Executioner Richard Royston completely botched the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1587, requiring three agonizingly separate swings of his heavy axe to finish the job.

A closer look

Executioner Richard Royston completely botched the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1587, requiring three agonizingly separate swings of his heavy axe to finish the job. After finally severing her neck, he reached down to victoriously lift the head by its famous auburn hair, only to discover she was actually wearing a wig, causing her real, closely cropped gray hair to be exposed as her severed head slipped out and rolled across the wooden scaffold. To make matters even more bizarre and horrifying, traumatized witnesses reported that the dead woman's lips continued to move and her eyes remained wide open for several minutes. Nothing quite captures the chaotic incompetence of sixteenth-century British politics like turning a solemn royal execution into a horrifyingly awkward, slapstick comedy routine!