(B.) He, this Deponent, further affirms that he hath seen men drove up and down the streets with a great Tub or Barrel opened in the sides, with a hole in one end to put through their heads and so cover their shoulders and bodies down to the small of their legs, and then close the same, called the new-fashioned Cloak, and so make them wear it to the view of all beholders, and this is their punishment for drunkards and the like.

(C.) This Deponent further testifies that the Merchants and Shoemakers of the said Corporation will not take any Apprentice under ten years' servitude, and knoweth many bound for the same terme, and cannot obtain freedome without." 5 Eliz. 4.

(D.) Drunkards are to pay a fine of five shillings to the poor, to be paid within one week, or be set in the Stocks six hours; for the second offence to be bound to the Good Behaviour. I. K. James, 9, 21, 7.

(E.) Scoulds are to be Duckt over head and ears into the water in a Ducking-stool.

(F.) And Apprentices are to serve but seven years. 5 Eliz. 4."

Mr. John Sykes, in his "Local Records of Northumberland," under the date of Sept. 14, 1649, says—“ Two ancient punishments of Newcastle, inflicted on disturbers of the peace, appear as being practised about this time,” a Newcastle cloak for drunkards, and "the scold wore an iron engine called 'the branks,' in the form of a crown; it covered the head, but left the face exposed, and having a tongue of iron which went into the mouth constrained silence from the most violent brawler." Mr. Sykes gives a copy of Mr. Gardiner's engraving of Ann Bidlestone wearing the brank, and adds "the branks are still preserved in the town's court."

Why Mr. Sykes should have inserted his notice of the brank under the date of 1649 I know not. He derived his information apparently from Mr. Gardiner's volume, printed in 1655, and the only dates which occur in that work are of the year 1653, viz.:

Mr. Gardiner's Petition to Parliament, Sept. 29, 1653. It is referred to the Committee of Trade and Corporations, Oct. 5, 1653.

And, on the 18th of Oct., 1653, that Committee directs that it shall be taken into consideration on the 15th of November then next.

After this Mr. Gardiner exhibits charges against the Corporation of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, dated 1653 (no month or day), and at the end of them he says "The Committee drew up and signed a Report against the Corporation, and

7 Vol. i., p. 105. Published in 18 13.

would have presented the same to his Highnesse the Lord Protector, but I conceived that a narration was better." Then follow the depositions-one of which, relating to scolds, drunkards, and apprentices, has been given above.

Dr. Plot, in his "Natural History of Staffordshire," chap. ix., s. 97, says "We come to the Arts that respect Mankind, amongst which, as elsewhere, the civility of precedence must be allowed to the women, and that as well in punishments as favours. For the former whereof, they have such a peculiar artifice at New-Castle [under Lyme] and Walsall, for correcting of scolds, which it does too so effectually, and so very safely, that I look upon it as much to be preferred to the Cucking-stoole, which not only endangers the health of the party, but also gives the tongue liberty 'twixt every dipp; to neither of which is this at all lyable; it being such a bridle for the tongue, as not only quite deprives them of speech, but brings shame for the transgression, and humility thereupon, before 'tis taken off. Which being an instrument scarce heard of, much less seen, I have here presented it to the reader's view, tab. 32, fig. 9, as it was taken from the original one, made of iron, at NewCastle under Lyme, wherein the letter a shows the joynted collar that comes round the neck; b, c, the loops and staples to let it out and in, according to the bigness and slenderness of the neck; d, the joynted semicircle that comes over the head, made forked at one end to let through the nose; and e, the plate of iron that is put into the mouth, and keeps down the tongue. Which, being put upon the offender by order of the magistrate, and fastened with a padlock behind, she is lead through the towne by an officer to her shame, nor is it taken off, till after the party begins to show all external signes imaginable of humiliation and amendment."

Dr. Plot was keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and professor of chemistry in that university; this work was printed at Oxford in 1686, and dedicated to King James II.

Mr. Noake, in his "Worcester in the Olden Time," gives the following entry from the corporation books of that city.

“1658. Paid for mending the bridle for bridleinge of scoulds, and two cords for the same. js. ijd."

8 P. 110.

It would seem that the brank or "bridle for bridleinge of scoulds" must have been a good deal used in the city of Worcester, from its requiring so considerable a repair in 1658; and it further appears that, within thirty-five years before, the cucking-stool had not fallen into desuetude in that city, as Mr. Noake gives the following entries from the corporation books there respecting its use :

1623. Allowed the money for whipping of one Rogeres, and for carrying several women upon the gum-stoole.

1625. For mending the stocks at the Grass-crosse, for whipping of divers persons, and carting of other some, and for halling the goome-stoole to the houses of divers scouldinge people."

Mr. Noake adds-" A curious instrument of punishment, probably used for a similar purpose, may still be seen hung up with some armour in the Worcester Guildhall. The following is from a sketch taken by me a few months ago. The head was inserted in this helmet, and the visor, which is here represented as hanging down, being connected with the toothed uprights, was drawn up and down by means of a key winding up the end of the rod which passes immediately across the top of the helmet, and which rod is furnished with cogs at the end, to fit into the teeth of the

uprights. The visor was thus drawn up so as to completely darken the eyes and cover the nose. The little square box with a hole, to which a screw is affixed at the side, was probably intended to receive the end of a pole fixed in a wall, from which the patient was thus made to stand out, though certainly not in relief.

