PUNISHMENTS.
Shakespeare has not omitted to notice many of the punishments which were
in use in years gone by; the scattered allusions to these being
interesting in so far as they serve to illustrate the domestic manners
and customs of our forefathers. Happily, however, these cruel tortures,
which darken the pages of history, have long ago passed into oblivion;
and at the present day it is difficult to believe that such barbarous
practices could ever have been tolerated in any civilized country. The
horrible punishment of "boiling to death," is mentioned in "Twelfth
Night" (ii. 5), where Fabian says: "If I lose a scruple of this sport,
let me be boiled to death with melancholy." In "Winter's Tale" (iii. 2),
Paulina inquires:
"What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?
What wheels? racks? fires? What flaying? boiling
In leads or oils? What old or newer torture
Must I receive?"
There seems to be an indirect allusion to this punishment in "The Two
Noble Kinsmen" (iv. 3), where the Gaoler's Daughter in her madness
speaks of those who "are mad, or hang, or drown themselves, being put
into a caldron of lead and usurer's grease, and there boiling like a
gammon of bacon that will never be enough."
The practice of holding burning basins before the eyes of captives, to
destroy their eyesight, is probably alluded to by Macbeth (iv. 1), in
the passage where the apparitions are presented to him by the witches:
"Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo; down!
Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs."[841]
[841] Halliwell-Phillipps's "Index to Shakespeare," p. 36.
In "Antony and Cleopatra" (ii. 4), soaking in brine as a punishment is
referred to by Cleopatra, who says to the messenger:
"Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stew'd in brine,
Smarting in lingering pickle."
Drowning by the tide, a method of punishing criminals, is probably
noticed in "The Tempest" (i. 1), by Antonio:
"We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.
This wide-chapp'd rascal--would thou might'st lie drowning
The washing of ten tides!"
_Baffle._ This was formerly a punishment of infamy inflicted on recreant
knights, one part of which consisted in hanging them up by the heels, to
which Falstaff probably refers in "1 Henry IV." (i. 2), where he says to
the prince, "call me villain, and baffle me." And, further on (ii. 4):
"if thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically, both in word and
matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit-sucker, or a poulter's
hare."[842] In "2 Henry IV." (i. 2), the Chief Justice tells Falstaff
that "to punish him by the heels would amend the attention of his ears."
And in "All's Well that Ends Well" (iv. 3), where the lord relates how
Parolles has "sat in the stocks all night," Bertram says: "his heels
have deserved it, in usurping his spurs so long."
[842] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 46.
Spenser, in his "Fairy Queen" (vi. 7), thus describes this mode of
punishment:
"And after all, for greater infamie
He by the heels him hung upon a tree,
And baffl'd so, that all which passed by
The picture of his punishment might see."
The appropriate term, too, for chopping off the spurs of a knight when
he was to be degraded, was "hack"--a custom to which, it has been
suggested, Mrs. Page alludes in the "Merry Wives of Windsor" (ii.
1):[843] "What?--Sir Alice Ford! These knights will hack, and so thou
shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry."[844]
[843] Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, in his "Handbook Index to the
Works of Shakespeare" (1866, p. 231), suggests this meaning.
[844] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 397.
Mr. Dyce,[845] however, says the most probable meaning of this obscure
passage is, that there is an allusion to the extravagant number of
knights created by King James, and that _hack_ is equivalent to "become
cheap or vulgar."
[845] Dyce's "Glossary," p. 197.
It appears, too, that in days gone by the arms, etc., of traitors and
rebels might be defaced. Thus, in "Richard II." (ii. 3), Berkeley tells
Bolingbroke:
"Mistake me not, my lord; 'tis not my meaning
To raze one title of your honour out."
Upon which passage we may quote from Camden's "Remains" (1605, p. 186):
"How the names of them, which for capital crimes against majestie, were
erased out of the public records, tables, and registers, or forbidden to
be borne by their posteritie, when their memory was damned, I could show
at large." In the following act (iii. 1) Bolingbroke further relates how
his enemies had:
"Dispark'd my parks, and fell'd my forest woods,
From mine own windows torn my household coat,
Raz'd out my impress, leaving me no sign."
_Bilboes._ These were a kind of stocks or fetters used at sea to confine
prisoners, of which Hamlet speaks to Horatio (v. 2):
"Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,
That would not let me sleep: methought I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes."
