Jack Ketch was an English executioner employed by King Charles II. An immigrant of Irish extraction, he became famous through the way he performed his duties during the tumults of the 1680s, when he was often mentioned in broadsheet accounts that circulated throughout the Kingdom of England. He is thought to have been appointed in 1663. He executed the death sentences against William Russell, Lord Russell in Lincoln's Inn Fields on July 21, 1683 and James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth on July 15, 1685 after the Monmouth Rebellion. He was either very awkward or sadistic with his beheading technique, and his victims were known to have suffered at their deaths.
