I suppose that being executed is always going to be a brutal exercise, you are killing someone after all. But in this series I will pick out some of the more impressively severe methods I can find and give you some info nuggets about them along the way.

So I thought I’d start with what is referred to as blowing from a gun. What this entails is strapping the victim to the front of a cannon and then firing. Sometimes with a cannon ball but more often with grapeshot or just a blank.

George Carter Stent of the illustrious 14th Dragoons describes the process and outcome from first hand observation:

“The prisoner is generally tied to a gun with the upper part of the small of his back resting against the muzzle. When the gun is fired, his head is seen to go straight up into the air some 40 or fifty feet; the arms fly off right and left, high up in the air, and fall at, perhaps, a hundred yards distance; the legs drop to the ground beneath the muzzle of the gun; and the body is literally blown away altogether, not a vestige being seen”.

Sounds nice hey? Read on…

☛ Next: Medieval Torture & Slaughter: The ‘How To’ Guide