"Beheading" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... made use of in his life-time. His Counsellor, Priest, and Concubines, that devoted themselves wholly to his soul, sacrifice their lives as soon as he dies; but have the liberty to chuse what kind of death they please, which is generally beheading. In this country there is a stupendous wall, built to prevent the incursions of the Tartars, which is at least 1700 miles long, near 30 feet high, and broad enough for several horsemen to travel on it abreast. Their established religion is what they call the Religion of Nature, as explained ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... of Lewis the Sixteenth, found itself a little later voting that Republic which has since been ratified by the nation, and has at this moment the ardent good wishes of every enlightened politician in Europe. In the same way it is startling to think that within three years of the beheading of Lewis the Sixteenth, there was probably not one serious republican in the representative assembly of France. Yet it is always so. We might make just the same remark of the House of Commons at Westminster in 1640, and of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... was seen and felt that the dreadful beheading of an anointed monarch as a malefactor, had scarcely more effect upon the tides of the time than the death of a sparrow,—and that men were called as usual to their daily tasks and toils,—and that all things moved onward in their ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... in his own way. Some said that the author of such a crime deserved a hempen cravat; others thought that the wretch should be thrown into the water with a stone to his neck. Beheading seemed to the old minister too mild a punishment for such a villain; he was in favor of flaying him alive, and all present ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... Formerly a warlike instrument; also for beheading; specially applied to the axe of carpenters for mast-making, and sometimes cutting away ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... broken on the wheel could succeed to any public office or employ until a whole generation had passed away. For this reason, he thought the punishment of the guilty count might be transmuted into beheading, which was considered all over Europe as much less infamous. The regent was moved by this argument, and was about to consent, when Law, who felt peculiarly interested in the fate of the murdered man, confirmed him in his former resolution to let ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... Arabia; and the next year he conducted a pilgrimage to Mecca with 2,000 followers, remaining there undisturbed for three days. After this he carried on war vigorously against more potent powers, whose rulers he summoned to become converts. Some yielded, and others scorned him, one of them beheading the Prophet's messengers. This brought on battles of greater magnitude, and in one ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... dreadful punishment the offending grocer was to be spared nothing. For an aristocrat like Mme. de Brinvilliers beheading was considered indignity enough. But Derues must go through with it all; he must be broken on the wheel and burnt alive and his ashes scattered to the four winds of heaven; there was to be no retentum for him, a clause sometimes ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... in the convent of Unterzell, near Wuerzburg, was condemned by the spiritual, and executed by the civil, power. By the clemency of the prince, the proper death by burning alive was remitted to the milder sentence of beheading, and afterwards burning the corpse to ashes: for no vestige of such an accursed criminal should be permitted to remain after death. When a young girl Maria Renata had been seduced to witchcraft by a military officer, and was ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... who had given them their power, though neither of these at that time had raised a hand against them. Have you noticed how ready we are to forgive those on our side for doing that for which we would bitterly condemn our opponents? The same people who condemn the Empress Dowager for beheading the six young reformers stand ready to forgive Kuang Hsu for ordering the decapitation of Jung Lu, and the imprisonment ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... fatigued by the journey, in which she had been carried on horseback from Moyle's Court to Winchester, and the sleepless nights which would naturally have followed. She was sentenced to be burned at the stake. But the sentence was commuted to beheading, at the intercession of the gentry of the neighborhood. She had disapproved of the execution of the King; said she had always prayed for him, and had a son in the King's army. Macaulay's account of the story is familiar to all readers ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... gotten in while the door was open, was crossing the living room. Little Fuzzy ran after and past it, pivoted and brought the corner of the chisel edge down on the prawn's neck, neatly beheading it. He looked at his victim for a moment, then slid the chisel under it and flopped it over on its back, slapping it twice with the flat and cracking the undershell. The he began pulling the dead prawn apart, tearing out pieces of meat and eating them delicately. After disposing of the ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... Throughout the Bights of Benin and Biafra, where the chief stalks about with his fetishman and his executioner, there is still some manliness amongst men, some modesty amongst women. There the offending wife fears beheading and 'saucy water;' here she leaves with impunity her husband, who rarely abandons the better half. Consequently the sex has become vicious as in Egypt—worse than the men, bad as these are. Petty larceny is carried on to such an extent that no improvement is ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... the King decreed that his faithful servant and merry companion should be executed on Tower Hill, like the rest of the men whose bodies lie in the church of St. Peter ad Vincula within the Tower walls. The day before his beheading sir Thomas wrote with a charred stick to Margaret, leaving her the hair shirt he had always worn under his clothes, and messages and little remembrances to the rest of the old household. Oddly enough, his wife is ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... natives of one tribe crossed the line into the territory of another and stole fruits, cocoanuts, of anything else, and the injured tribe could catch the thief or thieves, their heads were cut off and their bodies left on the spot. This is according to their laws. Beheading for theft, and leaving the bodies where