Beheading, as a mode of punishment, had an early origin. Amongst the Romans it was regarded as a most honourable death. It is asserted that it was introduced into England from Normandy by William the Conqueror, and intended for the putting to death of criminals belonging to the higher grades of society. The first person to suffer beheading was Waltheof, Earl of Huntingdon, Northampton, and Northumberland, in 1076.

Since the days of the first Norman king down to the time of George the Second in 1747, two monarchs, and not a few of the most notable of the nobility of Great Britain, at the Tower, Whitehall, near the historic Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and other places have closed their noble, and in some instances ignoble, careers at the hands of the headsman.

Charles I. is perhaps the most famous of kings that have been beheaded. On January 30th, 1649, on a scaffold raised before the Banqueting House at Whitehall, he was executed. Within the Banqueting Hall of the Castle of Fotheringay, on February 8th, 1587, the executioner from the Tower, after three blows from an axe, severed the head from the body of Mary, Queen of Scots. Her earlier years opened in the gay court of France, and was full of sunshine, but shadows gathered, and she was

“A sad prisoner, passing weary years,
In many castles, till at Fotheringay,
The joyless life was ended.”

Henry VIII. was a great king, but his cruel attitude towards his queens will ever diminish his glory; two of them were executed at his instigation at the Tower, namely, Anne Boleyn, on May 19th, 1536, and Katherine Howard, on February 13th, 1542. In the death at the block of Lady Jane Grey, “the nine days’ queen,” the scene is more pathetic and picturesque. On February 12th, 1553-4, she and her young husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, were executed at the Tower, the former on the Green within the ancient stronghold, and the latter on Tower Hill. The story of her unhappy fate is one of the most familiar pages of English history. Fuller said of this noble woman: “She had the innocency of childhood, the beauty of youth, the solidity of middle, the gravity of old age, and all at eighteen; the birth of a princess, the learning of a clerk, the life of a saint, and the death of a malefactor for her parents’ offences.”

Amongst the notable men who have suffered at the Tower, we must mention John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, beheaded on Tower Hill, June 23rd, 1535. He had nearly reached the age of four score years. The Pope, to spite Henry VIII., had sent the prelate a cardinal’s hat, but the aged bishop had suffered death before it reached this country. Sir Thomas More was executed on July 6th, 1535. Like his friend Fisher, he refused submission to the Statute of Succession and to the King’s Supremacy. The devotion of Margaret Roper to her father, Sir Thomas More, forms an attractive feature in the life story of this truly great man. After execution his head was spiked on London Bridge, and she bribed a man to move it, and drop it into a boat where she sat. She kept the sacred relic for many years, and at her death it was buried with her in a vault under St. Dunstan’s Church, Canterbury.

George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, was beheaded on May 17th, 1536, two days before the execution of his sister, Queen Anne Boleyn; and his wife, Jane, Viscountess Rochford, was beheaded at Tower Hill, with Katherine Howard, on February 13th, 1542, on the charge of having been an accomplice in the queens treason. On July 28th, 1540, Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, was executed. Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury, opposed the king and his government, and she was condemned for high treason. On May 27th, 1541, her earthly career closed. The haughty old countess, it is recorded, refused to lay her head upon the block, and the headsman had to follow her about the scaffold, and to fetch-off her grey head slovenly as he could." She was nearly seventy years old.

The following are included in the list of notable men beheaded, and in most instances we are only able to give their names and dates of execution, but the story of their careers will be found in the pages of English history. Henry, Earl of Surrey, beheaded January 19th, 1546-7; Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, March 27th, 1548-9; Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, January 22nd, 1551-2; Sir Thomas Arundel, February 26th, 1551-2; John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, August 22nd, 1553. Next comes Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, executed February 22nd, 1553-4. He was the father of Lady Jane Grey. Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, suffered death June 2nd, 1572. On February 25th, 1600-1, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, was beheaded.

Sir Walter Raleigh was a many-sided man, the discoverer of North Carolina, the defender of his country, an author, a court favourite, and a man of undaunted courage. In the Tower he was long a prisoner, and there wrote some notable books, and the following hymn:

“Rise, O my soul, with thy desires to heav’n,
And with divinest contemplations use
Thy time, where time’s eternity is given,
And let vain thoughts no more thy mind abuse;
But down in darkness let them lie;
So live thy better, let thy worse thoughts die.

“And thou, my soul, inspired with holy flame
View and review, with most regardful eye,
That holy cross, whence thy salvation came,
On which thy Saviour and thy sin did die;
For in that sacred object is much pleasure,
And in that Saviour, is my life, my treasure.

“To Thee, O Jesu, I direct my eye;
To Thee my hands, to Thee my humble knees,
To Thee my heart shall offer sacrifice,
To Thee my thoughts, who my thoughts only sees;
To Thee myself, myself and all, I give;
To Thee I die, to Thee I only live.”

On October 29th, 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh was executed at Whitehall under a sentence which had hung over his head for fifteen years.

On May 12th, 1641, was executed Wentworth, Earl of Strafford; and on January 10th, 1644-5, was beheaded Archbishop Laud. William Howard, Viscount Stafford, a victim of Oatess perjury, was executed on December 29th, 1680. Having embraced and taken leave of his friends, says Bell, he knelt down and placed his head on the block: the executioner raised the axe high in the air, but then checking himself suddenly lowered it. Stafford raised his head and asked the reason of the delay. The executioner said he waited the signal. I shall make no sign, he answered, take your own time. The executioner asked his forgiveness. I do forgive you, replied Stafford, and placing his head again in position, at one blow it was severed from his body."

A noted name in history comes next, the Duke of Monmouth. He was beheaded July 15th, 1685. “Here are six guineas for you,” he said to the executioner, “and do not hack me as you did my Lord Russell. I have heard that you struck him three or four times. My servant will give you more gold if you do your work well.” Then he undressed, felt the edge of the axe, and laid his head on the block. The executioner was unnerved, he raised his axe, but his arm trembled as it fell, and only a slight wound was inflicted. Several blows were given before the neck was severed.

We are now nearing the end of executions at the Tower, and only three more names occur. The cause of Prince Charlie was supported by not a few of the best blood of Scotland, but the battle of Culloden ended all hopes for the Pretender, and brought misery to many of his brave followers. William, Earl of Kilmarnock, and Arthur, Lord Balmerino, on August 18th, 1746, were beheaded for their devotion to the Jacobite cause. Simon, Lord Fraser of Lovat, had passed a shameless life, and little can be said in his favour. In 1715, he fought against Prince Charles Edward, but subsequently joined the Jacobites, and took part in the battle of Culloden. He managed to escape from the field after the engagement, and it was not until April 9th, 1747, that he was beheaded on Tower Hill. On reaching the scaffold, he asked for the executioner, and presented him with a purse containing ten guineas. He then asked to see the axe, felt its edge, and said he thought it would do. Next he looked at his coffin, on which was inscribed:

SIMON, DOMINUS FRASER DE LOVAT,
Decollat April 9, 1747,
Aetat suae 80.

After repeating some lines from Horace, and next from Ovid, he prayed, then bade adieu to his solicitor and agent in Scotland; finally the executioner completed his work, the head falling from the body. Lord Lovat was the last person beheaded in this country.