 While men guilty of heresy were also burned at the stake , those who committed high treason were instead hanged , drawn and quartered . The English <unk> William Blackstone supposed that the difference in sentencing , although " full as terrible to the sensation as the other " , could be explained by the desire not to publicly expose a woman 's body . Public executions were well @-@ attended affairs , and contemporary reports detail the cries of women on the <unk> as they were burned alive . It later became commonplace for the executioner to strangle the convict , and for the body to be burned post @-@ mortem . 
