the
offender, as the utterance of seditious words against the magistrates,
fraymakers, petty robbers, etc. Rogues are burned through the ears;
carriers of sheep out of the land, by the loss of their hands; such as
kill by poison are either boiled or scalded to death in lead or seething
water. Heretics are burned quick;[230] harlots and their mates, by
carting, ducking, and doing of open penance in sheets in churches and
market steeds, are often put to rebuke. Howbeit, as this is counted with
some either as no punishment at all to speak of, or but little regarded of
the offenders, so I would with adultery and fornication to have some
sharper law. For what great smart is it to be turned out of hot sheet into
a cold, or after a little washing in the water to be let loose again unto
their former trades? Howbeit the dragging of some of them over the Thames
between Lambeth and Westminster at the tail of a boat is a punishment that
most terrifieth them which are condemned thereto; but this is inflicted
upon them by none other than the knight marshall, and that within the
compass of his jurisdiction and limits only. Canutus was the first that
gave authority to the clergy to punish whoredom, who at that time found
fault with the former laws as being too severe in this behalf. For, before
the time of the said Canutus, the adulterer forfeited all his goods to the
king and his body to be at his pleasure; and the adulteress was to lose
her eyes or nose, or both if the case were more than common: whereby it
appears of what estimation marriage was amongst them, since the breakers
of that holy estate were so grievously rewarded. But afterward the clergy
dealt more favourably with them, shooting rather at the punishments of
such priests and clerks as were married than the reformation of adultery
and fornication, wherein you shall find no example that any severity was
shewed except upon such lay men as had defiled their nuns. As in theft
therefore, so in adultery and whoredom, I would wish the parties
trespassing to be made bond or slaves unto those that received the injury,
to sell and give where they listed, or to be condemned to the galleys: for
that punishment would prove more bitter to them than half-an-hour's
hanging, or than standing in a sheet, though the weather be never so cold.

Manslaughter in time past was punished by the purse, wherein the quantity
or quality of the punishment was rated after the state and calling of the
par