Execution Tales Chapter Chapter 23 Part 1 Revision 2
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23: April & Beth do Some Research
As soon as they arrived back home April & Beth went straight to bed, still incredibly turned on by what they had read in the transcript. They jumped on the bed, pulled their skirts up & buried their faces in each other’s groins. It didn’t take long until their frantically licking tongues brought each other to orgasm. They continued to make love for another hour before they lay spent on the bed.
The next day they took out a subscription to “True Crime Monthly” & joined one of the largest libraries in New York. The first book they borrowed from the Library had been very recently published & was titled “A History of Women & the Death Penalty in Europe”. That evening they lay together on April’s bed avidly reading.
The first execution they found especially interesting was that of Margaret Davy in England in 1531
Margaret Davy.
Margaret was a 21 year old poisoner, a crime which Henry VIII considered to be “So odious”, that he decreed that poisoning should be regarded as a form of high treason rather than just murder.
Accordingly he “Inflicted a more grievous & lingering death than the common law prescribed. The offender should be boiled to death in hot water. In order to prolong the agony it was specified that the murderess was “First to be put in at the tiptoes & then immersed “By little & little” Margaret’s death was described by a witness as being “Peculiarly horrible”.
A writer at the time recorded that this penalty “Was too severe to live long” & it inspired such revulsion that it was abolished in in the reign of Henry’s son Edward & the sentence of death by hanging was reinstated for murder by poison
The next execution that took the girls attention was that of 16 year old Beatrice Cenci in Italy in 1599. The portrait of Beatrice reproduced in the book was very striking. It depicted a stunningly beautiful girl with perfect features & almost alabaster skin framed by long lustrous centrally parted black hair
Beatrice Cenci
Beatrice with the help of her stepmother Lucrezia & her brother Giacomo, arranged the murder of her father, the cruel & sadistic Count Cenci, who persecuted Beatrice & had almost certainly raped her. The tragic story of the beautiful young parricide had been subject of a play written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1819.
At 8am on September 11th 1599 the prisoners left the prison wearing knee length white shifts , accompanied by the Company of Misericordia bearing a great crucifix, & made their way to the Piazza. They walked past the scaffold with it’s block & Mannaia [Meaning an axe & possibly a mechanism resembling a guillotine] & entered the chapel next to the Piazza. Giacomo, Lucrezia & Beatrice knelt in prayer at the chapel altar.
Giacomo was the first to be taken out, he gibbered & cried as he was dragged to the scaffold. Lucrezia & Beatrice shut their eyes & tried to close out the sounds coming from the Piazza outside. There was a loud thud & Giacomo’s pleading abruptly stopped & the watching crowd roared it’s approval.
Lucrezia was next. Initially she was composed but when she saw Giacomo’s head exposed on a pike she started to struggle & wail. Again Beatrice shut her eyes & tried to block out the screams of her terrified stepmother. There was one last piercing screech followed by another heavy thump & again the spectators gave an appreciative cheer.
The machine was rearranged, the blood washed off & the executioner returned to the chapel to fetch Beatrice. The condemned girl got to her feet & left the chapel. She mounted the scaffold & as she had already been instructed what to do she streched herself upon the plank, adjusting her head as quickly as possible upon the block.
Despite the care Beatrice had taken to avoid the agony of delay she was obliged to endure it. The Pope had ordered that upon Beatrice’s appearance upon the scaffold, a cannon should be fired, which was done to the great wonder of the people & of the culprit who raised her head up from the block.
The Archbishop then came forward & gave her plenary absolution in Articulo Mortis. After an interval of five minutes, during which Beatrice awaited the death stroke trembling with her head on the block the executioner touched the spring & the blade fell
The section in the early chapters of the book that stimulated April & Beth most was entitled “English Executions in the 17th & 18th Centuries”. These described the significance of Tyburn, where stood “The Triple Tree”, so called because of its three crossbeams joined together in a triangle, in the history of capital punishment in England.
Tyburn was established in the mid 17th Century as the main site for executions in London. At first prisoners were hanged off ladders. The first execution at Tyburn described was that of Mary Moders on January 2nd 1673. The author had updated the contemporary description of the hanging to make it easier for a modern readership to understand.
Mary Moders
Mary had been a star of the London stage, she was also an adroit confidence trickster & highly paid prostitute. She was thirty years old, & still very attractive, when she was convicted of murdering a wealthy client who had refused to pay her for her services.
She was taken to Tyburn in a cart accompanied by the hangman wearing her best blue dress. The hangman pulled the cart up next to the gallows. The ladder was already in place propped against the high crossbeam. By now Mary was shivering with terror.
