The adventurer Johann Patkul, the prime agitator…
October 1707 CE
The adventurer Johann Patkul, the prime agitator in the Great Northern War against the Swedish Empire, had after the Treaty of Altranstädt on September 24, 1707, been delivered up to Charles, who has ordered his execution through the breaking wheel.
Charles had rejected an appeal for mercy from his sister, the princess Ulricka Eleonora, on the ground that Patkul, as a traitor, could not be pardoned for example's sake.
Patkul is in October 1707 broken alive on the wheel at Kazimierz Biskupi in Poland.
Among his last words are allegedly Kopf ab! Kopf ab! ("Off with the head!") after the executioner had crushed his limbs with a sledgehammer or iron rod, followed by his ribs.
He is finally killed through decapitation.