Callum Jones
There's no way to be executed that isn't painful, however, one 16th-century man was given the 'worst execution' in history as a punishment.
If you know anything about history, then you'll know how much people from the past loved their torture devices; be it a brazen bull designed to cook its victim alive slowly, being gradually sliced in half by the 'Spanish Donkey' technique, or just being 'forgotten about' and rotting in an underground cell.
All three sound equally horrendous; however, what happened to Richard Roose could possibly take the cake.
Advert
In 1531, Roose was a cook for John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester, and he was accused of poisoning guests at Fisher's Lambeth home.
It was claimed that Roose had added some suspicious powder to the guests' porridge, and to two beggars' bowls as well.
The cook is believed to have made a run for it when many became seriously ill, with the beggars ultimately passing away.
The YouTube channel The Fortress states that officials did eventually catch up to Roose and he was arrested.
He was then taken to the Tower of London, where he was put on the rack and tortured for information.
Roose supposedly told questioners that he was forced to add the powder to the food as a joke, completely unaware it was harmful and could kill someone.
King Henry VIII, the reigning monarch at the time, then led an act of parliament that made murder by poison a treasonous offence.
The Fortress further explained: "On 28 February 1531, Henry VIII told Parliament of the poisoning plot, and Roose was then condemned to die based on what the King said had happened, rather than concrete evidence.
"The King's word was final, and he also expanded the definition of treason, saying that murder by poisoning was classed as treason."
Back then, the standard punishment for such a crime involved the criminal being dragged through the streets by a cart, hanged, and finally having their genitals removed and their insides cut out.
Pretty gruesome, huh? But Roose's punishment somehow surpassed that.
Crowds in London were able to watch the cook being dunked three times into a huge cauldron of boiling water until he died.
Ouch.
And not surprisingly, commenters were left in total shock, with one person calling it 'the worst execution', while another said it was 'beyond evil'.
Someone else said: "It's hard to fathom the brutality these people inflicted on one another.
"We are the cruelest of all living species."