to have both hands of both drinkers employed, lest while the pledger pledged his love and fidelity to the pledgee, the pledgee take that opportunity to slip a dirk into him!
The Duke of Norfolk’s Narrow Escape.
Had Henry VIII survived a few hours longer, his order for the Duke’s execution would have been carried into effect. “But news being carried to the Tower that the King himself had expired that night, the lieutenant deferred obeying the warrant; and it was not thought advisable by the Council to begin a new reign by the death of the greatest nobleman in the kingdom, who had been condemned by a sentence so unjust and tyrannical.”
Hume’s “History of England,” vol. iii, p. 307.
He refers to the order of baronets, or baronettes — the barones minores, as distinct from the parliamentary barons – not, it need hardly be said, to the baronets of later creation.
The lords of Kingsale, descendants of De Courcy, still enjoy this curious privilege.
Hume.
Hume.
The Whipping-Boy.
James I and Charles II had whipping-boys, when they were little fellows, to take their punishment for them when they fell short in their lessons; so I have ventured to furnish my small prince with one, for my own purposes.
Note 13. (Notes to Chapter XV.)
Character of Hertford.
The young King discovered an extreme attachment to his uncle, who was, in the main, a man of moderation and probity.
Hume’s “History of England,” vol. iii, p. 324.
But if he [the Protector] gave offence by assuming too much state, he deserves great praise on account of the laws passed this session, by which the rigour of former statutes was much mitigated, and some security given to the freedom of the constitution. All laws were repealed which extended the crime of treason beyond the statute of the twenty-fifth of Edward III; all laws enacted during the late reign extending the crime of felony; all the former laws against Lollardy or heresy, together with the statute of the Six Articles. None were to be accused for words, but within a month after they were spoken. By these repeals several of the most rigorous laws that ever had passed in England were annulled; and some dawn, both of civil and religious liberty, began to appear to the people. A repeal also passed of that law, the destruction of all laws, by which the King’s proclamation was made of equal force with a statute.
Ibid. vol. iii. p. 339.
Boiling to Death.
In the reign of Henry VIII poisoners were, by Act of Parliament, condemned to be boiled to death. This Act was repealed in the following reign.
In Germany, even in the seventeenth century, this horrible punishment was inflicted on coiners and counterfeiters. Taylor, the Water Poet, describes an execution he witnessed in Hamburg in 1616. The judgment pronounced against a coiner of false money was that he should “be boiled to death in oil; not thrown into the vessel at once, but with a pulley or rope to be hanged under the armpits, and then let down into the oil by degrees; first the feet, and next the legs, and so to boil his flesh from his bones alive.”
Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull’s “Blue Laws, True and False,” p. 13.
The Famous Stocking Case.
A woman and her daughter, nine years old, were hanged in Huntingdon for selling their souls to the devil, and raising a storm by pulling off their stockings!
Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull’s “Blue Laws, True and False,” p. 20.
Leigh Hunt’s “The Town,” p. 408, quotation from an early tourist.
From “The English Rogue.” London, 1665.
Canting terms for various kinds of thieves, beggars and vagabonds, and their female companions.
Enslaving.
So young a King and so ignorant a peasant were likely to make mistakes; and this is an instance in point. This peasant was suffering from this law by anticipation; the King was venting his indignation against a law which was not yet in existence; for this hideous statute was to have birth in this little King’s own reign. However, we know, from the humanity of his character, that it could never have been suggested by him.
From “The English Rogue.” London, 1665.
Note 19. (Notes to Chapter XXIII.)
Death for Trifling Larcenies.
When Connecticut and New Haven were framing their first codes, larceny above the value of twelve pence was a capital crime in England – as it had been since the time of Henry I.
Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull’s “Blue Laws, True and False,” p. 17.
The curious old book called The English Rogue makes the limit thirteen pence ha’penny: death being the portion of any who steal a thing “above
