r, "are chaste and sober, and very
diligent in their housewifery; they hate idleness, love and obey their
husbands; only in some of the great towns many of the seeming
sanctificators used to follow the Presbyterian gang, and on a lecture
day put on their best rayment, and doo hereby take occasion to goo a
gossipping. Your merry wives of Bentley will sometimes look in ye
glass, chirpe a cupp merrily, yet not indecently. In the Peak they are
much given to dance after the bagpipes--almost every towne hath a
bagpipe in it." "The Chesterfield brank," says Mr. Llewellyn Jewitt, "is
a remarkably good example, and has the additional interest of bearing a
date. It is nine inches in height, and six inches and three-quarters
across the hoop. It consists of a hoop of iron, hinged on either side
and fastening behind, and a band, also of iron, passing over the head
from back to front, and opening in front to admit the nose of the woman
whose misfortune it was to wear it. The mode of putting it on would be
thus: the brank would be opened by throwing back the sides of the hoop,
and the hinder part of the band by means of the hinges, C, F, F. The
constable, or other official, would then stand in front of his victim,
and force the knife, or plate, A, into her mouth, the divided band
passing on either side of the nose, which would protrude through the
opening, B. The hoop would then be closed behind, the band brought down
from the top to the back of the head, and fastened down upon it, at E,
and thus the cage would at once be firmly and immovably fixed so long as
her tormentors might think fit. On the left side is a chain, D, one end
of which is attached to the hoop, and at the other end is a ring, by
which the victim was led, or by which she was, at pleasure, attached to
a post or wall. On front of the brank are the initials 'T.C.,' and the
date '1688'--the year of the 'Glorious Revolution'--the year of all
years memorable in the annals of Chesterfield and the little village of
Whittington, closely adjoining, in which the Revolution was planned.
Strange that an instrument of brutal and tyrannical torture should be
made and used at Chesterfield at the same moment that the people should
be plotting for freedom at the same place. The brank was formerly in the
old poor-house at Chesterfield, and came into the hands of Mr. Weale,
the assistant Poor-law Commissioner, who presented it to Lady Walsham.
It is (August, 1860) still in the hands of Si