What method of execution was used for the Gunpowder Plot conspirators?

The Gunpowder Plot conspirators were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. This was the traditional English punishment for men convicted of high treason, the crime with which the plotters were charged.

The sentence involved being dragged to the execution site, hanged almost to death, disembowelled and emasculated, then beheaded and dismembered. The remains could be displayed publicly as a warning. In practice, some condemned men died before every stage was completed. Guy Fawkes broke his neck by jumping from the scaffold, avoiding the later stages of the punishment.

Eight surviving conspirators were convicted at Westminster Hall on 27 January 1606. Four were executed on 30 January and four, including Fawkes, on 31 January. The punishment was not unique to this plot: it had long been associated with high treason, though later legal reforms made executions less gruesome before the sentence was abolished in England in 1870.