drawing and quartering
A penalty of the English Criminal Code of the 16th , 17th , and 18th centuries , inflicted on those found guilty of high treason touching the king’s person or government. The person convicted was usually drawn on a sledge to the place of execution; there he was hung by the neck from a scaffold, being cut down and disembowelled while still alive; his head then was cut from his body and his corpse divided into four quarters. Many of the Catholic martyrs of England and Ireland , since the practise of their religion was declared high treason by law, suffered this cruel, barbarous death.