the writer while he was attempting to form the initial letter of his surname. The following is an exact copy of the signature itself, and of the attestation by Sir Edward Coke and the other Commissioners:

Taken before us and subscribed by the kaminahe bifor boy

gill she be

Edward Hayfett

In 1614, Peacham, who was accused of high treason for certain passages in a sermon written by him, and found in his study, but never preached or published, was examined upon interrogatories "before torture, in torture, between torture, and after torture," by a Commission, of which Sir Francis Bacon was a member *. There is a warrant from the Privy Council in 1620, still extant, by which Sir Allen Apsley, the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Henry Mountague, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and Sir Thomas Coventry, the King's Solicitor

*Bacon's Works, vol. iii. p. 258.

General, are authorized to examine one Peacock, and to put him to the torture "either of the manacles or the rack*." This warrant is signed both by Lord-Chancellor Bacon and Sir Edward Coke; and in one of Bacon's letters to the King he recommends the use of torture in this instance; "if," says he, "we cannot get to the bottom otherwise, it is fit Peacock be put to torture: he deserveth it as well as Peacham did †."

Charles I. was not more scrupulous than his predecessors in the exercise of this obnoxious prerogative; it appears, indeed, from the following correspondence, extracted from the State-Paper Office, that, with respect to his Irish subjects, he assumed to exercise an almost absolute power of life and death. In April, 1627, Lord Falkland, who was at that time Lord-Deputy of Ireland, writes to Secretary Conway (then Viscount Killultagh), stating, that he had arrested two priests, whom he suspected of traitorous designs; that in order to draw the full truth from them, he was desirous of putting them to the rack; but, as his doing so to priests would cause great scandal, he wished for some warrant from the Council. Lord Killultagh, in his answer, dated the 30th May, 1627, commends the Lord Deputy's diligence, and says, that "as to the racking of the priests, he has mentioned his scruples to the King, who is of opinion that he may rack them, or kill them, if he thinks proper." He further says, that he has also mentioned the subject to the Council, “who were all of one mind, that he might rack the priests if he saw cause, and hang them if he found reason."

*Archæologia, vol. x. p. 143. This Peacock was a minister of the University of Cambridge, and was committed to the Tower for pretending that he had infatuated the King's judgment by sorcery.-Camd. Annal. Jac. i.

+ Bacon's Works, vol. iii. p. 376.

In the year 1628, the Judges delivered an unanimous opinion against the legality of torture, in the case of Felton, who had stabbed the Duke of Buckingham. The following account of the circumstances under which this opinion was given, is taken from Rushworth :-"Afterwards Felton was called before the Council, where he confessed much concerning his inducement to the murder. The Council much pressed him to confess who set him on to do such a bloody act, and if the Puritans had no hand therein. He denied they had, and so he did to the last, that no person whatsoever knew anything of his intention or purpose to kill the Duke; that he revealed it to none living. Doctor Laud, Bishop of London, being then at the Council table, told him, if he would not confess he must go to the rack. Felton replied, If it must be so, he could not tell whom he might nominate in the extremity of torture; and if what he should say then must go for truth, he could not tell whether his Lordship (meaning the Bishop of London), or which of their Lordships he might name, for torture might draw unexpected things from him.' After this he was asked no more questions, but sent back to prison. The Council then fell into debate, whether, by the law of the land, they could justify the putting him to the rack? The King, being at the Council, said, Before any such thing be done, let the advice of the Judges be had thereon, whether it be legal or no.' And afterwards his Majesty propounded the question to Sir J. Richardson, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, to be propounded to all Justices, viz. Felton, now a prisoner in the Tower, having confessed that he killed the Duke of Buckingham, and said he was induced to this partly for private displeasure, and partly by reason of a remonstrance in Parliament, having also read some books which, he said, defended that it was lawful to kill an enemy

to the republic; the question therefore is, whether by the law he might not be racked, and whether there were any law against it?-for, said the King, if it might be done by law, he would not use his prerogative in this point.' And having put this question to the Lord Chief Justice, the King commanded him to demand the resolutions of all the Judges. And on the 14th of November, all the Judges being assembled at Serjeant's Inn, in Fleet-street, agreed in one, that he ought not by the law to be tortured by the rack, for no such punishment is known or allowed by our law." It is worthy of remark, that several of the Judges who thus honourably delivered their opinions in opposition to the strong personal feelings of the King and his Council, concurred a few years afterwards in the odious judgment for the Crown in the case of Ship-money; and one of them, Sir Henry Yelverton, in the reign of James I., was a member of the Commission by which Peacham was examined by the torture. Notwithstanding this formal opinion there is no doubt that the practice continued during the whole reign of Charles I., as a warrant for applying the torture to one Archer, in 1640, is to be seen at the State-Paper Office. This, however, appears to have been the last occasion on which this odious practice was resorted to. There is no trace of it during the Commonwealth; and in the reign of Charles II., where we might have expected to find it, there is not a single well-authenticated instance of the application of the torture.

It would lead us into too wide a field to point out the various considerations which suggest themselves upon a review of this subject. The facts above collected are, however, well worthy the attention of the student of our constitutional history; for the long continuance, under the authority of the royal prero

gative alone, of a practice directly opposed to the fundamental principles of reason, justice, and law, condemned and denounced by the opinions of the wisest lawyers and statesmen, at the very time that they were compelled to act upon it, furnishes a most remarkable instance of the existence, in former times, of a power above the law, controlling and subverting the law, and rendering its practical application altogether inconsistent with its theoretical excellence *.

*The following account of the kinds of torture chiefly employed in the Tower is taken from a note to the eighth volume of Dr. Lingard's History.

1st. The rack was a large open frame of oak, raised three feet from the ground. The prisoner was laid under it on his back on the floor; his wrists and ancles were attached by cords to two collars at the ends of the frame, these were moved by levers in opposite directions, till the body rose to a level with the frame. Questions were then put, and, if the answers did not prove satisfactory, the sufferer was stretched more and more till the bones started from their sockets.

2d. The scavenger's daughter was a broad hoop of iron, so called, consisting of two parts, fastened to each other by a hinge. The prisoner was made to kneel on the pavement, and to contract himself into as small a compass as he could. Then the executioner, kneeling on his shoulders, and having introduced the hoop under his legs, compressed the victim close together, till he was able to fasten the extremities over the small of the back. The time allotted to this kind of torture was an hour and a half, during which time it commonly happened that from excess of compression the blood started from the nostrils; sometimes, it was believed, from the extremities of the hands and feet.

3d. Iron gauntlets, which could be contracted by the aid of a screw. They served to compress the wrists, and to suspend the prisoner in the air, from two distant points of a beam. He was placed on three pieces of wood, piled one on the other, which when his hands had been made fast, were successively withdrawn from under his feet. "I felt," said F. Gerard, one of the sufferers," the chief pain in my breast, belly, arms, and hands. I thought that all the blood in my body had run into my arms, and began to burst out of my finger ends. This was a mistake; but the arms swelled, till the gauntlets were buried within the flesh. After being thus suspended an hour, I fainted,