This punishment is thus described by Steevens: "The _bilboes_ is a bar
of iron with fetters annexed to it, by which mutinous or disorderly
sailors were anciently linked together. The word is derived from Bilboa,
a place in Spain where instruments of steel were fabricated in the
utmost perfection. To understand Shakespeare's allusion completely, it
should be known that, as these fetters connect the legs of the offenders
very close together, their attempts to rest must be as fruitless as
those of Hamlet, in whose mind 'there was a kind of fighting that would
not let him sleep.' Every motion of one must disturb his partner in
confinement. The _bilboes_ are still shown in the Tower of London, among
the other spoils of the Spanish Armada."[846]
[846] Bilbo was also a rapier or sword; thus, in "Merry Wives
of Windsor" (iii. 5), Falstaff says to Ford: "I suffered the
pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to
be detected ... next, to be compassed, like a good bilbo ...
hilt to point," etc.
_Brand._--The branding of criminals is indirectly alluded to in "2 Henry
VI." (v. 2), by Young Clifford, who calls the Duke of Richmond a "foul
stigmatick," which properly meant "a person who had been branded with a
hot iron for some crime, one notably defamed for naughtiness." The
practice was abolished by law in the year 1822.
The practice, too, of making persons convicted of perjury wear papers,
while undergoing punishment, descriptive of their offence, is spoken of
in "Love's Labour's Lost" (iv. 3), where Biron says of Longaville:
"Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers."
Holinshed relates how Wolsey "so punished a perjure with open punishment
and open paper-wearing that in his time it was disused."
_Breech._ This old term to whip or punish as a school-boy is noticed in
the "Taming of the Shrew" (iii. 1):
"I am no breeching scholar in the schools;
I'll not be tied to hours nor 'pointed times"
--breeching being equivalent to "liable to be whipped."
In "Merry Wives of Windsor" (iv. 1), Sir Hugh Evans tells the boy page:
"If you forget your 'quies,' your 'quæs,' and your 'quods,' you must be
preeches" (breeched).
_Crown._ A burning crown, as the punishment of regicides or other
criminals, is probably alluded to by Anne in "Richard III." (iv. 1):
"O, would to God that the inclusive verge
Of golden metal, that must round my brow,
Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain!"
Mr. Singer,[847] in a note on this passage, quotes from Chettle's
"Tragedy of Hoffman" (1631), where this punishment is introduced:
"Fix on thy master's head my burning crown."
And again:
"Was adjudg'd
To have his head sear'd with a burning crown."
[847] "Shakespeare," vol. vi. p. 485; see "Boswell's Life of
Johnson," vol. ii. p. 6.
The Earl of Athol, who was executed for the murder of James I. of
Scotland, was, before his death, crowned with a hot iron. In some of the
monkish accounts of a place of future torments, a burning crown is
appropriated to those who deprived any lawful monarch of his kingdom.
_Pillory._ This old mode of punishment is referred to by Launce in the
"Two Gentlemen of Verona" (iv. 4), where he speaks of having "stood on
the pillory." In "Taming of the Shrew" (ii. 1), Hortensio, when he tells
Baptista how he had been struck by Katharina because "I did but tell her
she mistook her frets," adds:
"she struck me on the head,
And through the instrument my pate made way;
And there I stood amazed for a while,
As on a pillory, looking through the lute."
It has been suggested that there may be an allusion to the pillory in
"Measure for Measure" (v. 1), where Lucio says to the duke, disguised in
his friar's hood: "you must be hooded, must you? show your knave's
visage, with a pox to you! show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an
hour!" The alleged crime was not capital, and suspension in the pillory
for an hour was all that the speaker intended.[848]
[848] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 661; see Douce's
"Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, pp. 90, 91, 109; Brand's
"Pop. Antiq.," vol. iii. p. 111.
_Press._ Several allusions occur to this species of torture, applied to
contumacious felons. It was also, says Malone, "formerly inflicted on
those persons who, being indicted, refused to plead. In consequence of
their silence, they were pressed to death by a heavy weight laid upon
the stomach." In "Much Ado About Nothing" (iii. 1), Hero says of
Beatrice:
"she would laugh me
Out of myself, press me to death with wit."
In "Richard II." (iii. 4) the Queen exclaims:
"O, I am press'd to death, through want of speaking!"
And in "Measure for Measure" (v. 1), Lucio tells the Duke that,
"Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping, and hanging."
