executioners, he was bound to an engine of wood and iron, made like to a St Andrew’s Crosse, according to the fashion of his body, and then the hand with the knife chained to it, wherewith he slew the King, and halfe the arm, was put into an artificial furnace, then flaming with fire and brimstone, wherein the knife, his right hand, and halfe the arm adjoining to it, was in the most terrible manner consumed, yet nothing would he confess, but yelled out with such horrible cries ene as he had bene a devil, or some tormented soul in hell: “Oh God!” and often repeated, “Jesu Marie!” And surely, if hell’s tortures might be felt on earth, it was approved in this man’s punishment, and though he deserved ten times more, yet humane nature might inforce us to pity his distress.

After this, with tongs and iron pincers, made extreme hott in the same furnace, the appointed executioners pinched and seared the dugs of his breasts, the brawnes of his arms and thighs, the calves of his legs, and other fleshy parts of his body, cutting out lollops of flesh, and burned them before his face. Afterwards, in the same wounds thus made, they poured scalded oil, rosen, pitch and brimstone, melted together; yet would he reveale nothing, but that he did it of himself by the instigation of the devil, and the reason was, because the King tolerated two religions in his Kingdom...

But to pass further into this strange excursion, according to the sentence pronounced against him, the executioners put upon his stomach a rundle of clay, very hard, with a hole in the midst, and into the same hole they poured molten lead, till it was filled, yet revealed he nothing, but cried out with most horrible roars, even like the dying man tormented in the brazen bull of the tyrant Phalares.