Taking Heed of the Headless

The question sounds so much better in French: "Avez-vous eu un ancêtre décapité pendant la Révolution?"

Les Guillotinés offers the most complete online list yet established of the French Revolution’s victims and invites users to discover the answer to a terrible question: “Do you have an ancestor who was decapitated?” Hundreds of thousands of people have consulted the death base, created by Raymond Combes, a computer programmer and amateur genealogist.

Many more are likely to follow suit. According to one estimate, up to five million French people are descended from victims of La Révolution. [Link]

Justice Was Not Always Swift

The good folks at NEHGS sent along some additions to the list of Princess Di's Decapitated Kin:

The following were also executed, presumably by decapitation:

Charles I
William, Lord Russell
Mary Queen of Scots
1st Baron Capell
1st Earl of Holland
1st Duke of Hamilton
2nd Marquess of Huntly
7th Earl of Derby: Lord Derby's last words were “I die for God, the King, and the Laws, and this makes me not be ashamed of my life, nor afraid of my death.”

Lord Russell was dispatched by Jack Ketch—the notoriously inept executioner who later botched the beheading of James, Duke of Monmouth.

On climbing the scaffold, Monmouth picked up the axe and ran his fingers along the blade, asking Ketch if he thought it was sharp enough for the job. He handed Ketch six guineas, promising him six more if he did a clean job: "Pray do not serve me as you did my Lord Russell. I have heard you struck him four or five times; If you strike me twice, I cannot promise you not to stir."

Ketch had an attack of nerves and his first blow only grazed the back of the duke's head. Monmouth, who had refused the blindfold, turned his head around and gazed directly at Ketch, further unnerving him. When two more blows failed to sever the head, Ketch threw the axe down and offered 40 guineas to anyone in the crowd who could do better. At this the Sheriff of Middlesex, who was in charge of the execution, threatened to have him killed if he did not finish his job. When two more blows failed, Ketch had to use his knife, butchering the Duke like a pig. [Link]

Order a copy of The Ancestry of Diana, Princess of Wales for Twelve Generations to learn more about her hapless, headless relatives. I haven't read it yet, but it has already inspired me to add more decapitation stories to my own family history.

Princess Di's Decapitated Kin

NEHGS is now taking pre-orders for Richard K. Evans' new book, The Ancestry of Diana, Princess of Wales for Twelve Generations, due out in August. I'm impressed by the number of headless ancestors mentioned in the press release alone:

• A significant twelfth-generation ancestor was Queen Elizabeth I’s favorite, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, whose excessive ambition displeased his sovereign and ultimately led him to the chopping block.

• Another Scots forebear was Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll, general of the forces that invaded Scotland in support of Monmouth’s rebellion in 1685. As a result, Argyll lost his head at the same place where his father, the 1st Marquess of Argyll, was decapitated for changing sides one time too many during the English Civil War.

It took three strokes of the ax to detach Robert Devereux's head—probably two more than he had hoped.

The Great Father Was Not Decapitated

Anne Heyward remembers visiting the grave of her ancestor Thomas Heyward, Jr.—a signer of the Declaration of Independence—when she was a young girl.

Her first memory of visiting Heyward's graveside was in 1941. "My sister and I were very impressed," said Anne, 71. "We decided to call him 'The Great Father.' That night after we got home, our parents realized we thought the (bust) was his real head and they had buried the rest of him -- all except his real head. We had never seen a statue before." [Link]

A Revolting Tax Revolt

A monument was deeded to New Mexico's Palace of the Governors on Thursday commemorating Gov. Albino Pérez. Pérez imposed the first tax on New Mexicans in 1837, which provoked one group of villagers to mount a protest.

The “infuriated mob” killed Pérez, beheaded him and reportedly played soccer with his severed head near Rosario Cemetery and then stuck it on a pole.

[John Aurelio] Garau, a retired real-estate businessman from Laguna Beach, Calif., said he has tried to find out more about his ancestor without success. Historical accounts say Pérez’s headless body eventually was buried near Santa Fe, but there is no record of the burial site, Garau said. [Link]

Pedaling After a Headless Queen

16-year-old Jack Bullen of Suffolk, England, is setting out on a 300-mile bike ride this weekend to raise money for disadvantaged orphans. With luck, he won't meet the same fate as a famous relative.

The journey is based on a rough route of the life of the former Queen of England who was married to Henry VIII prior to being beheaded - and is also a distant relative of the Bildeston youngster.

Jack, a pupil at Framlingham College, is descended from one of Anne's uncles making him a collateral descendant. Over time the name Boleyn has become Bullen.

Jack will start his bike ride from Blickling Hall in Norfolk, the supposed birthplace of Anne Boleyn, and finish at the Tower of London where she was executed in 1536. [Link]

Modern-Day Braveheart: Death March Not So Bad

From Telegraph.co.uk:

700 years on, a funeral is held for William Wallace

By Sally Pook
(Filed: 24/08/2005)

There was little of William Wallace to bury after he was strangled by hanging, released near death, drawn, quartered and beheaded.

His head was placed on a pike on London Bridge and his limbs displayed across Scotland to serve as a terrible warning.

Seven hundred years later, a symbolic funeral service was conducted for the Scottish rebel leader in London yesterday, close to his place of execution.

[snip]

Tied to horses and stripped naked, he was dragged for six miles through the city in 1305 to a site next to St Bartholomew's church in Smithfield, where he is commemorated by a plaque dedicated to his "immortal memory".

[snip]

Colin Hay, 32, a youth worker from Perth, who walked the death route from Westminster to Smithfield, said: "It was the easiest six miles of my life. I didn't feel it. We were walking for a purpose, in honour of Wallace."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]