I imagine it was the 18th century we did away with judicial beheadings in this country.

in france and germany , they were using the guillotine up the last century - and of course we were outraged at having our soldiers beheaded by the japanese in WW2,.

deapitation seems to exercise more horror than other methods - lethal injection, electrocution - even hanging.

And yet probably there have been more films about the beheaded people in our history - Thomas More, Thomas cromwell, mary Queen of Scots, Charles I , Anne boleyn, Catherine howard - than anyone else.

It seems to trigger some sort of sensual thrill.

About five years ago they were digging up the Ridgeway outside Weymouth and they come across a mass burial site where the Vikings had been defeated in a long forgotten, totally unrecorded battle. The prisoners - all two hundred or so had all been decapitated.