But exceptions were made

From Shakespeare The World as Stage by Bill Bryson. Page 29.

A reminder of the brutal nature of justice in former times. 1600-1900 were a critical period of transition. When everyone was closer to the edge of starvation, death, and insurrection, the punishments for crimes were almost inconceivably brutal. It was only with the emergence of prosperity that civil societies began to feel confident enough to move away from barbarous justice.

In fact he got off comparatively lightly, for punishments could be truly severe. Many convicted felons still heard the chilling words: “You shall be led from hence to the place whence you came . . . and your body shall be opened, your heart and bowels plucked out, and your privy members cut off and thrown into the fire before your eyes.” Actually by Elizabeth’s time it had become most unusual for felons to be disemboweled while they were still alive enough to know it. But exceptions were made. In 1586 Elizabeth ordered that Anthony Babington, a wealthy young Catholic who had plotted her assassination, should be made an example of. Babington was hauled down from the scaffold while still conscious and made to watch as his abdomen was sliced open and the contents allowed to spill out. It was by this time an act of such horrifying cruelty that it disgusted even the bloodthirsty crowd.