be punishment for murder and bloodshed within the limits of a royal residence. The most elaborate ceremonial was observed. All the hierarchy of court officials attended; there was the sergeant of the woodyard, the master cook to hand the dressing-knife, the sergeant of the poultry, the yeoman of the scullery with a fire of coals, the sergeant farrier who heated and delivered the searing irons, which were applied by the chief surgeon after the dismemberment had been effected. Vinegar, basin, and cloths were handed to the operator by the groom of the salcery, the sergeant of the ewry, and the yeoman of the chandrey. “After the hand had been struck off and the stump seared, the sergeant of the pantry offered bread, and the sergeant of the cellar a pot of red wine, of which the sufferer was to partake with what appetite he might.”[104] Readers of Sir Walter Scott will remember how Nigel Olifaunt, in the ‘Fortunes of Nigel,’ was threatened with the loss of his hand for having committed a breach of privilege in the palace of Greenwich and its precincts. Pistols are found on his person when he accidentally meets and accosts James I. For the offence he may be prosecuted; so Sir Mungo Malagrowther complacently informs him, _usque ad mutilationem_ even to dismemberation. The occasion serves the garrulous knight to refer to a recent performance, “a pretty pageant when Stubbs the Puritan was sentenced to mutilation for writing and publishing a seditious pamphlet against Elizabeth. With Stubbs, Page the publisher also suffered. They lost their right hands,” the wrist being divided by a cleaver driven through the joint by the force of a mallet. “I remember,” says the historian Camden,[105] “being then present, [Illustration]