they were beheaded. I have seen five or six in this ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... woman, among the spectators of the Crucifixion, who shows her grief by blowing her nose. He lets himself be drawn off by all manner of trivial detail and of gay costume; but again in such frescoes as S. Lucia, or the "Beheading of St. George," in the Paduan chapel of the Santo, he proves how well he understands the force of solid, simply-draped figures, direct in gesture and expression, while the decorative use he makes of lances against the ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... help me, good madam?" he entreated. "I went down to Goody Madge, and she said there was a chance for me every seven years. The first went by, but this is my fourteenth year. I had a hope when the King spoke of beheading me, but he was only in jest, as I might have known. Then methought I would try what Midsummer night in the fairy ring would do, but that was in vain; and now you, who could cross me if you would, will not believe. Oh, will you not make ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... discovery of the emptiness of the tomb; is unintelligible, if "Mark" knew anything about them, or believed in the miraculous conception. The second Gospel is no summary: "Mark" can find room for the detailed story, irrelevant to his main purpose, of the beheading of John the Baptist, and his miraculous narrations are crowded with minute particulars. Is it to be imagined that, with the supposed apostolic authority of Matthew before him, he could leave out the miraculous conception of Jesus and the ascension? Further, ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... wounded man for his support; if the wound appears dangerous, the culprit is immediately imprisoned; if the wounded man recovers, the offender must pay a fine and suffer the bastinado. There are four capital punishments: beheading, hanging, strangling and bastinadoing to death. Beheading is preferred; it is thus performed: the criminal sits down, and a person behind gives him a blow or push on the back or shoulder, which makes him turn his head, and while his attention is thus employed, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... those towers Murdoch, the blind Duke of Albany, was imprisoned for seven years by James I before he was executed at Stirling; and they say that in the green hollow where the great red ruin glows he can be seen walking in the moonlight on the anniversary of his beheading. ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Son saw on the outstretched neck the mark of the other beheading. He took up the Sword of Light again and prepared to hold the head against all that might come ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... spiritual foes. The leading German bishops wished that the Protestant demands should be conceded; and the Pope himself vainly urged on the Emperor a conciliatory policy. But Charles V. had outlawed Luther, and attempted to waylay him; and the Dukes of Bavaria were active in beheading and burning his disciples, whilst the democracy of the towns generally took his side. But the dread of revolution was the deepest of his political sentiments; and the gloss by which the Guelphic divines had got over the passive obedience of the apostolic age was characteristic of that mediaeval ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... Sockatoo, where, a short time after his arrival, he had to officiate at the execution of two thousand Tuaricks, who, in conjunction with the rebels at Goober, had attempted to plunder the country, but were all made prisoners. It may be added, that the capital punishments inflicted in Soudan are beheading, impaling, and crucifixion; the first being reserved for Mahometans, and the other two practised on pagans. Clapperton was told, that wretches on the cross generally linger three days before death puts an end to their sufferings. Clapperton was ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... terror continues until July 28, 1794, when the cruel hearted Robespierre and his consorts are condemned to death on the guillotine, a cunningly devised beheading machine, on which he had been practicing with innocent and helpless victims, for ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... the people were, they were still fearful savages. Messengers arrived from the neighbouring town to announce the death of their chief, Matiamvo. That individual had been addicted to running a-muck through his capital and beheading any one he met, till he had a large heap of human heads in front of his hut. Men were also slaughtered occasionally, whenever the chief wanted part of a body to perform ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... knocked them off, so I did for you an act of greatest kindness, for every one removes his hat when the Governor General passes." He also informed us that the special occasion for this rather pompous parade was the execution of some criminals at a park or prison not far away, and that this was done by beheading them. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... tranquillity did not, however, continue long. Herod Agrippa, who had lately acceded to the government of Judea, "stretched forth his hand to vex certain of the church." (Acts xii. 1.) He began his cruelty by beheading one of the twelve original apostles, a kinsman and constant companion of the Founder of the religion. Perceiving that this execution gratified the Jews, he proceeded to seize, in order to put to death, ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... were sent from France, who asked simply civil rights for freedmen, and not emancipation. Indeed that was all that Toussaint himself had as yet demanded. The planters intrigued with the British and this, together with the beheading of the king (an impious act in the eyes of Negroes), induced Toussaint to join the Spaniards. In 1793 British troops were landed and the French commissioners in desperation declared the slaves emancipated. This at once won back Toussaint from the Spaniards. He became supreme ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... and at the end of ten more he was obliged to resign through old age. He had planted the poplars round the mill-pond in his earliest days, and, among other trees, the beautiful weeping wych-elm on the lawn behind the house. The weeping effect he produced by beheading the tree when quite small and grafting it with a slip of the weeping variety, and the junction was still plainly visible. It was a symmetrical and, especially when in bloom, a lovely tree, but as the blossoms died and scattered themselves all over the grass, they worried the methodical ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... four days before his Majesty's beheading, one Major Sydenham, who had commands in Scotland, came to take his leave of me, and told me the King was to be put to death, which I was not willing to believe, and said, 'I could not be persuaded the Parliament could find any Englishman so barbarous, that would do that foul action.' 