Stocks were used, at an early period, as a means of punishing breakers of the law. The precise date when they were first employed in this country is not known, but we may infer from early mediÆval illustrations that the stocks were in general use amongst the Anglo-Saxons, for they often figure in drawings of their public places. The picture we here give is from the Harleian MSS., No. 65. The stocks were usually placed by the side of the public road, at the entrance of a town. It will be observed that two offenders are fastened to the columns of a public building by means of a rope or chain. It has been suggested that it is a court-house.

The "Cambridge Trinity College Psalter"—an illuminated manuscript—presents some curious illustrations of the manners of the earlier half of the twelfth century. We give a reproduction of[187] one of its quaint pictures. Two men are in the stocks; one, it will be seen, is held by one leg only, and the other by both, and a couple of persons are taunting them in their time of trouble.

Stocks were not only used as a mode of punishment, but as means of securing offenders. In bygone times, every vill of common right was compelled to erect a pair of stocks at its own expense. The constable by common law might place persons in the stocks to keep them in hold, but not by way of punishment.

We gather from an Act passed during the reign of Edward III., in the year 1351, and known as the Second Statute of Labourers, that if artificers were unruly they were liable to be placed in the stocks. Some years later, namely, in 1376, the Commons prayed that the stocks might be established in every village. In 1405, an Act was passed for every town and village to be[188] provided with a pair of stocks, so that a place which had not this instrument of punishment and detention was regarded as a hamlet. No village was considered to be complete, or even worthy of the name of village, without its stocks, so essential to due order and government were they deemed to be. A Shropshire historian, speaking of a hamlet called Hulston, in the township of Middle, in order, apparently, to prove that in calling the place a hamlet and not a village he was speaking correctly, remarks in proof of his assertion, that Hulston did not then, or ever before, possess a constable, a pound, or stocks.[36]

Wynkyn de Worde, who, in company with Richard Pynsent, succeeded to Caxton's printing business, in the year 1491, issued from his press the play of "Hick Scorner," and in one of the scenes the stocks are introduced. The works of Shakespeare include numerous allusions to this subject. Launce, in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" (IV. 4), says: "I have sat in the stocks for puddings he hath stolen." In "All's Well that Ends Well" (IV. 3), Bertram says: "Come, bring forth this counterfeit module has deceived me, like a double-meaning prophesier." Whereupon one[189] of the French lords adds: "Bring him forth; has sat i' stocks all night, poor gallant knave." Volumnia says of Coriolanus (V. 3):

Again, in the "Comedy of Errors" (III. 1), Luce speaks of "a pair of stocks in the town," and in "King Lear" (II. 2), Cornwall, referring to Kent, says:

It would seem that formerly, in great houses, as in some colleges, there were movable stocks for the correction of the servants.[37]

In Butler's "Hudibras" are allusions to the stocks. Says the poet:

We are enabled, by the kindness of Mr. Austin Dobson, author of "Thomas Bewick and his[190] Pupils," to reproduce from that work a picture of the stocks, engraved by Charlton Nesbit for Butler's "Hudibras," 1811.

Scottish history contains allusions to the stocks; but in North Britain they do not appear to have been so generally used as in England. On the 24th August, 1623, a case occupied the attention of the members of the Kirk-Session of Kinghorn. It was proved that a man named William Allan had been guilty of abusing his wife on the Sabbath, and for the offence was condemned to be placed twenty-four hours in the stocks, and subsequently to stand in the jougs two hours on a market day. It was further intimated to him that if he again abused his wife,[191] he would be banished from the town. We give a picture of the stocks formerly in the Canongate Tolbooth, Edinburgh, and now in the Scottish Antiquarian Museum.

It was enacted, in the year 1605, that every person convicted of drunkenness should be fined five shillings or spend six hours in the stocks, and James I., in the year 1623, confirmed the Act. Stocks were usually employed for punishing drunkards, but drunkenness was by no means the only offence for which they were brought into requisition. Wood-stealers, or, as they were styled, "hedge-tearers," were, about 1584, set in the stocks two days in the open street, with the stolen wood before them, as a punishment for a second offence.[38] Vagrants were in former times often put in the stocks, and Canning's "Needy Knife-Grinder" was taken for one, and punished.

In a valuable work mainly dealing with[192] Devonshire, by A. H. A. Hamilton, entitled, "Quarter Sessions from Queen Elizabeth to Queen Anne," there is an important note on this subject. "A favourite punishment," says Hamilton, "for small offences, such as resisting a constable, was the stocks. The offender had to come into the church at morning prayer, and say publicly that he was sorry, and was then set in the stocks until the end of the evening prayer. The punishment was generally repeated on the next market day."

Tippling on a Sunday during public divine service was in years agone a violation of the laws, and frequently was the means of offenders being placed in the stocks. In Sheffield, from a record dated February 12th, 1790, we find that for drinking in a public-house, during the time of service in the church, nine men were locked in the stocks. "Two boys," we find it is stated in the same work, "were made to do penance in the church for playing at trip during divine service, by standing in the midst of the church with their trip sticks erect."

