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26 chapters
BYGONE PUNISHMENTS.
BYGONE PUNISHMENTS.
Mr. Andrews' books are always interesting.— Church Bells. No student of Mr. Andrews' books can be a dull after-dinner speaker, for his writings are full of curious out-of-the-way information and good stories.— Birmingham Daily Gazette. England in the Days of Old. A most delightful work.— Leeds Mercury. A valuable contribution to archæological lore.— Chester Courant. It is of much value as a book of reference, and it should find its way into the library of every student of history and folk-lore.—
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Preface.
Preface.
About twenty-five years ago I commenced investigating the history of obsolete punishments, and the result of my studies first appeared in the newspapers and magazines. In 1881 was issued "Punishments in the Olden Time," and in 1890 was published "Old Time Punishments": both works were well received by the press and the public, quickly passing out of print, and are not now easily obtainable. I contributed in 1894 to the Rev. Canon Erskine Clarke's popular monthly, the Parish Magazine , a series o
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Hanging.
Hanging.
he usual mode of capital punishment in England for many centuries has been, and still is, hanging. Other means of execution have been exercised, but none have been so general as death at the hands of the hangman. In the Middle Ages every town, abbey, and nearly all the more important manorial lords had the right of hanging, and the gallows was to be seen almost everywhere. Representatives of the church often possessed rights in respect to the gallows and its victims. William the Conqueror invest
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Hanging in Chains.
Hanging in Chains.
The time is not so far distant when the gibbet and gallows were common objects in this country. In old road books, prepared for the guidance of travellers, they are frequently referred to as road marks. Several editions of Ogilby's "Itinirarium Angliæ" were published between 1673 and 1717, and a few passages drawn from this work relating to various parts of England show how frequently these gruesome instruments of death occur:— "By the Gallows and Three Windmills enter the suburbs of York." "Lea
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Hanging, Drawing, and Quartering.
Hanging, Drawing, and Quartering.
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 t
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Pressing to Death.
Pressing to Death.
One of the most barbarous and cruel of the punishments of our 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 about 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, a
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Drowning.
Drowning.
Among the nations of antiquity, drowning was a very common mode of execution. Four-and-a-half centuries before the birth of Christ, the Britons inflicted death by drowning in a quagmire. In Anglo-Saxon times women found guilty of theft were drowned. For a long period in the Middle Ages, the barons and others who had the power of administering laws in their respective districts possessed a drowning pit and a gallows. Drowning was a punishment of King Richard of the Lion Heart, who ordained by a d
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Burning to Death.
Burning to Death.
Burning to death was a frequent method of punishment in the barbarous days of many nations. In our own country it was used by the Anglo-Saxons as the penalty of certain crimes, and, as the ordinary punishment of witchcraft, it was maintained throughout the Middle Ages. Burning alive was from early times the recognised method of uprooting heretical notions of religious belief of every class. The first to suffer from this cause in England was Alban, who died at the stake in the year A.D. 304. Sinc
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Boiling to Death.
Boiling to Death.
In the year 1531, when Henry VIII. was king, an act was passed for boiling poisoners to death. The preamble of the statute states that one Richard Roose or Coke, a cook, by putting poison in some food intended for the household of the Bishop of Rochester, and for the poor of the parish in which his lordship's palace was situated in Lambeth Marsh, occasioned the death of a man and a woman, and the serious illness of several others. He was found guilty of treason, and sentenced to be boiled to dea
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Beheading.
Beheading.
Beheading , as a mode of punishment, had 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 the putting to death of criminals belonging to the higher grades of society. The first person to suffer beheading was Waltheof, Earl of Huntingdon, Northampton, and Northumberland, in 1076. Since the days of the first Norman king down to the time of George the Second in
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The Halifax Gibbet.
The Halifax Gibbet.
The mention of the Halifax gibbet suggests a popular Yorkshire saying: "From Hell, Hull and Halifax, good Lord, deliver us." Fuller says the foregoing is part of the "Beggars' and Vagrants' Litany," and goes on to state: "Of these three frightful things unto them, it is to be feared that they least fear the first, conceiving it the farthest from them. Hull is terrible to them as a town of good government, where beggars meet with punitive charity; and, it is to be feared, are oftener corrected th
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The Scottish Maiden.
The Scottish Maiden.
Towards the middle of the sixteenth century, the Earl of Morton, Regent of Scotland, during a visit to England, witnessed an execution by the Halifax gibbet. He appears to have been impressed in a favourable manner with the ingenuity of the machine, and gave directions for a model of it to be made, and on his return home, in the year 1565, he had a similar gibbet constructed. On account of remaining so long before it was used, so runs the popular story, it was known as "The Maiden." Dr. Charles
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Mutilation.
Mutilation.
In the earlier laws of England, mutilation or dismembering was by no means an uncommon punishment, more especially amongst the poor. Men, says Pike, branded on the forehead, without hands, without feet, without tongues, lived as an example of the danger which attended the commission of petty crimes, and as a warning to all men who had the misfortune of holding no higher position than that of a churl. [29] Wealthy people might do wrong with impunity. It has been clearly shown that there was one l
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Branding.
