“Pain [the rack] makes even the innocent man a liar.”
—Francis Bacon, Remains. 1

“Madam, we have different modes of restraining evil stocks for men, a ducking-stool for women, and a pound for beasts.”
—Dr. Samuel Johnson. 2

***

The cucking-stool in the early history of England must not be confounded with the ducking-stool. They were two distinct machines. It appears, from a record in the Domesday Book, that as far back as the days of Edward the Confessor, any man or woman detected giving false measure in the city of Chester was fined four shillings; and for brewing bad ale, was placed in the cathedra stercoris. It was a degrading mode of chastisement, the culprits being seated in the chair at their own doors or in some public place. At Leicester, in 1467, the local authorities directed “scolds to be punished by the Mayor on a cuck-stool before their own doors, and then carried to the four gates of the town.” According to Borlase’s Natural History of Cornwall, in that part of the country the cucking-stool was used “as a seat of infamy, where strumpets and scolds, with bare feet and head, were condemned to abide the derision of those that passed by, for such as the bailiffs of the manors, which had the privilege of such jurisdiction, did approve.” Ale-wives in Scotland in bygone times who sold bad ale were placed in the cucking-stool. In the year 1555, we learn from Thomas Wright that “it was enacted by the Queen-Regent of Scotland that itinerant singing women should be put on the cuck-stoles of every burgh or town;” and the first Homily against Contention, 3 sets forth that “in all well-ordered cities common brawlers and scolders be punished with a notable kind of pain, as to be set on the cucking-stole, pillory, or such like.” By the statute of 3 Henry VIII., “carders and spinners of wool who were convicted of fraudulent practices were to be set upon the pillory or the cucking-stole, man or woman, as the case shall require.” We agree with Mr. Wright when he observes that the preceding passages are worded in such a manner as not to lead us to suppose that the offenders were ducked. In the course of time the terms cucking and ducking stools became synonymous, and implied the machines for the ducking of scolds in water.

An intelligent Frenchman, named Misson, visited England about 1700, and has left on record one of the best descriptions of a ducking-stool that has been written. It occurs in a work entitled Travels in England. “The way of punishing scolding women,” he writes, “is pleasant enough. They fasten an arm chair to the end of two beams, twelve or fifteen feet long, and parallel to each other, so that these two pieces of wood, with their two ends, embrace the chair, which hangs between them upon a sort of axle, by which means it plays freely, and always remains in the natural horizontal position in which the chair should be, that a person may sit conveniently in it, whether you raise it or let it down. They set up a post on the bank of a pond or river, and over this post they lay, almost in equilibrium, the two pieces of wood, at one end of which the chair hangs just over the water. They place the woman in this chair, and so plunge her into the water, as often as the sentence directs, in order to cool her immoderate heat.” In some instances the ducking was carried to such an extent as to cause death. An old chap-book, without date, is entitled, “Strange and Wonderful Relation of the Old Woman who was Drowned at Ratcliff Highway a fortnight ago.” It appears from this work that the poor woman was dipped too often, for at the conclusion of the operation she was found to be dead.

The Sandwich ducking-stool was embellished with men and women scolding.

On the cross-bar were carved the following words: “Of members ye tonge is worst or best, an ill tonge oft doeth breede unrest.” Boys, in his Collections for the History of Sandwich, (1792) remarks that the ducking-stool was preserved in the second storey of the Town Hall, along with other arms, offensive and defensive, of the Trained Bands.

Boys’ book includes some important information on old-time punishments.

In the year 1534, it is recorded that two women were banished from Sandwich for immorality. To deter them from coming back to the town it was decided that “if they return, one of them is to suffer the pain of sitting over the coqueen-sitool, and the other is to be set three days in linstocks, with an allowance of only bread and water and afterwards to be placed in the coqueen-stool and dipped to the chin.” A woman, in the year 1568, was “carted and banished.” At Sandwich, Ipswich, and some other places, as a punishment for scolding and other offences it was not an uncommon thing to compel the transgressors to carry a wooden mortar round the town.

