William Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham bride, Anne of Cleves at Calais. While on an embassy to France in 1541 William Howard was charged with concealing the sexual indiscretions of his young niece, Catherine Howard, Henry VIII's fifth wife, and was recalled to England to stand trial. On 22 December 1541 Howard, his wife, and a number of servants who had been alleged witnesses to the Queen's misconduct were arraigned for misprision of treason, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment and loss of goods. He and most of the others were pardoned after Queen Catherine's execution on 13 February 1542. In 1544 Howard accompanied the Earl
Execution by elephant common mode of execution in those days to have the offender trampled underfoot by an elephant." Captain Alexander Hamilton, writing in 1727, described how the Mughal ruler Shah Jahan ordered an offending military commander to be carried "to the Elephant Garden, and there to be executed by an Elephant, which is reckoned to be a shameful and terrible Death". The Mughal Emperor Humayun ordered the crushing by elephant of an imam he mistakenly believed to be critical of his reign. Some monarchs also adopted this form of execution for their own entertainment. Another Mughal ruler, the emperor Jahangir, is said