“that the sentence of the law was strictly and literally executed upon them. After being hanged up, they were cut down alive, dismembered, ripped up, and their bowels literally burnt before their faces, after which they were beheaded and quartered. The time employed in this butchery was very considerable, and, in one instance, lasted above half an hour.—Great numbers also of these sufferers, (he adds) as well as other Catholics, who did not endure capital punishment, were racked in the most severe and wanton manner, in order to extort proofs against themselves or their brethren. It appears, (he further observes) from the account of one of these sufferers, that the following tortures were in use against the Catholics in the Tower: [and probably also in the Castle of Wisbeach:] 1. The common rack, in which the limbs were stretched by levers. 2. The scavenger’s daughter, so called, being a hoop, in which the body was bent until the head and feet met together. 3. The chamber, called Little-Ease, being a hole so small that a person could neither stand, sit, or lie straight in it. 4. The Iron Gauntlets. In some instances needles were thrust under the prisoner’s nails.—Sir Owen Hopton, lieutenant of the Tower, was commonly the immediate instrument in these cruelties there; but sometimes Elmer [ Aylmer] bishop of London directed them.” {93} How far the bishop of Ely was concerned with similar proceedings at the Castle of Wisbeach, we are not informed; but whether he was concerned or not, we may presume that similar measures were pursued there. The Wisbeach prisoners were distinguished, not only for their numbers, amounting to some scores, at least, but also for their rank and eminence, being mostly priests and scholars, who had been educated either at Oxford and Cambridge, or at some of the foreign universities. Hence when their more illiterate, or uneducated brethren, in other prisons, were called to defend their tenets against the attacks or arguments of the clergy, they would be expressing their wishes that some of their more learned friends, from Wisbeach Castle, would be allowed to take their part: and when the judge, at the trial of Barkworth, at the Old Baily, sneeringly proposed his being tried by a _jury of priests_, “_That_ is right,” replied the prisoner; “Your lordship knows that a complete jury of them may be found at Wisbeach Castle.” {94a} In short, many of these catholic sufferers under Elizabeth, appear to have been no less sincere and devout, and even, no less unjustly treated, than those protestants, whose cruel sufferings have rendered Mary’s reign so deservedly detestable.