<P> Once sentenced, malefactors were usually held in prison for a few days before being taken to the place of execution . During the early Middle Ages this journey may have been made tied directly to the back of a horse, but it subsequently became customary for the victim to be fastened instead to a wicker hurdle, or wooden panel, itself tied to the horse . Historian Frederic William Maitland thought that this was probably to "(secure) for the hangman a yet living body". The use of the word drawn, as in "to draw", has caused a degree of confusion . One of the Oxford English Dictionary's definitions of draw is "to draw out the viscera or intestines of; to disembowel (a fowl, etc. before cooking, a traitor or other criminal after hanging)", but this is followed by "in many cases of executions it is uncertain whether this, or (to drag (a criminal) at a horse's tail, or on a hurdle or the like, to the place of execution; formerly a legal punishment of high treason), is meant . The presumption is that where drawn is mentioned after hanged, the sense is as here ." Historian Ram Sharan Sharma arrived at the same conclusion: "Where, as in the popular hung, drawn and quartered (use) (meaning facetiously, of a person, completely disposed of), drawn follows hanged or hung, it is to be referred to as the disembowelling of the traitor ." The historian and author Ian Mortimer disagrees . In an essay published on his website, he writes that the separate mention of evisceration is a relatively modern device, and that while it certainly took place on many occasions, the presumption that drawing means to disembowel is spurious . Instead, drawing (as a method of transportation) may be mentioned after hanging because it was a supplementary part of the execution . </P> <P> Some reports indicate that during Queen Mary I's reign bystanders were vocal in their support: while in transit convicts sometimes suffered directly at the hands of the crowd . William Wallace was whipped, attacked and had rotten food and waste thrown at him, and the priest Thomas Pilchard was reportedly barely alive by the time he reached the gallows in 1587 . Others found themselves admonished by "zealous and godly men"; it became customary for a preacher to follow the condemned, asking them to repent . According to Samuel Clarke, the Puritan clergyman William Perkins (1558--1602) once managed to convince a young man at the gallows that he had been forgiven, enabling the youth to go to his death "with tears of joy in his eyes...as if he actually saw himself delivered from the hell which he feared before, and heaven opened for receiving his soul ." </P> <P> After the king's commission had been read aloud, the crowd was normally asked to move back from the scaffold before being addressed by the convict . While these speeches were mostly an admission of guilt (although few admitted treason), still they were carefully monitored by the sheriff and chaplain, who were occasionally forced to act; in 1588, Catholic priest William Dean's address to the crowd was considered so inappropriate that he was gagged almost to the point of suffocation . Questions on matters of allegiance and politics were sometimes put to the prisoner, as happened to Edmund Gennings in 1591 . He was asked by priest hunter Richard Topcliffe to "confess his treason", but when Gennings responded "if to say Mass be treason, I confess to have done it and glory in it", Topcliffe ordered him to be quiet and instructed the hangman to push him off the ladder . Sometimes the witness responsible for the condemned man's execution was also present . A government spy, John Munday, was in 1582 present for the execution of Thomas Ford . Munday supported the sheriff, who had reminded the priest of his confession when he protested his innocence . The sentiments expressed in such speeches may be related to the conditions encountered during imprisonment . Many Jesuit priests suffered badly at the hands of their captors but were frequently the most defiant; conversely, those of a higher station were often the most apologetic . Such contrition may have arisen from the sheer terror felt by those who thought they might be disembowelled rather than simply beheaded as they would normally expect, and any apparent acceptance of their fate may have stemmed from the belief that a serious, but not treasonable act, had been committed . Good behaviour at the gallows may also have been due to a convict's desire for his heirs not to be disinherited . </P> <P> The condemned were occasionally forced to watch as other traitors, sometimes their confederates, were executed before them . The priest James Bell was in 1584 made to watch as his companion, John Finch, was "a-quarter - inge". Edward James and Francis Edwardes were made to witness Ralph Crockett's execution in 1588, in an effort to elicit their co-operation and acceptance of Elizabeth I's religious supremacy before they were themselves executed . Normally stripped to the shirt with their arms bound in front of them, prisoners were then hanged for a short period, either from a ladder or cart . On the sheriff's orders the cart would be taken away (or if a ladder, turned), leaving the man suspended in mid-air . The aim was usually to cause strangulation and near - death, although some victims were killed prematurely, the priest John Payne's death in 1582 being hastened by a group of men pulling on his legs . Conversely, some, such as the deeply unpopular William Hacket (d . 1591), were cut down instantly and taken to be disembowelled and normally emasculated--the latter, according to Sir Edward Coke, to "show his issue was disinherited with corruption of blood .". </P>

When was the last hanging drawing and quartering