In the reign of Elizabeth, the then bishop, or bishops, it seems, relinquished this castle for the use and accommodation of the civil power; and it was then converted into a state prison for the papists, who were charged with conspiring against her majesty’s government. Great numbers therefore of these people suffered here a long and rigorous imprisonment, and not a few of them miserably perished in its dreary dungeons. That queen amply retaliated upon the papists what her sister Mary had before inflicted upon the protestants. It is hard to say which of these crowned sisters was the most bloody. Fox has largely described the cruelties and atrocities of Mary’s government. Certain popish, as well as protestant nonconformist historians have done the same in regard to that of Elizabeth: and if the intolerance, iniquity, and cruelty of the latter reign did not exceed those of the former, it seems pretty clear that they fell not short of them. As to the number of victims, or sufferers, the preponderance is evidently on the side of Elizabeth. There was a difference, indeed, in the process or mode of immolation: Mary had her victims burnt at the stake; whereas her protestant sister had hers hanged, cut down alive, emboweled, and quartered. Which of the two modes is the most humane and defensible—or rather, which of them is the most barbarous and brutal, the present writer will not attempt to determine. Nor will he pretend to say which of the two is attended with the greatest degree of animal pain, as that may depend upon circumstances. But if burning be the most cruel of all executions, as a very able living writer has observed, it argues a defect in our laws, which appoints this to be the punishment of petty treason, whilst the Catholic sufferers underwent that annexed to high treason. He also observes with respect to the greater part of those victims,—