Elizabethan Crime and Punishment - A Public SpectacleElizabethan England and Elizabethan Crime and Punishment - not a happy

subject. Violent times. Crimes were met with violent, cruel punishments. Many punishments and executions were witnessed by many hundreds of

people. The Lower Classes treated such events as exciting days out. Even royalty were subjected to this most public form of punishment for their

crimes. The execution of the tragic Anne Boleyn was restricted to the Upper Classes and Nobility and was witnessed by several hundred spectators!

   Another weird punishment was the brank, also known as the bride's scold. The brank was a punishment for women who gossiped or spoke too freely. It was a large iron "cage" placed on the head of the offender. There was a metal strip on the brank that fit into the mouth and was either sharpened to a point or covered with spikes so that  ANY movement of the tongue would more than likely cause severe injuries to the mouth. The woman was then led through the streets of town by a chain. Then she was usually tied to a whipping post or pillory to stand in view of the cruel and verbally abusive public.

One more worth mentioning was the ducking stool. Like the brank, it was a punishment for women whose speech was considered too brash and brazen or too free. The ducking stool was a wooden chair attached to a large lever. The lever allowed the chair to be raised or lowered without the tipping of the chair, making it parallel to the ground at all times. The chair was then lowered into the water, dunking the accused woman under the water. Based on the level of the offense and the cruelty of the deciding person the woman could be "ducked" any number of times, and in some cases of extreme measures. The woman could drown from the time spent under water. Some of the ducking stools were mobile and could be taken to the water's edge at anytime.

 One out of the regular punishments of the Elizabethan Era was the drunkard's cloak. It was a punishment for people caught drunk in public. The drunk was forced to wear a barrel on his torso and wander through town while the villagers stabbed at him. Holes were cut in the barrel for the person's hands and head, causing it to become like a heavy shirt.

Also, the stocks were similar to the pillory in that a part of the body was locked between two slabs of wood, but in the case of the stocks the feet were locked in the device instead of the hands and feet. The stocks were a proposed method of punishment for drunkenness in a 1605 Act. The offender would be fined to five shillings or six hours in the stocks

Yet another punishment for criminals was the pillory. The pillory was a wooden post with a wooden block on top with holes in it for the person's hands and head. Their heads and hands were then locked into place while the person was forced to stand in public display for their decided sentence. In some cases the pillory was combined with a whipping post and stocks to make a one stop, public punishment device.

One that there’s not much to say about is the whipping post. It’s basically, as the name says a wooden post that the person was strapped to and whipped for the number of times needed for the correct punishment. This method was used during the reign of Henry VIII and then continued through the time of Queen Elizabeth.

   The punishment for poisoning during this period was to be boiled to death. Mutilation and branding were also common. People often had their right hand cut off if they were caught stealing, and on certain occasions eyes were plucked out with hot pinchers and fingers were torn off. Other offenders were sent to the pillory were butchers, adulterers and forestallers, dice coggers, forgers, cutpurses, liars, libellers, and "passers-off of latten rings for gold."

Villagers could be called twisted individuals because of the crowds of people that gathered for public punishments and executions. The people of the period liked the public hangings, and the people to be hanged were often falsely accused of treason, which called for public disembowelment and then cut into sections to be left on display after the person's death. 

Elizabethan Crime and PunishmentPresented by :

Ashwathy PillaiGrina ShahVihaan Kohli

BibliographyIhttp://westwilkeswickedwiki.pbworks.com/w/page/13929080/Crime,Punishment,and%20Torture(owch)--Kristina%20and%20Melanie

http://www.elizabethanenglandlife.com/different-kinds-of-elizabethan-era-torture.html

https://www.google.co.in/