Bloody Tales of the Tower
Part 2: Executions
Presented by Dr Suzannah Lipscomb and Joe Crowley
Despite its reputation as the home of expert execution, accounts of the time suggest that being put to death in the Tower could be a messy business. Was it a faulty axe or executioner's anxiety which caused the botched beheading of the Duke of Monmouth, who finally lost his head at the fifth blow?!
The second part of this series looks at three famous executions which took place within the Tower of London.
15th July 1685: Duke of Monmouth
Monmouth was the illegitimate son of King Charles II. Upon his father’s death the throne did not pass to him but to his uncle James II. This angered Monmouth and he formed a rebellion which gained popular support but he was captured and sentenced to death.
The execution was public and many people turned up to support their beloved Monmouth. Axeman John Ketch botched the supposedly noble way of beheading. He was known for being a hangman and had only wielded the axe once previously – that beheading also being botched! Ketch’s first blow with the axe only grazed Monmouth’s death, the second making a deeper cut but the third having no effect. By this time Ketch turned and said he could not proceed and had to be ordered to finish. After several more blows Monmouth was dead but his head was still attached to his body. In the end Ketch had to get out a knife and cut away the rest of Monmouth’s neck.
The axe which Ketch used upon Monmouth may not have even been designed to be an executioner’s axe but rather was better suited for woodwork and it would require a very skilled man to use such an axe for beheading.
The documentary also takes a brief look at the French style of execution by the sword – as the manner in which Anne Boleyn was executed. With the thinner blade and sweeping motion it appears to be a cleaner and more effective way of beheading.
John Ketch would go down in history as a bumbling fool and his total botching of Monmouth’s execution would be remembered throughout history.
14th June 1381: Simon Sudbury Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop was praying at St John’s Chapel within the Tower when a revolt lead by peasants broke into the Tower of London and captured the Archbishop, tearing him to pieces. It was the only time in the history that the Tower of London had ever been breached – and it was done by a group of peasants!
The uprising started in Essex Kent and grew so large that it was known as the ‘Peasants Revolt’. They were angry at a new law government had brought out which stated that wages for work must be the sme as those given before the Black Death had swept across England thirty years previously. This made people angry as with so many deaths during the plague there were fewer workers and thus people to work the land were in higher demand and wages rose as a result. Government also raised taxes to provide money for war. Tax collectors brought in muscle to help collect taxes and as a result of this there were several deaths. People began to protest and revolt and saw the church as having a great deal of wealth. Due to the Archbishop’s status within the church and standing with the King he was seen as a target to aim grievances at. He was hold up within the Tower of London when the peasants attacked.
Despite the Tower of London’s many defences including thick done walls, heavy wooden doors, arrow holes where archers could fire arrows at attackers and a moat the peasants skill managed to get inside the very heart of the Tower. But how? Suzannah Lipscombe believes that there would have been no way the peasants could have gotten past so many impregnable defences and thus must have had held from inside the Tower and it would appear from historical resources that it was the King himself that allowed the peasants into the Tower.
The Archbishop of Canterbury may have been prepared for his death and sacrificed to give the peasants what they wanted and save the King. And in the end the Tower of London was not breeches but allowed to be entered.
12th February 1554: Lady Jane Grey
Once Queen of England now condemned to death Lady Jane Grey faced the executioners block. Suzannah Lipscomb explores the prospect that Lady Jane Grey may have even been rightfully Queen. King Henry VIII declared that his son Edward would succeed him upon his death and then Mary if no sons were born to Edward and if none were born to Mary then Elizabeth would succeed the throne. Upon Henry VIII”s death Edward succeeded the throne but he died without any heirs.
Before his death Edward declared that it would not be Mary who succeeds him but rather his Protestant second cousin Lady Jane Grey. Shortly after Edward’s death Lady Jane Grey was taken to the Tower of London and supported by fellow nobles as the rightful Queen.
Yet Jane’s reign was not to last long and Mary Tudor gathered supporters around her. She declared herself as the legitimate Queen and rightful heir of her brother and father. Soon Mary I was Queen and Jane Grey was a prisoner in the Tower of London.
While alive Lady Jane Grey was a threat to Mary’s reign and was beheaded by the executioners axe within the walls of the Tower of London. She was just sixteen years of age. Despite never having a coronation Jane Grey may still have been rightfully a Queen.
Once gain Dr Suzannah Lipscomb and Joe Cowely did a fantastic job of presenting the second part of this series which focused on three executions within the Tower of London. The information was presented in an interesting and emotional manner and I felt really drawn to the lives of these three people who were executed within the Tower. I was also fascinated by the proposal that Lady Jane Grey may have been legitimately Queen of England and this is an idea which I would like to explore in further detail.
In this second part I also enjoyed the look at the outer and inner defences of the Tower of London which has made it into a stronghold that has never truly been breached. I look forward to watching the third and final part of this series.
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