From these two narratives and Harrison’s statement, in agreement with them, it is clear that the punishment of peine forte et dure, originally severe imprisonment, inflicted to induce a prisoner to plead, had in the hands of the judges become a sentence of death far more painful than hanging, so that one standing mute was more severely punished than if he had been found guilty of the crime for which he was indicted. The clauses of the sentence show a disordered growth in this severity. If a man was to have laid upon him as great a weight as he could bear “and more,” it was superfluous to make provision in the sentence for feeding on alternate days a person who was destined to be pressed to death in a few minutes. Sir William Staunforde, or Stanford, indeed, whose book, “Les Plees del Coron,” was published in 1560, expressly contends that the punishment was to continue, not until the prisoner would plead, but till he was dead. It appears from the cases recorded and from the passage quoted from Harrison, that standing mute was a practice not uncommon. What was the motive for refusing to plead? It is here that those who have written on the subject have been mistaken. It has been generally assumed that the object was to save the forfeiture of goods which would have followed on a condemnation. This is incorrect. It is true that by standing mute the accused could escape corruption of blood and forfeiture of lands, but he did not thus avert forfeiture of goods and chattels. Sir William Stanford says, after citing a sentence, “Observe that the judge does not say, as Britton formerly said, that the punishment should continue till the prisoner makes a direct answer, but that this shall be his diet till he is dead, absolutely, without any condition in the sentence, express or implied, that he shall be released from penance if he consents to plead. For such a release has never at any time been seen, nor is it reasonable that by such repentance the king should be deprived of the forfeiture of the felon’s goods, to which he is entitled by the said judgment of peine forte et dure.”[62] When, in 1721, Phillips and Spiggott stood mute, the court gave orders that the sentence on such as refuse to plead should be read to them. It concludes, “And he against whom the judgment shall be given forfeits his goods to the king.” Where the accused was not possessed of land, the practice can be explained by either of two suppositions: either the prisoner refused to recognise the authority of the tribunal, or he desired to save his family from the reproach of a public execution of one of its members. This was the reason alleged to the ordinary of Newgate by Spiggott. A few years earlier, in 1721, Nathaniel Hawes, a highwayman, refused to plead because a handsome suit of clothes had been taken from him, and he was resolved not to go to the gallows in a shabby suit. He gave in when he had borne a weight of 250 lbs. for about seven minutes.[63]