In the "Perfect Account of the Daily Intelligence" (April 16th, 1651),
we find it recorded: "Mond., April 14th. This Session, at the Old
Bailey, were four men pressed to death that were all in one robbery,
and, out of obstinacy and contempt of the Court, stood mute, and refused
to plead." This punishment was not abolished until by statute 12 George
III. c. 20.
_Rack._ According to Mr. Blackstone, this "was utterly unknown to the
law of England; though once, when the Dukes of Exeter and Suffolk, and
other ministers of Henry VI., had laid a design to introduce the civil
law into this kingdom as a rule of government, for the beginning thereof
they erected a rack of torture, which was called, in derision, the Duke
of Exeter's daughter; and still remains in the Tower of London, where it
was occasionally used as an engine of state, not of law, more than once
in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. But when, upon the assassination of
Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, it was proposed, in the Privy Council, to
put the assassin to the rack, in order to discover his accomplices, the
judges (being consulted) declared unanimously, to their own honor and
the honor of the English law, that no such proceeding was allowable by
the law of England." Mr. Hallam observes that, though the English law
never recognized the use of torture, yet there were many instances of
its employment in the reign of Elizabeth and James; and, among others,
in the case of the Gunpowder Plot. He further adds, in the latter part
of the reign of Elizabeth "the rack seldom stood idle in the Tower." Of
the many allusions to this torture may be mentioned Sebastian's word in
"Twelfth Night" (v. 1):
"Antonio! O my dear Antonio!
How have the hours rack'd and tortured me,
Since I have lost thee."
In "Measure for Measure" (v. 1), Escalus orders the "unreverend and
unhallow'd friar" (the Duke disguised) to be taken to the rack:
"Take him hence; to the rack with him!--We'll touse you
Joint by joint."
The engine, which sometimes meant the rack, is spoken of in "King Lear"
(i. 4):
"Which, like an engine, wrench'd my frame of nature
From the fix'd place."[849]
[849] It also meant a warlike engine, as in "Coriolanus," v. 4:
"When he walks, he moves like an engine, and the ground shrinks
before his treading;" so, also, in "Troilus and Cressida," ii. 3.
So, in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Night Walker" (iv. 5):
"Their souls shot through with adders, torn on engines."
Once more, in "Measure for Measure" (ii. 1), where Escalus tells how
"Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none"
--a passage which Mr. Dyce would thus read:
"Some run from brakes of vice."
It has been suggested that there is an allusion to "engines of torture,"
although, owing to the many significations of the word "brake," its
meaning here has been much disputed.[850]
[850] See Dyce's "Glossary," p. 49; Halliwell-Phillipps's
"Handbook Index to Shakespeare," p. 56; Nares's "Glossary,"
vol. i. p. 104.
_Stocks._ This old-fashioned mode of punishment is the subject of
frequent allusion by Shakespeare. Thus, Launce, in the "Two Gentlemen of
Verona" (iv. 4), says: "I have sat in the stocks for puddings he hath
stolen." In "All's Well that Ends Well" (iv. 3), Bertram says: "Come,
bring forth this counterfeit module, has deceived me, like a
double-meaning prophesier." Whereupon one of the French lords adds:
"Bring him forth: has sat i' the stocks all night, poor gallant knave."
Volumnia says of Coriolanus (v. 3):
"There's no man in the world
More bound to's mother; yet here he lets me prate
Like one i' the stocks."
Again, in the "Comedy of Errors" (iii. 1), Luce speaks of "a pair of
stocks in the town," and in "King Lear" (ii. 2), Cornwall, referring to
Kent, says:
"Fetch forth the stocks!--
You stubborn ancient knave."
It would seem that formerly, in great houses, as in some colleges, there
were movable stocks for the correction of the servants. Putting a person
in the stocks, too, was an exhibition familiar to the ancient stage. In
"Hick Scorner,"[851] printed in the reign of Henry VIII., Pity is placed
in the stocks, and left there until he is freed "by Perseverance and
Contemplacyon."
[851] It is reprinted in Hawkins's "English Drama," 1773.