Not far distant from Sheffield is the village of Whiston, and here remain the old parish stocks near to the church, and bear the date of 1786.[193]

Perhaps the most notable person ever placed in the stocks for drinking freely, but not wisely, was Cardinal Wolsey. He was, about the year 1500, the incumbent at Lymington, near Yeovil, and at the village feast had overstepped the bounds of moderation, and his condition being made known to Sir Amias Poulett, J.P., a strict moralist, he was, by his instructions, humiliated by being placed in the stocks. It was the general practice in bygone days, not very far remote, for churchwardens to visit the various public-houses during the time of church service and see that no persons were drinking. At Beverley, about 1853, the representatives of the church, while on their rounds, met in the streets a well-known local character called Jim Brigham, staggering along the street. The poor fellow was taken into custody, and next day brought before the Mayor, and after being severely spoken to about the sin of Sunday tippling, he was sentenced to the stocks for two hours. An eye-witness to Jim's punishment says: "While he was in the stocks, one of the Corporation officials placed in Jim's hat a sheet of paper, stating the cause of his punishment and its extent. A young man who had been articled to a lawyer, but who was not[194] practising, stepped forward, and taking the paper out, tore it into shreds, remarking it was no part of Jim's sentence to be subjected to that additional disgrace. The act was applauded by the onlookers. One working-man who sympathised with him, filled and lit a tobacco pipe, and placed it in Jim's mouth; but it was instantly removed by one of the constables, who considered it was a most flagrant act, and one calling for prompt interference on the part of the guardians of the law." Brigham was the last person punished in the stocks at Beverley. The stocks, which bear the date 1789, were movable, and fitted into sockets near the Market Cross. They are still preserved in a chamber at St. Mary's in that town. The Minster, Beverley, had also its stocks, which are still preserved in the roof of that splendid edifice.

The stocks were last used at Market Drayton about sixty years ago. "It is related," says Mr. Morris, "that some men, for imbibing too freely and speaking unseemly language to parishioners, as they were going to church on a Sunday morning, were, on the following day, duly charged with the offence and fined, the alternative being confinement for four hours in the stocks. Two of[195] the men refused to pay the fine, and were consequently put therein. The people flocked around them, and, while some regaled them with an ample supply of beer, others expressed their sympathy in a more practical way by giving them money, so that, when released, their heads and their pockets were considerably heavier than they had been on the previous Sunday." At Ellesmere, the stocks, whipping-post, and pillory were a combination of engines of punishment. The former were frequently in use for the correction of drunkards. A regular customer, we read, was "honoured by a local poet with some impromptu verses not unworthy of reproduction:

"The style was," it is said, "a sarcastic imitation of 'William's' peculiar manner of speaking when tipsy."

According to Mr. Christopher A. Markham, in his notices of Gretton stocks, they "still[196] stand on the village green; they were made to secure three men, and have shackles on the post for whipping; they are in a good state of repair. Joshua Pollard, of Gretton, was placed in them, in the year 1857, for six hours, in default of paying five shillings and costs for drunkenness." In the following year a man was put in the stocks for a similar offence. It is asserted that a man was placed in the Aynhoe stocks in 1846 for using bad language. Card-sharpers and the like often suffered in the stocks. It appears from the Shrewsbury Chronicle of May 1st, 1829, that the punishment of the stocks was inflicted "at Shrewsbury on three Birmingham youths for imposing on 'the flats' of the town with the games of 'thimble and pea' and 'prick the garter.'"

A very late instance of a man being placed in the stocks for gambling was recorded in the Leeds Mercury, under date of April 14th, 1860. "A notorious character," it is stated, "named John Gambles, of Stanningley, having been convicted some months ago for Sunday gambling, and sentenced to sit in the stocks for six hours, left the locality, returned lately, and suffered his punishment by sitting in the stocks from[197] two till eight o'clock on Tuesday last." Several writers on this old form of punishment regard the foregoing as the latest instance of a person being confined in the stocks; it is, however, not the case, for one Mark Tuck, of Newbury, Berkshire, in 1872, was placed in them. The following particulars are furnished in Notes and Queries, 4th series, vol. x., p. 6:—"A novel scene was presented in the Butter and Poultry Market, at Newbury, on Tuesday (June 11th, 1872) afternoon. Mark Tuck, a rag and bone dealer, who for several years had been well known in the town as a man of intemperate habits, and upon whom imprisonment in Reading gaol had failed to produce any beneficial effect, was fixed in the stocks for drunkenness and disorderly conduct in the Parish Church on Monday evening. Twenty-six years had elapsed since the stocks were last used, and their reappearance created no little sensation and amusement, several hundreds of persons being attracted to the spot where they were fixed. Tuck was seated upon a stool, and his legs were secured in the stocks at a few minutes past one o'clock, and as the church clock, immediately facing him, chimed each quarter, he uttered expressions of thankfulness, and seemed[198] anything but pleased at the laughter and derision of the crowd. Four hours having passed, Tuck was released, and by a little stratagem on the part of the police, he escaped without being interfered with by the crowd."

Attendance and repairing stocks formed quite important items in old parish accounts. A few entries drawn from the township account-books of Skipton, may be reproduced as examples:—

During their later years, the Skipton stocks were used almost solely on Sundays. A practice prevailed at Skipton similar to the one we have described at Beverley. "At a certain stage in the morning service at the church," writes Mr. Dawson, the local historian, "the churchwardens of the town and country parishes withdrew, and headed by the old beadle walked through the streets of the town. If a person was found drunk in the streets, or even drinking in one of the inns,[199] he was promptly escorted to the stocks, and impounded for the remainder of the morning. An imposing personage was the beadle. He wore a cocked hat, trimmed, as was his official coat, with gold, and he carried about with him in majestic style a trident staff. 'A terror to evildoers' he certainly was—at any rate, to those of tender years."[39] The churchwardens not infrequently partook of a slight refreshment during their Sunday morning rounds, and we remember seeing in the police reports of a Yorkshire town that some highly respectable representatives of the Church had been fined for drinking at an inn during their tour of inspection.