o
sitting in stocks refuge their shame," occurs in _Richard II_; and in
_King Lear_ Cornwall exclaims--

"Fetch forth the stocks!
You stubborn ancient knave."

[50] Act of Parliament, 1405.

Who were the culprits who thus suffered? Falstaff states that he only
just escaped the punishment of being set in the stocks for a witch.
Witches usually received severer justice, but stocks were often used
for keeping prisoners safe until they were tried and condemned, and
possibly Shakespeare alludes in this passage only to the preliminaries
of a harsher ordeal. Drunkards were the common defaulters who appeared
in the stocks, and by an Act of 2 James I they were required to endure
six hours' incarceration with a fine of five shillings. Vagrants
always received harsh treatment unless they had a licence, and the
corporation records of Hungerford reveal the fact that they were
always placed in the pillory and whipped. The stocks, pillory, and
whipping-post were three different implements of punishment, but, as
was the case at Wallingford, Berkshire, they were sometimes allied and
combined. The stocks secured the feet, the pillory "held in durance
vile" the head and the hands, while the whipping-post imprisoned the
hands only by clamps on the sides of the post. In the constable's
accounts of Hungerford we find such items as:--

"Pd for cheeke and brace for the pillory 00,02,00
Pd for mending the pillory 00,00,06
Pd the Widow Tanner for iron geare for the whipping post 00,03,06"

Whipping was a very favourite pastime at this old Berkshire town; this
entry will suffice:--

"Pd to John Savidge for his extraordinary
paines this yeare and whipping of severall persons 00,05,00"

John Savidge was worthy of his name, but the good folks of Hungerford
tempered mercy with justice and usually gave a monetary consolation to
those who suffered from the lash. Thus we read:--

"Gave a poore man that was whipped and sent
from Tythinge to Tythinge 00,00,04"

Women were whipped at Hungerford, as we find that the same John
Savidge received 2d. for whipping Dorothy Millar. All this was
according to law. The first Whipping Act was passed in 1530 when Henry
VIII reigned, and according to this barbarous piece of legislation the
victim was stripped naked and tied to a cart-tail, dragged through the
streets of the to