The punishments of the age were not more tender than the amusements were
refined. Busino saw a lad of fifteen led to execution for stealing a bag
of currants. At the end of every month, besides special executions, as
many as twenty-five people at a time rode through London streets in
Tyburn carts, singing ribald songs, and carrying sprigs of rosemary in
their hands. Everywhere in the streets the machines of justice were
visible-pillories for the neck and hands, stocks for the feet, and chains
to stretch across, in case of need, and stop a mob. In the suburbs were
oak cages for nocturnal offenders. At the church doors might now and then
be seen women enveloped in sheets, doing penance for their evil deeds. A
bridle, something like a bit for a restive horse, was in use for the
curbing of scolds; but this was a later invention than the cucking-stool,
or ducking-stool. There is an old print of one of these machines standing
on the Thames' bank: on a wheeled platform is an upright post with a
swinging beam across the top, on one end of which the chair is suspended
over the river, while the other is worked up and down by a rope; in it is
seated a light sister of the Bankside, being dipped into the unsavory
flood. But this was not so hated by the women as a similar
discipline--being dragged in the river by a rope after a boat.

Hanging was the common punishment for felony, but traitors and many other
offenders were drawn, hanged, boweled, and quartered; nobles who were
traitors usually escaped with having their heads chopped off only.
Torture was not practiced; for, says Harrison, our people despise death,
yet abhor to be tormented, being of frank and open minds. And "this is
one cause why our condemned persons do go so cheerfully to their deaths,
for our nation is free, stout, hearty, and prodigal of life and blood,
and cannot in any wise digest to be used as villains and slaves." Felony
covered a wide range of petty crimes--breach of prison, hunting by night
with painted or masked faces, stealing above forty shillings, stealing