page_title: Hanged, drawn and quartered
section_title: Treason Act 1351
hierarchical_section_title: Hanged, drawn and quartered / Treason in England / Treason Act 1351
caption_attribution_description: King Edward III, by unknown artist from the end of the 16th century. See source website for additional information. This set of images was gathered by User:Dcoetzee from the National Portrait Gallery, London website using a special tool. All images in this batch have an unknown author, but there is strong evidence it was first published before 1923 (based mainly on the NPG's estimated date of the work).
context_page_description: To be hanged, drawn and quartered was, from 1352 after the Treason Act 1351, a statutory penalty in England for men convicted of high treason, although the ritual was first recorded during the reign of King Henry III. The convicted traitor was fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn by horse to the place of execution, where he was then hanged, emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded, and quartered. His remains would then often be displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge, to serve as a warning of the fate of traitors. For reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burned at the stake.
  The severity of the sentence was measured against the seriousness of the crime. As an attack on the English monarchy's authority, high treason was considered a deplorable act demanding the most extreme form of punishment. Although some convicts had their sentences modified and suffered a less ignominious end, over a period of several hundred years many men found guilty of high treason were subjected to the law's ultimate sanction.
context_section_description: These and other executions, such as those of Andrew Harclay, 1st Earl of Carlisle, and Hugh Despenser the Younger, which each occurred during Edward II's reign, happened when acts of treason in England, and their punishments, were not clearly defined in common law.  Treason was based on an allegiance to the sovereign from all subjects aged 14 or over, and it remained for the king and his judges to determine whether that allegiance had been broken. Edward III's justices had offered somewhat overzealous interpretations of what activities constituted treason, "calling felonies treasons and afforcing indictments by talk of accroachment of the royal power", prompting parliamentary demands to clarify the law. Edward therefore introduced the Treason Act 1351. It was enacted at a time in English history when a monarch's right to rule was indisputable and was therefore written principally to protect the throne and sovereign. The new law offered a narrower definition of treason than had existed before and split the old feudal offence into two classes. Petty treason referred to the killing of a master (or lord) by his servant, a husband by his wife, or a prelate by his clergyman. Men guilty of petty treason were drawn and hanged, whereas women were burned.
  High treason was the most egregious offence an individual could commit. Attempts to undermine the king's authority were viewed with as much seriousness as if the accused had attacked him personally, which itself would be an assault on his status as sovereign and a direct threat to his right to govern. As this might undermine the state, retribution was considered an absolute necessity and the crime deserving of the ultimate punishment. The practical difference between the two offences therefore was in the consequence of being convicted; rather than being drawn and hanged, men were to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, while for reasons of public decency (their anatomy being considered inappropriate for the sentence), women were instead drawn and burned.
  The Act declared that a person had committed high treason if they were:
  compassing or imagining the death of the king, his wife or his eldest son and heir;
  violating the king's wife, his eldest daughter if she were unmarried, or the wife of his eldest son and heir;
  levying war against the king in his realm;
  adhering to the king's enemies in his realm, giving them aid and comfort in his realm or elsewhere;
  counterfeiting the Great Seal or the Privy Seal, or the king's coinage;
  knowingly importing counterfeit money;
  killing the Chancellor, Treasurer or one of the king's Justices while performing their offices.
  The Act did not limit the king's authority in defining the scope of treason. It contained a proviso giving English judges discretion to extend that scope whenever required, a process more commonly known as constructive treason.  It also applied to subjects overseas in British colonies in the Americas, but the only documented incident of an individual there being hanged, drawn, and quartered was that of Joshua Tefft, an English colonist accused of having fought on the side of the Narragansett during the Great Swamp Fight. He was executed in January 1676. Later sentences resulted either in a pardon or a hanging.
caption: Edward III, under whose rule the Treason Act 1351 was enacted. It defined in law what constituted high treason.
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