King George II instituted one of the most notorious laws in history: the" Bloody Code".
The code, which lasted from 1688-1815, outlined -- Starting in 1688, that 50 detailed offences were punishable by the death penalty.
By 1765, this number reached 160, and by the end of the Code in 1815 there were 225 offences deserving of death.
The death penalty was not all. Once convicted, authorities often sanctioned judicially supervised torture, usually in order to extract information from criminals such as the names of their accomplices. Torture included forms of waterboarding, stretching machines, whipping post, stocks, branding, drawing and quartering (dismembering by horses), burning at the stake, and more.
The British Bill of Rights in 1689 prohibited all forms of cruel punishment, however torture continued. Further, slaves were not protected by the Bill of Rights.
I. 1798 a young girl Mary Nicholson becomes a servant and is sexually abused by her master; she poisons his dessert with arsenic one night. He survives but his mother dies from poisoning.
II. An inveterate burglar is convicted for cutting down trees during the Bloody Code.
III. Catherine Hayes, accused of petty treason for being an accomplice in the murder of her husband.
IV. Captain Peter de la Fontane, convicted of minor forgery in 1752.
I
I. Mary Nicholson was hung in Durham Durham for willful murder.II. Execution
III. burned at the stake
IV. Captain Peter’s sentence was switched from execution to transportation; this pardon was rare and usually only occurred in minor cases of crime, “white collar” crime such as forgery and fraud. Such pardons were given to show credibility of the Code. (McLynn)..