Female Executions: Martyrs, Murderesses and Madwomen

by Abbott, Geoffrey

  By 1902 their marriage had failed disastrously and they returned to Holland where they were divorced. To earn a living Margarete exercised strenuously and took ballet lessons, then put them to good use by elaborating on the erotic dances she had seen in the Far East. Moving to Paris, she soon became much sought after by nightclubs, although at times she descended into prostitution to make a living. Returning to her home country, she was fortunate enough to meet an ex-lover, Karl Breitenstein, who loaned her some money. With that she went back to Paris and set herself up in the high class Hotel Crillon, where she audaciously created for herself a new identity – she was now Mata Hari, born in the East, trained to dance by her stepmother, the chief priestess of mystic and holy ceremonies.

  Such was the lure of the lasciviousness of her nude dances, the erotic writhing of her slim limbs, the sinuous gestures of her slender hands as, with provocative slowness, she discarded the red veils loosely swathed around her, that across the Continent, princes and public alike worshipped her every performance. Among those who were captivated by her charms was the chief of Berlin’s police force, von Jagow, and it was through him that she was recruited as a spy for the Germans during the First World War, her intimacy with so many statesmen and military commanders allowing her to extract vital information from them on a seemingly casual and admiring basis.

  As the war progressed, suspicions arose about her activities, especially by the French government, and the blow fell in 1917 when an incriminating payment of 15,000 pesetas from von Jagow to agent H21 was intercepted but allowed to be delivered. A follow-up search of her hotel room revealed the cheque – and agent H21, Mata Hari, was taken into custody.

  On 24 July of that year she was interrogated by a military court, intelligence agencies presenting overwhelming evidence of her complicity. The verdict was guilty, and she was sentenced to be shot by firing squad.

  At 4 a.m. on 15 October 1917 she was told that her last appeal had failed. Rising from her bed in the condemned cell, she donned a smart tailormade outfit and was taken to Vincennes, the place of execution. There she faced the firing squad of twelve soldiers, positioned twelve paces in front of her. Proudly she waved away the offer of a blindfold; the officer in charge gave the orders to load, take aim and fire, and Mata Hari dropped to the ground. The officer then approached and delivered the coup de grâce, firing one round from his revolver into her head behind the ear.

  Her body was taken away, the doctors then discovering that only four rifle bullets had struck her body; even aware that a spy had been responsible for betraying hundreds of one’s countrymen, it was still difficult to shoot at a woman, especially one so elegant and beautiful, who just stood there and looked at you.

  The last Christmas Day in the lives of President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena was 25 December 1989. Following revolution in Romania, their power base was overthrown and they were interrogated by a military tribunal, after which they were taken to a nearby area and shot, the firing squad consisting of one officer and two soldiers armed with machine guns. It was subsequently reported that the soldiers opened fire before being ordered, emptying their magazines and aiming so wildly that others standing nearby were also hit and wounded.

  APPENDIX 1:

  TYPES OF TORTURE

  Boots

  The boots ranked high among those tortures available to some courts; indeed, some called it ‘the most severe and cruell paine in the whole worlde’. Whichever variety of this device was used, the victim, even if not subsequently executed, was almost invariably crippled for life. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries this particular method of persuasion was popular in France and Scotland (where it had the deceptively whimsical-sounding names of ‘bootikins’, ‘brodequins’, or ‘cashilaws’).

  There were several variations of the device; one consisted of an upright board placed on either side of each leg of a seated victim, splinting them from knee to ankle, the boards being held together by ropes or iron rings within a frame. Wooden wedges would then be driven in slowly between the two inner boards, and then between the outer ones and the surrounding frame, lacerating the flesh and crushing the bone, incriminating questions being asked following each blow with the mallet. Another version was a single boot made of iron, large enough to encase both legs up to the knees. Wedges would then be driven downwards a little at a time, betwixt leg and metal, the injuries inflicted being as described above.

  There was also a version known as the ‘Spanish Boot’, an iron legging which was tightened by a screw mechanism; additional incentives to confess were available, the device being heated until red-hot either before being clamped on the legs or while being tightened.

  Torture by the Boots

  Bridles, or Branks

  Intended mainly to be worn by witches, scolding or nagging wives, or argumentative neighbours, its basic design consisted of an iron framework in the form of a helmet-shaped cage which fitted tightly over the head, with eye-holes and an aperture for the mouth. At the front, protruding inwards, was a small flat plate which rested on the woman’s tongue, the bridle then being locked about her neck. Other versions existed, some more painful than others. One type, used in prisons in the Tasmanian penal colony, was constructed of wood and leather and covered the mouth entirely except for a very small hole to permit the wearer to breathe. John West wrote, in his book The History of Tasmania, published in 1852, ‘When the whole was secured with the various straps and buckles, a more complete bridle in resemblance could not well be witnessed.’