The executioner & his assistant took her down from the cart & positioned her with her back to the ladder. They pulled the noose down from the beam & put it round her neck & tied her hands in front of her. Mary refused to mount the ladder. The hangman climbed up first & used the noose to tug the condemned woman up the ladder, then he repeated the process. As they neared the crossbeam he climbed off the ladder & onto the beam while continuing his steady pull on the rope.
Finally Mary’s head was near the crossbeam & the executioner could proceed. He tied off the rope to the beam. Mary was weeping piteously as the hangman pulled a white cloth sack from his pocket & slid it over her head. The hood in place the executioner slid off the crossbeam, hung briefly by his hands & dropped the remaining four feet to the ground. Mary moaned in fright. The crowd circling the gallows strained for a better view.
The hangman kicked the ladder away & Mary was left swinging by her neck. Her last sound was a croak as her windpipe was sealed by her weight. Her body snapped around, her bound hands flew up to her neck trying to relieve the pressure on her throat. She swung back & forth like a pendulum spinning. Her neck stretched to an unnatural degree as her entire body weight pulled on it.
The crowd could see her feet stretching downwards, quivering, trying to find something to stand on to relieve the pain of the rope. She swayed for a few seconds, rigid & then her chest heaved again & again more rapidly as her air ran out. It got her nowhere, the only sound was the rope creaking against the wood. Mary’s jerking speeded up & her entire body began to violently shiver & convulse, thrusting about helplessly on the rope. Her legs were slicing back & forth at a frantic rate.
The crowd was silent as the spectators watched Mary’s death agony. The only sound was the ruffling of her dress & elaborate undergarments as her legs sent them flying. A minute or two of this & both Mary’s legs snapped up violently to her chin. The crowd gasped at the view this gave them. Her underwear was limited to stays, ruffles & a slip, all which were now lifted.
Her legs came down in a mighty thrust that carried them backwards & she began kicking even more violently. Mary’s whole body was shaking & convulsing. Five minutes of horrendous struggle passed before the victim’s movements began to slow, Mary’s chest heaved for one last time & then she hung still, her body turning slightly as it swung on the rope.
April shut the book & looked at Beth. As they began to make love they pictured in their minds the terror & pain of Margaret Davy being slowly lowered into boiling water in Tudor England, Beatrice Cenci shivering in fear, her head on the block, waiting to be beheaded in medieval Florence & Mary Moders slowly strangling to death on the Tyburn Gallows
As soon as they arrived back home April & Beth went straight to bed, still incredibly turned on by what they had read in the transcript. They jumped on the bed, pulled their skirts up & buried their faces in each other’s groins. It didn’t take long until their frantically licking tongues brought each other to orgasm. They continued to make love for another hour before they lay spent on the bed.
The next day they took out a subscription to “True Crime Monthly” & joined one of the largest libraries in New York. The first book they borrowed from the Library had been very recently published & was titled “A History of Women & the Death Penalty in Europe”. That evening they lay together on April’s bed avidly reading.
The first execution they found especially interesting was that of Margaret Davy in England in 1531
Margaret Davy.
Margaret was a 21 year old poisoner, a crime which Henry VIII considered to be “So odious”, that he decreed that poisoning should be regarded as a form of high treason rather than just murder.
Accordingly he “Inflicted a more grievous & lingering death than the common law prescribed. The offender should be boiled to death in hot water. In order to prolong the agony it was specified that the murderess was “First to be put in at the tiptoes & then immersed “By little & little” Margaret’s death was described by a witness as being “Peculiarly horrible”.
A writer at the time recorded that this penalty “Was too severe to live long” & it inspired such revulsion that it was abolished in in the reign of Henry’s son Edward & the sentence of death by hanging was reinstated for murder by poison
The next execution that took the girls attention was that of 16 year old Beatrice Cenci in Italy in 1599. The portrait of Beatrice reproduced in the book was very striking. It depicted a stunningly beautiful girl with perfect features & almost alabaster skin framed by long lustrous centrally parted black hair
Beatrice Cenci
Beatrice with the help of her stepmother Lucrezia & her brother Giacomo, arranged the murder of her father, the cruel & sadistic Count Cenci, who persecuted Beatrice & had almost certainly raped her. The tragic story of the beautiful young parricide had been subject of a play written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1819.
At 8am on September 11th 1599 the prisoners left the prison wearing knee length white shifts , accompanied by the Company of Misericordia bearing a great crucifix, & made their way to the Piazza. They walked past the scaffold with it’s block & Mannaia [Meaning an axe & possibly a mechanism resembling a guillotine] & entered the chapel next to the Piazza. Giacomo, Lucrezia & Beatrice knelt in prayer at the chapel altar.
