The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0077/00779.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 19KB | 276 lines

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$Title{Description Of Elizabethan England
Chapter XVII}
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$Author{Harrison, William}
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$Date{1577}
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Title:       Description Of Elizabethan England
Author:      Harrison, William
Date:        1577

Chapter XVII

Of Sundry Kinds Of Punishment Appointed For Offenders
[1577, Book III., Chapter 6; 1587, Book II., Chapter II.]

     In cases of felony, manslaughter, robbery, murder, rape, piracy, and such
capital crimes as are not reputed for treason or hurt of the estate, our
sentence pronounced upon the offender is, to hang till he be dead. For of
other punishments used in other countries we have no knowledge or use; and yet
so few grievous crimes committed with us as elsewhere in the world. To use
torment also or question by pain and torture in these common cases with us is
greatly abhorred, since we are found always to be such as despise death, and
yet abhor to be tormented, choosing rather frankly to open our minds than to
yield our bodies unto such servile haulings and tearings as are used in other
countries. And this is one cause wherefore our condemned persons do go so
cheerfully to their deaths; for our nation is free, stout, haughty, prodigal
of life and blood, as Sir Thomas Smith saith, lib. 2, cap. 25, De Republica,
and therefore cannot in any wise digest to be used as villains and slaves, in
suffering continually beating, servitude, and servile torments. No, our
gaolers are guilty of felony, by an old law of the land, if they torment any
prisoner committed to their custody for the revealing of his accomplices.

     The greatest and most grievous punishment used in England for such as
offend against the State is drawing from the prison to the place of execution
upon an hurdle or sled, where they are hanged till they be half dead, and then
taken down, and quartered alive; after that, their members and bowels are cut
from their bodies, and thrown into a fire, provided near hand and within their
own sight, even for the same purpose.

     Sometimes, if the trespass be not the more heinous, they are suffered to
hang till they be quite dead. And whensoever any of the nobility are convicted
of high treason by their peers, that is to say, equals (for an inquest of
yeomen passeth not upon them, but only of the lords of parliament), this
manner of their death is converted into the loss of their heads only,
notwithstanding that the sentence do run after the former order. In trial of
cases concerning treason, felony, or any other grievous crime not confessed,
the party accused doth yield, if he be a noble man, to be tried by an inquest
(as I have said) and his peers; if a gentleman, by gentlemen; and an inferior,
by God and by the country, to wit, the yeomanry (for combat or battle is not
greatly in use), and, being condemned of felony, manslaughter, etc., he is
eftsoons hanged by the neck till he be dead, and then cut down and buried. But
if he be convicted of wilful murder, done either upon pretended malice or in
any notable robbery, he is either hanged alive in chains near the place where
the fact was committed (or else upon compassion taken, first strangled with a
rope), and so continueth till his bones consume to nothing. We have use
neither of the wheel nor of the bar, as in other countries; but, when wilful
manslaughter is perpetrated, beside hanging, the offender hath his right hand
commonly stricken off before or near unto the place where the act was done,
after which he is led forth to the place of execution, and there put to death
according to the law.

     The word felon is derived of the Saxon words fell and one, that is to
say, an evil and wicked one, a one of untameable nature and lewdness not to be
suffered for fear of evil example and the corruption of others. In like sort
in the word felony are many grievous crimes contained, as breach of prison
(Ann. 1 of Edward the Second), disfigurers of the prince's liege people (Ann.
5 of Henry the Fourth), hunting by night with painted faces and visors (Ann. I
of Henry the Seventh), rape, or stealing of women and maidens (Ann. 3 of Henry
Eight), conspiracies against the persin of the prince (Ann. 3 of Henry the
Seventh), embezzling of goods committed by the master to the servant above the
value of forty shillings (Ann. 17 of Henry the Eighth), carrying of horses or
mares into Scotland (Ann. 23 of Henry Eight), sodomy and buggery (Ann. 25 of
Henry the Eighth), conjuring, forgery, witchcraft, and digging up of crosses
(Ann. 33 of Henry Eight), prophesying upon arms, cognisances, names, and
badges (Ann. 33 of Henry Eight), casting of slanderous bills (Ann. 37, Henry
Eight), wilful killing by poison (Ann 1 of Edward the Sixth), departure of a
soldier from the field (Ann. 2 of Edward the Sixth), diminution of coin, all
offences within case of premunire, embezzling of records, goods taken from
dead men by their servants, stealing of whatsoever cattle, robbing by the high
way, upon the sea, or of dwelling houses, letting out of ponds, cutting of
purses, stealing of deer by night, counterfeits of coin, evidences charters,
and writings, and divers other needless to be remembered. If a woman poision
her husband, she is burned alive; if the servant kill his master, he is to be
executed for petty treason; he that poisoneth a man is to be boiled to death
in water or lead, although the party die not of the practice; in cases of
murder, all the accessories are to suffer pains of death accordingly. Perjury
is punished by the pillory, burning in the forehead with the letter P, the
rewalting of the trees growing upon the grounds of the offenders, and loss of
all his movables. Many trespasses also are punished by the cutting off of one
or both ears from the head of the offender, as the utterance of seditious
words against the magistrates, fraymakers, petty robbers, etc. Rogues are
burned through the ears; carriers of sheep out of the land, by the loss of
their hands; such as kill by poison are either boiled or scalded to death in
lead or seething water. Heretics are burned quick; harlots and their mates, by
carting, ducking, and doing of open penance in sheets in churches and market
steeds, are often put to rebuke. Howbeit, as this is counted with some either
as no punishment at all to speak of, or but little regarded of the offenders,
so I would with adultery and fornication to have some sharper law. For what
great smart is it to be turned out of hot sheet into a cold, or after a little
washing in the water to be let loose again unto their former trades? Howbeit
the dragging of some of them over the Thames between Lambeth and Westminster
at the tail of a boat is a punishment that most terrifieth them which are
condemned thereto; but this is inflicted upon them by none other than the
knight marshall, and that within the compass of his jurisdiction and limits
only. Canutus was the first that gave authority to the clergy to punish
whoredom, who at that time found fault with the former laws as being too
severe in this behalf. For, before the time of the said Canutus, the adulterer
forfeited all his goods to the king and his body to be at his pleasure; and
the adulteress was to lose her eyes or nose, or both if the case were more
than common: whereby it appears of what estimation marriage was amongst them,
since the breakers of that holy estate were so grievously rewarded. But
afterward the clergy dealt more favourably with them, shooting rather at the
punishments of such priests and clerks as were married than the reformation of
adultery and fornication, wherein you shall find no example that any severity
was shewed except upon such lay men as had defiled their nuns. As in theft
therefore, so in adultery and whoredom, I would wish the parties trespassing
to be made bond or slaves unto those that received the injury, to sell and
give where they listed, or to be condemned to the galleys: for that punishment
would prove more bitter to them than half-an-hou