For This Bloody Fact:
Punishment for Murder

Example of Hangings

Unknown artist, “and executions,” copper engraving, in John Reynolds, The Triumphs of God’s Revenge […] (London: Printed for R. Gosling, and Sold by J. Osborn, 1726), History XXVI, 391 (edited excerpt).

Punishment in The Triumphs of God’s Revenge

“Thus we see how God’s revenging-Justice still meets with Murther. O that we may read this History with fear, and profit thereby in reformation …”
(Reynolds, The Triumphs of God’s Revenge, History IX, 118)

Most of the narratives in The Triumphs of God’s Revenge are dedicated to the scandalous vices that lead to murder, but their ultimate goal is to highlight God’s victory over that deadly sin. Once the crime and its perpetrator(s) have been brought to light, justice demands punishment.

In his thirty tales, Reynolds features a variety of capital punishments for his convicted murderers, almost all of which are performed in public arenas. The most common execution method is hanging, which occurs 38 times throughout The Triumphs; hanging may have been particularly popular because it provides the opportunity for a public speech from the condemned. As the convicted murderer approaches the scaffold before a crowd of onlookers, he or she typically addresses the crowd (and, by extension, the readers of the story), making atonement before their death by confessing their crimes and asking for forgiveness. In some scaffold speeches, the convicted party reveals truths about the murder by accusing guilty characters of their crimes or exonerating innocent characters of others’. In History XXIX, the scorned Ursina kills the man who wronged her with the help of her unwitting servant. She is sentenced to death and, upon the scaffold, confesses to her crime, asks for forgiveness, and emphasizes that her servant had no knowledge or culpability in the murder, despite being suspected as an accessory.¹

Scaffold speeches, like Ursina’s, also function as moral imperatives to the reader. Ursina not only confesses to her crime, but explains the wickedness that led to it and implores her audience to learn from it. Her punishment thus serves as a deterrent to future crime, reflecting Reynolds’ central purpose for his book.

Many public punishments involve injuries to the murderer’s body that preceded or followed their execution. In many histories, the murderer’s body is burnt after they were hanged or beheaded, often in an equally public place. Twenty-seven total bodies are burned throughout The Triumphs, but only three murderers are burned alive; all three of these murderers are women, suggesting that this exceptionally slow and painful death is reserved for reprehensible crimes committed by female perpetrators.

After a burning, Reynolds often notes that the ashes of the offender are thrown into the air; he describes the bodies of these murderers as “unworthy to have any resting place on earth, which they had so cruelly stained and polluted with innocent blood.”² The scattering of a murderer’s ashes serves as a final act of condemnation for the convicted individual and as a deterrence to all who witnessed it: their corrupt bodies had been utterly destroyed and denied any kind of proper burial, finding no mercy in life and no honor in death.³

Example of a Posthumous Burning

Unknown artist, “De Salez executed,” copper engraving, in John Reynolds, The Triumphs of God’s Revenge […] (London: Printed for R. Gosling, and Sold by J. Osborn, 1726), History XI, 135 (edited excerpt).

Reynolds does not permit guilty murderers to walk free by the conclusion of each history; nevertheless, he demonstrates that wealth and status sometimes determine the specific manner of execution chosen for each convict. In several stories, murderers from noble, wealthy backgrounds are often able to influence state officials and thus receive more dignified or private executions. In History VII, Berinthia was initially sentenced to be hanged for committing murder, but her parents convince the judges to execute her in a way that would bring less public shame to their family:

“[Yet] it pierceth them to the heart and gall, that this their last Daughter and Child, Berinthia, should pass by the passage of a Halter, and end her dayes upon so ignominious and shameful a Stage as the Gallows, which would add a blemish to the lustre of their blood and posterity, that time could never have power either to wipe off, or wash away […] the importunacy and misery of her Parents, her own descent, youth, and beauty […] at last obtain compassion and favour of her Judges.” (Reynolds, The Triumphs of God’s Revenge, History VII, 88)

Instead of being hanged, Berinthia is to be immured, or confined to a solitary room until her death.⁴ Immurement was not the only method of execution that appeared to be reserved for higher classes. In The Triumphs, nine criminals receive a sentence of beheading, all of whom are described as elite. This association of beheading with high status is exemplified in History XXIV, in which the co-conspirators behind a murder were given markedly different executions. Quatbrisson, a gentleman, is sentenced to be beheaded, while “Pierot the Miller,” a commoner and Quatbrisson’s accomplice, is condemned to be broken alive on the wheel, or tied to a large wheel apparatus and beaten to death by an executioner.⁵ Despite its public nature, beheading was often seen as a more humane and less disgraceful execution method than longer, more violent deaths,⁶ like those on the wheel.

Punishment in Early Modern England

Justice was administered severely and publicly throughout early modern England. Murder committed with malice aforethought was widely considered one of the most reprehensible crimes, and its punishment was among the harshest of this era, producing a great spectacle.⁷ Though horrific by modern standards, the judicial protocol for public punishment was intentional, serving to maintain order and emphasize the power of the crown:

 “The brutality of punishment was a function of its public nature; the populace would feel the weight of power and authority as they herd the dying man’s screams and saw his body torn apart. It is important to remember that Old Regime philosophies of punishment did not yet recognize the punitive element in penalties, this conception coming later in the writings of Enlightenment reformers.”⁸

Hanging was the most popular method of capital punishment in Reynolds’ native England,⁹ used to deter many felonies in addition to murder.¹⁰ Especially in English cities, hangings were ceremonious events intended to draw public attention. Despite its dramatization and moral purpose, The Triumphs accurately reflected the practice of scaffold speeches preceding hangings in this era. Convicted individuals were indeed given the opportunity to confess to their crimes, express remorse, ask for forgiveness, and forgive those who were about to end their lives.¹¹ Like in The Triumphs, the publicity of such hangings was intended to warn the onlookers of the consequences of crime, which scaffold speeches often reinforced.

Burning was another judicial punishment that was frequently, but not exclusively, used to punish murderers. Throughout early modern Europe, burning was a consequence for crimes such as heresy and witchcraft, which were an affront to the community for their flagrant rebellion against the established religion and, more gravely, God. Setting fire to the criminal’s body not only mimicked the hellfire awaiting such a sinful soul, but also purified the community from their presence.¹² During this era, burning was often the execution method chosen for women who received the death penalty. Although early modern English women were convicted of crimes at a lower rate than men and often given more lenient punishments in general,¹³ they may have received particularly harsh sentences for specific crimes, like specific kinds of homicide.

Women were disproportionately convicted of burnable offenses like witchcraft, infanticide, and petty treason. The murder of an adult male committed by a woman, such as a wife killing a husband, was sometimes treated as petty treason, or a crime against the state.¹⁴ Due to its inversion of the accepted power dynamic between genders or spouses, such a homicide contradicted God’s hierarchical Great Chain of Being as well as England’s accepted social order.¹⁵ If convicted of such an act, a woman would typically be burned alive, which was a punishment that men did not typically receive for homicide or for other forms of treason.¹⁶ In this regard, the three incidents of women’s execution by burning at the stake in The Triumphs accurately reflect this gender difference in punishment for murder.

In These Our Days: Cultural Context →