TORTURE IN ENGLAND.[17] In the reign of King Henry the Sixth, the RACK or BRAKE, was placed in the Tower of London, by the Duke of Exeter, when he and the Earl of Suffolk had formed the design of introducing the Civil Law into England. It was called “Exeter’s daughter,” and remained afterwards in the Tower, “where it was occasionally used as an _Engine of State_, more than once in the _reign of Elizabeth_.” Though the use of the Rack does not appear to have been known in this country until the 26th year of Henry the Sixth, and though it was never authorized by the law, yet to borrow the expression of Mr. Justice Blackstone, it was occasionally used as an “Engine of State,” to extort confession from State Prisoners confined in the Tower, from the time of its introduction, until finally laid aside in consequence of the decision of the judges in Felton’s case. One Hawkins was tortured[18] in the reign of Henry the Sixth; and the case of Anne Askew,[19] in that of Henry the Eighth,[20] cannot escape the recollection of every reader of English history. The Lord Chancellor Wriothesely (I blush for the honour and humanity of an English Judge while I write his name) went to the Tower to take her examination, and upon the Lieutenant’s refusing to draw the cords tighter, _drew them himself_ till every limb was dislocated, and her body nearly torn asunder. In Mary’s reign several persons were racked in order to extort confessions, which was upon account of Sir Thomas Wyat’s rebellion. And Barrington mentions that in Oldmixon’s History of England (p. 284,) one Simpson is said to have been tortured in 1558, and a confession extorted. In the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth,[21] the Rack was used upon offenders against the State, and among others, upon Francis Throgmorton; in 1571, upon Charles Baillie an attendant upon the Bishop of Ross, Mary’s ambassador, and upon Banastre, one of the Duke of Norfolk’s servants; and Barker, another of his servants was brought to confess by extreme fear of it. In 1581, Campion, the Jesuit, was put upon the rack,[22] and in 1585, Thomas Morgan writes to the Queen of Scots, that he has heard D. Atslow was racked in the Tower, twice about the Earl of Arundel. This is the last instance of the actual application of torture to extort confession.