Bygone Punishments Part 14

1731.--Nov. 6. Paid for the loan of two white Sheets 6

1732.--Oct. 8. Pd. for the loan of 7 sheets for penances 1 9

1735.--Nov. 1. Pd. for a sheet that ---- had to do penance in 1 0

1736.--Sep. 27. Pd. for two sheets ye women did penans in 8

1736.--Oct. 10. Pd. for a sheet for Stringer to do penance in 4

1737.--June 23. Pd. for a sheet for Eliza Redhead penance 4

1750.--Dec. 26. To Priestly for a sheet & attending a woman's penance 5 0

"On February 27th, 1815," says Mr. John W. Walker, "William Hepworth, a shoemaker, did penance in the Parish Church for defaming the character of an old woman named Elizabeth Blacketer. They both lived in c.o.c.k and Swan Yard, Westgate, and the suit was carried on by one George Robinson, an attorney, out of spite to the cobbler."

"On Sunday, August 25th, 1850, a penance was performed in the Parish Church, by sentence of the Ecclesiastical Court, on a person who had defamed the character of a lady in Wakefield. A recantation was repeated by the penitent after the Vicar, and then signed by the interested parties."[40]

The historian of Cleveland, Mr. George Markham Tweddell, furnishes us with a copy of a doc.u.ment enjoining penance to be performed in 1766, by James Beadnell, of Stokesley, in the diocese of York, tailor: "The said James Beadnell shall be present in the Parish Church of Stokesley, aforesaid, upon Sunday, being the fifth, twelfth, and nineteenth day of January instant, in the time of Divine service, between the hours of ten and eleven in the forenoon of the same day, in the presence of the whole congregation then a.s.sembled, being barehead, barefoot, and barelegged, having a white sheet wrapped about him from the shoulder to the feet, and a white wand in his hand, where, immediately after the reading of the Gospel, he shall stand upon some form or seat, before the pulpit or place where the minister readeth prayers, and say after him as forthwith: 'Whereas, I, good people, forgetting my duty to Almighty G.o.d, have committed the detestable sin of adultery with Ann Andrewes, and thereby have provoked the heavy wrath of G.o.d against me to the great danger of my soul and evil example of others. I do earnestly repent, and am heartily sorry for the same, desiring Almighty G.o.d, for the merits of Jesus Christ, to forgive me both this and all other my offences, and also ever hereafter so to a.s.sist me with His Holy Spirit, that I never fall into the like offence again; and for that end and purpose, I desire you all here present to pray for me, saying, "Our Father, which art in heaven," and so forth.'"

Towards the close of the last century, it was the practice of women doing penance at Poulton Church, Lancashire, to pa.s.s along the aisles barefooted, clothed in a white sheet, and having in each hand a lighted candle. The last time the ceremony was performed, we are told, the cries of the poor girl melted the heart of the people, and the well-disposed raised a clamour against it, and caused the practice to be discontinued.

The Rev. Thomas Jackson, the popular Wesleyan minister, was born at Sancton, a village on the Yorkshire Wolds, in 1783. Writing of his earlier years spent in his native village, he describes two cases of public penance which he witnessed. "A farmer's son," says Mr. Jackson, "the father of an illegitimate child, came into church at the time of divine service, on the Lord's day, covered with a sheet, having a white wand in his hand; he walked barefoot up the aisle, stood over against the desk where the prayers were read, and then repeated a confession at the dictation of the clergyman; after which he walked out of the church. The other case was that of a young woman,

'Who bore unhusbanded a mother's name.'

She also came into the church barefoot, covered with a sheet, bearing a white wand, and went through the same ceremony. She had one advantage which the young man had not. Her long hair so completely covered her face that not a feature could be seen. In a large town, few persons would have known who she was, but in a small village every one is known, and no public delinquent can escape observation, and the censure of busy tongues. These appear to have been the last cases of the kind that occurred at Sancton. The sin was perpetuated, but the penalty ceased; my father observed that the rich offenders evaded the law, and then the authorities could not for shame continue to inflict its penalty upon the labouring cla.s.ses."[41]

In the month of April, 1849, penance was performed at Ditton Church, Cambridgeshire.

