Burning at the stake in public was used in Britain to punish witchcraft and heresy committed by either sex and
for women convicted of high treason or petty treason. Men who were convicted of High Treason were hanged,
drawn and quartered but this was not deemed acceptable for women as it would have involved nudity. (Petty
treasons were the murder of the husband, counterfeiting money and "coining" - the clipping of coins for pieces
of silver and gold which were melted down to produce counterfeit coins). Oddly men who comitted these same
crimes suffered just ordinary hanging.

It is not known when burning was first used in Britain but there is a recorded burning for heresy in 1222 when a
deacon of the church was burnt at Oxford for embracing the Jewish faith so he could marry a Jew.

In 1401 the king authorised a Statute of Heresy which gave the clergy power to arrest and try those suspected
of heresy. The first to suffer under the new act was one William Sautre, a priest, who was executed at Lynn in
1402. This statute was repealed in 1553 but burning was re-introduced by Henry VIII. His daughter Mary was
also very keen on this method and 274 burnings of both sexes were recorded during her reign, mostly for
religious offences. The normal place of execution being at Smithfield in London.

An engraving of the period shows that these unfortunates were stood in empty barrels at the stake and then
heaped round with faggots.

Burning was in use throughout Europe at this time and was particularly favoured by the Inquisition as it did not
involve shedding of the victim's blood which was dis-allowed under the prevailing Roman Catholic doctrine and
it ensured that the condemned had no body to take into the next life (which was believed to be a very severe
punishment in itself.)
It is claimed that some two hundred thousand people were burned for witchcraft in Europe in sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.

Although we in Britain might associate burning at the stake with witchcraft it was much less used for that offence
here than in other parts of Europe - particularly France and Germany. In Britain most witches were hanged in the
normal way, possibly as a cost saving exercise and possibly because of the risk that the general public would
not tolerate frequent use of such a barbaric punishment.

In the typically hypocritical way of English justice, in the 17th and 18th century women who were burnt for non
religious crimes were actually strangled by a rope before the fire got to them and thus died much the same way
as they would have by hanging. On the Continent strangling before burning was also allowed, the rope being
called a "retentum".

Christian Murphy who was put to death on 18th March 1789 was the last woman to suffer at the stake in an
execution that really was only a modified form of hanging. She was led from the Debtor's Door of Newgate past
the nearby gallows from which her eight male co-defendants, including her husband, were already hanging to
the stake. Here she mounted a small platform in front of it and an iron band was put round her body. The noose,
dangling from an iron bracket projecting from the top of the stake, was tightened around her neck. When the
preparations were complete the platform was removed leaving her suspended and only after 30 minutes were
the faggots placed around her and lit.

However not everyone was so "lucky" - Catherine Hayes was sentenced to be burned at Newgate in 1726 for
petty treason. She, her lover and a friend beat her husband to death for which the two men were hanged and
Catherine sentenced to be burnt. She was dragged on a hurdle to the place of execution and when she had
finished praying was chained to the stake. A rope was put round her neck and the faggots piled round her.
When the executioner lit the fire he found the flames too fierce to allow him to pull the strangling rope so the
poor women was burned alive - a horrible death that took a considerable time. Her execution is vividly
described in the Newgate Calendar. (see the drawing of her execution burn2.jpg)

Elizabeth Gaunt was the last woman to be burnt for High Treason in 1685 having been convicted of involvement
in the Rye House plot. She was denied strangulation and was thus also burned alive. The burning of a woman
for treason at Tyburn is depicted here - burn1.jpg.

Two slightly different methods of burning were used. The first, consisted of using a heap of faggots piled around
a wooden stake above which the prisoner was attached with chains or iron hoops. The Spanish Inquisition
preferred this method as it had the greatest visual impact.
The second method, mostly used on witches, was to tie the condemned to the stake and heap faggots all round
them, effectively hiding their sufferings from sight so that they died inside a wall of flames . It is said that Joan of
Arc died by this method.

Mercifully the appallingly cruel punishment of burning did not continue into nineteenth century Britain.