the said murder and poisoning of the said two persons, shall stand and be attainted of high treason.
'And because that detestable offence, now newly practised and committed, requireth condign punishment for the same, it is ordained and enacted by authority of this present Parliament, that the said Richard Rouse shall be therefore boiled to death, without having any advantage of his clergy; and that from henceforth every wilful murder of any person or persons hereafter to be committed or done by means or way of poisoning, shall be reputed, deemed, and judged in the law to be high treason; and that all and every person or persons which shall hereafter be indicted and condemned by order of the law of such treason, shall not be admitted to the benefit of his or their clergy, but shall be immediately after such attainder or condemnation, committed to execution of death by boiling for the same.'
The sentence was carried into effect[1] in Smithfield, 'on the tenebra Wednesday following, to the terrible example of all others.' The spectacle of a living human being boiled to death, was really witnessed three hundred years ago by the London citizens, within the walls of that old cattle-market; an example terrible indeed, the significance of which is not easily to be exhausted. For the poisoners of the soul there was the stake,[2] for the
- ↑ Hall, p. 781.
- ↑ Most shocking when the wrong persons were made the victims; and because clerical officials were altogether incapable of detecting the right persons, the memory of the practice has become abhorrent to all just men. I suppose, however, that, if the right persons could have been detected, even the stake itself would not have been too tremendous a penalty for the destroying of human souls.
