The Role Of Punishment In The Elizabethan Era

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The most brutal types of punishment probably existed during the Elizabethan age, even though Queen Elizabeth herself was considered one of the best monarchs of England. The people of the Elizabethan Era were split into two classes, the Nobility and then the lower class. Certain crimes were more expected in each of the classes, the people of the Upper Class committed more horrendous crimes, while people in the lower class would steal food because they were starving to death. Nobility would often murder people in duels, or in means to get land or money. Although the crimes were quite similar to the ones committed today, the punishments were far worse. Crimes were usually measured for how much damage they inflicted, but factors such as social class determined their fate.

Crimes of the Nobility were much more extreme and graphic, being …show more content…
People were tortured to death for the simplest, almost harmless crimes, such as stealing food because they were in poverty. Mainly crimes of murder were malicious and unprovoked. Punishment if the crime was considered worth more and cost more to fix, than they would be sentenced to creative forms of death and torture. Queen Elizabeth used torture more than other monarch, especially in cases of treason, and she held no limit to the social class of people inflicted with it. Simple petty theft would cause the perpetrator burning, beating, and extreme cutting to the body to have enough considered “punishment”. One of the most common ways of death was being drawn and quartered, which was having each of your limbs tied to a horse and then having the horses be whipped so they would gallop as fast as they could in the other direction. Seeing as how this would turn out, the person would most likely have been ripped apart. Another common way was being beheaded by a guillotine. A guillotine was a large hollow frame with a thin blade at the top which would be dropped upon someone's
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