meda, in Spain) they will be there in thirty or forty
days, and home again in Cornwall in other eight weeks, which is a
goodly matter, beside the safety and quietness in the passage, but
more of this elsewhere.

CHAPTER XVII

OF SUNDRY KINDS OF PUNISHMENT APPOINTED FOR OFFENDERS

[1577, Book III., Chapter 6; 1587, Book II., Chapter 11.]

In cases of felony, manslaughter, robbery, murder, rape, piracy, and
such capital crimes as are not reputed for treason or hurt of the
estate, our sentence pronounced upon the offender is, to hang till he
be dead. For of other punishments used in other countries we have no
knowledge or use; and yet so few grievous crimes committed with us as
elsewhere in the world. To use torment also or question by pain and
torture in these common cases with us is greatly abhorred, since we
are found always to be such as despise death, and yet abhor to be
tormented, choosing rather frankly to open our minds than to yield our
bodies unto such servile haulings and tearings as are used in other
countries. And this is one cause wherefore our condemned persons do go
so cheerfully to their deaths; for our nation is free, stout, haughty,
prodigal of life and blood, as Sir Thomas Smith saith, lib. 2, cap.
25, _De Republica_, and therefore cannot in any wise digest to be used
as villains and slaves, in suffering continually beating, servitude,
and servile torments. No, our gaolers are guilty of felony, by an old
law of the land, if they torment any prisoner committed to their
custody for the revealing of his accomplices.

The greatest and most grievous punishment used in England for such as
offend against the State is drawing from the prison to the place of
execution upon an hurdle or sled, where they are hanged till they be
half dead, and then taken down, and quartered alive; after that, their
members and bowels are cut from their bodies, and thrown into a fire,
provided near hand and within their own sight, even for the same
purpose.

Sometimes, if the trespass be not the more heinous, they are suffered
to hang till they be quite dead. And whensoever any of the nobility
are convicted of high treason by their peers, that is to say, equals
(for an inquest of yeomen passeth not upon them, but only of the lords
of parliament), this manner of their death is converted into the loss
of their heads only, notwithstanding that the sentence do run after
the former order. In trial of cases concerning treas