Branding.
This mode of punishment was discontinued in the reign of George III., and finally abolished in 1829. Old laws contain many allusions to the subject. In the reign of Edward VI. was passed the famous Statute of Vagabonds, authorising the branding with hot iron the letter V on the breast of a runaway slave. If, on being sold, he afterwards ran away, he might be branded on the cheek or forehead with the letter S, and thus the fact made known to those who saw him that he was a slave. Church brawlers
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The Pillory.
The Pillory.
In the history of our own and other European countries, the pillory may be traced back to remote times, and its origin is almost lost in the mists of antiquity. Its story is one of tragedy and comedy, and full of historic interest and importance. In England, in bygone ages, the pillory was a familiar object, and perhaps no engine of punishment was more generally employed. Where there was a market, the pillory might be seen, for if the local authorities neglected to have it ready for immediate us
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Punishing Authors and Burning Books.
Punishing Authors and Burning Books.
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, in years agone, 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 Athen
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Finger Pillory.
Finger Pillory.
Finger pillories , or stocks, in past ages, were probably frequently employed in the old manorial halls of England; but at the present period only traces of a few are to be found. The most interesting example is one in the parish church of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, which has been frequently described and illustrated. An account of it appears in Notes and Queries of October 25th, 1851. It is described as "fastened at its right hand extremity into a wall, and consists of two pieces of oak
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The Jougs.
The Jougs.
This old-time instrument of punishment was more generally used in North Britain 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 ago, it was a popular means of enforcing ecclesiastical discipline, and was also brought into requisition for punishing persons guilty of the lesser civil offences. In Scotland the jougs were usually fastened to a chur
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The Stocks.
The Stocks.
Stocks were used, at an early period, as a means of punishing breakers of the law. The precise date when they were first employed in this country is not known, but we may infer from early mediæval illustrations that the stocks were in general use amongst the Anglo-Saxons, for they often figure in drawings of their public places. The picture we here give is from the Harleian MSS., No. 65. The stocks were usually placed by the side of the public road, at the entrance of a town. It will be observed
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The Drunkard's Cloak.
The Drunkard's Cloak.
Several historians, dealing with the social life of England in bygone times, have described the wearing of a barrel after the manner of a cloak as a general mode of punishing drunkards, in force during the Commonwealth. There appears to be little foundation for the statement, and, after careful consideration, we have come to the conclusion that this mode of punishment was, as regards this country, confined to Newcastle-on-Tyne. In the year 1655 was printed in London a work entitled, "England's G
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Whipping and Whipping-Posts.
Whipping and Whipping-Posts.
The Anglo-Saxons whipped prisoners with a whip of three cords, knotted at the end. It was not an uncommon practice for mistresses to whip, or have their servants whipped, to death. William of Malmesbury relates a story to the effect that when King Ethelred was a child, he on one occasion displeased his mother, and she, not having a whip at hand, flogged him with some candles until he was nearly insensible with pain. "On this account," so runs the story, "he dreaded candles during the rest of his
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Public Penance.
Public Penance.
Church discipline in the olden days caused the highest and lowest in the land to perform penance in public. A notable instance of a king subjecting himself to this humiliating form of punishment is that of Henry II. The story of the King's quarrels with Becket, and of his unfortunate expression which led four knights to enact a tragic deed in Canterbury Cathedral, is familiar to the reader of history. After the foul murder of Becket had been committed, the King was in great distress, and resolve
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The Repentance Stool.
The Repentance Stool.
The records of church-life in Scotland, in bygone times, contain many allusions to the repentance stool. A very good specimen of this old-time relic may be seen in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries, at Edinburgh. It is from the church of Old Greyfriars, of Edinburgh. In the same museum is a sackcloth, or gown of repentance, formerly used at the parish church of West Calder. Persons guilty of adultery were frequently placed on the repentance stool, and rebuked before the congregation assem
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The Ducking-Stool.
The Ducking-Stool.
Scolding women in the olden times were treated as offenders against the public peace, and for their transgressions were subjected to several cruel modes of punishment. The Corporations of towns during the Middle Ages made their own regulations for punishing persons guilty of crimes which were not rendered penal by the laws of the land. The punishments for correcting scolds differed greatly in various parts of the country. It is clear, from a careful study of the history of mediæval times, that v
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The Brank, or Scold's Bridle.
The Brank, or Scold's Bridle.
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 this country is in the Corporation records of Macclesfield, of the
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Riding the Stang.
Riding the Stang.
The ancient custom of riding the stang still lingers in some remote parts of the country. Holding delinquents up to ridicule was a favourite mode of punishment practised by our forefathers, and riding the stang was the means generally employed for punishing husbands who beat their wives, or allowed themselves to be henpecked, or were profligate in their conduct. There are various designations for the custom. In Yorkshire, riding the stang is the name used; in Scotland the same term is applied; i
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