Chapter XXVII

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From many descriptions of larceny the law expressly took away the benefit of clergy:  to steal a horse, or a _hawk_, or woollen cloth from the weaver, was a hanging matter.  So it was to kill a deer from the King’s forest, or to export sheep from the kingdom.--Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull’s Blue Laws, True and False, p.13.

William Prynne, a learned barrister, was sentenced (long after Edward VI.’s time) to lose both his ears in the pillory, to degradation from the bar, a fine of 3,000 pounds, and imprisonment for life.  Three years afterwards he gave new offence to Laud by publishing a pamphlet against the hierarchy.  He was again prosecuted, and was sentenced to lose _what remained of his ears_, to pay a fine of 5,000 pounds, to be _branded on both his cheeks_ with the letters S. L. (for Seditious Libeller), and to remain in prison for life.  The severity of this sentence was equalled by the savage rigour of its execution.--Ibid. p. 12.

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