Mika and I are celebrating our fifteenth year together this month, August 2013. In all these years as a couple, we have never gone away together for a holiday. At long last, we are taking a holiday next month, a trip to England for two weeks. This will be Mika’s first visit to England. I lived in England from 1968-1970. I remember upon learning I would be travelling to England with my family imagining England was a land with castles where kings and queens resided and frequently ordered that people’s heads be chopped off. While this was true in the past, it happily was no longer the case by the late 1960s. In fact, capital punishment was no longer in use when I arrived in England with my family. Still, this is one facet of English history and law I find fascinating: the application of capital punishment. Judicial hanging was by far the most common form of execution in English history, although the cruel punishments of hanging, drawing and quartering, burning at the stake and beheading were practiced for centuries also. By the 20th century judicial hanging was the only method of execution (outside of the military where one could be shot at dawn) employed and the English had perfected its practice applying it liberally in executing people convicted of murder and high treason. Continue reading →