The Brank was an instrument employed by our forefathers for punishing scolds. It is also sometimes called the Gossip’s Bridle, and in the Macclesfield town records it is designated “a brydle for a curste queane.” In the term “queane” we have the old English synonym for a woman; now the chief woman, the Queen. The Brank is not of such great antiquity as the ducking-stool, for the earliest mention of it we have been able to find in England is in the Corporation records of Macclesfield, of the year 1623. At an earlier period, we have traces of it in Scotland.

The Brank may be described simply as an iron framework; which was placed on the head, enclosing it in a kind of cage; it had in front a plate of iron, which, either sharpened or covered with spikes, was so situated as to be placed in the mouth of the victim, and if she attempted to move her tongue in any way whatever, it was certain to be shockingly injured. With the Brank on her head she was conducted through the streets, led by a chain, held by one of the town’s officials, an object of contempt, and subjected to the jeers of the crowd and often left to their mercy. In some towns it was the custom to chain the culprit to pillory, whipping-post, or market-cross. She thus suffered for telling her mind to some petty tyrant in office, or speaking plainly to a wrong-doer, or for taking to task a lazy, and perhaps a drunken husband.

The Pillory may be traced back to a remote period in England and in other European countries. The mention of it calls to remembrance the names of many who figure in the annals of the country, embracing not a few of the noblest and the best; but there are those of others which, for the credit of the nation, we would gladly allow to sink into oblivion. Round it gathers tragedy and comedy, and, altogether, its history is of interest and importance.

Stow, in his Survey of London, supplies a description of the Cornhill pillory, and gives particulars of the crimes for which it was brought into requisition. After adverting to the making of a strong prison of timber, called a cage, and fixing upon it a pair of stocks for night-walkers, he next tells us: “On the top of the cage was placed a pillory, for the punishment of bakers offending in the assize of bread; for millers stealing of corn at the mill; for bawds, scolds, and other offenders.”

Punishing Authors. Literary annals contain many records of the punishments of authors. The Greeks and Romans frequently brought writers into contempt by publicly burning their books. In England, it was a common practice to place in the pillory authors who presumed to write against the reigning monarch, or on political and religious subjects which were not in accord with the opinions of those in power. The public hangman was often directed to make bonfires of the works of offending authors. At Athens, the common crier was instructed to burn all the prohibited works of Pythagoras which could be found. It is well known that Numa did much to build up the glory of Rome. It was he who gave to his countrymen the ceremonial laws of religion, and it was under his rule that they enjoyed the blessings of peace. His death was keenly felt by a grateful people, and he was honoured with a grand and costly funeral.

In the days of Augustus, no less than twenty thousand volumes were consigned on one occasion to the flames. The works of Labienus were amongst those which were burnt. It was a terrible blow to the author and some of his friends. Cassius Severus, when he heard the sentence pronounced, exclaimed in a loud voice that they must burn him also, for he had learnt all the books by heart. It was the death-blow to Labienus; he repaired to the tomb of his forefathers, refused food, and pined away. It is asserted that he was buried alive. At Constantinople, Leo I., caused two hundred thousand books to be consumed by fire.

The Bible did not escape the flames. It is stated by Eusebius that, by the direction of Dioclesian, the Scriptures were burnt. According to Foxe, the well-known writer on the martyrs, on May, 1531, Bishop Stokesley “caused all the New Testament of Tindal’s translation, and many other books which he had bought, to be openly burnt in St. Paul’s churchyard.” It was there that the Bishop of Rochester in a sermon denounced Martin Luther and all his works. He spoke of all who kept his books as accursed. Not a few of the condemned works were publicly burnt during the delivery of the sermon.

A man named Stubbs, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, lost his hand for writing a pamphlet of Radical tendencies. A gentleman named Collingbourne, wrote the following couplet respecting Gatesby, Ratcliff, and Lovel giving their advice to Richard III., whose crest, it will be remembered, was a white boar:

The cat, the rat, and Lovel our dog,
Rule all England under a hog.

He was executed on Tower Hill for writing the foregoing lines. After “having been hanged,” it is recorded, “he was cut down immediately, and his entrails were then extracted and thrown into the fire; and all this was so speedily performed that,” Stow says, “when the executioner pulled out his heart, he spoke, and said, “Jesus, Jesus.””
It is generally understood that Christopher Marlow translated, as a college exercise, Amores of Ovid. It was a work of unusual ability; but did not, however, meet with the approval of Archbishop Whitgift and Bishop Bancroft. In consequence, in June, 1599, all copies were ordered to be burnt. A few escaped the fire, and are now very valuable. Miltons books were burnt by the common hangman, on August 27, 1659.