  Another type, widely used in England and Scotland, had large tongue plates studded with sharp pins, or a small spiked wheel, a rowel, which lacerated the tongue should the victim try to protest, or a witch attempt to chant the magic spells by which she could summon the Devil, or change herself into a small animal and thus escape. As well as having to wear a bridle, witches were deprived of sleep, relays of guards being constantly on duty to deny them even a catnap.

  Many versions had a chain attached to the front by which the scold or witch could be led through the streets, much to the derisory delight of her neighbours, their attention having been attracted by the sound of the spring-mounted bell on top.

  Bridles for Scolds and Witches

  Peine forte et dure

  Until abolished by a statute in 1827, it was lawful to subject a prisoner to Peine forte et dure, severe and hard punishment, if he or she refused to plead guilty or not guilty when charged. Several versions of the sentence existed, but in general the sentence was:

  To be remanded to prison and put into a low dark chamber, and there laid on his or her back on the bare floor naked, unless where decency forbade; that there should be placed [on a board] on his or her body as great a weight of iron as they could bear, and more; that they should have no sustenance save only on the first day three morsels of the worst bread, and on the second day three draughts of water that should be nearest the prison door; and that in this situation, such be alternatively the daily ration, till he or she died – or pleaded to the charge.

  Sometimes heavy stones were used as weights, others being placed under the back to break the spine.

  Rack

  The Rack, Tower of London

  As with other instruments of torture, many different types existed, but the basic design of the rack consisted of an open rectangular frame having four legs, over six feet in length and raised about three feet from the floor. The victim was laid on their back on the ground beneath it, their wrists and ankles being tied by ropes to a windlass, an axle, at each end of the frame. These were turned in opposite directions, each manned by two of the rack master’s assistants. One man, by inserting a pole into one of the sockets in the shaft, would turn the windlass, tightening the ropes a fraction of an inch at a time; the other would insert his pole in similar fashion but keep it still, in order to maintain the pressure on the victim’s joints while his companion transferred his pole to the next socket in the windlass.

  The first stage of the tort
ure was the hoisting of the victim until they were almost level with the frame, this initial strain, that of being lifted against his or her own weight, being sufficient to impose severe stresses on the joints of the wrists, elbows, hips, shoulders and knees, and to give some indication of the excruciating agony to come. The stretching, the gradual dislocation, and the questions would continue until the interrogator had been finally satisfied.

  A later version incorporated a ratchet mechanism which held the ropes taut all the time, the incessant and terrifying click, click, click of the cogs and the creaking of the slowly tightening ropes being the only sounds in the silence of the torture chamber, other than the shuddering gasps of the sufferer.

  Thumbscrews

  The Thumbscrews

  Earlier resembling primitive nutcrackers, they soon developed into a deadly instrument consisting of two short iron bars of equal length, one having three small rods designed to fit into three matching holes in the other bar. The victim’s thumbs or fingers were inserted between the bars on each side of the central rod, which had a screw thread on it. Once positioned over the quick of the nails, the wing nut on the central rod was tightened, forcing the upper bar downwards and so applying the requisite amount of pressure on the victim’s nails. Pinioned in this fashion, the victim could be led anywhere as required, unable to resist. In some parts, Scotland in particular, thumbscrews were also known as pilliwinks, pilniwinks, penny-winks or pyrowinks; whatever their name, the result was pain.

  Water Torture

  The Water Torture

  This method of persuasion required the prisoner to be bound to a bench, a cow horn then being inserted in his or her mouth. Following a refusal to answer an incriminating question to the satisfaction of the interrogators, a jug of water would be poured into the horn and the question repeated. Any reluctance to swallow would be overcome by the executioner pinching the victim’s nose. This procedure would continue, swelling the victim’s stomach to grotesque proportions and causing unbearable agony, either until all the required information had been extracted, or until the water, by eventually entering and filling the lungs, brought death by asphyxiation.

  APPENDIX 2:

  TYPES OF PUNISHMENT

  AND EXECUTION

  Axe and Block

  Being dispatched by cold steel rather than being hanged was granted as a privilege to those of royal or aristocratic birth, it being considered less ignoble to lose one’s life as if slain in battle, rather than being suspended by the hempen rope. Such privilege, however, did not necessarily make death any less painful; on the contrary, for although being hanged brought a slow death by strangulation, the axe was little more than a crude unbalanced chopper. The target, the nape of the neck, was small; the wielder, cynosure of 10,000 or more eyes, nervous and clumsy; and even when delivered accurately it killed not by cutting or slicing but by brutally crushing its way through flesh and bone, muscle and sinew. It was, after all, a weapon for punishment, not for mercy.

  Most English executions by the axe took place in London, the weapon being held ready for use in the Tower of London. The one currently on display therein is believed to be that which severed the heads of the three Scottish lords who led the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745, Lords Balmerino, Kilmarnock and Lovat. It measures nearly 36 inches in length and weighs almost eight pounds. The blade itself is rough and unpolished, the cutting edge ten and a half inches long. Its size and the fact that most of its weight is at the back of the blade means that when brought down rapidly, as of course it would be, the weapon would tend to twist slightly, throwing it off aim and so failing to strike the centre of the nape of the victim’s neck.

