“One may imagine what tortures were committed by Richard Topcliffe that was never written down on record.”
— Lochithea

The examination of Father Gerard, 1 April 14, 1597 is preserved in the Public Record Office, Domestic, Eliz., Vol. 262, No. 123. The Commissioners were:

1. Sir Richard Barkley, Lieutenant of the Tower
2. Sir Edward Coke, then Attorney General
3. Thomas Fleming, a Privy Councillor
4. Sir Francis Bacon, afterwards Lord Chancellor
5. William Wade, or Waad, afterwards Lieutenant of the Tower

Father Gerard’s account:
On the third day, immediately after dinner, came my gaoler to me, and with sorrowful mien told me the Lords Commissioners had come, and with them the Queen’s Attorney General, [Coke] and that I must go down to them. I found five men, none of whom had before examined me except Wade, who was there for the purpose of accusing me on all points. The Queen’s Attorney General then took a sheet of paper, and began to write a solemn form of juridical examination.

The Commissioners [extract]:
Being demanded whether he received any letters from the parts beyond the seas or no, confesseth that within these four or five days he received from Antwerp (as he supposeth) letters inclosed and sealed up. He confesseth that he received within this year past other letters from the parts beyond the seas, and two or three of them he confesseth he did read, and saith that those letters contained matter concerning maintenance of scholars beyond sea, but refuseth to declare who sent those letters or by whom the same were brought, and saith that some of those letters were sent from St. Omer.

And being demanded what was the cause that moved him to have escaped out of prison of late, saith that the cause was that he might have more opportunity to have won souls. And being demanded who procured the counterfeit keys for him, by means whereof he should have escaped, refuseth to tell who it was, for that, as he saith, he will not discover anything against any other that may bring them to trouble.

Examined by us,
Ry. Barkeley.
Edw. Coke.
Tho. Felemynge.
Fr. Bacon.
W. Waad. 2

Father Gerard’s account:
They then produced the warrant, which they had for putting me to the torture, and gave it me to read; for it is not allowed in this prison to put anyone to the torture without express warrant, I saw the document was duly signed. Then they began to entreat me not to force them to do what they were loath to do; and told me they were bound not to desist from putting me to the torture day after day, as long as my life lasted, until I gave the information they sought from me.

Then we proceeded to the place appointed for the torture. We went in a sort of solemn procession; the attendants preceding us with lighted candles, because the place was underground and very dark, especially about the entrance. It was a place of immense extent, and in it were ranged divers sorts of racks, and other instruments of torture. Some of these they displayed before me, and told me I should have to taste them every one. Then again they asked me if I was willing to satisfy them on the points on which they had questioned me.

“It is out of my power to satisfy you,” I answered; and throwing myself on my knees, I said a prayer or two. Then they led me to a great upright beam, or pillar of wood, which was one of the supports of this vast crypt. At the summit of this column were fixed certain iron staples for supporting weights. Here they placed on my wrists manacles of iron, and ordered me to mount upon two or three wicker steps; I then raising my arms, they inserted an iron bar through the rings of the manacles, and then through the staples in the pillar, putting a pin through the bar so that it could not slip. My arms being thus fixed above my head, they withdrew those wicker steps I spoke of, one by one, from beneath my feet, so that I hung by my hands and arms. The tips of my toes, however, still touched the ground; so they dug away the ground beneath, as they could not raise me higher, for they had suspended me from the topmost staples in the pillar.

Thus hanging by my wrists, I began to pray, while those gentlemen standing round asked me again if I was willing to confess. I replied, “I neither can nor will.” But so terrible a pain began to oppress me, that I was scarce able to speak the words. The worst pain was in my breast and belly, my arms and hands. It seemed to me that all the blood in my body rushed up my arms into my hands; and I was under the impression at the time that the blood actually burst forth from my fingers and at the back of my hands. This was, however, a mistake; the sensation was caused by the swelling of the flesh over the iron that bound it.

I felt now such intense pain (and the effect was probably heightened by an interior temptation), that it seemed to me impossible to continue enduring it. It did not, however, go so far as to make me feel any inclination or real disposition to give the information they wanted. For as the eyes of our merciful Lord had seen my imperfection, He did not suffer me to be tempted above what I was able, but with the temptation made also a way of escape.

