Quote:
Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn
I saw one in London at the wax museum; the victim was spread over a table face up and spread eagle. A container was placed on their stomach with a few rats inside of it sitting on the victim's stomach. The container was made of metal. Hot coals would be placed on top of the container which was only a few inches high. This intense heat caused the rats to dig out through the bottom to escape and the victim was the bottom.
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I was about to post this very example. In my opinion perhaps the most horrific way possible to be executed. This method is often inaccurately attributed to Elizabethan England and/or the Spanish Inquisition, but neither is true.
Stories were told that in the Tower of London a cell was reserved for condemned prisoners called the "Rat Dungeon". According to lore, prisoners were locked in the cell, and owing to the cell being below the water line of the river Thames, rats would flood the cell and attack the victim. No documents exist to corroborate the claims. The claims were made by supporters of the Roman Catholic Church, and during this time Pope Pius issued a Papal Bull stating that if Queen Elizabeth should just happen to be assassinated, and if her assassin happened to be Catholic, his actions would be regarded as an act of faith. So in other words, there was no love lost between Queen Elizabeth and her Catholic detractors.
The act of using rats to burrow into someone's bowels was documented during the Dutch Revolution when the 17 Duchy's that make up modern day, but it was a clay pottery bowl that was used, not a metal box.