Authors and publishers were often nailed by the ears to the pillory, and when ready to be set at liberty the ears would frequently be cut off, and left on the post of the pillory. A farce called The Patron, by Foote, contains allusions to the practice. Puff advises Dactyl to write a satire. To the suggestion replies Dactyl: “Yes, and so get cropped for libel.” Puff answers him: “Cropped! aye, and the luckiest thing that could happen you! Why, I would not give two pence for an author who is afraid of his ears! Writing is, as I may say, Mr. Dactyl, a sort of warfare, and none can be victor that can be least afraid of a scar. Why, looks, sir! I never got salt to my porridge till I mounted at the Royal Exchange; and that was the making of me. Then my name made a noise in the world. Talk of forked hills and Helicon! Romance and fabulous stuff, the true Castalian stream is a shower of eggs, and a pillory the poet’s Parnassus.”

In 1630, Dr. Leighton, a clergyman, and father of the celebrated archbishop of that name, was tried and found guilty of printing a work entitled, Zion’s Plea against Prelacy, in which he called bishops men of blood, ravens, and magpies, and pronounced the institution of Episcopacy to be satanical; he called the Queen a daughter of Heth, and even commanded the murder of Buckingham. His sentence was a hard one, and consisted of a fine of 10,000. He was also degraded the ministry, pilloried, branded, and whipped; an ear was cropped off, and his nostril slit. After enduring these punishments, he was sent to the Fleet Prison. At the end of the week, he underwent a second course of cruelty, and was consigned to prison for life. After eleven weary years passed in prison, Leighton was liberated, the House of Commons having reversed his sentence. He was told that his mutilation and imprisonment had been illegal.

At this period in British history, a book or pamphlet could not be printed without a license from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, or the authorities of the two Universities. Only authorized printers were permitted to set up printing presses in the City of London. Anyone printing without the necessary authority subjected himself to the risk of being placed in the pillory and whipped through the City.

Liburn and Warton disregarded the foregoing order, and printed and published libelous and seditious works. They refused to appear before the court where such offences were tried. The authorities found them guilty, and fined each man 500, and ordered them to be whipped from Fleet Prison to the pillory at Westminster. The sentence was carried out on April 18, 1638. Liburn appears to have been a man of dauntless courage, and when in the pillory, he gave away copies of his obnoxious works to the crowd, and addressed them on the tyranny of his persecutors. He was gagged to stop his speech.

William Prynne lost his ears for writing “Historic-Mastix: the Player’s Scourge, or Actor’s Tragedie” (1633). His pillory experiences were of the most painful character. According to an entry in the annals of Hull, in the year 1645, all the books of Common Prayer were burned by the Parliamentary soldiers, in the market-place.

One of Spurgeon’s predecessors named Benjamin Keach, a Baptist Minister, of Winslow, in the County of Bucks, issued a work entitled, “The Child’s Instructor or a New and Easy Primmer.” The book was regarded as seditious, and the authorities had him tried for writing and publishing it, at the Aylesbury Assizes, October 8, 1664. The judge passed on him the following sentence: “Benjamin Keach, you are here convicted of writing and publishing a seditious and scandalous Book, for which the Court’s judgment is this, and the Court doth award, that you shall go to gaol for a fortnight, without bail or mainprise; and the next Saturday to stand upon the pillory at Ailsbury for the space of two hours, from eleven o’clock to one, with a Paper upon your head with this inscription, for writing, printing and publishing a schismatically book, entitled, “The Child’s Instructor, or a new and easy Primmer.” And the next Thursday so stand in the same manner, and for the same time in the market of Winslow; and there your book shall be openly burnt before your face by the common hangman, in disgrace to you and your doctrine. And you shall forfeit to the King’s Majesty the sum of 20 and shall remain in goal until you find sureties for your good behaviour and appearance at the next assizes, there to renounce your doctrine, and to make such public submission as shall be enjoined you.”