  Unlike hangings, executions by decapitation were comparatively rare events, the executioner thereby being deprived of the necessary practice. A further factor was that the axe’s impact inevitably caused the block to bounce, and if the first stroke was inaccurate and so jolted the victim into a slightly different position, the executioner would need to readjust his point of aim for the next stroke, no mean task while being subjected to a hail of jeers, abuse and assorted missiles from the mob surrounding the scaffold.

  The heading axe’s vital partner, the block, was a large piece of wood of rectangular section, about two feet high so that the victim could kneel, its top being sculptured specifically for its gruesome purpose. Because it was essential that the victim’s throat rested on a hard surface, the top had a hollow scooped out of the edges of each of the widest sides; at one side the hollow was wide, permitting the victim to push his – or her – shoulders as far forward as possible, the hollow on the opposite side being narrower to accommodate the chin. This positioned the victim’s throat exactly where it was required, resting on the flat area between the two hollows.

  Boiled to Death

  This horrific penalty was carried out using a large cauldron filled with water, oil or tallow. Sometimes the victim was immersed, the liquid then being heated, or he or she was plunged into the already boiling contents, usually head first. In England an Act was passed specifically to execute one Richard Roose in that fashion, he having been found guilty of casting ‘a certayne venym or poyson into the yeaste or barme wyth whych porrage or gruell was mayde for the famyly of the Byssopp of Rochester and others’. Seventeen members of the household fell ill, two of them dying, and when news of this un-English type of crime reached the Court, Henry VIII was ‘inwardly abhorrying all such abhomynable offences, the sayde poysoning be adjudged high treason’. So he was condemned to be ‘boyled to death without havynge any advautage of his clergie’. Margaret Davy, a maid who concocted a similar recipe to dispose of no fewer than three families, and another woman, a servant in a King’s Lynn household who used the same toxic ingredients when preparing a meal for her employers, were dispatched in the same way.

  An alternative method was to use a large shallow receptacle rather than a cauldron, oil, tallow or pitch being poured in. The victim was then partially immersed in the liquid and then fried to death.

  Branding

  Branding, from the Teutonic word ‘brinnan’, to burn, was used in many countries for centuries, and was applied by a hot iron which seared letters signifying the felon’s particular crime into the fleshy part of the thumb, the forehead, cheeks or shoulders. In England the iron consisted of a long iron bolt with a wooden handle at one end and a raised letter at the other, a set of such instruments available in the courtroom or on the scaffold. The letters were ‘SS’ for sower of sedition, ‘M’ for malefactor, ‘B’ for blasphemer, ‘R’ for rogue, etc., so that everyone would know in future not only that someone was a criminal but also what particular type of crime the lawbreaker had committed, whether or not they had mended their ways. Women were also branded, a statute passed in 1624 declaring that:

  Any woman being lawfully convicted by her confession or by the verdict of twelve men of the felonious taking of any money, goods or chattels above the value of twelve pence and under the value of ten shillings, or as an accessory to any such offence [...] shall for the first offence be branded and marked in the hand, upon the brawn of the thumb, with a hot burning iron, having a Roman letter ‘T’ [for Thief] upon the said iron; the said mark to be made by the gaoler openly in the Court, before the Judge.

  Breaking on the Wheel

  This was an agonising and prolonged way in which to die, and was used mainly on the Continent in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, although isolated cases reportedly took place in Scotland early in those years.

  The felon was secured, spread-eagled, face upwards, on a large cartwheel mounted horizontally on an upright which passed through the hub, the wheel sometimes being slightly canted in order to give the spectators a better view of the brutal proceedings. The wheel could be rotated in order to bring the particular part of the human target within reach of the executioner, thereby eliminating the need for him to walk round to the other side. Some versions of the device required the victim to be bound to the spokes, others to two lengths of timber in the
form of a St Andrew’s Cross nailed to the upper side of the wheel.

  Death was meted out by the executioner wielding a heavy iron bar, three feet long by two inches square, or using a long-handled hammer. Slowly and methodically he would shatter the victim’s limbs, the upper and forearms, the thighs and the lower legs; nor would other parts of the body escape being pulverised, until eventually the coup de grâce, known as the retentum, a final blow to the heart or the neck, would be delivered. Alternatively a cord around the throat would be pulled tight, depriving the victim of what little life was left in him. And on being removed from the wheel the corpse would resemble a rag doll, the various short sections of the shattered limbs being completely disconnected from each other.

  The judges, in their mercy, might mitigate the sentence by permitting the death blow to be administered either following a certain number of strokes or after a certain length of time had elapsed. For example, one John Calas of Toulouse received a blow to the heart two hours after he had been strapped to the wheel.