Example research essay topic: Tower Of London William The Conqueror - 1,175 words

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We went to the torture room in a kind of solemn precession, the guards walking ahead with lighted candles. The chamber was underground and dark, particularly near the entrance. It was a vast shadowy place and every device and instrument of human torture was there. They pointed out some of them to me and said I should have to taste them.

Then they asked me again if I would confess. I Those words were spoken by John Gerard, a Jesuit priest accused of spreading Catholicism in England. And in 1597 he was captured, taken to the Tower of London and put to the question. Whatever the country, whatever the crime, one could see the authorities dilemma, when suspicion, strong and sometimes reinforced by evidence, would point to an individual, who usually vehemently denied all accusations. Yet the truth had to be determined. While in an age where social conditions were brutally harsh, where epidemics of fatal diseases decimated the population and violence was almost a way of life, what more natural than to attempt to extract a confession by using force.

Torture which is understood to be the torment and suffering of the body in order to elicit the truth. Its concept is based on two fundamental facts, first, that we all have imaginations. (Abbott, 1 - 4) Torture is a vile and depraved invasion of the rights and dignity of an individual. It is a crime against humanity, for which there can be no Torture was used as early as the 11 th century, as evidence shows that William the Conqueror ordered the maiming of criminals, while Henry I ordained that those guilty of counterfeiting the nations currency, would be punished by having their right hand severed and then afterwards castrated. The human anatomy seems to have been expressly designed to be pierced.

The human bodys soft, yielding flesh, with vulnerable parts such as fingers and toes, ears and noses, sticking out, positively invited the attention of a torturers keen blade and sharpened spike. (Abbott, 67) Since the primary principle of torture is to inflict pain or, at the very least, to threaten pain, therefore exploiting the fear of it. Probably the most infamous instrument of torture in Medieval England was the rack. (The Tower... , 2) It is believed that the rack was introduced into England around 1420 by the Duke of Exeter, who was constable of the Tower of London at the time. (Innes, 87 - 88) Although many variations of the rack have been used throughout the centuries, the basic principle has always been the same. The victims hands are secured by ropes to a beam at one end, and their bodies gradually stretched by ropes attached to their feet. At first, they resist the stretching, not only with the muscles of their arms, and legs but also with their abdominal muscles.

Then suddenly, the muscles of their limbs give way, first in the arms and subsequently in the legs: the ligaments, and then the fibres of the muscles themselves, are torn. Further stretching ruptures the muscles of the abdomen, and finally torn from their sockets. (Innes, 123) If they did not die of their injuries, they were often so injured that they could not take part in their public confessions. (Tower of... , 2) Persuasion by means of pressing usually ended in death, hardly desirable in court cases where confessions and names of accomplices were required. However in the 16 th and 17 th centuries, a device was used which, while not endangering life in any way, positively encouraged the victim to reveal everything he knew, whether true or imagined. The instrument was known as the Boot. As its name implies, the boot was designed to torture a prisoners legs and feet, and the device was so effective that even the early stages of its application caused injuries so harsh that a hasty confession was usually the result. the most common form of the boot required the victim to sit on a bench, to which he was securely tied.

An upright board was then placed on either side of each leg, splinting them from knee to ankle; the boards were held together by ropes or iron rings within a frame. With the victims legs now immovable, the torture begun with wooden wedges hammered between the two inner boards and then between the outer boards and their surrounding frame, compressing and crushing the trapped flesh. (Abbott, 30 - 31) The torture of the boot was described by those who witnessed it as it as the most severe and cruel pain in the world. Indeed, as Bishop Burnet wrote: When any are to be stuck in the boots, it is done in the presence of the council, and upon that happening, almost all offer to run away. The sight is so dreadful that, without an order restraining such a number to stay, the press would remain unused. (Innes, 3) Torture remained strong throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period, however; punishment by death was beginning to become a very infamous form of torture. The ultimate torment, slow death by burning at the stake, was practiced in England for several centuries.

The victim would be smeared with pitch, and then dragged on a hurdle to the place of execution. There the accused was made to stand on a barrel of pitch surrounded by faggots, and chained to the stake. A noose was then placed about the victims neck, the rope ran through a pulley at the top of the stake and into the executioners hands. The fire was lit, and the rope was pulled, however; sometimes the fire would reach the victim before the executioners had a chance to strangle the accused.

Because of this the victim would suffer feeling their body being burned from the outside in at least till the flames consumed their whole body, which in some cases could take up To be executed by having ones head removed by cold steel was considered an honorable death by the Normans, in as much in keeping with ones rank as being killed in battle by the battle-axe or the sword. This method of being punished for ones crimes was introduced into England by William the Conqueror in 1076. The instrument used was the sword, and this type continued to be used for many years to come. (Abbott, 191) In England the sword was soon superseded by a weapon which resembled the battle-axe in name only, for the heading axe was a crude and ill-balanced implement little better than a heavy, unwieldy chopper. The clumsy weapon weighs seven pounds fifteen ounces and kills, not with a clinical cutting action, but by crushing its way through the vertebrae, not unlike a very blunt chisel. (Beheadings, 3) To a dedicated executioner, and even more to the victim prone in front of him, a sliced shot had results too horrific to contemplate, as James, Duke of Monmouth, found out to his cost in 1685. Jack Ketch, the public executioner could not after five s...

Research essay sample on Tower Of London William The Conqueror