Tumbril

The cart is the vehicle where the condemned prisoners are carried to the place of execution. It’s usually a two wheeled vehicle, which is used by farmers to dump a load. When is on his way, in the cart, to be executed, the people shout insults at the prisoner and throw stones and rubbishes to him. If the prisoner is a noble, he’s got the right to keep his clothes, if he’s not, he only wears a long shirt in hemp or linen. By itself, mounting the cart is an infamous punishment, a social humiliation, it signifies the banishment from the human society and the loss of human dignity. That’s why it’s really amazing that, in The Witchfinder, not only Gaius has been sentenced to the stake, but he has to be carried in the cart. Seeing the court physician knocked about by Aredian, Arthur cries out : “Show him some respect”, but, by mounting the cart, Gaius has lost his rights to any kind of respect.

Beside, it looks like, by the position of the only wheel we see on the screen, the cart has four wheels, unlike the cart without a coachman in The Fires Of Idirsholas, or the one that drags Morgana in the very beginning of The Darkest Hour 1. The cart where Halig carries Freya in The Lady of the Lake seems to be the replica of The Witchfinder’s, but it cannot be a tumbril as its owner is a bounty hunter.

It seems that the tumbril appears only once in the series, only in The Wiotchfinder.