Crown. A burning crown, as the punishment of regicides or other criminals, is probably alluded to by Anne in “Richard III.” (iv. 1):
“O, would to God that the inclusive verge
Of golden metal, that must round my brow,
Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain!”
Mr. Singer,[847] in a note on this passage, quotes from Chettle’s “Tragedy of Hoffman” (1631), where this punishment is introduced:
“Fix on thy master’s head my burning crown.”
And again:
“Was adjudg’d
To have his head sear’d with a burning crown.”
The Earl of Athol, who was executed for the murder of James I. of Scotland, was, before his death, crowned with a hot iron. In some of the monkish accounts of a place of future torments, a burning crown is appropriated to those who deprived any lawful monarch of his kingdom.
Pillory. This old mode of punishment is referred to by Launce in the “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (iv. 4), where he speaks of having “stood on the pillory.” In “Taming of the Shrew” (ii. 1), Hortensio, when he tells Baptista how he had been struck by Katharina because “I did but tell her she mistook her frets,” adds:
“she struck me on the head,
And through the instrument my pate made way;
And there I stood amazed for a while,
As on a pillory, looking through the lute.”
It has been suggested that there may be an allusion to the pillory in “Measure for Measure” (v. 1), where Lucio says to the duke, disguised in his friar’s hood: “you must be hooded, must you? show your knave’s visage, with a pox to you! show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour!” The alleged crime was not capital, and suspension in the pillory for an hour was all that the speaker intended.[848]