Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders by Geoffrey Abbott Page A

small in stature . . . her expressive mouth was large and her eyes rather small. What was remarkable was the thickness and length of her hair and the whiteness of her skin, the smallness of her hands and her feet. She wore a silk déshabillé, striped brown and white, and covered with small nosegays of roses, and her head was covered with a small cap.’
     
    Held firmly by the assistants and also surrounded by four police officers, the Comtesse trembled slightly as Charles-Henri said, ‘We wish you to listen to your judgement, madame.’ She was led to the hall, where the clerk proclaimed the verdict of guilty; as he did so, her eyes rolled in their sockets and she bit her lip, her hitherto pretty face a mask of fury. When the clerk came to the penalties her rage exploded into uncontrollable violence, a protracted struggle ensuing between her and her escorts.
    Eventually overpowered, she was then tied up and carried down to the public courtyard where the scaffold awaited. Despite it being only six o’clock in the morning, a crowd of hundreds had gathered, and as her bonds were loosened, she ran towards the edge of the scaffold, a further frantic struggle taking place as, with an effort, they managed to strip the clothing from her and force her to lie down on the bench so that Charles-Henri could administer the beating.
    A vivid description of what followed was portrayed in a journal written by Nicolas Ruault:
     
    ‘Her whole body was revealed – her superb body, so exquisitely proportioned. At the flash of those white thighs and breasts, the rabble broke the stunned silence with whistles, catcalls and shouted obscenities. The prisoner slipped from his grasp, the executioner, branding iron in hand, had to follow her as she writhed and rolled across the paving stones of the courtyard. The delicate flesh sizzled under the red-hot iron. A light bluish vapour floated about her loosened hair. At that moment her entire body was seized with a convulsion so violent that the second letter ‘V’ was applied, not to her shoulder, but on her breast, her beautiful breast. Mme de la Motte’s tortured body writhed in one last convulsive moment. Somehow she found strength enough to turn and sink her teeth into the executioner’s shoulder, through the leather vest, to the flesh, bringing blood. Then she fainted.’
     
    On recovering she was taken back by coach to the prison where, as the vehicle slowed down, she tried to throw herself under the wheels. In her cell she vainly tried once more to commit suicide by choking herself with a corner of her bed sheet. But her imprisonment lasted, not for life, as sentenced by the court, but for a brief ten months, for with the help of a sentry whom she bribed, she escaped to England disguised as a man and joined her husband in London, where she lived until her death in 1791.
     
    In 1581, having penned seditious writings against Queen Elizabeth’s proposed wedding plans, John Stubbs was sentenced to have the offending hand amputated. Just as the executioner positioned his meat cleaver on the joint of his victim’s right wrist and raised the mallet to strike it, Stubbs, patriotic almost beyond belief, raised his hat with his other hand and, waving it in the air, shouted, ‘God save the Queen!’
     
    William Prynne, MP
    The one thing a seventeenth-century author and Member of Parliament should never have done was offend members of the royal family, yet that was exactly what William Prynne did when he wrote a book criticising the theatrical profession because one person who loved acting was the Queen (Henrietta Maria) herself. Her husband, Charles I, was so furious that Prynne not only found himself serving twelve months in prison, but was also fined £5,000. Nor was that all, for what really hurt, in more ways than one, was that his sentence included being taken to Westminster where the public executioner removed one of his ears, and from thence to Cheapside, where the other was similarly