Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/499

10ᵗʰ S. I. 21, 1904.] Prisoners at the bar, be severally taken from hence to the place from whence you came, and from thence be severally drawn on an hurdle to the place of execution, and there be severally hanged by the neck, but not until you are dead, but that you be severally taken down again, and that whilst you are yet alive, your bowels be taken out and burnt before your faces; and that afterwards your heads be severed from your bodies, and your bodies be divided each into four quarters, and your head; and quarters to be at the king's disposal. And may God Almighty have mercy on your souls."

It is necessary to add that the most revolting part of the sentence was not carried out. The king's (Geo. III.) warrant for execution, dated 19 February, 1803, directed as follows:—

There does not seem to be any doubt that the proper order of the words is "drawn, hanged, and quartered." This was the form of the sentence. Thus the sentence passed on Edward Coleman, condemned for high treason in November, 1678, runs thus:—

In the report of the trial of the "five Jesuits," some time later, the recorded judgment (abbreviated) is "to be drawn, hanged, and quartered." The sentence on Fitzharris, tried in June, 1681, is given in Latin in the report of the trial:—

The drawing was originally a dragging along the ground; this was, later, mitigated by interposing a hurdle, and, later still, a sledge. But the sentences in the Popish Plot trials specified sometimes a hurdle, sometimes a sledge.

The sentences quoted will be found in the 'State Trials.'

No one can reasonably doubt that persons condemned to this penalty should strictly have been disembowelled before death. Between the beginning of February, 1577/8, and the end of January, 1585/6, the following Catholic martyrs, according to Challoner's 'Missionary Priests,' were certainly disembowelled while yet alive:—

Beati.—John Nelson, Thomas Sherwood, Everard Hanse, William Hart (and probably Richard Thirkell).

Venerabiles.—George Haydock, James Fenn, Thomas Hemerford, John Nutter, Richard White, Edward Strancham, Nicholas Wheeler (and probably John Munden).

(10ᵗʰ S. i. 285, 356)—Since writing my note I have been enabled, in the course of a tour round Cap Corse, to take a close observation of the point and bay of Mortella. I was unable to discern any vestiges of a fort on the point. If it were destroyed in 1793, the work must have been very thoroughly done. The nearest Genoese watch-tower is situated at Farínole, a mile or two to the northward. The myrtle abounds in the neighbourhood, and the vicinity of St. Florent is the only part of Corsica in which the oleander grows wild. It is a pretty Corsican custom to strew branches of myrtle before the residence of a bride, and in driving through Patrimonio, a village near St. Florent, we passed a house from which a marriage procession had just departed, the air being thick with the odour of the crushed leaves. It would be interesting to receive further evidence with regard to the alleged derivation of Martello from Mortella.

Author:William Francis Prideaux

I believe the surname Martelli is of considerable antiquity in Florence and other parts of Italy. I do not suggest that the