England's crime historical facts

"Fun" facts? not sure how violent death is "fun"!

The height of "witch hunting" was a bit later than Mediaeval - more the 16-17 Centuries, and then many of them were hanged.

([i]Not[/i] "hung". Objects are hung. [i]Hanged[/i] is the proper legal word.)

Burning at the stake was for heresy in England; but towards the end of its use the victim could be strangled first. It was though, also used on so-called "witches" in some Continental European countries.

Hanging - by gibbet until the invention of the gallows - was the main execution method for most criminals.

Members of the nobility could be beheaded; and traitors and some other serious criminals subjected to the appallingly cruel and gruesome "Hanging, Drawing and Quartering" said to have been invented by an early-Mediaeval English king to execute a troublesome aristocrat . I think these two methods were eventually outlawed in the 17C.

Notably, contemporary illustrations of such executions, which were always public, do not depict the full horrors in detail. They also give the lie to the Hollywood nonsense about torturers' and executioners' appearance. They were just ordinary men in ordinary clothes of the time; not muscle-bound hulks in tabards and masks. Normally, no scaffold, either.

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Attempting suicide was illegal in Britain until as recently as the 1960s or 1970s - I forget when; although capital punishment for it had long been relegated to distant history.

Helping someone else commit suicide is still a serious offence, punishable by prison terms. That does include so-called "assisted dying", leading to very distressing and difficult legal proceedings when the deceased had some horrible terminal disease and wanted such assistance from a loving spouse.

Though society does need stamp out sleazy "social"(?)-media sites encouraging young people in severe emotional distress to injure and even kill themselves.