Using 800 Pounds To Press A Woman Made Her Ribs Burst Through Her Skin
Using 800 Pounds To Press A Woman Made Her Ribs Burst Through Her Skin Dating back to the 13th century, England used pressing as a form of punishment, and it continued well into Britain's Enlightenment. Victims not only suffocated, but their bones were also crushed and sometimes even burst through their skin. And the most famous case occurred in the United States, when Giles Corey was pressed to death in the Salem witch trials. Shockingly, people who were pressed to death often had a very good reason for choosing their brutal executions. Margaret Clitherow, charged with harboring priests and practicing Catholicism, was taken to a public bridge on March 25, 1586, for refusing to enter a plea. First, she was stripped naked in front of everyone, which scholars Peter Lake and Michael Questier explained as an "obscene, virtually pornographic, shaming ritual." Her limbs were tied with ropes and stretched. A door was placed on her chest. And then the weights were slowly added....