Early British Prison Question

[straykat23]

Am reading “A Certain Justice” by P.D. James.

"Romance seens an odd word to use of a place whose origins go back to Newgate, to the horrors of those early prisons, the public executions, the pressing yard where prisoners endured the torture of being pressed to death by weights to safeguard the inheritance of their families.

I googled ‘pressing yard prison’ and got this site.

[http://www2.canisius.edu/canhp/canlib/virtualtour/newgate.html

It mentions the Pressing Yard but does not give details. Pressed to death? Were they somehow flattened? What was used? How long did it take? What does pressing have to do with safeguarding the inheritance of their families?

All torture is horredous; this seems particularly bizarre.

[Sattua]

AFAIK, boards would be laid across the prisoner’s chest and abdomen. Heavy rocks would then be piled on to the boards.

[MLS]

From Davis’s “The Law in Shakespeare”

One peculiar brutality must be mentioned, the peine forte et dure. When a prisoner accused of felony refused to plead he could not be tried, and as conviction of felony involved forfeiture of property, many bold men refused to plead, in order that their possessions might be preserved for their families. But they well knew the consequences. They were laid on their backs, and heavy weights piled on their breasts until they either gave way and consented to plead or died. This peine forte et dure, which Shakespeare calls ‘pressing to death’ in Measure for Measure (v. i. 525), was not abolished until the reign of George II.

[waterj2]

One of those put to death in the Salem Witch Trials was put to death in this manner. According to Wikipedia:

Only one execution was not by hanging. Giles Corey, an 80-year-old farmer from the southeast end of Salem, refused to enter a plea. The law provided for the application of a form of torture called peine fort et dure, in which the victim was slowly crushed by piling stones on him; after two days of excruciating pain, Corey died without entering a plea. Though his refusal to plead is often explained as a way of preventing his possessions from being confiscated by the state, this is not true; the possessions of convicted witches were often confiscated, and possessions of persons accused but not convicted were confiscated before a trial, as in the case of Corey’s neighbor John Proctor and the wealthy English’s of Salem Town. Some historians hypothesize that his personal character, a stubborn and lawsuit-prone old man who knew he was going to be convicted regardless, led to his recalcitrance.

Which seems to be what they told me at the Salem Witch Museum when I was a little kid.

[casdave]

IIRC this type of punishment was meted out to Catholics by Protestants in England in the 16thC, but that this was built upon the practice meted out by Catholics around Europe against other relgions.

[Snickers]

You can take a tour in London of a museum that preserves and shows all sorts of torture devices (tho’ I forget the name, of course). They make mention of a man who’d been pressed to death because he wouldn’t confess. Only after his death did the authorities find out he was both deaf and mute.

Whether the story is accurate or not, I have no idea.

[Rodd_Hill]

IANAP (I am not a pathologist), but I would guess that the person would lose consciousness within a very short period and die from asphyxiation within minutes.

[jad11]

Came across same passage in James’ book.

Crushing (execution)

Can’t believe all you read on the web, but James has sound cred.

[gkster]

Margaret Clitherow, considered a Catholic martyr, was executed by pressing in York in 1586.
Warning! Don’t read the quote below if you’re at all squeamish.

“Margaret was arrested and called before the York assizes for the crime of harbouring Roman Catholic priests. She refused to plead preventing a trial that would entail her children being made to testify, and being subjected to torture. Although pregnant with her fourth child, she was executed on Lady Day, 1586, (which also happened to be Good Friday that year) in the Toll Booth at Ouse Bridge, by being crushed to death, the standard inducement to force a plea.
The two sergeants who should have carried out the execution hired four desperate beggars to do it instead. She was stripped and had a handkerchief tied across her face then laid across a sharp rock the size of a man’s fist, the door from her own house was put on top of her and loaded with an immense weight of rocks and stones so that the sharp rock would break her back. Her death occurred within fifteen minutes, but her body was left for six hours before the weight was removed.”

Margaret Clitherow

This wikipedia entry explains the inheritance issue:
Peine forte et dure (Law French for “hard and forceful punishment”) was a method of torture formerly used in the common law legal system, in which a defendant who refused to plead (“stood mute”) would be subjected to having heavier and heavier stones placed upon his or her chest until a plea was entered, or the defendant died.
Many defendants charged with capital offences would refuse to plead in order to avoid forfeiture of property. If the defendant pleaded either guilty or not guilty and was executed, their heirs would inherit nothing, their property escheating to the Crown. If they refused to plead their heirs would inherit their estate, even if they died in the process.

Peine forte et dure

[buddha_david]

@waterj2

One of those put to death in the Salem Witch Trials was put to death in this manner. According to Wikipedia:

Only one execution was not by hanging. Giles Corey, an 80-year-old farmer from the southeast end of Salem, refused to enter a plea. The law provided for the application of a form of torture called peine fort et dure, in which the victim was slowly crushed by piling stones on him; after two days of excruciating pain, Corey died without entering a plea. Though his refusal to plead is often explained as a way of preventing his possessions from being confiscated by the state, this is not true; the possessions of convicted witches were often confiscated, and possessions of persons accused but not convicted were confiscated before a trial, as in the case of Corey’s neighbor John Proctor and the wealthy English’s of Salem Town. Some historians hypothesize that his personal character, a stubborn and lawsuit-prone old man who knew he was going to be convicted regardless, led to his recalcitrance.

“More weight!”

[aldiboronti]

@gkster

Margaret Clitherow, considered a Catholic martyr, was executed by pressing in York in 1586. …

Pregnant! That certainly invests the poor woman’s death with even more horror. I thought that women quick with child had their executions delayed until delivery, ‘pleading their belly’ as the phrase went. Was that a later development in English law?

[APB]

@aldiboronti

Pregnant! That certainly invests the poor woman’s death with even more horror. I thought that women quick with child had their executions delayed until delivery, ‘pleading their belly’ as the phrase went. Was that a later development in English law?

But Clitherow deliberately refused to enter such a plea. This was not just for the sake of consistency with her earlier refusal to enter a plea on the charges against her, but also as a calculated tactic to create a moral and legal quandary for the authorities.