page_title: Decapitation
section_title: Britain
hierarchical_section_title: Decapitation / Historical practices by nation / Europe / Britain
caption_attribution_description: A plate originally from The Image of Irelande, by John Derrick, published in 1581. This image was taken from this Edinburgh University Library website - [1], with the description - "The English solders return in triumph, carrying severed Irish heads and leading a captive by a halter".
context_page_description: Decapitation, also known as beheading, is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the involuntary functions that are needed for the body to function.
  The term beheading refers to the act of deliberately decapitating a person, either as a means of murder or as an execution; it may be accomplished with an axe, a sword, a knife, a machete or by mechanical means such as a guillotine or chainsaw. An executioner who carries out executions by beheading is sometimes called a headsman. Accidental decapitation can be the result of an explosion, a car or industrial accident, improperly administered execution by hanging or other violent injury. Suicide by decapitation is rare but not unknown. The national laws of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Qatar permit beheading; however, in practice, Saudi Arabia is the only country that continues to behead its offenders regularly as a punishment for crime.
  Less commonly, decapitation can also refer to the removal of the head from a body that is already dead.
context_section_description: The British Empire used beheading and display of severed heads and other body parts on pikes, etc., as a method to support conquest, territorial expansion, pillage and looting. Heads were displayed to terrify various peoples into submission, such as enslaved Africans and Chinese.
  Historically, beheading was typically used for noblemen, while commoners would be hanged; eventually, hanging was adopted as the standard means of non-military executions. The last actual execution by beheading was of Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat on 9 April 1747, while a number of convicts (typically traitors sentenced to drawing and quartering, a method which had already been discontinued) were beheaded posthumously up to the early 19th century. Beheading was degraded to a secondary means of execution, including for treason, with the abolition of drawing and quartering in 1870 and finally abolished by the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1973.
caption: 16th century illustration of English soldiers at war with the Irish; they bring back severed heads from the battlefield.
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