Hereupon those gentlemen, seeing that I gave them no further answer, departed to the Lieutenant’s [Barkley] house; and there they waited, sending now and then to know how things were going on in the crypt. There were left with me three or four strong men, to superintend my torture. My gaoler also remained, I fully believe out of kindness to me, and kept wiping away with a handkerchief the sweat that ran down from my face the whole time, as, indeed, it did from my whole body. So far, indeed, he did me a service; but by his words, he rather added to my distress, for he never stopped beseeching and entreating me to have pity on myself, and tell these gentlemen what they wanted to know; and so many human reasons did he allege, that I verily believe he was either instigated directly by the devil under pretence of affection for me, or had been left there purposely by the persecutors to influence me by his show of sympathy. Yet I could not prevail with him to be silent. The others also who stood by said: “He will be a cripple all his life, if he lives through it; but he will have to be tortured daily till he confesses.” But I kept praying in a low voice, and continually uttered the holy names of Jesus and Mary.

I had hung in this way till after one of the clock, as I think, when I fainted. How long I was in the faint I know not; perhaps not long; for the men who stood by lifted me up, or replaced those wicker steps under my feet, until I came to myself; and immediately they heard me praying, they let me down again. This they did over and over again when the faint came on, eight or nine times before five of the clock.

Somewhat before five came Wade again, and drawing near said, “Will you yet obey the commands of the Queen and the Council?” “No,” said I, “what you ask is unlawful, therefore I will never do it.” “At least then,” said Wade, “say that you would like to speak to Secretary Cecil.” “I have nothing to say to him,” I replied, “more than I have said already; and if I were to ask to speak to him, scandal would be caused, for people would imagine that I was yielding at length, and wished to give information.” Upon this Wade suddenly turned his back in a rage, and departed, saying in a loud and angry tone, “Hang there, then, till you rot!” So he went away, and I think all the Commissioners then left the Tower; for at five of the clock the great bell of the Tower sounds, as a signal for all to leave who do not wish to be locked in all night.

Soon after this they took me down from my cross, and though neither foot nor leg was injured, yet I could hardly stand. I scarcely tasted anything, but laid myself on my bed, and remained quiet there till the next morning.

Early next morning, however, soon after the Tower gates were opened, my gaoler came up to the cell and told me that Master Wade had arrived, and that I must go down to him. I went down, therefore, that time in a sort of cloak with wide sleeves, for my hands were so swollen that they would not have passed through ordinary sleeves. After further questioning, Wade insisted “It would be better for you if you did confess,” and thereupon he summoned from the next room a gentleman who had been there waiting, a tall and commanding figure, whom he called the Superintendent of Torture. Wade said, “In the name of the Queen, and of the Lords of her Council, I deliver this man into your hands. You are to rack him twice today and twice daily until such time as he chooses to confess.” The officer then took charge of me, and Wade departed.

Thereupon we descended with the same solemnity as before into the place appointed for torture, and again they put the manacles on the same part of my arms as before; indeed, they could not be put on in any other part, for the flesh had so risen on both sides that there were two hills of flesh with a valley between, and the manacles would not meet anywhere but in the valley. Here then were they put on, not without causing me much pain. Our good Lord, however, helped me, and I cheerfully offered Him my hands and my heart. So I was hung up again as I before described; and in my hands I felt a great deal more pain than on the previous day, but not so much in my breast and belly, perhaps because this day I had eaten nothing.

While thus hanging I prayed, sometimes silently, sometimes aloud, recommending myself to our Lord Jesus and His Blessed Mother. I hung much longer this time without fainting, but at length I fainted so thoroughly that they could not bring me to, and they thought that I either was dead or soon would be. So they called the Lieutenant, but how long he was there I know not, nor how long I remained in the faint. When I came round, however, I found myself no longer hanging by my hands, but supported sitting on a bench, with many people round me, who had opened my teeth with some iron instrument, and were pouring warm water down my throat. Now when the Lieutenant [Barkley] saw I could speak, he said: “Do you not see how much better it is for you to yield to the wishes of the Queen than to lose your life this way?” Upon refusing, I was suspended, therefore, a third time, and hung there in very great pain of body, but not without great consolation of soul, which seemed to me to arise from the prospect of dying.

