This enthralling programme has returned, but made a dubious claim in the third epsode. Apparently, Jack Ketch was so hopeless at swinging an axe in a straight line, you would be better off as a commoner if facing execution, because almost anyone could be reasonably competent at short drop hanging, where breaking the subject’s neck wasn’t among the objectives.
This is not true for high treason, of course, where male commoners were drawn, hanged and quartered, whilst 
female ones were burned, both of which are supposed to be protracted deaths. Ketch did seriously botch a few beheadings, but that could be because his axe was badly weighted, as Bloody Tales of the Tower revealed a few years ago, the Duke of Monmouth‘s case being one of the worst. For simple, secular capital offences such as murder (except of a husband or employer, which would amount to treason) or robbery, a regular hanging would suffice, although the option of beheading for the nobility persisted until 1973 in cases of high treason.
murreyandblue 