Death by ...what?

TOMORROW marks 320 years since the notorious pirate Captain William Kidd was put to death for his crimes.

After being found guilty of murder and piracy the 47-year-old was hanged at Execution Dock by the River Thames, in London’s Wapping, on May 23, 1701.

His body was then left there until three tides had washed over it – to symbolically drown him. But this once traditional method of dispatching pirates isn’t the only unusual method of execution from yesteryear.

Forget being beheaded, burnt at the stake or even hanged, drawn and quartered – here JAMES MOORE reveals history’s most bizarre forms of capital punishment…

Hot water: In 1531 Lambeth cook Richard Roose was found guilty of killing two people with poisoned gruel while unsuccessfully attempting to assassinate the Bishop of Rochester. Paranoid Tudor King Henry VIII introduced a special new punishment for poisoners – being boiled alive. Roose was duly plunged into a vat of scalding water at London’s Smithfield where he “roared mighty loud”. The vile practice was dropped in 1547.