[52] Litt. Hen. II., vol. iv, 279; I. Reeve’s History English Law, 457. Instead of the _judicium Dei_, the success of the fifty men would look more like _judicium clericus_. Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 102; II. Pollock and Maitland History English Law, 599. [53] This order to the justices, as we have seen, in the Essay on _Peine forte et dure_, had the effect of filling the jails of the kingdom with prisoners content to await the invention of some other method of trial than that of ordeal, and since none such was provided, to refuse to plead and thus baffle the king’s justices. To overcome this custom, the order not to _endanger their lives or limbs_, soon gave place to the terrible torture, by which they were literally _pressed to death_, for standing mute. [54] II. Reeve’s History English Law, 286. [55] II. Reeve’s History English Law, 287, and note. [56] Lea “Superstition and Force,” (3 ed.) 291; Daemenologiae, Lib. III., cap. vi. [57] _Ante idem._ The Lateran Council of 1215 forbade the clergy to take part in the ceremony of the ordeal any further and in prompt obedience to this decree in England, Henry III. abolished it in the kingdom, as England was then at the Pope’s feet, and aside from the cases of witchcraft and sorcery, in the reign of James I., the ordeal last appears, as a method of judicial trial, in the old rolls of the reign of King John. (Concil. Lateran. IV., c. 18; Foedera, i, 154; Rolls of King’s Court, Pipe Roll Soc. 80, 86, 89;) Select Pl. Cr; Note Book, pl. 592; Lea, “Superstition and Force,” (3 ed.) 421; II. Pollock and Maitland’s History English Law., p. 599 and notes. Lord Hale informs us: “That in all the time of King John ... trial by ordeal continued, ... but it seems to have ended with this king, for I do not find it in use any time after.” (History Common Law, p. 152.) In Nigeria the trial by ordeal still obtains in cases of witchcraft and to vindicate the chastity of women. P. Amaury Talbot’s article, in London Telegraph, July, 1912. [58] Regino. ann. 886—Annales Metenses; Lea, “Superstition and Force,” (3 ed.) 257. [59] Lea, “Superstition and Force,” _supra_; S. Kunegundae, cap. 2; Ludewig Script. Rer. German. I., 346. [60] Green’s History English People, vol. I. [61] Freeman’s Norman Conq. Vol. II; Rapin, History d’ Angleterre, I., 123; Wm. of Malmesbury, Giles’ note, ann. 1043; Lea, “Superstition and Force,” (3 ed.) 258. It seems that the charges against Queen Emma were preferred by Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury. She was accused both of consenting to the death of her son, Alfred, and of preparing poison for her son Edward, the Confessor, and also of intimacy with Alwyn, the Bishop of Winchester. The Dowager Queen, on the night preceding the trial, prayed for help, in the Abbey of St. Swithune, at Winchester and the next day she passed over the nine plow-shares unhurt. Archbishop Robert fled the kingdom and the King, who had brought about her trial, did penance for his credulity.