Note 9 — Chapter VIII

I have remarked in former passages that the rack was much employed, especially against Roman catholics, under Elizabeth. Those accused of the gunpowder conspiracy were also severely tortured; and others in the reign of James. Coke, in the Countess of Shrewsbury's case, 1612 (State Trials, ii. 773), mentions it as a privilege of the nobility, that "their bodies are not subject to torture in causâ criminis læsæ majestatis." Yet, in his third Institute, p. 35, he says, the rack in the Tower was brought in by the Duke of Exeter, under Henry VI., and is, therefore, familiarly called the Duke of Exeter's daughter; and after quoting Fortescue to prove the practice illegal, concludes—"There is no law to warrant tortures in this land, nor can they be justified by any prescription, being so lately brought in." Bacon observes, in a tract written in 1603: "In the highest cases of treason, torture is used for discovery, and not for evidence."—i. 393. See also Miss Aikin's Memoirs of James I. ii. 158.