To be hanged, drawn and quartered became a statutory penalty for men convicted of high treason in the Kingdom of England from 1352 under King Edward III (13271377), although similar rituals are recorded during the reign of King Henry III (12161272). The convicted traitor was fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn by horse to the place of execution, where he was then hanged (almost to the point of death), emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded, and quartered (chopped into four pieces). His remains would then often be displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge, to serve as a warning of the fate of traitors. For reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burned at the stake.

The severity of the sentence was measured against the seriousness of the crime. As an attack on the English monarchy's authority, high treason was considered a deplorable act demanding the most extreme form of punishment. Although some convicts had their sentences modified and suffered a less ignominious end, over a period of several hundred years many men found guilty of high treason were subjected to the law's ultimate sanction. They included many English Catholic priests executed during the Elizabethan era, and several of the regicides involved in the 1649 execution of Charles I.

Although the Act of Parliament defining high treason remains on the United Kingdom's statute books, during a long period of 19th-century legal reform the sentence of hanging, drawing, and quartering was changed to drawing, hanging until dead, and posthumous beheading and quartering, before being abolished in England in 1870. The death penalty for treason was abolished in 1998.

Following the trial of Charles I in January 1649, 59 commissioners (judges) signed his death warrant. They, along with several key associates and numerous court officials, were the subject of punishment following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 with the coronation of Charles II. Charles I's trial and execution had followed the second English Civil War in which his supporters, Royalist "Cavaliers", were opposed by the Parliamentarian "Roundheads", led by Oliver Cromwell.

With the return of Charles II, Parliament passed the Indemnity and Oblivion Act (1660), which granted amnesty to those guilty of most crimes committed during the Civil War and the Interregnum. Of those who had been involved in the trial and execution, 104 were specifically excluded from reprieve, although 24 had already died, including Cromwell, John Bradshaw (the judge who was president of the court), and Henry Ireton (a general in the Parliamentary army and Cromwell's son-in-law). They were given a posthumous execution: their remains were exhumed, and they were hanged and beheaded, and their bodies cast into a pit below the gallows. Their heads were placed on spikes at the end of Westminster Hall. Several others were hanged, drawn and quartered, while 19 were imprisoned for life. Property was confiscated from many, and most were barred from holding public office or title again. Twenty-one of those under threat fled England, mostly settling in the Netherlands or Switzerland, although three settled in New England.

There is no agreed definition of who is included in the list of regicides. The Indemnity and Oblivion Act did not use the term either as a definition of the act, or as a label for those involved. "Regicide" has never been a specific crime in English law, and has never been defined in law. Historians have identified different groups of people as being suitable for the name, and some do not include the associates who also faced trial and punishment.

The list has been cited as an early blacklist: the state papers of Charles II (1681) state "If any innocent soul be found in this black list, let him not be offended at me, but consider whether some mistaken principle or interest may not have misled him to vote."