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OMG! Did The Punishment Fit The Crime?

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  • OMG! Did The Punishment Fit The Crime?

    7. THE TRAITOR

    It happened 320 years ago on 7 August 1782.............
    A traitor, David TYRIE, was found guilty of passing naval intelligence to the French.
    The judge at Winchester passed the following sentence "that he should be hanged by the neck, but not until he was dead; that he should then be cut down & his bowels taken out and burned before his face; and that his head should be taken off, his body cut into four quarters and he be placed at his majesty's disposal".

    The barbarous sentence was carried out on Southsea Common 14 August 1782.
    A large crowd had assembled and after the unhappy man had been hanging for some time, he was cut down and immediately disembowelled and beheaded the blood spurting over the spectators. This signalled the crowd to rush forward and a scene of unprecedented brutality followed.

    Men and woman fought with each other to get bits of the traitors body!
    His fingers were cut off for tobacco stoppers; handkerchiefs were soaked in his blood and it all finished in a general fight.

    The military tried to restore order and were pelted with stones and things only quietened down after several people had been grievously injured.
    The head of TYRIE was secured by Buck ADAMS, the keeper of the Gosport bridewell where it was exhibited for many years.

    Welcome to KnightRoots, an online Hampshire genealogical resource.

  • #2
    That's horrible. A while ago we went to the Tower of London, and some of the stories the Beefeater was telling us were just as gruesome, but without the fights to get bits of the body!!

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    • #3
      That was a pretty serious crime at the time, with the punishment considered most 'fitting'.

      Sounds like the ideal deterrent though...

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      • #4
        "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."
        Phil
        historyhouse.co.uk
        Essex - family and local history.

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        • #5
          They were in a state of war, if I remember well. Louis XVI of France was eager to recall the great days of Louis XIV, his grandfather (?), in the 17th century. Sadly, in his megalomania he bankrupted his country, with the storming of the Batille state prison on the 14th of July almost exactly 7 years after what happened here and French revolution in its aftermath.

          The last you want is a spy, certainly not in a state of war. I believe even now, in a state of war, they shoot spies.
          Hanged and quartered, what you actually state, was the normal punishment for a traitor, yes.

          It's not that he didn't know what was going to happen to him if he became a spy. I find it more shocking that the spectators wanted a piece of his body, though; drenched their handkerchiefs in his blood; etc. That really questions humanity as a whole.

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          • #6
            Well it was in the days before television... and football :D

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            • #7
              I believe treason stayed on the books as a crime punishable by death right up to the abolition of capital punishment.

              OC

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              • #8
                The punishment is rather violent for me but it was the norm in those days.

                There were probably many people who suffered the same punishment because they were SUSPECTED of treason.
                Kit

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                • #9
                  The punishment was commoly called hung, drawn & quartered.
                  The punishment was reserved for acts of treason and remained on the statute book until 1814
                  Cheers
                  Guy
                  Guy passed away October 2022

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