Bloody code

Capital punishment was introduced even in the legislation of 1071-1087, when after the conquest of England by the Norman monarch Wilhelm the First , a ruling class of French origin was formed in the country, opposing the Anglo-Saxon peasant mass. Even if the peasants could pay the treasury for the use of the forest, they still did not have a bow, arrows and any other weapons, and the dogs had to have their claws on their forepaws pulled out so that they could not catch the prey.

Starting with Henry I, the use of the death penalty has expanded.

The first gallows in England was a tree on the outskirts of London - Tayburn , where the first convict was pulled up in 1196. This place was chosen according to the “Book of the Last Judgment” - conducted in 1085 on the orders of William the Conqueror of the Census of the English population and locality, to get acquainted with the territory and suppression of the dissatisfied. The name of the manuscript goes back to the biblical Judgment Day , when all people should be accountable to the Almighty for their misconduct, but some should do so in life.

Henry VIII (1491-1547) brutally suppressed vagrancy : peasants who were driven from the ground as a result of fencing and forced to live in poverty were hanged under the law “On the fight against vagrancy”. Thus, over 15,000 stubborn beggars, including women and children, were executed in 15 years.

Under great Elizabeth I , about 89,000 people were executed ^[1] .

In 1688, there were 50 crimes punishable by death, but by 1776 their number had increased almost 4 times ^[2] , and by the end of the century reached 220 ^[3] . Most of the laws introduced during this period concerned property protection, which some researchers consider as a manifestation of the class pressure of the rich on the poor ^[4] The purpose of tightening the law was to deter potential criminals. Large-scale theft of property was one of the crimes punishable by death, while “large-scale” meant the cost of the stolen more than 12 pence ^{[nb 1]} , but by the 17th century judges deliberately underestimated the amount of damage to exclude the imposition of the mandatory death sentence ^[5] .

England was honored with the name “classical country of executions” for punishing them: “Theft of a sheep, rabbit, etc.”, encroachment on the royal forest (hunting, gathering firewood and fruits), impersonating a patient in a nursing home, rebellion, hanging out with gypsies, damaging the London and Westminster bridges, wrecking cars ( Luddism ), picking up items thrown ashore after a shipwreck, etc. The suspects were tortured with cold water for men and red-hot iron for women to obtain confession ^[1] .

When hanging the prisoner, his hands and feet were tied. The height of the fall of the body was selected so that when pushing out the support, the jerk would break the cervical vertebrae and tear the spinal cord, but not tear off the head.

For hanging, a rope about 4 m long and 2 cm thick with a freely sliding loop at the end was used, then instead of a loop, a metal ring began to be used, which slipped better along the rope and accelerated execution. The bodies of the executed were buried nearby or handed over to doctors for conducting anatomical experiments in accordance with the law adopted in 1540, when the Guild of Surgeons and the Barber Society were united, each member of both was allowed to take four bodies of executed criminals annually to study ^[1] .

Those convicted of high treason were executed with maximum cruelty, which was first applied on June 1, 1571 to the Catholic leader Dr. John Storey (1504-1571). The order on this occasion was: “To deliver the traitor to the place of execution, where to hang him by the neck and remove him from the noose half-dead. Then cut off child-bearing parts to him, release his entrails and burn them. In order for his crime to become especially terrifying for the audience, the executioner, tearing his heart out of him, show it to people and announce - this is the heart of a traitor! Then chop off his hand and quarter the body. After that, put the head and body parts in a crowded place. ” Such crowded places were the City Gate, London Bridge or Westminster Hall . ^[one]

Hanging in England was used so privately and universally that the gallows and crossbars for executions were used as a sign in the first English travel guides, and London with the suburbs was generally called the "city of gallows." Sometimes the gallows were collapsible: they were built near the crime scene, so that the townsfolk observed the triumph of justice.

Pirates were executed on the north bank of the Thames at the “Wharf of Executions” in Wepping, leaving the bodies on the gallows lowered to the water level until three tides washed them ^[1] .

Since 1808, when the death penalty for pickpockets and some minor offenses was abolished, the process of reducing the number of crimes involving a death sentence, which lasted more than 50 years, began.

Lord Byron in 1812 opposed unjustified executions and new laws against the Luddites , writing "Ode to the authors of the bill against machine destroyers" ^[1] .

In 1823, amendments were made to the criminal law that made the death sentence a decision of a judge and left it mandatory only for treason and murder .

By 1832, the number of capital punishable crimes was reduced by a factor of three. In particular, the death penalty for theft and falsification of goods was abolished. In total, during the period of the "bloody code" (1770-1830), about seven thousand people were executed in England and Wales,

Since 1829, crime prevention has become the function of the police instead of the previously practiced intimidation through cruel punishment ^[6] . However, executions continued: for example, in 1830, a 9-year-old boy was hanged for stealing crayons.

By 1861, there were only five crimes punishable by death: murder (death sentence has not been imposed since 1965, canceled in 1969), piracy (canceled in 1998), arson of a naval base (canceled in 1971), espionage (canceled in 1981), state treason (canceled in 1998, more in the article " Hanging, Gutting and Quartering ").

The executions, especially public ones, were opposed by Robert Peel , Charles Dickens and John Howard, whose efforts were successful in 1868, when execution was transferred outside the walls of Newgate Prison and barred the access of spectators, however, allowing witnesses, including reporters, to 1910.

The last public execution took place over 18-year-old Thomas Wells (or, according to other sources, over Michel Barrath), on August 13, 1868.

Then, in 1908, hanging was canceled for people under 16 years old. And in 1933, the minimum age for hanging was raised to 18 years. ^[7]

Between 1830 and 1964, about 2,000 people were hanged in England.

The leaders in the number of executions in the 19th century were the counties of Wiltshire , Hereford and Essex ^[1] .

• Brodeur, Jean-Paul; McCormick, Kevin RE & Visano, Livy A. (1992), "High Policing and Low Policing: Remarks about the Policing of Political Activities", Understanding Policing , Canadian Scholars' Press, ISBN 1-55130-005-2  
• Glyn-Jones, Anne (2000), Holding up a Mirror: How Civilizations Decline (Revised 2nd ed.), Imprint Academic, ISBN 978-0-907845-60-7  
• Sharpe, Jim (2001), "Crime, Order and Historical Change", in Muncie, John & McLaughlin, Eugene, The Problem of Crime (2nd ed.), Sage Publications , p. 107-150, ISBN 978-0-7619-6971-6  
• Wade, Stephen (2009), Britain's Most Notorious Hangmen , Wharncliffe Local History, ISBN 978-1-84563-082-9  
• Wilf, Steven (2010), Law's Imagined Republic: Popular Politics and Criminal Justice in Revolutionary America , Cambridge University Press , ISBN 978-0-521-14528-2  

• Amnesty International: History of the Abolition of the Death Penalty in the UK
• Rough justice - Victorian style, BBC News