In England during many centuries a prisoner was called to the bar before trial and enjoined to hold up his right hand, by which act he was held to admit himself the person named in the indictment. The clerk then asked him, "How say you, are you guilty or not guilty?" If he answered, "Not guilty," the next question was: "Culprit, how will you be tried?" to which he responded, "By God and my country." "God send you a good deliverance," rejoined the official, and the trial went forward. If the accused missed any of these responses, or would not speak at all, and if the offence were treason or a misdemeanour, his silence was taken for confession of guilt, and sentence was passed forthwith. If the charge were felony, a jury was empanelled to try whether he stood "mute of malice," or "mute by the visitation of God." If this last were found, the trial went on; if the other, he was solemnly warned by the judges of the terrible consequences summed up by Lord Coke (trial of Sir Richard Weston in 1615, for Sir Thomas Overbury's murder) in the three words--_onere, frigore, et fame_. The proceedings were most commonly adjourned to give him time for reflection; but if after every exhortation he remained obdurate, then he was adjudged to suffer the _peine forte et dure_. The judgment of the Court was in these words: "That you return from whence you came, to a low dungeon into which no light can enter; that you be stripped naked save a cloth about your loins, and laid down, your back upon the ground; that there be set upon your body a weight of iron as great as you can bear--and greater; that you have no sustenance, save on the first day three morsels of the coarsest bread, on the second day three draughts of stagnant water from the pool nearest the prison door, on the third day again three morsels of bread as before, and such bread and such water alternately from day to day; till you be pressed to death; your hands and feet tied to posts, and a sharp stone under your back."