The Church of East Clevedon, Somersetshire, on July 30th, 1882, was the scene of a man performing penance in public, and the act attracted much attention in the newspapers of the time.

FOOTNOTES:

[40] Walker's "History of Wakefield Cathedral."

[41] Rev. Thomas Jackson's "Recollections of my own Life and Times,"

1873.

The Repentance Stool.

The records of church-life in Scotland, in bygone times, contain many allusions to the repentance stool. A very good specimen of this old-time relic may be seen in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries, at Edinburgh. It is from the church of Old Greyfriars, of Edinburgh. In the same museum is a sackcloth, or gown of repentance, formerly used at the parish church of West Calder.

Persons guilty of adultery were frequently placed on the repentance stool, and rebuked before the congregation a.s.sembled for public worship.

The ordeal was a most trying one. Severe laws have been pa.s.sed in Scotland to check adultery. "In the First Book of Discipline," says the Rev. Charles Rogers, LL.D., "the Reformers demanded that adulterers should be put to death. Their desire was not fully complied with, but in 1563 Parliament enacted that 'notour adulterers'--meaning those of whose illicit connection a child had been born--should be executed." Dr.

Rogers and other authorities a.s.sert that the penalty was occasionally inflicted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: REPENTANCE STOOL, FROM OLD GREYFRIARS, EDINBURGH.]

Paul Methven, minister at Jedburgh, in the year 1563, admitted that he had been guilty of adultery. The General a.s.sembly conferred with the Lords of the Council respecting his conduct. Three years later, we are told, that he was "permitted to prostrate himself on the floor of the a.s.sembly, and with weeping and howling to entreat for pardon." His sentence was as follows: "That in Edinburgh, as the capital, in Dundee, as his native town, and in Jedburgh, the scene of his ministrations, he should stand in sackcloth at the church door, also on the repentance stool, and for two Sundays in each place."

A man, on his own confession, was tried for adultery at the Presbytery of Paisley, on November 16th, 1626, and directed to "stand and abyde six Sabbaths barefooted and barelegged at the kirk-door of Paisley between the second and third bell-ringing, and thereafter to goe to the place of public repentance during the said s.p.a.ce of six Sabbaths."

At Stow, in 1627, for a similar crime, a man was condemned to "sittin'

eighteen dyetts" upon the stool of repentance. Particulars of many cases similar to the foregoing may be found in the pages of "Social Life in Scotland," by the Rev. Charles Rogers, in "Old Church Life in Scotland,"

by the Rev. Andrew Edgar, and in other works.

Notes bearing on this subject sometimes find their way into the newspapers, and a couple of paragraphs from the _Liverpool Mercury_ may be quoted. On November 18th, 1876, it was stated that "in a church in the Black Isle, Ross-shire, on a recent Sunday, a woman who had been guilty of transgressing the seventh commandment was condemned to the 'cutty-stool,' and sat during the whole service with a black shawl thrown over her head." A note in the issue for 22nd February, 1884, says that "one of the ringleaders in the Sabbatarian riots at Strome Ferry, in June last, was recently publicly rebuked and admonished on the 'cutty-stool,' in the Free Church, Lochcarron, for an offence against the moral code, which, according to Free Church discipline in the Highlands, could not be expiated in any other way."

The Ducking-Stool.

Scolding women in the olden times were treated as offenders against the public peace, and for their transgressions were subjected to several cruel modes of punishment. The Corporations of towns during the Middle Ages made their own regulations for punishing persons guilty of crimes which were not rendered penal by the laws of the land. The punishments for correcting scolds differed greatly in various parts of the country.

