Throughout our tours through the museums and other places around the city, I learned a lot about the use of gallows and other execution methods in England. Punishing people by death seemed to be a common occurrence in the history of England. People would be executed for minor crimes, or even what seemed to be no crime at all. These instances include those who were sent to bring a bad message to the king could be executed for being the teller of bad news, or when a king would wanted a new wife so he would have his old wife sentenced to death.
The gallows were popular, but used in ways I had not known previously. Instead of hanging someone to kill them with the gallows, they were used to torture people before death, which is terrifying. People would be hung until they nearly die, and then they would be drawn and quartered. This punishment was used on the more serious criminals, but it is still brutal and horrifying to imagine that it was actually done in a dominant society in the past.
The gallows were not the only tool used to execute criminals, but they do seem to be one of the most used and well known.
