17. From the Middle Ages right up to the modern-day, boiling a person alive has been infrequently used as a brutal means of enacting a torturous execution around the world.
A torturous, if infrequent method of historical execution, death by boiling kills an individual by immersing them in a container of blistering liquid. Frequently using oil, tar, or tallow, various cultures and civilizations spanning Europe and Asia are known to have employed boiling as a means of inflicting great pain upon condemned persons. Recorded in England, beginning in 1531 during the reign of Henry VIII, being boiled alive became the legally prescribed method of capital punishment for those convicted of high treason or murder by poison. At least two individuals, Richard Roose and Margaret Davy, in 1531 and 1542 respectively, are known to have suffered this particular fate before abandonment under Edward VI in 1547.
Known also to have been used throughout Scotland on various occasions between 1200 and 1600, the Holy Roman Empire also employed boiling as the legal punishment for coin forgery. The practice is known to have occurred in extreme instances in Japan, where, during the 16th century, the bandit Ishikawa Goemon, along with his entire family, were boiled alive in a giant bathtub as punishment for the failed assassination of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Equally, in 1675 the Sikh martyr Bhai Dayala was subjected to boiling after refusing to convert to Islam; according to legend, as he burned Dayala calmly recited Sikh scripture.