It is clear, from a careful study of the history of mediaeval times, that virtue and amiability amongst the middle and lower cla.s.ses, generally speaking, did not prevail. The free use of the tongue gave rise to riots and feuds to an extent which it is difficult for us to realise at the present day. A strong feeling against scolding women came down to a late period. Readers of Boswell's "Life of Johnson" will remember how the Doctor, in reply to a remark made by a celebrated Quaker lady, Mrs.

Knowles, observed: "Madam, we have different modes of restraining evil--stocks for men, a ducking-stool for women, and a pound for beasts."

The cucking-stool in the early history of England must not be confounded with the ducking-stool. They were two distinct machines. It appears, from a record in the "Domesday Book," that as far back as the days of Edward the Confessor, any man or woman detected giving false measure in the city of Chester was fined four shillings; and for brewing bad ale, was placed in the _cathedra stercoris_. It was a degrading mode of chastis.e.m.e.nt, the culprits being seated in the chair at their own doors or in some public place. At Leicester, in 1467, the local authorities directed "scolds to be punished by the mayor on a cuck-stool before their own doors, and then carried to the four gates of the town."

According to Borlase's "Natural History of Cornwall," in that part of the country the cucking-stool was used "as a seat of infamy, where strumpets and scolds, with bare feet and head, were condemned to abide the derision of those that pa.s.sed by, for such time as the bailiffs of the manors, which had the privilege of such jurisdiction, did approve."

Ale-wives in Scotland in bygone times who sold bad ale were placed in the cucking-stool. In the year 1555, we learn from Thomas Wright that "it was enacted by the queen-regent of Scotland that itinerant singing women should be put on the cuck-stoles of every burgh or town; and the first 'Homily against Contention,' part 3, published in 1562, sets forth that 'in all well-ordered cities common brawlers and scolders be punished with a notable kind of paine, as to be _set on_ the cucking-stole, pillory, or such-like.' By the statute of 3 Henry VIII., carders and spinners of wool who were convicted of fraudulent practices were to be _sett upon_ the pillory or the cukkyng-stole, man or woman, as the case shall require." We agree with Mr. Wright when he observes that the preceding pa.s.sages are worded in such a manner as not to lead us to suppose that the offenders were ducked. In the course of time the terms cucking and ducking stools became synonymous, and implied the machines for the ducking of scolds in water.

In some places the term thewe was used for a cucking-stool. This was the case at Hedon, and it occurs in pleadings at Chester before the itinerant justices and Henry VII., when George Grey, Earl of Kent, claims the right in his manor of Bushton and Ayton of punishing brawlers by the thewe.[42] Other instances of its use might be cited.

An intelligent Frenchman, named Misson, visited England about 1700, and has left on record one of the best descriptions of a ducking-stool that has been written. It occurs in a work ent.i.tled "Travels in England."

"The way of punishing scolding women," he writes, "is pleasant enough.

They fasten an arm chair to the end of two beams, twelve or fifteen feet long, and parallel to each other, so that these two pieces of wood, with their two ends, embrace the chair, which hangs between them upon a sort of axle, by which means it plays freely, and always remains in the natural horizontal position in which the chair should be, that a person may sit conveniently in it, whether you raise it or let it down. They set up a post on the bank of a pond or river, and over this post they lay, almost in equilibrio, the two pieces of wood, at one end of which the chair hangs just over the water. They place the woman in this chair, and so plunge her into the water, as often as the sentence directs, in order to cool her immoderate heat." In some instances the ducking was carried to such an extent as to cause death. An old chap-book, without date, is ent.i.tled, "Strange and Wonderful Relation of the Old Woman who was Drowned at Ratcliff Highway a fortnight ago." It appears from this work that the poor woman was dipped too often, for at the conclusion of the operation she was found to be dead. We reproduce from this quaint chap-book a picture of the ducking-stool. It will be observed that it is not a stationary machine, but one which can be wheeled to and from the water. Similar ducking-stools were usually kept in some convenient building, and ready to be brought out for immediate use, but in many places the ducking-stools were permanent fixtures.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DUCKING-STOOL FROM A CHAP-BOOK.]

