THE DUCXEsG-STCOI* 



313 



TUG DUCKING-STOOI* 



Boswell relates that Dr. John- 

 son, in a conversation with Mrs. 

 Knowles, the celebi-ated Quaker 

 lady, said, " Madam, we have 

 di!i'.-'ivut modes of restraining evil 

 stocks for the men, a DUCKING- 

 STOOL for WOMEN, and a pound for 

 beasts." 



In early times it was called the 

 cucking-stool. Brand describes it 

 as an engine invented for the 

 punishment of scolds and unquiet 

 women, by ducking them in the 

 water, after having placed them in 

 n, stool or chair fixed at the end of 

 a long pole, by which they were 

 immerged in some muddy or stink- 

 >nd. 



Blount thought this last name a 

 corruption of ducking-stool ; and an- 

 other antiquary guessed that chok- 

 ing- stool was it3 etymology. 

 (See Brand's Popular Antiquities, 

 vol. ii. p. 442.) But in a manu- 

 script of the " Promptorium Par- 

 vulorum " " esyn, or CUKKYN, is in- 

 terpreted by stfircoris ; and the 

 etymology is corroborated by a 

 no less ancient record than the 

 Domesday Survey, where, at Ches- 

 ter, any man or woman who brewed 

 bad ale, according to the custom of 

 the city, had their choice either to 

 pay a fine of four shillings, or be 

 placed in the cathedra stercoris" 



Blount saya this chair was in 

 use in the Saxon times. In the 

 Saxon dictionaries its name is 

 Scealking-stool. 



In Queen Elizabeth's time the 

 ducking-stool was a universal 

 punishment for scolds. 



Cole, the antiquary, in his Ex- 

 tracts from Proceedings in the 

 Vice-chancellor's Court 'at Cam- 

 bridge, in that reign, quotes the 

 following entries : 



"Jane Johnson, ;i>ljn ,--.! I to the 

 ducking-stool for SCOnloing, and 

 commuted her penance. 



" Katheriue Sanders, accused by 



the churchwardens of St. Andrewe's 

 for a common scold and slanderer 

 of her neighbours, adjudged to the 

 ducking-stool." 



Every great town, at that time, 

 appears to have had at least one of 

 these penitential chairs in ordinary 

 use, provided at the expense of the 

 corporation. 



Lysons, in his Environs of Lon- 

 don, vol. i. p. 233, gives a bill of 

 expenses for the making of one in 

 1572, from the churchwardens' and 

 chamberlain's accompts at Kings- 

 ton-upon-Thames. It is there called 

 the cucking-stool. 



157:-'. The making of the 



cuci<in^r-stool . . 8 

 Iron -work for tho 



same 030 



Timber for tho 



same 076 



Three brasses for 



the same, and 



three wheels . . 4 10 



134 



In Harwood's History of LicJi- 

 field p. 383, in 1578, we find a 

 charge " for making a cuck-stool, 

 with appurtenances, 8s." One was 

 erected at Shrewsbury, by order of 

 the corporation, in 1669. See the 

 history of that town, quarto, 1779, 

 p. 172. 



Misson, in his Travels in Eng- 

 land, makes particular mention of 

 the cucking-stool. He says, " This 

 way of punishing scolding women 

 is pleasant enough. They fasten 

 an arm-chair to th'e end of two 

 beams twelve or fifteen feet long, 

 and parallel to each other; so th.-it 

 these two pieces of wood with t licit- 

 two ends embrace the chair, which 

 hangs between them upon a sort of 

 axle ; by which means it plays 

 freely, and always remains in tho 

 natural hori/.ontal position in which 

 a chair should be that a person 

 111:1 y sit conveniently in it, whether 

 you raise it or let it down. They 

 set up a post upon the bank of a 

 pond or river, and over this post 



