Note 215 — Chapter XIV

“The practice of questioning juries for their verdicts, the exclusion of oral testimony” [as was the case in Raleigh’s trial, see p. 88], “and the use of torture, were wholly swept away during the ten years which succeeded the death of Charles I., and were never afterwards revived. Just and rational principles of evidence, sound views of the object of penal laws, and of the proper means of enforcing them, first sprang up during the early years of the Commonwealth. Under the wise and moderate superintendence of such minds as Hale, Whitelock, and Rolle, our judicial institutions underwent a total revision and reform.”—Jardine’s Reading on the Use of Torture.