What was breaking on the wheel

The wheel miraculously broke when she touched it; she was then beheaded. In Scotland , a servant named Robert Weir was broken on the wheel at Edinburgh in or sources disagree. This punishment had been used infrequently there. The crime had been the murder of John Kincaid , Lord of Warriston , on behalf of his wife. Weir was secured to a cart wheel and was struck and broken with the coulter of a plough. Lady Warriston was later beheaded.

The breaking wheel was frequently used in the Great Northern War in the early s when the Tsardom of Russia challenged the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in northern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. Russian forces used this method to execute Cossacks and during the massacres of civilians at Baturyn and Lebedyn.

This method of execution has been used in 18th-century America following slave revolts. It was once used in New York after several whites were killed during a slave rebellion in Between and prior to the Louisiana Purchase , 11 slaves in French-controlled Louisiana , who had revolted against their masters, were killed on the wheel. The breaking wheel was used in Germany as recently as the early 19th century for the crime of parricide , and the last known use occurred in when the assassin of the Bishop of Ermeland in Prussia was executed in this manner.

The breaking wheel was also known as a great dishonor, and appeared in several expressions as such. In Dutch , there is the expression opgroeien voor galg en rad , "to grow up for the gallows and wheel," meaning to come to no good. It is also mentioned in the Chilean expression morir en la rueda , "to die at the wheel," meaning to keep silent about something.

In Finnish teilata , "to execute by the wheel," refers to forceful and violent critique or rejection of performance, ideas or innovations.

The German verb radebrechen has acquired a somewhat different meaning, "to speak in the manner of one who has poor command of the language," i. He was also a leader in wickedness, since the chief of a gang of brigands for instance would be broken on the wheel, while his obscure followers were merely hanged. The locus classicus for the origin of this use of the epithet is in the Memoirs of Saint-Simon.

In English, the quotation " Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Chisholm, Hugh, ed Cambridge University Press. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed Catherine of Alexandria ".

Catholic Encyclopedia. A condemned person was lashed to the wheel and a club or iron cudgel was used to beat their limbs. There were several variations of the device and sometimes it also consisted of a wooden cross. Sometimes it was a very slow and painful death and people could live for as many as four whole days after before finally dying. The condemned on the Catherine Wheel could face the prolonged torture adn in some cases victims lived for several days. Alternatively, the torture victim could face a quick death through the blows delivered on his chest and stomach by the executioner.

The exact mechanism of the Catherine Wheel also varied from one country to another. The Catherine Wheel was one of the most commonly used torture devices during the medieval times and was also known as the Breaking Wheel. It was used to crush the limbs and bones of the condemned and often caused prolonged torture spanning multiple days. The first version may well date from Frankish times when it was customary to dispose of certain criminals by driving a wagon over them.

Procedures from the blood court of Zurich in the fifteenth century describe how the condemned was placed belly down on a board.

The wheel was then slammed down twice on each arm and leg. The ninth blow was to the spine. The broken body was then woven between the spokes of the wheel, which was then hammered to a pole.

This pole was then erected and the victim was left to die. To be broken on the wheel involved tying the limbs of a criminal to the wheel and then smashing them with a cudgel. In France, the wheel revolved to add an extra dimension of uncertainty to the punishment.