However this may be, we find that during the reign of Henry IV. the mild punishment provided for by the statute of Edward I. and the proceedings detailed by Fleta and Britton,[10] of merely being fastened down with irons, on the bare ground of the prison, “until the plea was entered,” had given way to the harsher punishment of being compelled to lie under a “_peine_,” “_till they were dead_,” an event most likely to follow speedily from the quantity of weight or iron placed upon such prisoners. The _peine forte et dure_, as it was known, therefore, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, seems to have been firmly established as an institution of the English Criminal Law, during the time of Henry IV., and the reason for its existence is to be found in the object of the justices in eyre and justices of gaol delivery, of obviating the necessity of remaining for long periods in the English country towns, waiting for the mild effect of the formerly prevailing punishment, provided for by the statute of the reign of Edward I., in inducing prisoners charged with felony to consent to be tried.[11] The prevalency of the practice of standing mute in such cases, under the milder form of punishment, increased to such an extent that the patience of the justices was sorely tried. They determined, about the beginning of the fifteenth century, to put an end to such a practice, by furnishing such a harsh punishment that the example of inflicting it would discourage prisoners from thus defying the law, even if it resulted in the speedy and painful death of the offender. All exhortations and mild treatment were abandoned and the obdurate prisoner, thus defying the court, was sentenced to be literally “pressed to death,” unless he recanted and submitted himself to a trial, according to the fixed customs of the realm. It may justly be doubted if the defiance of the majesty of the law by this failure to plead was sufficient to justify such a barbarous practice, with the object of compelling a respect for the law, or if the remedy was not really worse than the disease, but upon this philosophical phase of the subject we are not concerned. Whether justly or unjustly, this species of punishment obtained for three centuries and a half in the English criminal law and a great many concrete cases, illustrating the application of the custom, arose during this period. And it is interesting to note how the punishment was made more severe with the increasing prevalency of the offense. In the year 1219, when the first eyre of Henry III.’s reign was in session, a case arose for the instruction and advice of the King’s Council regarding the course to be pursued where the prisoner refused to plead.[12]