The glorious Forty-Five now crowns
This memorable day.
And to New Palace Yard let us go, let us go."
Lord Dundonald in 1814 was actually sentenced to the pillory, but the Government shrank from inflicting the punishment upon that much wronged naval hero. The pillory ceased to be a punishment, except for perjury, in 1815, but was not finally abolished until 1837, and as late as 1830 one Doctor Bossy suffered on it for perjury.
The earliest form of pillory was simply a post erected in a cross-road by the lord of the manor, as
a mark of his seigneury.[164:1] It bore his arms, and on it was a collar, the carcan already mentioned, by which culprits were secured. This was in course of time developed, and the pillory became a cross-piece of wood fixed like a sign-board at the top of a pole, and placed upon an elevated platform. In this cross were three holes, one for the head, the other two for the wrists. The cross-piece was in two halves, the upper turning on a hinge to admit the culprit's head and hands, and closed with a padlock when the operation of insertion was completed. A more elaborate affair, capable of accommodating a number of persons, is figured in mediæval woodcuts, but this sort of pillory does not appear to have been very generally used. The curious observer may still see specimens in England of this well-known instrument of penal discipline: one is preserved in the parish church of Rye, Sussex, another is in the museum at Brighton.
The stocks served like the pillory to hold up offenders to public infamy. The first authentic mention of them is in a statute of Edward III, by which they were to be applied to unruly labourers. Soon after this they were established by law in every village, often near the parish church. They were the punishment for brawling, drunkenness, vagrancy, and all disorderly conduct.
Wood-stealers or "hedge-tearers" were set in the stocks, about the year 1584, for a couple of days with the stolen wood in front of them.
The story goes that Cardinal Wolsey, when a young parish priest, was put in the stocks at Lymington by Sir Amyas Poulett, for having "exceeded" at a village feast. The old "Chap" books contain numerous references to the stocks of course. Welch Taffy, "the unfortunate traveller," was put into the stocks for calling a justice of the peace a "boobie;" and "Simple Simon," when he interfered in a butter-woman's quarrel, was adjudged to be drunk and put into the stocks between the two viragoes, who scolded him all the time. The story of Lord Camden is probably well known. When a young barrister he had a desire to try the stocks, and was left in them by an absent-minded friend, for the greater part of the day. The last stocks in London were those of St. Clement's Dane's in Portugal Street, which were removed in 1826, to make way for local improvements. As late as 1860 one John Gambles of Stanningly was sentenced to sit in the stocks for six hours for Sunday gambling, and actually endured his punishment.[165:1] Stocks were last to be seen at Heath near Wakefield, Painswick in Gloucestershire, and other places. In all cases the physical discomfort of the stocks, no less than that of the pillory, was generally aggravated by the
rude horse-play of a jeering and actively offensive mob. A reference to the inconvenient attentions of the bystanders at such an exhibition will be found in an old "Chap" book, entitled "The True Trial of the Understanding," in which among other riddles the following is given: