A Finding List: Part 3.

Elizabethan Facts and Historical References

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W-X-Y-Z

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Tactics and dexterity While Bacon’s sense of the presence of physical law in the universe was for his time extraordinarily developed, he seems practically to have acted upon the theory that the moral laws of the world are not inexorable, but rather by tactics and dexterity may be cleverly evaded, as shown by his letter to Robert Cecil on January 1, 1608: “I do esteem whatsoever I have or may have in this world but as trash, in comparison of having the honour and happiness to be a near and well accepted kinsman to so rare and worthy a counsellor, governor, and patriot.” His comment to King James I., on May 31, 1612 takes it further: “My Lord of Salisbury [Robert Cecil] had a good method, if his ends had been upright.” And Dowden in his Shakspere, His Mind and Art, (p. 16) takes it a step higher when saying, “this supremacy was acknowledged by Shakespeare; he reaches to the ultimate truths of human life and character through a supreme and indivisible energy of love, imagination and thought.” And of The Phoenix and Turtle Dove: “The genuineness of the contribution with Shakespeare’s name subscribed is now generally admitted, though no successful attempt has yet been made to explain the allegory. In all probability the occasion and subject of the whole collection, which has so long baffled patient research, will some day be discovered, and Shakespeare’s meaning will be clear. There is not much to be said in favour of the view that the Phoenix shadows forth Queen Elizabeth I., and the Turtle-Dove typifies Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex.” (Gollancz). 1

The dead bleed King James I., in his Daemonology, says, “In a secret murder, if the dead carcass be at any time thereafter handled by the murderer, it will gush out of blood, as if the blood were crying to Heaven for revenge of the murderer;” and the author of a rare work called the Living Librarie, published in 1621, seriously asks, “Who can allege any certain and firm reason why the blood runs out of the wounds of a man murdered, long after the murder committed, if the murderer be brought before the dead body?” Shakespeare alludes to this opinion in Richard III., Act I. sc. 2; and in an old play called Arden of Feversham, published in 1592, one of the characters thus confesses his guilt, “The more I sound his name, the more he bleeds; this blood condemns me, and, in gushing forth, speaks as it falls, and asks me why I did it.”

Tools of Torture

• Knotted Rope, adapted by Thomas Cromwell, and tightened around the head allowing for pressure across the forehead.
• Barnacles that had brakes, with which the lips of ill-disposed horses are stretched, when those horses are being shoed, the wooden parts being placed and drawn tight upon the lips of those to be tortured.
• Burning fat would be used where the prisoner’s boots were filled with fat and then placed on a fire.
• Scavenger’s Daughter violently drew and squeezed the victim. It was invented by Leonard Skeffington during Henry VIII., reign.
• Crucet-hus had the prisoner put in a short, narrow and shallow chest with stones that were pressed; whoever was in the chest had their joints broken.
• Manacles caused intense pain and usually resulted in the loss of the use of the hands for some time afterwards. Its use was first recorded in 1591 at the Tower and was also used at Bridewell and other city prisons.
• Bilboes consisted of iron loops sliding on a bar and secured by a padlock at the end. The lock itself is set on a flat plate, which can be fixed to the floor or walls, preventing the prisoner from moving.

Topcliffe town A parish-town on the river Swale, twenty-four miles from York, was formerly called the “Jordan of England” because Augustin and Paul are said, in the year 620, to have baptized in this river between Topcliffe and Helperby, 10.000 men in one day, besides women and children. Leland calls “Topcliffe an uplandish town, whose praty manor-place stands on a hill about half a mile from the Town on the ripe of Swale.” This was in olden time the chief residence of the Percies, Earls of Northumberland; its ruins are yet visible, and are called “Maiden-bower.” (Nichol). Thomas Percy, the succeeding Earl, in 1569 took up arms againt Queen Elizabeth, and was nearly taken in this house; he was afterwards executed in 1572. In 1646 the Scotch army was quartered here and in the neighbourhood. Charles I., was a prisoner in this house, and a treaty was carried on for the sale of the King between the Scots Commissioners and a Committee appointed by Parliament, while he was kept prisoner. It was agreed that the Parliament should give £100.000 which should be paid at Topcliffe, and the King delivered up, which was performed. (Langdale). 2

Topcliffizare
To him I’ll build an altar and a church,
And offer lukewarm blood of newborn babes. 3

Richard Topcliffe (1532–1604) a landowner and Member of Parliament during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I., was a representative of the ancient family of Topclifle, of Somerby in Lincolnshire. A visitation of that County, made in 1592, informs us that he was the eldest son of Robert Topcliffe of Somerby, by Margaret, one of the daughters of Thomas Lord Borough, 4 that he married Jane, daughter of Sir Edward Willoughby, of Wollaton in Nottinghamshire; and had issue Charles, his son and heir; three sons, successively named John, who probably died infants, and a daughter, Susannah. He was probably the Richard Topcliffe who was admitted student of Gray’s Inn in 1548. 5 It has been assumed that he was the Richard Topcliffe who, after being matriculated as a pensioner of Magdalene College, Cambridge, in November 1565, proceeded B.A. in 1568–69, and commenced M.A. in 1575. 6 He was a cousin to Sir Edmund Brudenell’s wife. In 1572, he was described as “the Queen’s servant.” He represented Beverley in the Parliament, which met on May 8, 1572 and was returned for Old Sarum to the Parliament of October 20, 1586. After the collapse of the northern rebellion he was a suitor for the lands of Richard Norton (1488?–1588) [q.v.] of Norton Conyers, Yorkshire. [See Appendices Topcliffizare for further reference on the topic.]

Torture Was carried out in the Tower in accordance with a warrant usually from the Privy Council that would possibly state some slight kind of torture, such as may not touch the loss of any limb, as by whipping, or to manacles and such torture as is there used and was supervised by the Lieutenant or the Governor of the Tower. Torture chambers were an underground chamber, very dark, with a tall roof supported by wooden posts that was in the basement of the White Tower. All torture, except for the rack performed at Bridewell, was executed at the Tower in the sub-crypt called Little Hell; executions were performed at Tyburn where condemned traitors were hanged, cut down still alive, drawn having their heart and entrails removed and burnt, and quartered. Their bodies were divided into four and displayed as a warning to those contemplating treason. Execution with the axe was for the more important prisoners and inside the Tower to avoid public attention and outcry. [Also see Part III: Tools of Torture; The Use of Torture; Appendices Use of Torture].

Tower of London Has in its time served as palace, prison, fortress, mint and even as a home for lions that were removed in 1834 to the Zoological Gardens. The place was built by the Conqueror in 1078 in order that he might have control over the city, and was used as a palace by all British Kings and Queens until the reign of Charles II. (Owen). 7 Bacon was released from the Tower on June 4, 1621, when his downfall began.

Trundle-bed It was a kind of low moveable couch, generally appropriated to the use of attendants, who, in those days, slept in the same room with their masters for the sake of protection.