Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Wikipedia
Thomas Harrison may refer to:
- Thomas Harrison (soldier), sided with Parliament in the English Civil War
- Commodore Thomas Harrison (Naval Officer), British Naval officer; see List of diplomats from the United Kingdom to the Republic of Genoa
- Thomas Harrison (architect) (1744–1829)
- Thomas Harrison (translator) (1555–1631)
- Thomas Elliot Harrison (1808–1888), civil engineer
- Thomas W. Harrison (1856–1935), U.S. Representative from Virginia
- Thomas Harrison (1704–1785), founder of Harrisonburg, Virginia
- Tom Harrison (baseball), baseball pitcher
- Tom Harrison (cricketer)
[edit] See also
- Tom Harrisson, British polymath
1893 text
General Thomas Harrison, son of a butcher at Newcastle-under-Lyme, appointed by Cromwell to convey Charles I. from Windsor to Whitehall, in order to his trial. He signed the warrant for the execution of the King. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered on the 13th.
Annotations
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Two accounts of his speech and actions on the day of his execution on 13 October 1660:
“…God hath covered my head many times in the day of Battle. By God I have leaped over a wall, by God I have runned through a Troop, and by my God I will go through this death…”
‘Next to the sufferings of Christ’, he claimed, ‘I go to suffer in the most glorious cause that ever was in the world’. And one, as he passed by, asking him in derision where the good old cause was, he with a cheerful smile clapped his hand on his breast and said, Here it is, and I go to seal it with my blood.’
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A biographical sketch of Harrison and note concerning the Fifth Monarchists …
http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/biog/harrison.htm
http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/glossary/fifth-monarchy.htm
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Harrison’s death was recorded to be particularly gruesome.
The punishment of hanging, drawing, and quartering involved drawing a condemned man behind a horse through the streets tied to a hurdle, which is a fence-like mesh of branches (much earlier, the hurdle was not used and the condemned was simply dragged behind a horse).
The condemned man would then be hung, the executioner making sure that he didn’t have a long drop, so that his neck didn’t break. After the condemned man was in agony for a while, the executioner would cut him down before the condemned lost consciousness.
While the condemned man was still conscious the executioner would cut off the man’s penis and testicles and then open him up and start removing the internal organs. The condemned man would of course die during the removal of the organs.
Quartering would involved cutting up the man into pieces after his death, and the pieces would usually be publically displayed as a warning.
As you can see, this was a most painful and gruesome way to die.
Usually, by the 17th century, the executioner was lenient and let the condemned die during hanging before they started ripping the condemned man’s internal organs out, but Harrison apparently had no such luck.