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January 28, 2006
Swinging Dick, as it were.
In the Eighteenth Century, when they hanged you, you did just that: hang. There was no drop, no gallows trapdoor. You climbed up a ladder, stepped off and hung there until you died of strangulation. If you had friends or family in the crowd they might run up and hang onto your legs to speed things up, it could take up to 45 minutes otherwise.
In York they had the Three-legged Mare, a scaffold from which you were strung up. There is still a pub of the same name near the site of Dick Turpin’s execution.
Posted by john at January 28, 2006 07:06 PM