34 



Facts relating to Marlborough. 



Sir Urian Leigh, Knt., on his being elected mayor, Oct. 3, 21 Jac. 1. 



An iron bridle was used at Bolton-le-moors, Lancashire, a few years 



ago, as a punishment for prostitutes. The Bridle was fixed in their 



mouths, and tied at the back of the head with ribbons, and so 



attired, they were paraded from the cross to the church steps and 



back again by the beadles." 



In some instances the Branks 



appear to have degenerated into 



instruments of torture. By the 



kindness of Mr. W. J. Bernhard 



Smith, I have been favored with 



a drawing of a horrible engine, 



preserved in the museum at 



Ludlow. 



Of this Mr. Bernhard Smith 



gives the following account : — 



"I think you will find these iron 

 head pieces to belong to a class of engines 

 of far more formidable character than 

 the branks. Their powerful screwing 

 apparatus seems calculated to force the 

 iron mask with torturing effect on the 

 brow of the victim. There are no eye holes, but concavities in their places, as 

 though to allow for the starting of the eye balls under violent pressure. There 

 is a strong bar with a square hole evidently intended to fasten the criminal 

 against a wall, or perhaps to the pillory, for I have heard it said that these in- 

 struments were used to keep the head steady during the infliction of branding." 

 " Another cruel engine in the Ludlow Museum appears to have been intended 

 to dislocate the arm, and to cramp or crush the fingers at the same time. It is 

 so much mutilated as to render its mode of application very difficult to make 

 out." 



Mr. Noake in bis " Worcester in the Olden Time," gives a de- 

 scription and a woodcut of a Torture Helmet now in the Town- 

 Hall in that city, which very much resembles the Torture Helmet 

 in the Ludlow Museum. 



In addition to their extensive use in England, they were of 

 frequent occurrence in Scotland ; and I was told by our eminent 

 antiquarian friend the late Mr. J. M. Kemble, that he had seen 

 branks at various Towu-IIalls in Germany, 