After awhile the Lieutenant, [Barkley] seeing that he made no way with me by continuing the torture, or because the dinner-hour was near at hand, or perhaps through a natural feeling of compassion, ordered me to be taken down. I think I hung not quite an hour this third time. I am rather inclined to think that he released me from compassion; for, sometime after my escape, a gentleman of quality told me he had it from Sir Richard Barkley himself (who was this very Lieutenant of whom I speak), that he had of his own accord resigned the office he held, because he would no longer be an instrument in torturing innocent men so cruelly. And, in fact, he gave up the post after holding it but three or four months, and another Knight was appointed in his stead, in whose time it was that I made my escape.

The proclamation for the apprehension of Gerard gives a description of him. To this we may add the description 3 of Father Gerard given by the ruffian Topcliffe, whose spelling is sufficiently “kewryoos” to be worth retaining. It is dated in the Calendar of the Record Office, 1583, but this is evidently erroneous, as Father Gerard escaped from the Tower in 1597:

John Gerrard the Jesuit, priest that escaped out of the Tower and Richard Blount a Seamry priest of estimation, and a third priest intend to pass our rather after then with the low imbass at Dover Rye or thereabouts upon that coast. They have provided for a Culler to pass without suspicion a Scale like a Scale of the Counsel table to blear the Eye of searchers and officers. Therefore it were not amiss that some order were left with my Lord Trasorr that he give order that the Ires do pass under such a Scale from your Lords, but under & with some privy mark upon the Ires besides the scale. Then any passenger that carry the Ire without such a privy mark is fit to be stayed for a time until he be known.

John Gerrard, is a Jesuit, is about thirty years old of a good stature somewhat higher than Sir Tho. Layton and upright in his pace and countenance somewhat staring in his look or eyes, curled hair by nature and blackish and not apt to have much hair of his beard. I think his nose somewhat wide and turning up, blubard lips turning outwards, especially the over lips most upwards toward the nose Kewryoos in speech, if he do now continue his custom. And in his speech he flourreth and smiles much and a faltering or Lisping, or doubling of his tongue in his speech.

Your honours as you will command me,
Ric Topclyyfe alias
Endorsed: Concerning Gerrard the Priest and others.

Apart from Francis Bacon’s participation in Father Gerard’s examination, he is also found to have been present at the examination of two servants of Mrs. Vaux. Among the papers of Sir Edward Phelips, preserved at Montacute House, Somersetshire, of which a copy has been deposited in the Public Record Office by the Historical MSS. Commission, we have the examinations of two of Mrs. Vaux’ servants, one of whom is the ‘Ric. the butler’ of whom the examination of Francis Swetnam, servant to Mrs. Elizabeth Vaux, and served her in the bake house, taken the third of December, 1605. The mark of the examiners are: Francis Q. Swetnam, Jul. Caesar, Rogr. Wilbraham, E. Phelipps, Jo. Croke, George More, Walter Cope, Fr. Bacon, John Doddridge. (folio 25). 4

Camden, who has been described as the Strabo of England, is charged by Birch with suppressing and colouring the events of Elizabeth I’s reign; but Camden’s high reputation as a historian requires no vindication, and if Camden is not always correct, he certainly has not made any intentional misrepresentation of facts. The use of torture, for the discovery of religious and political opinions, had its origin in a despotic design to enslave the minds of the people. The use of the rack was extensively practised by the chief powers of Europe in the sixteenth century. Henry VIII., and the Protector Somerset, had faith in the rack. Queen Mary set aside this instrument of torture and many other modes of punishment only known to the Tower authorities. It would, however, have been well for her fame as a woman, and as a sovereign, if Mary Tudor had also protested against the fanatical and cruel ‘stake,’ whose use has consigned everyone in connection with it to the ban of execration. It is doubtful, however, if the men who sat in the Parliaments of Henry VIII., and Edward VI., would assent to a repeal of the statute by which people were sent to the stake. The reformers high and low of the days of the Boy King were in favour of the stake as a punishment for those who dissented from the opinions they chose to express. The records of the times attest this fact clearly.
In the history of torture in the Tower during the reign of Elizabeth I., Edward Walgrave, a member of an ancient family, who sustained Queen Mary’s cause, and subsequently became a member of her household, was marked out for persecution by Elizabeth’s Council. He refused to take the Oath of Supremacy to the new sovereign, and was immediately committed to the Tower, where, according to Fitzigram, an official of the time, he remained for six months on a wretched filthy bed, half starved, and no medical attendant to inquire into his health. Nevertheless, he providentially recovered, when preparations were again renewed forms torture. He was examined before the law officers and government spies. The result of an inquiry was an order to be racked, which was carried out with barbarous cruelty. Four months subsequently he was once more racked.

