Happy 2019

Great to be back at the desk again. I know many will be thinking they need more time off but what else is there to do but lay around watch more TV you are normally ever going to watch and eat leftovers? Hands up if you watch “White Christmas” “It’s a Wonderful Life” and something to do with Santa Claus? I can’t see you clearly amongst all the hands. So there back to work, shed a few pounds and trim yourself for the next big event.

We are a law firm so I thought the first blog of 2019 should mention the law and of course have a nod to the fireworks that seem to dominate the world news every New Year. So we start with a did you know this titbit?

At the end of January 1606 a young man was tried and convicted. He and his 3 cohorts were sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered. A rather gruesome sentence which often seems to make no sense until you understand the “hung” bit wasn’t until you were dead but just so you choked enough to stay alive but not comfortable. The first three were duly dispatched according to the law however the 35 year old I mention managed on insertion of his neck to the noose somehow enact a jump which resulted in a broken neck and immediate death. Rendering the draw and quartering pointless in terms of pain. Thus the 4 men who were now in fact 16 pieces were sent to the 4 corners of the Kingdom of King James to be displayed simultaneously to thwart any more citizens intent on regicide. Thus the plotters from Gunpowder fame met their end after failing to take out the Houses of Parliament when King James was about to take the session in an apparent said Guido Fawkes an “attempt to place his daughter Elizabeth on the throne.” It took 3 days of torture for Fawkes to give up 5 co-conspiritors with a further three later totalling 8 (apparently there were 13) all of whom sat trial. On 31 January 1606, Fawkes and three others – Thomas Wintour, Ambrose Rookwood, and Robert Keyes – were dragged (drawn) from the Tower on wattled hurdles to the Old Palace Yard at Westminster, opposite the building they had attempted to destroy. His fellow plotters were then hanged and quartered.

Nice way to start the year thinking of how the law worked in days of yore, perhaps even match it up with the firework dischargers we currently hear every night in Gibraltar at the moment. Maybe not I’m not sure these days anyone has the stomach to enact the sentence.