We are told that Keach was kept a close prisoner until the following Saturday, and on that day was carried to the pillory at Aylesbury, where he stood two hours without being permitted to speak to the spectators. It is recorded that his hands as well as his head were carefully kept in the pillory the whole time. The next Thursday he stood in the same manner and length of time at Winslow, the town where he lived, and his book was burnt before him. “After this,” we learn from Howell’s State Trials, “upon paying his fine, and giving sufficient security for his good behaviour, he was set at liberty; but was never brought to make recantation.”

The Jougs. This old-time instrument of punishment was used more generally in Scotland than in England. It was employed in Holland, and most likely in other countries. In Scotland, its history may be traced back to the sixteenth century, and from that period down to about a hundred years 1700, it was a popular means of enforcing ecclesiastical discipline, and it was also brought into requisition for punishing persons guilty of the lesser civil offences. In North Britain the jougs were usually fastened to a church door, a tree in a churchyard, or to the post of a church gate, a market cross, a market iron, or weighing post, and not infrequently to prison doors. The jougs are simple in form, consisting of an iron ring or collar, with a joint or hinge at the back to permit it being opened and closed, and in the front are loops for the affixing of a padlock to secure it round the neck of the culprit.

The Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London, from A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1563 (published by the Camden Society in 1848), contains the following note on the use of the Jougs: “The 30th day of June, 1553,” it is stated, “was set a post hard by the Standard in Cheap, and a young fellow tied to the post with a collar of iron about his neck, and another to the post with a chain, and two men with two whips whipping them about the post, for pretended visions and opprobrious and seditious words.”

Disregarding parental authority in Scotland was frequently the cause of young folks being punished by the Jougs, and in other ways. Harsh rules of life were by no means confined to North Britain. In Tudor England manners were severe and formal, parents extracting abject deference from their offspring. A child did not presume to speak or sit down without leave in presence of its parents. A little leniency was extended to girls, for when tired they might kneel on cushions at the far end of the room; but boys were expected to stand with their heads uncovered. It is to be feared that true domestic bliss was almost unknown in olden times. Teachers were equally tyrannical, and it is a matter of history that Robert Ascham, the tutor of Queen Elizabeth, used to “pinch, nip, and bob [slap] the princess when she displeased him.”

Stocks were used, at an early period, as a means of punishing breakers of the law. The precise dated when they were first employed in Britain is not known, but we may infer from Anglo-Saxon illustrations, that the stocks were in general use amongst the Anglo-Saxons, for they often figure in drawings of their public places.

Stocks were not only used as a mode of punishment, but as means of securing offenders. Every will of common right was compelled to erect a pair of stocks at its own expense. The constable by common law might place persons in the stocks to keep them in hold, but not by way of punishment.

In 1605, every person convicted of drunkenness should be fined five shillings or spend six hours in the stocks, and James I., in the year 1623, confirmed the Act. Stocks were usually employed for punishing drunkards, but drunkenness was by no means the only offence for which they were brought into requisition. We learn from the Social History of the Southern Counties of England, by George Roberts, that wood-stealers, or, as they were styled, “hedge-tearers,” were, about 1584, set in the stocks two days in the open street, with the stolen wood before them, as a punishment for a second offence. Vagrants were in former times often put in the stocks, and Canning’s Needy Knife-Grinder was taken for one, and punished.

Perhaps the most notable person ever placed in the stocks for drinking freely, but not wisely, was Cardinal Wolsey. He was, about the year 1500, the incumbent as Lymington, near Yeovil, and at the village feast had overstepped the bounds of moderation, and his condition being made known to Sir Amyas Paulet, by his instructions, humiliated by being placed in the stocks. In the olden time persons refusing to assist in getting in the corn or hay harvest were liable to be imprisoned in the stocks. At the Northamptonshire Quarter Sessions held in 1688, the time was fixed at two days and one night.

