Note 4 — CATHERINE HAYES. BURNT ALIVE FOR THE MURDER OF HER HUSBAND.

It was formerly customary to oblige persons suspected of murder to touch the murdered body, for the discovery of their guilt or innocence.

This way of finding murderers was practised in Denmark by King Christianus II., and permitted over all his kingdom; the occasion whereof was this:—Certain gentlemen being on an evening together in a stove, or tavern, fell out among themselves, and from words came to blows, (the candles being out,) insomuch that one of them was stabbed with a poniard. Now the murderer was unknown, by reason of the number, although the person stabbed accused pursuivant of the king’s, who was one of the company.

The king, to find out the homicide, caused them all to come together in the stove, and, standing round the corpse, he commanded that they should, one after another, lay their right hand on the slain gentleman’s naked breast, swearing that they had not killed him. The gentlemen did so, and no sign appeared against them; the pursuivant only remained, who, condemned before in his own conscience, went, first of all, and kissed the dead man’s feet; but, as soon as he had laid his hand upon his breast, the blood gushed forth in abundance, both out of his wound and his nostrils; so that, urged by this evident accusation, he confessed the murder, and was, by the king’s own sentence, immediately beheaded. Such was the origin of this practice, which was so common in many of the countries in Europe, for finding out unknown murderers.