Like other prisoners Walgrave suddenly disappeared, but whether he escaped, or died from his sufferings, or fell by the dagger of a hired assassin, and was buried privately by night, it is impossible to ascertain. Several notable prisoners were found murdered in the Tower during Elizabeth I’s reign; and others were never heard of after they entered the ill-omened gate. The officials were always “open to a bribe.” At a later period it was believed that Walgrave escaped from the Tower, and having reached Lisbon, he studied medicine, and became a physician. About the same period there resided in Venice a priest physician named Talbot, who escaped from the Tower. Many of the exiled priests studied the medical profession. One remarkable man can be referred to: Father Borde, of the Carthusian community. Sir Francis Inglefield, another of Queen Mary’s household, fled to Spain a few weeks after the death of his royal mistress. He was about to be committed to the Tower, and narrowly escaped in the costume of a Flemish musician, and actually performed at the house of Sir Nicholas Bacon, unsuspected by his enemies. Elizabeth marked out for vengeance the unoffending domestics of her late sister. Some of those poor women were reduced to utter poverty.

Five years later King Philip provided liberally for the wants of Queen Mary’s servants. Mary left ample funds with Elizabeth to discharge her domestic debts; and the new Queen pledged her honour for the fulfilment of every request named in the will of the deceased monarch. How Elizabeth acted in this matter is not disputed by some partisan writers; whilst others, with a lofty disregard for such a small matter as the character of a Queen in affairs of common honesty, are silent upon the subject.

Elizabeth, who was always moralising, revived the rack and other barbarous modes of infliction, 5 which brand her name as a woman and a monarch with odious notoriety. In fact, if we judge Elizabeth by the records of her actions, she was, with the exception of her father, the most despotic and the cruelest monarch that ever reigned over the English realm. “There is something peculiarly revolting in the fact,” observes the historian of the Queens of England, “that Elizabeth should have been so callous to all the tender sympathies of the female character as to enjoin the application of torture to extort confession against the unfortunate servants of the Duke of Norfolk.” Here is the Queen’s order respecting Bannister and Baker:

“If they shall not seem to you to confess their knowledge, then, we warrant you to cause them both, or either of them, to be brought to the rack, and first to move them with, fear thereof, to deal plainly in their answers; and if that shall not move them, then you shall cause them to be put to the rack, and to find the taste thereof, until they shall deal more plainly, or till you shall think meet.”

Two days subsequent to the date of the above warrant, Sir Thomas Smythe writes to Burghley in these words:

“I suppose we have gotten so much as this time is likely to be had; yet, tomorrow do we intend to bring a couple of them to the rack, not in any hope to getting anything out of them by the fear or pain, but because it is so earnestly commended to us.”

Some writers state that this was the only case of racking in Elizabeth I’s reign; it is also alleged that the Queen knew nothing of it. Such assertions are contradicted by the State Papers of the period, and many other reliable documents. In fact, the rolls of the Tower term with records of the cruelties that were inflicted in Elizabeth I’s time.

Persons were confined in cellars twenty feet below the surface of the earth; others in little case, where they had neither room to stand upright, nor to lie down at full length. Men were placed in Skivington’s irons till they fainted away. And again, an iron instrument was used, by which head, feet, and hands were bound together. Many were fettered and bolted in this manner; while others, still more unfortunate, had their hands forced into iron gloves that were much too small, or were subjected to the excruciating torture of the boot. These cruelties were suggested by Sir Thomas Smythe and Walsingham, with the full approval of her Highness the Queen.

