One day when I was dining with him (Cardinal Archbishop Morton) there
happened to be at table one of the English lawyers, who took occasion to
run out in a high commendation of the severe execution of justice upon
thieves, who, as he said: were then hanged so fast, that there were
sometimes twenty on one gibbet; and upon that he said he could not
wonder enough how it came to pass, that since so few escaped, there were
yet so many thieves left who were still robbing in all places.
Upon this, I, who took the boldness to speak freely before the Cardinal,
said there was no reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of
punishing thieves was neither just in itself, nor good for the public;
for as the severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual;
simple theft not being so great a crime that it ought to cost a man his
life; and no punishment, how severe soever, being able to restrain those
from robbing, who can find out no other way of livelihood; and in this,
said I, not only you in England, but a great part of the world, imitate
some ill masters that are readier to chastise their scholars than to
teach them. There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves,
but it were much better to make such good provisions by which every man
might be put in a method how to live, and so be preserved from the fatal
necessity of stealing, and dying for it.... If you do not find a
remedy to these evils, it is a vain thing to boast of your severity of
punishing theft; which, though it may have the appearance of justice,
yet in itself is neither just nor convenient; for if you suffer your
people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their
infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first
education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but
that you first make thieves, and then punish them?
In confirmation of the statement of Henry the Eighth's Lord Chancellor,
we have the evidence of Harrison, that after these 72,000 executions of
Henry, there were more thieves than ever in the next reign.
Harrison, who wrote in the reign of Elizabeth, says of the "rogues and
vagabonds": "the punishment that is ordained for this kind of people is
very sharp, and yet it cannot restrain them from their gadding."
In that day any one convicted, "on the testimony of two honest and
credible witnesses," of being a "rogue," "he is then immediately
adjudged to be grievously whipped, and burned through the gristle of the
right ear, with a hot iron of the compass of an inch about." Amongst
the "rogues" were included actors, jugglers, fencers, minstrels, and
_tinkers!_
Harrison toasts that our laws against felons were more humane than those
of the Continent. Let us consider the leniency of Elizabeth's day. A
woman who poisoned her husband was burnt alive. Other poisoners were
boiled alive, or scalded to death in "seething water or lead." Heretics
and witches were burnt alive. Murderers were hanged alive in chains.
Harrison adds: "We have use neither of the wheel nor of the bar as in
other countries; but when wilful manslaughter is perpetrated, besides
hanging, the offender hath his right hand commonly stricken off, before
or near 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."