A BLOODY NEW CHAPTER

After decades of discord, the lawmakers of early modern England took drastic new measures to make sure that citizens stayed in line

- RHIANNON DAVIES

By the turn of the 19th century, the so-called 'Bloody Code' reigned supreme in England and Wales. Crimes as mundane as damaging a fishpond or cutting down a tree could earn you a one-way ticket to the gallows.

The harsh penal code (which was actually an accumulation of many different acts over several decades) emerged after a significant period of upheaval. From the start of the 17th century, treason had been in the air: 1605 was the year of the Gunpowder Plot, when Guy Fawkes and his conspirators hatched a plan to blow up King James VI and I's parliament. And the following decades saw the fall of the Stuarts during the Civil Wars; the rise of Oliver Cromwell and the Republic, which brought a wave of Puritan-inspired legislation; and the return of the monarchy in 1660.

During this tumultuous period, any activity that threatened those in power was harshly punished: Guy Fawkes and his fellow plotters were sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered (see page 38); Charles I was beheaded in 1649 for being a "tyrant, traitor, murderer and Public Enemy"; and his son, Charles II, sought gruesome retribution against those who had signed his father's death warrant - Oliver Cromwell's corpse was dug back up and hanged in chains.

HANG 'EM AND FLOG 'EM