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People would have their hands chopped-off, be burned to death, publicly beheaded with an axe, or hanged, drawn, and quartered in public as a warning to others.... for crimes such as theft in the Middle Ages, and under King Henry VIII, and during Elizabethan Tudor England, and also in Victorian England. So how would gypsies survive (given that a lot of them would steal for a living) against strict and tough laws?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capita...United_KingdomSir Samuel Romilly, speaking to the House of Commons on capital punishment in 1810, declared that "[there is] no country on the face of the earth in which there [have] been so many different offences according to law to be punished with death as in England".
Known as the "Bloody Code", at its height the criminal law included some 220 crimes punishable by death, including "being in the company of Gypsies for one month", "strong evidence of malice in a child aged 7–14 years of age" and "blacking the face or using a disguise whilst committing a crime".
Many of these offences had been introduced to protect the property of the wealthy classes that emerged during the first half of the 18th century, a notable example being the Black Act of 1723, which created 50 capital offences for various acts of theft and poaching.
Crimes eligible for the death penalty included shoplifting and stealing sheep, cattle, and horses, and before abolition of the death penalty for theft in 1832, "English law was notorious for prescribing the death penalty for a vast range of offenses as slight as the theft of goods valued at twelve pence."
Whilst executions for murder, burglary and robbery were common, the death sentences for minor offenders were often not carried out. A sentence of death could be commuted or respited (permanently postponed) for reasons such as benefit of clergy, official pardons, pregnancy of the offender or performance of military or naval duty.
Between 1770 and 1830, an estimated 35,000 death sentences were handed down in England and Wales, but only 7,000 executions were carried out.
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Originally Posted by Viriato
United Kingdom
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