Execution: A Guide to the Ultimate Penalty (38 page)

IMPALED BY STAKES

‘[T]he spears would be inserted with devastating slowness into those parts of the victim’s body that would not bring about immediate death…’

Impaling, the act of skewering a human body, was a favourite of the Romans and, in more recent times, the Turks. During the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero, the victim was forced to dig his own grave, at the bottom of which, a third from one end, was planted a sharpened stake, point uppermost.

If the crime committed had been but a minor one, the felon, bound hand and foot, was then thrown in so that the stake pierced his chest and hopefully his heart, bringing him a mercifully speedy end. But should he have been found guilty of a more serious crime, his executioners would drop him in, ensuring that the stake penetrated his groin, his sufferings continuing even after the grave had been filled in.

The Chinese, always expert with the knife, were equally dextrous with bamboo spears, not only for torture but also to inflict devilish and fatal wounds on those sentenced to death. When the condemned man had been secured to a conventional-type cross, the executioner would take four sharpened slivers of bamboo and, if the crime had been serious, or the felon’s relatives had been unable to raise the necessary bribe, the spears would be inserted with devastating slowness into those parts of the victim’s body that would not bring about immediate death: the genitals, fleshy areas of the stomach or the upper chest. Once these had been thoroughly embedded and, in some cases, passed right through the victim’s body, he would be left to die in agony. If, however, the executioner had been financially induced to dispatch the criminal without undue delay, the first three spears would be aimed at relatively insensitive areas such as the shoulder and leg muscles, the fourth sliver being then driven into the victim’s heart.

In the west impaling was the penalty inflicted on a Turkish peasant, Solyman Illeppy, who, on 14 June 1800, assassinated General Jean-Baptiste Kleber. After first having the flesh burned off his right hand, traditionally the offending one, the assassin was impaled, in which position he survived for nearly two hours, reportedly dying without showing fear or remorse.

Impalement was also the method by which victims were killed when enclosed within human effigies lined with spikes, but these are treated under the heading Iron Maiden.

IRON CHAIR

A companion piece of furniture to the iron bed (see Gridiron), the iron chair fulfilled a similar function, providing a last, painful seat for many Christian martyrs. Nor was it only men such as Gregory Thaumaturgus who suffered, for during the persecution by the Romans ‘it was commanded that seven seats of brass be brought in, and the women, seven in number who, during the torment of St Blase, had collected the holy drops of blood which fell from him, to sit thereon, one in each. Then were the said seats heated so hot that sparks flew from them as from a furnace heated to the utmost, and their bodies were so scorched that all the people that stood by were savoured of the frying.’

In later centuries culprits in Brittany were tied to an iron armchair, then slowly pushed nearer and nearer to a blazing fire. And Ferdinand VII of Naples, who fought many campaigns during his reign from 1810 to 1859, carried with him on one of the royal pack-mules a collapsible iron chair, complete with pointed legs by which it could be secured in the ground, and a pan beneath for the burning coals.

IRON MAIDEN

‘Protruding from the interior of the “face” of the figure, which was integral with the right-hand door, were two more poniards, aligned so as to pierce the eyeballs of the victim.’ 

Throughout the centuries there have been young ladies whose embraces were best avoided, for once their arms had folded about their partner, excruciating agony rather than ecstatic fulfilment would be the consequence.

These ladies were effigies, made of wood and iron, in which the victim was confined, their hollow bodies containing spikes so positioned as to penetrate the victim’s body.

The earliest reported figure was that used by the tyrant Nabis of Sparta, who ruled from 205 to 194
bc
. To anyone who dared to disagree with him, he would say: ‘If I have not the talents to convince you, perhaps my Apega may persuade you.’ The victim would then be confronted by an automaton modelled to resemble the tyrant’s beautiful wife, the folds of its voluminous gown concealing a number of spikes. Led forward, the man would be enfolded by the mechanical arms and pressed against the figure so that the spikes pierced his chest and abdomen.