Sir John Harrington follows in the track of Hatton, when he describes Elizabeth as humane, gentle, and kind a model woman. At other times Harrington spoke in no nattering tones of his royal godmother. The despatches of the foreign Ambassadors draw a terrible picture of the poor victims when carried from the rack, oftentimes sounded by Courtiers, who came to see with their own eyes, and to report to the Queen how the traitors liked the taste they received for a beginning. On one occasion, Elizabeth asked Burghley,

“if some more terrible mode of torture or death could be devised for those who refused to deny her supremacy or plotted against her life.”

The astute Minister assured his Royal Mistress that the law was strong enough to have the required vengeance; he would, however, see that the gaolers did their duty promptly. No one could suspect that Burghley had the smallest sympathy with the people who were racked, beheaded, and quartered.

At a later period of her life, in 1601, Elizabeth seemed to rejoice at beholding the mangled remains of her victims. Holding the French envoy, De Bironif, by the hand, she pointed to a number of heads that were planted on the walls of the Tower, and next conducted him to London Bridge to witness a similar exhibition, and told him that it was the way they punished traitors in England. Not satisfied with calling his attention to this ghastly scene, she coolly recounted to him the names of all her subjects whom she had brought to the block, and among those she mentioned the Earl of Essex, whom in her old age, she ruined by her ungenial favour. Elizabeth could not cross London Bridge without recognising the features of good and loyal men whom she had consigned to the headsman; the quartering of bodies presented another revolting sight in many parts of London.

Henzer, and other foreigners, have commented on such scenes with indignation. Henzer, who is a reliable authority, affirms that he counted on London Bridge no less than three hundred heads of persons who had been executed for high treason.

“This was melancholy evidence, that Elizabeth in her later years, had flung the dove from her sceptre, and exchanged the harbinger of peace for the sword of vengeance.” (Strickland)

Bartoli describes the machines of torture:

“The rack was a large open frame of oak, raised three feet from the ground. The prisoner was laid under it on his back, on the floor; his wrists and ankles were attached by cords to two rollers at the ends of the frame; these were moved by levers in opposite directions till the body rose to a level with the frame. Questions were then put, and, if the answers did not prove satisfactory, the sufferer was stretched more and more, till the bones started from their sockets.”

This description is corroborated by the records of the Tower. And the Scavenger’s Daughter was a broad hoop of iron, consisting of two parts fastened to each other by a hinge. The accused person was made to kneel on the pavement, and to contract himself into as small a compass as he could. Then the executioner, kneeling on his shoulders, and having introduced the hoop under his legs, compressed the victim close together, till he was able to fasten the extremities over the small of the back. The time allotted to this kind of torture was an hour and a half, during which time it commonly happened that from excess of compression, the blood spouted from the nostrils; sometimes, it was believed, from the extremities of the hands and feet. Iron gauntlets, which could be compressed by the aid of a screw, served to hold the wrists and to suspend the prisoner in the air from two distant points of a beam. The victim was then placed on three pieces of wood piled one on another, which, when his hands had been made fast, were successively withdrawn from under his feet. From Kishton’s Diary, it will show the condition of the Tower under what many historians style the mild government of Elizabeth. 6

December 5, 1580: Several Catholics or better known as Papists, were brought from different prisons.

December 10: Thomas Cottann and Luke Kirbye, priests, suffered compression in the Scavenger’s Daughter for more than an hour. Cottann bled profusely from the nose.

December 15: Ralph Sherwin and Robert Johnson, priests, were sorely tortured on the rack.

December 16: Ralph Sherwin was tortured a second time on the rack.

December 31: John Hart, after being chained five days to the floor, was led to the rack. Also Henry Orton, a ‘fine gentleman.’

In January 3, 1581 Christopher Thompson, an aged priest, was brought to the Tower and racked the same day and on January 14, Nicholas Roscaroe, a boy of sixteen years of age, was barbarously racked. A number of persons were racked whose names are now unknown. Chaloner states that several women were racked, or in some way tortured. Pomeroy and Farlow affirm that two Papist women and a young maiden of the Anabaptist sect suffered death for their religious opinions.