Old munic.i.p.al accounts and records contain many references to this subject. Cole, a Cambridge antiquary, collected numerous curious items connected with this theme. In some extracts made from the proceedings of the Vice-Chancellor's Court, in the reign of Elizabeth, it is stated: "Jane Johnson, adjudged to the ducking-stool for scolding, and commuted her penance." The next person does not appear to have been so fortunate as Jane Johnson, who avoided punishment by paying a fine of about five shillings. It is recorded: "Katherine Saunders, accused by the churchwardens of Saint Andrews for a common scold and slanderer of her neighbours, was adjudged to the ducking-stool."

We find in one of Cole's ma.n.u.script volumes, preserved in the British Museum, a graphic sketch of this ancient mode of punishment. He says: "In my time, when I was a boy, I lived with my grandmother in the great corner house at the foot, 'neath the Magdalen College, Cambridge, and rebuilt since by my uncle, Joseph Cook. I remember to have seen a woman ducked for scolding. The chair was hung by a pulley fastened to a beam about the middle of the bridge, in which [he means the chair, of course, not the bridge] the woman was confined, and let down three times, and then taken out. The bridge was then of timber, before the present stone bridge of one arch was built. The ducking-stool was constantly hanging in its place, and on the back of it were engraved devils laying hold of scolds, etc. Some time afterwards a new chair was erected in the place of the old one, having the same devices carved upon it, and well painted and ornamented. When the new bridge of stone was erected, in 1754, this chair was taken away, and I lately saw the carved and gilt back of it nailed up by the shop of one Mr. Jackson, a whitesmith, in the Butcher's Row, behind the Town Hall, who offered it to me, but I did not know what to do with it. In October, 1776, I saw in the old Town Hall a third ducking-stool, of plain oak, with an iron bar in front of it, to confine the person in the seat, but I made no inquiries about it. I mention these things as the practice of ducking scolds in the river seems now to be totally laid aside." Mr. Cole died in 1782, so did not long survive the writing of the foregoing curious notes.

The Sandwich ducking-stool was embellished with men and women scolding.

On the cross-bar were carved the following words:

"Of members ye tonge is worst or best,--an Yll tonge oft doeth breede unrest."

Boys, in his "Collections for the History of Sandwich," published in 1792, remarks that the ducking-stool was preserved in the second storey of the Town Hall, along with the arms, offensive and defensive, of the Trained Bands. Boys's book includes some important information on old-time punishments. In the year 1534, it is recorded that two women were banished from Sandwich for immorality. To deter them from coming back to the town, it was decided that "if they return, one of them is to suffer the pain of sitting over the coqueen-stool, and the other is to be set three days in the stocks, with an allowance of only bread and water, and afterwards to be placed in the coqueen-stool and dipped to the chin." A woman, in the year 1568, was "carted and banished." At Sandwich, Ipswich, and some other places, as a punishment for scolding and other offences it was not an uncommon thing to compel the transgressors to carry a wooden mortar round the town.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SANDWICH DUCKING-STOOL.]

Respecting the cost of erecting a ducking-stool, we find a curious and detailed account in the parish books of Southam, Warwickshire, for the year 1718. In the first place, a man was sent from Southam to Daventry to make a drawing of the ducking-stool of that town, at a cost of three shillings and twopence. The sum of one pound one shilling and eightpence is charged for labour and material in making and fixing the engine of punishment. An entry of ten shillings is made for painting it, which appears a rather heavy amount when we observe that the carpenter only charged a little over a pound for labour and timber. Perhaps, like the good folk of Sandwich, the authorities of Southam had their chair ornamented with artistic portraits and enriched with poetic quotations.