The gruesome execution of Balthasar Gérard is nothing out of the ordinary for the type of crime committed, which falls under the category of high treason or magnicide. There are quite a number of examples of really brutal executions for this kind of crime across Europe both before and after the case of Gérard.

In the year 1492, a peasant called Joan de Canyamars (or Juan de Cañamares in the Spanish orthography) tried to murder king Ferdinand the Catholic when the king was going out of the royal palace of Barcelona. Canyamars was extremely close to succeeding if not for the kings stiff collar and the relatively thick gold chain he was wearing at that moment. The regicide attempt left Ferdinand with a big scar on his neck, that one can see in the portrait painted by Michel Sittow. Canyamars execution was described as follows: he was cut the right hand with which he did it, and the feet with which he came to do it, the eyes with which he saw it were gorged out, and so was the heart with which he thought it. Afterwards, his remains were burned alongside the cart that brought him to the gallows, and the ashes were thrown into the sea.

In the year 1589, in France, a monk called Jacques Clément attacked king Henry III, which soon resulted in the king's death. The attacker was soon subdued and killed, but his corpse was subjected to the procedure one sees for an execution for high treason: it was dismembered by four horses. Just like with Canayamars in Spain, Clément's remains were cremated, and the ashes were thrown into the closest body of water, which in this case was the river.

Without leaving France, the next king, Henry IV, would also be murdered. In 1610, when the king was in his chariot going to visit his trusted counsellor the Duke of Sully, at a moment when the chariot was stopped, François Ravaillac stabbed the monarch in the chest with a dagger. As he was captured alive, he was made an example of what happens to traitors, which is something extremely gruesome and public: his chest, hips, and legs were branded with red hot pokers, the hand with which he stabbed Henry was burned with boiling sulphur, molten lead was poured over his burns, and then he was attached to four horses and dismembered. As standard procedure, his remains were cremated and the ashes were thrown into the river.

This kind of horrifying sentences were considered perfectly on par for the enormity of the crime committed, which is high treason / regicide.