_Strappado._ This was a military punishment, by which the unfortunate
sufferer was cruelly tortured in the following way: a rope being
fastened under his arms, he was drawn up by a pulley to the top of a
high beam, and then suddenly let down with a jerk. The result usually
was a dislocation of the shoulder-blade. In "1 Henry IV." (ii. 4), it is
referred to by Falstaff, who tells Poins: "were I at the strappado, or
all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion." At
Paris, says Douce,[852] "there was a spot called _l'estrapade_, in the
Faubourg St. Jacques, where soldiers received this punishment. The
machine, whence the place took its name, remained fixed like a perpetual
gallows." The term is probably derived from the Italian _strappare_, to
pull or draw with violence.
[852] "Illustrations of Shakespeare," pp. 263. 264; see Dyce's
"Glossary," p. 423.
_Toss in a Sieve._ This punishment, according to Cotgrave, was inflicted
"on such as committed gross absurdities." In "1 Henry VI." (i. 3),
Gloster says to the Bishop of Winchester:
"I'll canvass thee in thy broad cardinal's hat,
If thou proceed in this thy insolence."
It is alluded to in Davenant's "Cruel Brother" (1630):
"I'll sift and winow him in an old hat."
_Wheel._ The punishment of the wheel was not known at Rome, but we read
of Mettius Tuffetius being torn asunder by _quadrigæ_ driven in opposite
directions. As Shakespeare, remarks Malone, "has coupled this species of
punishment with another that certainly was unknown to ancient Rome, it
is highly probable that he was not apprised of the story of Mettius
Tuffetius, and that in this, as in various other instances, the practice
of his own times was in his thoughts, for in 1594 John Chastel had been
thus executed in France for attempting to assassinate Henry IV."
Coriolanus (iii. 2) says:
"Let them pull all about mine ears, present me
Death on the wheel, or at wild horses' heels."
_Whipping._ Three centuries ago this mode of punishment was carried to a
cruel extent. By an act passed in the 2d year of Henry VIII., vagrants
were to be carried to some market-town, or other place, and there tied
to the end of a cart, naked, and beaten with whips throughout such
market-town, or other place, till the body should be bloody by reason of
such whipping. The punishment was afterwards slightly mitigated, for, by
a statute passed in 39th of Elizabeth's reign, vagrants "were only to be
stripped naked from the middle upwards, and whipped till the body should
be bloody." The stocks were often so constructed as to serve both for
stocks and whipping-posts.[853] Among the numerous references to this
punishment by Shakespeare, we may quote "2 Henry IV." (v. 4), where the
beadle says of Hostess Quickly: "The constables have delivered her over
to me, and she shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant her." In the
"Taming of the Shrew" (i. 1), Gremio says, speaking of Katharina, "I had
as lief take her dowry with this condition,--to be whipped at the
high-cross every morning," in allusion to what Hortensio had just said:
"why, man, there be good fellows in the world, an a man could light on
them, would take her with all faults, and money enough." In "2 Henry
VI." (ii. 1), Gloster orders Simpcox and his wife to
"be whipped through every market-town,
Till they come to Berwick, from whence they came."
[853] See "Book of Days," vol. i. pp. 598, 599.
_Wisp._ This was a punishment for a scold.[854] It appears that "a wisp,
or small twist of straw or hay, was often applied as a mark of
opprobrium to an immodest woman, a scold, or similar offender; even,
therefore, the showing it to a woman, was considered a grievous
affront." In "3 Henry VI." (ii. 2) Edward says of Queen Margaret:
"A wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns,
To make this shameless callat[855] know herself."
[854] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 965.
[855] "Callat," an immodest woman, also applied to a scold. Cf.
"Winter's Tale," ii. 3:
"A callat
Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband,
And now baits me."
A wisp, adds Nares, seems to have been the badge of the scolding woman
in the ceremony of Skimmington;[856] an allusion to which is given in a
"Dialogue between John and Jone, striving who shall wear the breeches,"
in the "Pleasures of Poetry," cited by Malone:
"Good, gentle Jone, with-holde thy handes,
This once let me entreat thee,
And make me promise never more,
That thou shalt mind to beat me.
For fear thou wear the wispe, good wife,
And make our neighbours ride."
[856] Skimmington was a burlesque ceremony in ridicule of a man
beaten by his wife. See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," vol. ii. pp.
191, 192.
In Nash's "Pierce Pennilesse" (1593) there is also an amusing allusion
to it: "Why, thou errant butter-whore, thou cotquean and scrattop of
scolds, wilt thou never leave afflicting a dead carcasse? continually
read the rhetorick lecture of Ramme-alley? a wispe, a wispe, you
kitchen-stuffe wrangler."