Boiling to death was a legal punishment, though instances of its exercise were not so frequent in the annals of crime as some of the other modes of execution. In the year 1531, when Henry VIII., was King, an Act was passed for boiling prisoners to death. The Act details the case of one Richard Roose, or Coke, a cook in the diocese of the Bishop of Rochester, who had, by putting poison in the food of several persons, occasioned the death of two, and the serious illness of others. He was found guilty of treason, and sentenced to be boiled to death without benefit of clergy; that is, that no abatement of sentence was to be made on account of his ecclesiastical connection, nor to be allowed any indemnity such as was commonly the privilege of clerical offenders. He was brought to punishment at Smithfield, on the April 15, 1532 and the Act ordained that all manner of prisoners should meet with the same doom henceforth. A maid-servant, in 1531, was boiled to death in the market-place of King’s Lynn, for the crime of poisoning her mistress. Margaret Davy, a maid-servant, for poisoning persons with whom she had lived, perished at Smithfield on March 28, 1542. The Act was repealed in the year 1547.

Beheading, as a mode of punishment, has an early origin. Amongst the Romans it was regarded as a most honourable death. It is asserted that it was introduced into England from Normandy by William the Conqueror, and intended for putting to death of criminals belonging to the higher grades of mankind. The first person to suffer beheading was Walthe of, Earl of Huntingdon, Northampton, and Northumberland, in 1076. Since that year, some of the leading members of the English nobility have perished at the block. An early victim of the axe was William Wallace, of illustrious memory, who was beheaded on a scaffold at the Elms, at Smithfield, in 1305. But at this later period, beheading by sword or axe had become the established mode of punishment for theft. Murder, it may be remarked, was punished by outlawry, but theft of goods and cattle by death; while in the Isle of Man the stealing of a beast was only considered trespass, but the stealing of a fowl was death. The duration of decapitation as an English punishment in ordinary use may be considered to have been from about the middle, probably, of the twelfth century to the middle and end of the fourteenth century.

Hanging, drawing, and quartering, with their attendant horrors, have been termed “godly butchery,” on account of the divine authority which was adduced to support their continuance Lord Coke finds in the Bible a countenance for each of the horrid details of the punishment. We see that the texts supposed to bear upon the subject are raked from all parts of the Scriptures with great ingenuity, but with, in our modern eyes, not much of either humanity or probability of there being anything more than a forced reference.

The sentence on traitors was pronounced as follows: “That the traitor is to be taken from the prison and laid upon a sledge or hurdle [in earlier days he was to be dragged along the surface of the ground, tied to the tail of a horse], and drawn to the gallows or place of execution, and then hanged by the neck until he be half dead, and then cut down; and his entrails to be cut out of his body and burnt by the executioner; then his head is to be cut off, his body to be divided into quarters, and afterwards his head and quarters to be set up in some open places directed.” The headsman or hangman commonly, sliced open the chest and cut thence the heart, plucking it forth and holding it up to the populace, saying, “Behold the heart of a traitor.” The members were disposed on the gates of the cities, and in London on London Bridge, or upon Westminster Hall.

Peine forte et dure. One of the most barbarous and cruel of the punishments of English statutes was that distinguished by the name of Peine forte et dure, or pressing to death with every aggravation of torture. It was adopted as a manner of punishment suitable to cases where the accused refused to plead, and was commuted in the year 1406, from the older method of merely starving the prisoner to death. At that time the alteration was considered to be decidedly according to the dictates of humanity and mercy, as the sooner relieving the accused from his sufferings. Such was the small value set upon human life in those dark days of British justice. The manner in which this exceedingly great torture was inflicted was as follows: “That the prisoner shall be remanded to the place from whence he came, and put in some low, dark room, and there laid on his back, without any manner of covering except a cloth round his middle; and that as many weights shall be laid upon him as he can bear, and more; and that he shall have no more sustenance but of the worst bread and water, and that he shall not eat the same day on which he drinks, nor drink the same day on which he eats; and he shall so continue till he die.” At a later period, the form of sentence was altered to the following: “That the prisoner shall be remanded to the place from whence he came, and put in some low, dark room, that he shall lie without any litter or anything under him, and that one arm shall be drawn to one quarter of the room with a cord, and the other to another, and that his feet shall be used in the same manner, and that as many weights shall be laid on him as he can bear, and more. That he shall have three morsels of barley bread a day, and that he shall have the water next the prison, so that it be not current, and that he shall not eat.”