Elizabeth entertained a deep hatred of the Anabaptists, who gave her much trouble. This sect had the merit of immense courage and dogged perseverance; but they were selfish, intolerant, and dishonest. The office of jurors under the rule of Elizabeth became a dangerous public duty at least to men who had any semblance of honesty, or regard for the rights of their fellow men. Intimidation, fine, and imprisonment, were of frequent occurrence if they refused to find a verdict for the Crown. Corrupt and time-serving as the judges and juries were under the Tudor dynasty, they felt the degradation of their position most in the reign of Elizabeth when royal instructions were handed to them, in many cases, the day preceding trials which partook of a political or sectarian character.

In England the rack became a favourite device, and was employed with frequent as well as wanton barbarity. Many readers will scarcely credit the fact that the Queen

“ordered the Bishops to use torture to the Papists in order to discover sphere or when they attended Mass.”

In 1578, Dr. Whitgift, Francis Bacon’s tutor at Trinity College between 1573 and 1575, then Bishop of Worcester, was commanded to use torture to force answers from Catholics suspected of having heard Mass. Whitgift was quite capable of persecuting, without the royal command. On one occasion he requested Burghley to pack a

“certain priest till he gave the names of those who went to Confession to him;”

but Burghley spurned the request with indignation. He later became the famous Archbishop of that name. And it was Whitgift who, on November 28, 1582 as Bishop of Worcester, insisted upon a bond against impediments to safeguard himself by reason of pre-contract or consanguinity which might imperil the marriage of ‘William Shagspere and Anna Hathaway of Stratford.’ He clearly had some reason to make him feel uneasy, having on the previous day authorised the marriage between ‘William Shaxpere and Anna Whatley of Temple Grafton. Two farmers of Shottery Sandells and Richardson were the sole sureties in the bond and were friends of Anna Hathaway’s father. Lee says that they

“doubtless secured the deed on their own initiative so that Shakespeare (sic) might have small opportunity of evading a step which his intimacy with their friend’s daughter had rendered essential to her reputation. Within six months of the marriage bond in May, 1583 a daughter was born.”

And it was Whitgift who, in 1593, as Archbishop of Canterbury, authorised the printing of Venus and Adonis most surprising act of condescension on the part of a strict Churchman, and only understandable if he wanted to help an ex-pupil. Books less licentious than Venus and Adonis were either stayed or, after publication, ordered to be collected and burnt. 7 Such was the case with Hall’s Satires which, the Archbishop decreed, should be presently brought to the Bishop of London to be burnt. Hall later became Bishop of Norwich. (Wigston). 8

Robert Johnson, a Shropshire priest, was racked three times at the Tower. He was subsequently hanged, drawn, and quartered. William Filbie, an Oxford cleric, was six months pinioned with heavy iron manacles in the Tower. He was twice racked, and fainted under the operation three times; when informed that he was to be led to execution in three hours, he lifted up his withered hands to heaven, exclaiming aloud, ‘Thanks to my good Redeemer, that my sufferings are so near the end.’ Filbie, like Campion, was an eminent Greek and Latin scholar. He was also beloved and esteemed at Oxford for his amiable and virtuous character. He was only twenty-nine years of age. His appearance on the scaffold, and his modest and forgiving address to the populace, excited the sympathy of many amongst a crowd who had become callous and inhuman from the scenes of blood they witnessed almost daily. Indeed, the barbarous quarterings and hanging up of the remains of many good and virtuous men, whose greatest offence was that of claiming liberty of conscience, had a marked effect upon the lower classes, who were beginning to look upon murder almost as a venial offence. Such was the result of Walsingham’s moral teaching.

Margaret Clitheroe, Margaret Wood was put to a horrible death for ‘liberty of conscience;’ and in 1601 Anne Syme suffered death from Elizabeth I’s Council, for her religious opinions. Four other Catholic ladies were condemned to death at different times for not renouncing their religion; and a nun, named Teresea Northcoat, was imprisoned for thirty years, till released by death. I think the lady just alluded to belonged to the Benedictine order, whose sufferings were intense; added to starvation they received brutal treatment.

