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Off With Their Heads!

December 13, 2010

What was illuminati crime boss, Prince Charles, doing in the wrong place at the wrong time...or was he in the right place at the right time?

Why was the heir to the British throne and his wife being chauffeured through London's theatre district of narrow one-way streets during a violent student protest?

Why was the royal couple riding in an easily spotted vintage 1977 Rolls Royce limousine - especially with clear windows??? So they could easily be spotted, of course!

Shouting "off with their heads!", a crowd of student protesters and "agents provocateurs" predictably attacked the Rolls, kicking it, splashing it with white paint and smashing a window as it sped off.

What was this PLANNED royal caper all about? PUBLICITY of course!

THE MOTIVE FOR THE ROYAL CAPER?

Students were rampaging over the decision by lawmakers to "triple" university tuition fees as they rained sticks and rocks on riot police, vandalized government buildings and attacked the royal limo.

The widespread publicity over Charles and Camilla "being in the wrong place at the wrong time" provoked a flury of questions over the royal family's safety. "The worst royal security breaches for decades must be investigated by a full independent inquiry", a British MP said in the aftermath.

What was the motive for the royal caper? To justify the stupendous costs to the public for royal protection at the upcoming, highly publicized wedding of Prince William and Kate. Taxpayers can expect a huge hike in royal security costs.

Neither Buckingham Palace nor the police would comment on royal security procedures for the upcoming wedding or how many police officers regularly accompany royal figures.

BRITISH BEHEADINGS

In Britain, beheading was used in Anglo Saxon times as a punishment for certain types of serious theft.  It was reintroduced during the reign of William the Conqueror for the execution of Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland on the 31st of May 1076 on St. Giles Hill, near Winchester. Waltheof had been convicted of treason for taking part in the Revolt of the Earls against the King and was beheaded with a sword. 

Beheading was confined to those of noble birth who were convicted of treason and was an alternative to the normal punishments for this crime.  Men convicted of High Treason were condemned to hanged drawn and quartered and women to be burned at the stake.  In the case of the nobility the monarch could vary these punishments to death by beheading.  Beheading was both far less painful and considered far less dishonourable than the normal methods.  Several members of Royalty were beheaded, including Charles I, Anne Boleyn, Mary Queen of Scots and Lady Jane Grey. Many other Earls, Lords and Knights, including Sir Walter Raleigh, and even some bishops were executed thus.

The majority of English beheadings took place at the Tower of London. For a full listing of executions at the Tower click here.  Seven were carried out in private within the grounds, of which five were of women. A further 86 men were decapitated on Tower Hill outside the walls of the Tower, where there stood a permanent scaffold from 1485. Only a very small number of beheadings were carried out elsewhere, as the Tower was the principal prison for traitors of high birth. It should be noted that treason often meant displeasing the monarch, rather than in any way betraying the country.

The spot indicated as "The site of the scaffold" on Tower Green which visitors can see today was not used for all of the 7 private beheadings although the plaque implies this. Those beheaded in private on Tower Green were Lord Hastings in 1483, Anne Boleyn on the 19th of May 1536, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury on the 28th of May 1541, Catherine Howard and her Lady in Waiting, Jane, Viscountess Rochford on the 13th of February 1542, Lady Jane Grey on the 15th of February 1554 and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex on the 25th of February 1601.

At various times both the low block and the high block have been used. The axe was the normal implement of execution in Britain, although Anne Boleyn was beheaded with a sword. A replica of the scaffold used for the 1601 execution of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex has been constructed for exhibition in the Tower. The original was set up in the middle of the Parade Ground and was made of oak, some 4 feet high and having a 9 feet square platform (1.2 m high x 2.75 m square) with a waist high rail round it. The prisoner mounted it by a short flight of stairs and was not restrained throughout the execution as it was expected that people of noble birth would know how to behave at their executions! Devereux lay full length on the platform and placed his neck on the low block with his arms outstretched. It is recorded that three strokes of the axe were required to decapitate him. Straw was spread on the scaffold to absorb the blood.

The last female execution by beheading was that of 67 year old Lady Alice Lisle who was beheaded for treason at Winchester on the 2nd of September 1685 having been convicted of sheltering two traitors.
Beheading in public on Tower Hill was used when the government of the day wished to make an example of the traitor (or traitors). Double beheadings were rare, although not unknown, and were carried out in order of precedence of the victims, as occurred with the Jacobite Earls, Kilmarnock and Balmerino, executed in 1746 for treason after the battle of Culloden.

Simon Lord Lovatt became the last person to be beheaded on Tower Hill when he was executed for treason on April the 9th, 1747. The high block used for Lord Lovatt together with the axe were on display in the Tower. (see photo). It was normal for the executioner to pick up the severed head and display to the crowd proclaiming, "Behold the head of a traitor!"

THE GUILLOTINE

The Guillotine wasn’t a French invention. There was one in Halifax, West Yorkshire, from the 13th to the 17th century. The earliest recorded execution was in 1286. Decapitation by guillotine was a common, mechanically assisted form of execution, invented shortly before the French Revolution (although an earlier version of the guillotine, the Halifax Gibbet, was used in Halifax, England from 1286 until the 17th century).

The aim was to create a painless and quick form of execution that did not require great skill to carry out. The executioner, after chopping off the head, would hold it up to the crowd. There is some evidence that the head could remain conscious for up to ten seconds. The reason for mechanizing such a seldom-used punishment was that axemen could be horribly inaccurate.

Victims, after all, paid executioners a gold coin so they'd cut cleanly. Inventors were devising beheading machines at least as early as 1300. Sixteenth-century Scots used a device they coyly named the Maiden, and England's old Halifax Gibbet greatly resembled the French guillotine.