86 



Facts relating to Marlborough. 



Mr. Albert Way in his " Additional Notices of tho brank, or 

 Boold'e-bridle," says, ''the origin of this grotesque implement of 

 punishment, as also the period of its earliest use in Great Britain, 

 remain in considerable obscurity. No example of the Scold's-Bri- 

 dle has been noticed of greater antiquity than that preserved in 

 tho church of Walton-on-Thames, Snrrey, which bears the date 

 1G33, with the distich, — 



CHESTER presents WALTON with a Bridle, 

 To curb Women's Tongues that talk to Idle. 

 Tradition alleges that it was given for the use of that parish by 

 a neighbouring gentleman who lost an estate, through the indiscreet 

 babbling of a mischievous woman to the kinsman from whom he 

 had considerable expectations. 1 Some have conjectured, from the 

 occurrence of several examples of the Branks in the Palatinate, 

 one more especially being still kept in the Jail at Chester, that 

 this implement of discipline " for a curste queane," had been 

 actually presented by the city of Chester ; it may however seem 

 probable that the name of an individual is implied, and not that of 

 a city so remote from Walton. Another dated example is in the 

 possession of Sir John Walsham, Bart., of Bury St. Edmunds ; it 

 was found in Old Chesterfield Poor-house, Derbyshire, where it is 

 supposed to have been used, and it was given to Lady Walsham by 

 Mr. Weale, Assistant Poor Law Commissioner. This Brank has 

 an iron chain attached to it with a ring at the end ; it bears the 

 date and the initials — 1688, T. C. It was produced at a meeting 

 of the West Suffolk Archaeological Institute, according to informa- 

 tion for which I am indebted to the secretary of that Society, Mr. 

 Tymms, the historian of Bury. 



It is probable that at a more remote period the inconvenience 

 attending the use of so cumbrous an apparatus as the cucking-stool 

 — the proper and legal engine of punishment for female offenders, 

 whether for indecent brawling or for brewing bad beer, — may have 

 led to the substitution of some more convenient and not less dis- 

 graceful penalty. In some parishes in the West country, cages 



1 Brayley's Hist, of Surrey, vol. ii. p. 331, where a representation of the 



l - (gossip's Bridle" is given. 



