Wikipedia gives Guy Fawke's method of execution as hanging - which I do not believe to be correct?
There are many other accounts of him being dragged at ground level behind a horse to (I think) Tyburn, where he was firstly castrated and forced to eat his own genitals, then hung for a while, taken down whilst still alive and then disemboweled before being quartered. It think William Wallace met much the same end?
Being dragged behind a horse at ground level was symbolic of not being worthy of breathing the same air as the general populace, though I don't think that happened in Wallace's case?
His body and that of his co-conspiritors was then burned on a bonfire - literally, a "bone fire".
I think the Wikipedia article confuses his execution with that of Dick Turpin, the highwayman who, like Fawkes, also came from York. It was Turpin who jumped from the scaffold at York Goal, breaking his neck and cheating the hangman. He also had a paid accomplice grab his feet and swing on them to add extra weight, thus speeding up his death, common in those days. It was much preferable to being hoisted slowly and being effectively strangled by the rope. Hanging in those days didn't involve dropping the prisoner, as it has in more recent times.
(Haven't we gone soft lately)?
