Man Who Suffered The 'Worst Execution' In History Was Given A Punishment That Was 'Beyond Evil'

Many methods of execution were initially developed throughout history to make the death penalty more humane and painless. These included the guillotine, the gas chamber, lethal injection, and the electric chair. 

Credit: Heritage Images/Getty Images

However, in one instance, history went in the opposite trajectory and sought to make the execution as painful and brutal as possible: the time a man was boiled alive.

The tale of Richard Roose, first man to be boiled to death in Great Britain, stands out as one of the most gruesome examples of Tudor England’s liking for capital punishment.

In the year 1531, Roose served as a cook in the household of John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester. He was accused of poisoning his guests while working at his home in Lambeth.

This form of execution was later banned under Edward VI, deemed so horrific it should never happen again.

Credit: Medium

Roose was rumored to have mixed poison into the porridge of people in Fisher’s household, and the porridge poisoned many people, particularly the poor. Every person who ate the porridge became very ill, and two people died, including a man and a poor widow.

However, Fisher himself never ate the porridge. Instead, he wasn’t harmed at all — Roose claimed the whole act was just a joke where he intended to put laxatives into the food of the people present in the household.

Somehow, the matter garnered the interest of Henry VIII. Henry VIII had no personal animus against Roose — instead, he had a strong fear of poisoning.

According to the YouTube channel The Fortress, he was swiftly arrested and taken to the Tower of London, where he was put on the rack and tortured for information.

According to K.J. Kesselring at The English Historical Review, Parliament passed an “Acte for Poysoning” in 1531, a statute that made murder by means of poison a form of high treason punishable with death by boiling.

Previously, poisoning was not deemed an act of treason. But Henry VIII was simply notorious for executing people. He executed two of his wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. He is estimated to have executed 57,000 people.

As the king of England, Henry VIII regularly employed food tasters to guard himself against poison. When the bill passed, anyone who was convicted of fatal poisoning would be declared treason.

"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 Fortress explains.

Credit: Executed Today

He wanted to send a message to anyone who wished to poison anyone in the future.

"The King's word was final, and he also expanded the definition of treason, saying that murder by poisoning was classed as treason."

But Henry wasn't done there. He also decided to change the punishment for such a crime. 

The standard practice for treason involved the criminal being dragged through the streets by a cart, then hanged, before finally having their genitals removed and their insides cut out.

However, Henry got a little more creative for Roose, instead opting to boil him alive.

Richard Roose was executed at Smithfield. Clearly, he suffered, and he suffered a lot. Roose was brought and dunked three times into a huge cauldron of boiling water until he was dead. 

Credit: Pinterest

One person present described the scene: “He roared mighty loud, and divers women who were big with child did feel sick at the sight of what they saw, and were carried away half dead; and other men and women did not seem frightened by the boiling alive, but would prefer to see the headsman at his work.”

Upon learning of the barbaric sentence, some have, unsurprisingly, been utterly horrified by it all.

Commenting online, one person branded it the 'worst execution'.

Another wrote: "It's hard to fathom the brutality these people inflicted on one another. We are the cruelest of all living species."

"Even if guilty this punishment is beyond evil," put a third.