Horrible end Hugh Despenser is hanged, drawn and quartered – on the orders of Queen Isabella and her ally Roger Mortimer – in Hereford, 1326. By the 14th century, those convicted of treason could expect to meet with a gruesome death
On 23 August 1305, William Wallace was convicted of treason at Westminster Hall in London. He then suffered the gruesome fate of the male traitor: hanging, drawing and quartering. King Edward I was determined to revenge himself brutally on this tiresome figurehead of Scottish independence – who had famously defeated English forces at Stirling Bridge in 1297 – and the Wallace case proved to be a watershed. It signified an extension by Edward I of the crime of treason, which now meant not just plotting the death of the king, but also the act of “levying war” (rebellion).