Flogging
as a Form of Punishment
Records
indicate that using the whip is an ancient method of punishment and coercion.
It would appear that in Roman times different types of whips were used for
different offences. A simple leather strap, known as the ferula, was
used for a minor offence; a whip made of cord- like twisted thongs of
parchment, well-designed to lacerate the flesh, and known as the scutica,
was used for more serious offences; finally, came the horsewhip-like flagellum,
a savagely fierce product made of thongs of ox-leather.
From a
reading of Horace's Satires it is apparent that the choice of the rod, and the
number of strokes, were left to the judge. The same writer indicates the
fiendish cruelty and vindictiveness apparent in some of the sentences when he
mentions that the floggings continued so long, and were so excessive, that the
executioner himself had to desist from sheer exhaustion.
Of
course, there was one law for the rich and influential and another law for the
poor and obscure. The powerful often escaped the rod altogether, or if applied
it was reduced in severity.
However,
the most remarkable and significant feature of penal flagellation was the
severity of the punishment for the most trivial of offences and assuredly so in
England, France, Germany, Russia, China, and in other countries throughout the
centuries.
In 1530,
during the reign of Henry VIII, the Whipping Act was designed specifically to
put down vagrancy, and it provided that any vagrant detected in the act should
be hauled to the nearest town possessing a market place, 'and there tied to
the end of a cart naked, and beaten with whips throughout each market town, or
other place, till the body shall be bloody by reason of such whipping'.
This
brutal and sanguinary act remained in force for some fifty years until some
modifications were made. These were that the cart-tail business was largely
discontinued;* and the nudity clause was abandoned. From then on the culprit
was allowed to wear some clothing, at any rate, and was tied to a post while
the whipping was performed. it was at this time that whipping posts were
erected in nearly all the towns and villages throughout England. Their number
and popularity are indicated by the lines of the poet, John Taylor:
In
London, and within a mile, I ween,
There are jails or prisons full
eighteen,
And sixty whipping posts and
stocks and cages.
* (Whipping
at the cart's tail was not finally abolished in Britain until early in the
nineteenth century. The last sentence of this nature to be executed was in 1822
on May 8th, when a rioter was whipped through the streets of Glasgow by the
hangman.)
Men and women were whipped
unmercifully for such trivial offences as peddling, being drunk on a Sunday,
and participating in a riot. An example from records reveals that in 1641, at
Ecclesfield, the sum of fourpence was paid to a woman for whipping one Ellan
Shaw, accused of felony.
In 1680 a woman was whipped at
Worcester.
Whipping a woman in public
The Flogging of Mary Clifford by Mrs Brownrigg
For repeatedly and cruelly whipping her
apprentice, Mary Clifford, to such a degree thet the girl died as a result
of the bruises and lacerations she sustained, Elizbeth Brownrigg was convicted
of wilful murder and executed at Tyburn on September 14th 1767.
In 1759, according to the Worcester Corporation
records, a fee of 2s. 6d. was paid for the whipping of Elizabeth Bradbury, but,
says a correspondent in Notes and Queries ( October 30, 1852), this sum
probably included ' the cost of hire of the cart, which was usually charged
1s. 6d. separately' .
In 1699, there is an entry in the Burnham Church
register which records the whipping of 'Benjamin Smat, and his wife and
three children, vagrant beggars'.
According to the writer of the article on
'Whipping' in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (eleventh edition):
'At the quarter sessions in Devonshire at Easter
1598 it was ordered that the mothers of bastard children should be whipped, the
reputed fathers suffering a like punishment'.
One of the most brutal directions was issued by
Judge Jeffreys to the executioner charged with the whipping of a woman upon
whom sentence was passed:
" Hangman, I charge you to pay particular
attention to this lady. Scourge her soundly, man: scourge her till her blood
runs down ! It is Christmas, a cold time for madam to strip. See that you warm
her shoulders thoroughly."
Another brutal sentence ordered by Judge Jeffreys
was the flogging of Titus Oates with a six-thonged whip, which continued until
the prisoner could no longer stand.
In 1557, Thomas Hinshaw,
after being imprisoned at Newgate, and in the stocks at Fulham, was beaten with
willow rods, personally wielded by Boner, Bishop of London, until the Bishop
was forced to desist through sheer weariness. (Fox's Acts and Monuments of
Martyrs, 1684)
Three Kids Gripped By Evil By Polly Mullaney
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