A similar effigy, having appropriate religious overtones, was devised by the Spanish during the Inquisition to torture or dispatch those who refused to convert to Roman Catholicism. The following description was given by a French officer who, when the city of Toledo was taken by his forces, inspected the dungeons beneath the Inquisition’s headquarters:

‘In a recess in the subterranean vault, next to the private hall where the interrogations were conducted, stood a wooden figure, carved by the monks, and representing the Virgin Mary. A gilded halo encompassed her head, and in her right hand she held a banner extolling the glory of her Faith.

‘It appeared to us at first sight that, despite the silken robe adorning her, she wore some kind of breastplate which, on closer examination, was seen to be stuck full of extremely sharp, narrow knife-blades, the points being directed towards the spectator. The arms and hands were jointed, controlled by machinery concealed behind a curtain.

One of the Inquisition staff was commanded to set it in motion, and when the figure extended its arms, as though to press someone most lovingly to its heart, a Polish grenadier was ordered to substitute his well-filled knapsack for an imaginary victim. The effigy hugged it closer and closer, and when finally it was made to unclasp its arms, the knapsack had been perforated to a depth of two or three inches, and remained hanging on the points of the projecting daggers.’

The officers present listened with mounting horror as one of the familiars, those who put the unbelievers to the torture, described during the trial the actual proceedings:

‘Persons accused of heresy, or of blaspheming God or the Saints, and obstinately refusing to confess their guilt, were conducted into this cellar, at the furthest end of which, numerous tamps, placed around a recess, threw a variegated illumination of the gilded halo, and on the figure with a banner in her right hand. At a little altar standing opposite to her, and hung with black, the prisoner received the sacrament, and two ecclesiastics earnestly besought him, in the presence of the Mother of God, to make a confession. “See,” they said, “how lovingly the blessed Virgin opens her arms to thee! On her bosom thy hardened heart will be melted; there thou wilt confess.”

All at once the figure began to extend its arms; the prisoner was led to her embrace; she drew him nearer and nearer, pressed him almost imperceptibly closer and closer, until the spikes and knives just pierced his chest.’

Held in that fashion, he was questioned again, being urged to confess his guilt. If he refused, the arms tightened their grip, slowly but surely squeezing the life out of him, the blades penetrating deep into his body.

In the reign of Charles V, during which he ruled over both Spain and Germany, a similar machine existed in Nuremberg, albeit with some ingenious modifications. It too was used for religious offences, but also for those plotting treachery or committing parricide.

The German iron maiden was an equally terrifying instrument of death, made of sheet iron on a strong wooden framework, and shaped to resemble a woman wearing a long robe, a face being painted on the front of the ‘head’. The front of the body consisted of two full-length doors hinged at the sides, each lined with spikes, this arrangement requiring the victim to be compelled to enter the device backwards.

The right-hand door, from the viewpoint of the spectator, had eight quadrangular poniards fitted to its inner surface, the left side having 13 similarly shaped long daggers. Protruding from the interior of the ‘face’ of the figure, which was integral with the right-hand door, were two more poniards, aligned so as to pierce the eyeballs of the victim.

The method of execution was similar to that enacted during the Inquisition; the underground passages, the dimly lit vault, and then the victim’s first sight of the dreaded iron maiden. He would be forced to stand directly in front of the effigy and, upon a spring being released by the executioner, the doors of the maiden would be flung wide, the victim then being turned about and forced within its hollow body.

Further mechanism then folded the doors until the points of the weapons just touched the victim; whereupon a strong, wooden beam, jointed at one end to the wall, would be swung into position so that its other end pressed against the doors. Instantly, a screw mechanism would be operated, closing the doors a fraction at a time, slowly sending the poniards deep into the victim’s body.

The task of removing the remains, always a repugnant one at the best of times, was achieved with ingenuity. After all the screams from within the voluptuously shaped cabinet had died away, a further spring device operated a trapdoor beneath the effigy, allowing the corpse to drop down a perpendicular shaft into a tunnel which housed an arrangement of knives.

The impact of the mutilated cadaver on striking the long, curved blades pivoted them so that they swung across each other, interlocking scissor-fashion, mincing the remains into mangled pieces of flesh and bone which fell into the water flowing along the sewer. Swept along via the outfall into the River Pegnitz, particles were flushed into the Rhine, to be ultimately dispersed in the sea.