In De Burgh’s Hibernia Dominicana (p. 559) an account is given of the treachery which Elizabeth I., exercised in 1602 one year before her death towards a shipful of Benedictines, Cistercians and Dominicans, forty-two in number, who had been induced to accept a safe conduct out of Ireland, were shipwrecked off Scattery Island, near the mouth of the Shannon. It appears that no one lived to tell the tragic story. In 1591, Mrs. Wells received sentence of death, and died in prison. James the First released and pardoned six ladies who were confined for their religious opinions at the death of Elizabeth.

So much for Hatton’s ‘facts,’ when confronted with the records of the times. The majority of our English historians are silent as to those dark deeds of Elizabeth and her Council. The reasons are obvious. The State Papers and records of those despotic times are now at hand, and it is impossible to present false portraits of Elizabeth and her Ministers any longer. The reader is aware of what Frazer Tytler stated many years back as to the history of Britain.

“The greatest historical heresy that a writer can commit in the eyes of many English readers is to tell them the truth.”

This feeling is now, however, vanishing from historical relations, and the English reader will accept as correct portraits, what would have been received forty years ago with a storm of indignation as a false impeachment of ‘Bluff King Hal,’ or ‘Good Queen Bess.’ Yet not much changed in King James’ times. Here are just a few extracts from personal correspondence of the times:

“One Legat, an Arian, being sentenced and excommunicated in the Consistory, was delivered over to the sheriffs, but we hear not yet of his execution. He hath been long forborne and mildly dealt withal, but continuing obstinate, and holding thirteen heretical positions against the divinity of our Saviour Christ, the King would have the Bishops proceed against him; and though some lawyers are of opinion that we have no law to execute heretics, and that whatsoever was done in that kind in Elizabeth I., time was done de facto, and not de jure; yet he will adventure to burn him with a good conscience.” [Birch: “The goodness of the King’s conscience is not so clear to us.”] 9

“Two notable causes possessed the Star Chamber almost all this long term. The first was followed by Sir John Levison against one Shepherd and his confederates, for the counterfeiting a deed of Sir Walter Levison’s lands, which was the cause so much bolstered up by the last Lord Treasurer. Shepherd was condemned to stand in the pillory and lose his ears, be marked in the face, his nose slit, and I know not what else. Sir Anthony Ashley had likewise the honour of the day one Hannings and another being adjudged to the like punishment, which was executed the next day. But one Hampton, an old, cunning companion, being in the same condemnation, absents himself, and cannot be heard of Sir James Creighton was adjudged to imprisonment during the King’s pleasure, and to pay a thousand pounds. There was some mention likewise to have him banished, but my Lord of Exeter thought it needless, because, unless he had a face of brass, he made no question he would banish himself.” 10

“On Wednesday, Legat the Arian was burnt in Smithfield, very early; he said little, but died obstinately. There was another fanatical felon condemned for blasphemous heresies, and sent down to Litchfield, where he was to be burnt as on Friday last, if he have not recanted.” 11

“There was one Ogilvie, a Jesuit, lately executed at Glasgow, in Scotland, for the same or such like opinions.” [Birch: “These bold spirits were showing themselves with an ominous frequency and audacity, notwithstanding torture, “by express command of the King,” and death, entirely by his Majesty’s influence over the judges, were employed to silence them.” 12

“There was a seminary priest hanged at Tyburn on Monday that was banished before, and, being taken again, offered to break prison. That morning early, there was a joiner’s wife burnt in Smithfield for killing her husband. If the case were no otherwise than I can learn it, she had summum jus; for her husband having brawled and beaten her, she took up a chisel, or some such other instrument, and flung at him, which cut him into the belly, whereof he died. Another desperate woman, coming from her execution, cut her child’s throat, alleging no other reason for it, but that she doubted she should not have means to keep it. The same day likewise, another woman poisoned her husband, about Aldgate. And divers such like foul facts are committed daily, which are ill signs of a very depraved age, and that judgments hang over us.” 13