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DescriptionThe British Execution: 1500-1964 (Shire Library) – September 17th 2013 by Stephen Banks (Author) {Bindaredundat}  Format: epub / mobi / pdf Product Details Series: Shire Library (Book 744) Paperback: 56 pages Publisher: Shire (September 17th 2013) Language: English ISBN-10: 074781242X ISBN-13: 978-0747812425  Mary Queen of Scots, is executed at Fotheringay Castle on 8th February 1587. It was said her lips moved up and down for fifteen minutes after her head was struck off. (From Teatrum crudelitatum, 1588) If life is a drama, then for some men and women their most noteworthy moment on the stage has been at their unwilling exit. If Anne Boleyn's memory lives on it is because her head was lost, and the same fate ensures Charles I a place unique among English monarchs. The formal and deliberate taking of life has always aroused a fascination in those who have crowded in upon the scaffold or devoured the reports of dying speeches and dying moments, and provokes a morbid curiosity to this day. In this study of execution and the English experience, Stephen Banks examines the fate of witches, gentlemen traitors and learned heretics whose names have long been remembered, but he also considers the victim of the majority of executions - from poor wretches who had stolen a few shillings, to hardened criminals who met the same end. If the manner of death and the fortitude with which it was met varied, still the audience never tired of pushing and paying for the performance. As this perceptive study shows, execution holds an important place in cultural and social history and its anecdotes and its atrocities offer novel insights into the nature of the English in the age of execution. Most Helpful Customer Review The British Way of Death! By Michael OConnor TOP 500 REVIEWER on November 5, 2013 The Brits certainly have been innovative in terms of capital punishment - hanging, beheading, guillotining, burning at the stake, gibbetting and the ever-popular drawing-and-quartering. As borne out in Stephen Banks' THE BRITISH EXECUTION, executions have played a prominent role in British history. Banks' compact but well-illustrated book covers capital punishment from 1500 to 1964. For much of that time, executions were public affairs, carried out in an almost circus-like atmosphere. Though many ordinary citizens paid the piper, much of Banks' coverage is devoted to those prominent Brits who were executed such as Mary Queen of Scots, Charles I, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, Guy Fawkes and Anne Boleyn. Crime buffs will enjoy Banks' book. THE BRITISH EXECUTION is a macabre if fascinating introduction to crime and punishment in Great Britain. Recommended.  Hugh Despenser the Younger, 1st Lord Despenser (c. 1286–1326) is disembowelled, his entrails are burnt and he is then quartered by the supporters of Queen Isabella. (Froissart’s Chronicles, Vol. 1, Plate II, c. 1470)  Sir John Oldcastle is roasted in chains in 1417. (Engraving by T. Smith in Fox’s The Primitive Martyrs, 1563)  Lady Jane Grey was executed at the Tower of London in February 1554. Her husband had already been despatched on the same day on Tower Hill. (Reproduction of an1833 painting by Paul Delaroche) Stephen Banks Biography Dr Stephen Banks is an associate professor at the School of Law of the University of Reading in England. His doctoral thesis was entitled, "The Duel and the English Gentleman" and he has lectured and published internationally on the subject of honor culture, British society and the duel. A criminal lawyer, he has a particular interest in murder and manslaughter in eighteenth and nineteenth century England and in the history of violence in Victorian London. He has advised on trial re-enactments for both television and film and when not directing the Forum for Legal and Historical Research he is a keen student of Tai Chi Sword and British folklore.  Ruth Ellis was hanged on 11th July 1955, the last woman to be executed in Britain. (The Illustrated London News)  Sharing Widget |