"These instruments [branks], as well as cucking-stools, were in use in nearly all towns. The present specimen is probably temp. Henry VII."

In the museum at Ludlow, according to information for which I am indebted to Mr. W. J. Bernhard Smith, another example is preserved of an iron cap, probably for branding offenders, much resembling that at Worcester, but perhaps

more complicated. It is furnished with a similar rack and side wheels for compression. [See page 269, infra.]

9

Dr. Ormerod, in his "History of Cheshire," after mentioning that a cucking-stool was in existence at Macclesfield in the last century, adds-" and there is also yet preserved an iron brank or bridle for scolds, which has been used within the memory of the author's informant, Mr. Browne, and which is mentioned as 'a brydle for a curste queane,' among the articles delivered by the serjeant to Sir Urian Legh, Knt., on his being elected mayor, Oct. 3, 21 Jac. I. An iron bridle was used at Bolton-le-Moors, Lancashire, a few years ago, as a punishment for prostitutes. The bridle was fixed in their mouths and tied at the back of the head with ribbons, and, so attired, they were paraded from the cross to the church steps and back again by the beadles."

F. A. CARRINGTON.

ADDITIONAL NOTICES OF THE BRANK, OR SCOLDS'-BRIDLE.

THE origin of the grotesque implement of punishment, forming the subject of the foregoing observations, as also the period of its earliest use in Great Britain, remain in considerable obscurity. No example of the Scolds'-Bridle has been noticed of greater antiquity than that preserved in the church of Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, which bears the date 1633, with the distich,

CHESTER presents WALTON with a Bridle,
To Curb Women's Tongues that talk to Idle.

Tradition alleges that it was given for the use of that parish by a neighbouring gentleman who lost an estate, through the indiscreet babbling of a mischievous woman to the kinsman from whom he had considerable expectations.1 Some have conjectured, from the occurrence of several examples of the Branks in the Palatinate, one more especially being still kept in the Jail at Chester, that this implement of discipline for a curste queane," had been actually presented by the city of Chester ; it may however seem probable that the name of an individual is implied, and not that of a city so remote from Walton. Another dated example is in the possession of Sir John Walsham, Bart., of Bury St. Edmunds; it was found in Old Chesterfield Poor-house, Derbyshire, where it is supposed to have been used, and it was given to Lady Walsham by Mr. Weale, Assistant Poor Law Commissioner. This Brank has an iron chain attached to it with a ring at the end; it bears the date and the initials

9 Vol. iii., p. 385 n. Published in 1819.

1 Brayley's Hist. of Surrey, vol. ii. p. 331, where a representation of the "Gossip's Bridle " is given.

A

1688, T. C. It was produced at a meeting of the West Suffolk Archæological Institute, according to information for which I am indebted to the secretary of that Society, Mr. Tymms, the historian of Bury.

It is probable that at a more remote period the inconvenience attending the use of so cumbrous an apparatus as the cucking-stool,-the proper and legal engine of punishment for female offenders, whether for indecent brawling or for brewing bad beer, may have led to the substitution of some more convenient and not less disgraceful penalty. In some parishes in the West country, cages were provided for scolds; and the ancient Custumal of Sandwich ordained that any woman guilty of brawling should carry a large mortar round the town with a piper or minstral preceding her, and pay the piper a penny for his pains. This practice was established prior to the year 1518, and a representation of the mortar may be seen in Boys' History of Sandwich. The suggestion of Mr. Fairholt, in his notice of a grotesque iron mask of punishment obtained in the Castle of Nuremberg, that the Branks originated in certain barbarous implements of torture of that description, seems well deserving of consideration. The example which he has described and figured in the Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, vol. vii. p. 61, is now in Lord Londesborough's collection at Grimston Park; it is a frame of iron made to fit the head like the scolds'-bridle; it was attached by a collar under the chin, and has a pair of grotesque spectacles and ass's ears. There are

other examples in various collections; one of wood, in the Goodrich Court Armory, was assigned by the late Sir S. Meyrick to the times of Henry VIII.

The fashion and construction of the brank varies considerably, and a few specimens may deserve particular notice. The most simple form consisted of a single hoop which passed round the head, opening by means of hinges at the sides, and closed by a staple with a padlock at the back: a plate within the hoop projecting inwards pressed upon the tongue, and formed an effectual gag. I am indebted to the late Colonel Jarvis, of Doddington, Lincolnshire, for a sketch of this simple kind of bridle, and he informed me that an object of similar construction had been in use amongst the Spaniards in the West Indies for the punishment of refractory slaves. The "Witchs' Branks, or Bridle," preserved some years since in the steeple at Forfar, North Britain, is of this form, but in place of a flat plate, a sharplypointed gag, furnished with three spikes, entering the mouth, gives to this example a fearfully savage aspect. The date, 1661, is punched upon the hoop. In the old statistical account of the parish of Forfar, it is described as the bridle with which victims condemned for witchcraft were led to execution. The facility, however, with which the single hoop might be slipped off the head, led to the addition of a curved band of iron passing

2

2 This relique of cruelty has been carried away from Forfar, and it was in the collection of the late Mr. Deuchar of

Edinburgh. See Dr. Wilson's Prehistoric
Annals, p. 693, and Sir J. Dalyell's Darker
Superstitions of Scotland, p. 686.