Hello all! In the timeless film National Treasure, Nicolas Cage's character mentions that the founding fathers were committing high treason against the british crown, and had they been caught, they would have been "hanged, beheaded, drawn and quartered and, my personal favorite, had their entrails cut out and burned!" is this accurate? Would the founding fathers have received such a brutal execution, or even capital punishment in the first place?
Drawing and quartering would have been on the table, but wouldn't have been too likely. The last British drawing and quartering was famously David Tyrie in 1782. Supposedly something like 100,000 people came to watch his execution. But it had become rare before then.
It's possible that a handful of the chief insurgents (Washington, Adams, Hancock) might have been transported to England and give a full traitor's treatment. But they would be far more likely to have been given trials and hung in the colonies. Depending on exactly who captured them and when they were captured, they might have been imprisoned, paroled for the duration of the war, or summarily tried. In any case all the leaders were bound for the hangman's noose by the end of hostilities.
When Lord Howe arrived in America in 1776, he came with broad authority to negotiate peace. He even had a conference on Staten Island in the fall of 1776 with Adams, Franklin, and Rutledge. But both sides were irreconcilable at that point. One thing that the Congressional delegates didn't know was that although Howe had authority to pardon traitors in order to secure a peace, he also had a list of men to whom he wasn't allowed pardon. Most of Congress was on that list including Adams. Howe's orders for them was to have them executed. So capital punishment was absolutely on the table, with certain men already having the equivalent of a signed death warrant.
I'll quote Sir William Blackstone's commentary on the subject:
The punishment of high treason in general is very solemn and terrible.
- That the offender be drawn to the gallows, and not be carried or walk; though usually (by connivance, at length ripened by humanity into law) a sledge or hurdle is allowed, to preserve the offender from the extreme torment of being dragged on the ground or pavement.
- That he be hanged by the neck, and then cut down alive.
- That his entrails be taken out and burned while he is yet alive.
- That his head be cut off.
- That his body be divided into four parts.
- That his head and quarters be at the king’s disposal.
So, essentially, yes. That being said, the Crown was empowered to commute such a sentence to a less dramatic execution:
The king may, and often doth, discharge all the punishment, except beheading, especially where any of noble blood are attainted. For beheading being part of the judgment, that may be executed, though all the rest be omitted by the king’s command.
In practice, it was really quite uncommon by the time of the American Revolution for the full sentence to be enacted.
Rediker makes mention in one of his books of the Despard Plot in 1803, in which several men were simply hanged and beheaded for high treason; they had apparently been conspiring assassination and rebellion to reignite the 1798 insurgency. I'm not sure anyone can really guess with any accuracy what exact punishment the founders would have faced, but it seems doubtful that some measure of clemency would be denied.