Giacomo was the first to be taken out, he gibbered & cried as he was dragged to the scaffold. Lucrezia & Beatrice shut their eyes & tried to close out the sounds coming from the Piazza outside. There was a loud thud & Giacomo’s pleading abruptly stopped & the watching crowd roared it’s approval.
Lucrezia was next. Initially she was composed but when she saw Giacomo’s head exposed on a pike she started to struggle & wail. Again Beatrice shut her eyes & tried to block out the screams of her terrified stepmother. There was one last piercing screech followed by another heavy thump & again the spectators gave an appreciative cheer.
The machine was rearranged, the blood washed off & the executioner returned to the chapel to fetch Beatrice. The condemned girl got to her feet & left the chapel. She mounted the scaffold & as she had already been instructed what to do she streched herself upon the plank, adjusting her head as quickly as possible upon the block.
Despite the care Beatrice had taken to avoid the agony of delay she was obliged to endure it. The Pope had ordered that upon Beatrice’s appearance upon the scaffold, a cannon should be fired, which was done to the great wonder of the people & of the culprit who raised her head up from the block.
The Archbishop then came forward & gave her plenary absolution in Articulo Mortis. After an interval of five minutes, during which Beatrice awaited the death stroke trembling with her head on the block the executioner touched the spring & the blade fell
The section in the early chapters of the book that stimulated April & Beth most was entitled “English Executions in the 17th & 18th Centuries”. These described the significance of Tyburn, where stood “The Triple Tree”, so called because of its three crossbeams joined together in a triangle, in the history of capital punishment in England.
Tyburn was established in the mid 17th Century as the main site for executions in London. At first prisoners were hanged off ladders. The first execution at Tyburn described was that of Mary Moders on January 2nd 1673. The author had updated the contemporary description of the hanging to make it easier for a modern readership to understand.
Mary Moders
Mary had been a star of the London stage, she was also an adroit confidence trickster & highly paid prostitute. She was thirty years old, & still very attractive, when she was convicted of murdering a wealthy client who had refused to pay her for her services.
She was taken to Tyburn in a cart accompanied by the hangman wearing her best blue dress. The hangman pulled the cart up next to the gallows. The ladder was already in place propped against the high crossbeam. By now Mary was shivering with terror.
The executioner & his assistant took her down from the cart & positioned her with her back to the ladder. They pulled the noose down from the beam & put it round her neck & tied her hands in front of her. Mary refused to mount the ladder. The hangman climbed up first & used the noose to tug the condemned woman up the ladder, then he repeated the process. As they neared the crossbeam he climbed off the ladder & onto the beam while continuing his steady pull on the rope.
Finally Mary’s head was near the crossbeam & the executioner could proceed. He tied off the rope to the beam. Mary was weeping piteously as the hangman pulled a white cloth sack from his pocket & slid it over her head. The hood in place the executioner slid off the crossbeam, hung briefly by his hands & dropped the remaining four feet to the ground. Mary moaned in fright. The crowd circling the gallows strained for a better view.
The hangman kicked the ladder away & Mary was left swinging by her neck. Her last sound was a croak as her windpipe was sealed by her weight. Her body snapped around, her bound hands flew up to her neck trying to relieve the pressure on her throat. She swung back & forth like a pendulum spinning. Her neck stretched to an unnatural degree as her entire body weight pulled on it.
The crowd could see her feet stretching downwards, quivering, trying to find something to stand on to relieve the pain of the rope. She swayed for a few seconds, rigid & then her chest heaved again & again more rapidly as her air ran out. It got her nowhere, the only sound was the rope creaking against the wood. Mary’s jerking speeded up & her entire body began to violently shiver & convulse, thrusting about helplessly on the rope. Her legs were slicing back & forth at a frantic rate.
The crowd was silent as the spectators watched Mary’s death agony. The only sound was the ruffling of her dress & elaborate undergarments as her legs sent them flying. A minute or two of this & both Mary’s legs snapped up violently to her chin. The crowd gasped at the view this gave them. Her underwear was limited to stays, ruffles & a slip, all which were now lifted.
Her legs came down in a mighty thrust that carried them backwards & she began kicking even more violently. Mary’s whole body was shaking & convulsing. Five minutes of horrendous struggle passed before the victim’s movements began to slow, Mary’s chest heaved for one last time & then she hung still, her body turning slightly as it swung on the rope.
April shut the book & looked at Beth. As they began to make love they pictured in their minds the terror & pain of Margaret Davy being slowly lowered into boiling water in Tudor England, Beatrice Cenci shivering in fear, her head on the block, waiting to be beheaded in medieval Florence & Mary Moders slowly strangling to death on the Tyburn Gallows
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Forum > Public / Stories > Execution Tales Chapter Chapter 23 Part 1 Revision 2