23 AUGUST
SCOTTISH REBEL WILLIAM WALLACE STRANGLED, CASTRATED AND DISEMBOWELED
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[ 23 August 1305 ]
Today in 1305, William Wallace, the legendary Scottish rebel, was found guilty of refusing to recognise English rule. He was drawn behind horses for five miles, then strangled, castrated, disemboweled while still, although barely, alive before being finally beheaded and quartered. His severed head was ‘affixed upon London bridge in the sight of those crossing both by land and by water,’ while one quarter of his body ‘was hung on the gibbet at Newscastle upon Tyne, another quarter at Berwick, a third quarter at Stirling and a fourth quarter at St. John’s Town (Perth) as a cause of fear and chastisement of all going past and looking upon these things.’1
ASHANTI TOWNS AND VILLAGES BURNED AS A ‘LESSON’
[ 23 August 1900 ]
On 23 August 1900, a Press Association report sent from the Gold Coast (now Ghana) reported that ‘two punitive columns’ of British troops were ‘destroying the enemy’s villages as they advance’ and living off the ‘rich country near Lake Busumskwi (Bosumtwi) which affords (them) plenty of food.’2
FOOTNOTES
- Citations from an eighteenth century transcript of a medieval manuscript accessed at “Wallace’s Execution,” The Society of William Wallace, found online at http://www.thesocietyofwilliamwallace.com/wallacesexecution.htm
- ‘The Ashanti Revolt: Punitive Expedition: Villages Burned,’ The Northern Whig, 24 August 1900, p. 5 and ‘Ashanti: Advance of Two Punitive Columns: Villages Destroyed,’ The Liverpool Mercury, 24 August 1900, p. 7.
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