Note 71 — Chapter VIII

Id. Whitelock, p. 18; Harris's Life of Charles, p. 262. The unfortunate words in the index, "Women actors notorious whores," cost Prynne half his ears; the remainder he saved by the hangman's mercy for a second harvest. When he was brought again before the star-chamber, some of the lords turned up his hair, and expressed great indignation that his ears had not been better cropped. State Trials, 717. The most brutal and servile of these courtiers seems to have been the Earl of Dorset, though Clarendon speaks well of him. He was also impudently corrupt, declaring that he thought it no crime for a courtier that lives at great expense in his attendance, to receive a reward to get a business done by a great man in favour. Rush. Abr. ii. 246. It is to be observed that the star-chamber tribunal was almost as infamous for its partiality and corruption as its cruelty. See proofs of this in the same work. P. 241.