The object of this protracted punishment was to allow the victim, at almost every stage of the torture, to plead, and thus allow the law to take its ordinary course. The object of the persons who have refused to plead is, that any person who dies under the Peine forte et dure can transmit his estates to his children, or will them as he desires; whereas, if he were found guilty, they would be forfeited to the Crown. In connection with this, it may be mentioned that when the practice of pressing to death had become nearly extinct, prisoners who declined to plead were tortured in order to compel them to do so, by twisting and screwing their thumbs with whipcord. The Crucet-hus also had an equal tendency, where the prisoner was put in a short, narrow and shallow chest with stones that were pressed; whoever was in the chest had their joints broken.

The usual mode of inflicting death upon criminals in Anglo-Saxon times was by hanging Gibbeting, or hanging in chains the bodies of executed criminals, near the site where their crimes were committed, was a common practice, which has come down to recent times. Blackstone, in his Commentaries, published in 1769, has a note bearing on this subject. “In atrocious cases” [of murder], writes Blackstone, “it was frequently usual for the court to direct the murderer, after execution, to be hung upon a gibbet where the act was committed: but this was no part of the legal judgment; and the like is still sometimes practiced in the case of notorious thieves. This, being quite contrary to the express command of the Mosaical law, seems to have been borrowed from the civil law; which, besides the terror of the example, gives also another reason for this practice, namely, that it is a comfortable sight to the relations and friends of the deceased.”
It is not an uncommon circumstance for persons to assert that, in bygone times, criminals were hanged alive in chains. It is a disputed question in the history of England. It will be observed, from the preceding quotation from the works of Blackstone, that a criminal was suspended in chains after execution. Holinshed, who died about the year 1580, in his famous Chronicle of England, a work which supplied Shakespeare with materials for historical dramas, states: “In willful murder done upon pretended (premeditated) malice, or in any notable robbery, the criminal is either hanged alive in chains near the place where the act was committed, or else, upon compassion taken, first strangled with a rope, and so continueth till his bones came to nothing. Where willful manslaughter is perpetrated, besides hanging, the offender hath his right hand commonly stricken off.”

Of other torture tools, are to be noted the Knotted Rope was adapted by Thomas Cromwell, and tightened around the head allowing for pressure across the forehead. Barnacles that had brakes, with which the lips of ill-disposed horses are stretched, when those horses are being shoed, the wooden parts being placed and drawn tight upon the lips of those to be tortured. Burning fat would be used where the prisoner’s boots were filled with fat and then placed on a fire. The Scavenger’s Daughter violently drew and squeezed the victim. It was invented by Leonard Skeffington during Henry VIII., reign. Bilboes consisted of iron loops sliding on a bar and secured by a padlock at the end. The lock itself is set on a flat plate, which can be fixed to the floor or walls, preventing the prisoner from moving. And, the infamous Rack. Among the torments used by the Romans were, turning, stripes, goads, irons for the neck or feet, collars, or yoke, pincers, cords, barbed darts, and chiefly the rack. “The servants therefore required to be tortured being bound to the rack, in the presence of the advocates, were so stretched that the poor wretches hung as it were from a cross, and the juncture of their bones was loosened. Then moreover, to increase the pain, sometimes were applied heated plates, iron pincers, and other torments of that sort, largely described by Sigonius and others.” 4 Grotius, in one of his letters, says, “That there are numberless examples of people who have been put to death unjustly, upon a confession extorted from them by the rack.” Sir Edward Coke, in the 2nd Chapter of his 3rd Institute, showing how prisoners committed for treason, or any other offence, ought to be demeaned in prison, cites, Bracton, Britton, Fleta, and the Mirrour, to prove that they are to be safely kept, not punished, nor constrained to answer but at their free will, nor put to any pain before they be attainted, after which he writes: “Hereupon two questions do arise, when or by whom the rack or brake in the Tower was brought in. John Holland Earl of Huntingdon, was by King Henry VI., created Duke of Exeter, and anno 26 Hen. VI., the King granted to him the office of the constableship of the Tower: he and William de la Poole Duke of Suffolk, and others, intended to have brought in the civil laws. For a beginning whereof the Duke of Exeter, being constable of the Tower, first brought into the Tower the rack or brake, allowed in many cases by the civil law: and thereupon the rack is called the Duke of Exeter’s Daughter, because he first brought it thither.” 5