'Rather,' ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... sickness, and, above all, the lesson which they had received so lately from the soldiers, had both diminished their numbers and cowed their spirit. They were sullen, too, and resentful; and, with the changeableness proverbial in a multitude, had rather have witnessed the beheading of a magistrate, or the burning of a tribune, than the torture and death of a dozen of wretched Christians. Besides, they had had a glut of Christian blood; a reaction of feeling had taken place, and, in spite of the suspicion of witchcraft, ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... down rather abruptly, and helped himself from his friend's cigar-case. He had small talent and less taste for subterfuge; and, his pulses being in an awkward state of commotion, he took his time over the beheading and lighting of his cigar. In fact he took so long that Lenox ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... revolution; what they do create is anarchy; and the difference between these is not a question of violence, but a question of fruitfulness and finality. Revolution of its nature produces government; anarchy only produces more anarchy. Men may have what opinions they please about the beheading of King Charles or King Louis, but they cannot deny that Bradshaw and Cromwell ruled, that Carnot and Napoleon governed. Someone conquered; something occurred. You can only knock off the King's head once. But you can knock off ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... to my mind the known story of a Scotchman, who receiving sentence of death, with all the circumstances of hanging, beheading, quartering, embowelling and the like, cried out, "What need all this COOKERY?" And I think we have reason to ask the same question; for if we believe Wood, here is a dinner getting ready for us, and you see the bill of fare, and I am sorry the drink ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... to the civil war, which were given to the British Museum by his late majesty King George III. in 1762, there are three upon this subject. One is entitled, 'The Confession of Richard Brandon the Hangman (upon his death-bed), concerning his beheading his late Majesty. Printed in the year of the hangman's downfall, 1649.' The second is entitled, 'The last Will and Testament of Richard Brandon,' printed in the same year. The third is, 'A Dialogue or Dispute between the late Hangman (the same ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various
... thicker make than the French; they cut their hair close on the middle of the head, letting it grow on either side; they are good sailors, and better pirates, cunning, treacherous and thievish; above three hundred are said to be hanged annually at London; beheading with them is less infamous than hanging; they give the wall as the place of honour; hawking is the general sport of the gentry; they are more polite in eating than the French, devouring less bread, ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... Charles signed on June 12th a warrant for the execution of Vane by hanging at Tyburn on the 14th, which sentence on the following day "upon humble suit made" to him, Charles was "graciously pleased to mitigate," as the warrant terms it, for the less ignominious punishment of beheading on Tower Hill, and with permission that the head and body should be given to the relations to be by them decently and privately interred.— Lister's Life ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... say 'if you could,'" rejoined Paddington. "The beheading of a wife is a royal privilege, and cannot ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... in 1557, Sultan Ibrahim died. "During his illness he put to death several physicians who had failed in cure, beheading some, and causing others to be trodden to death by elephants, so that all the surviving medical practitioners, alarmed, fled from his dominions." He was succeeded by his ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... stocks, whipping, or burning in the hand: which punishments, and judgments, do often prove profitable to those that are punished with them; but eternal judgment, it is like those more severe judgments among men, as beheading, shooting to death, hanging, drawing and quartering, which swoop21 all, even health, time, and the like, and cut off all opportunity of good, leaving no place for mercy or amendment—"These shall go away ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... arbour, a frog is secretly pinched and poked by the crier till it quacks. Sentence of death is passed on the frog by the king; the hangman beheads it and flings the bleeding body among the spectators. Lastly, the king is driven from the hut and pursued by the soldiers. The pinching and beheading of the frog are doubtless, as Mannhardt observes, a rain-charm. We have seen that some Indians of the Orinoco beat frogs for the express purpose of producing rain, and that killing a ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Sybilla Sambetha, the serious girl with the lace veil. Did any of the later Dutch conjurers in paint attain such transparency? The Mystic Marriage of St. Catharine, a triptych with its wings representing the beheading of St. John the Baptist—the Salome is quite melancholy—and St. John at Patmos, is one of the world pictures. The Adoration of the Magi, with its wings, The Nativity, and Presentation in the Temple, is equally touching. For me Memling's Descent from the Cross sounds ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... But Maria's zeal for Father Cobb was a flash in the pan. He was a sickly farmer, a licensed preacher, who, when he was called upon occasionally to meet a sudden exigency, usually preached on the beheading of ...
— The New Minister's Great Opportunity - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... distinguished by his wild temper and stormy life, in keeping with his pictures. He resided principally in Rome, but dwelt also in Naples. He is vulgar but striking, even pathetic in some of his pictures. The 'Beheading of John the Baptist,' in the Cathedral, Malta, is one of his masterpieces. His Holy Families now and ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... stranger still," continued the priest, with his dull eye on the rhododendrons, "it's the same disgusting sort; it's another beheading. They found the second head actually bleeding into the river, a few yards along Brayne's road to Paris; so they suppose ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton |
