in his " Worcester in the Olden Time," and is thus also described in Mr. Stanley's "Worcester Guide," — a work far superior to most of its class : —
"I think you will find these iron head-pieces to belong to a class of engines of far more for midable character than branks. Their powerful screwing apparatus seems calculated to force the iron mask with torturing effect upon the brow of the victim. There are no eye-holes, but con cavities in their places, as though to allow for the starting of the eye-balls under violent pressure. There is a strong bar with a square hole, evi dently intended to fasten the criminal against a wall, or perhaps to the pillory; for I have heard it said these intruments were used to keep the head steady during the infliction of branding. Another cruel engine in the Ludlow Museum, ap pears to have been intended to dislocate the arm, and to cramp or crush the fingers at the same time. It is so much mutilated as to render its mode of application very difficult to make out."
"On the wall of the Guildhall is hung an an cient instrument of punishment, somewhat like a helmet. The head was inserted in the helmet; and the visor, being connected with two upright toothed rods, was drawn up or down by means of a key winding up the end of a third rod which passes horizontally across the top of the helmet, and which rod is furnished with cogs at the end, to fit into the teeth of the perpendicular rods. The visor was thus drawn up tightly, so as to completely darken the eyes and shut the mouth, while a slit in the visor admits of the protrusion of the nose. This is supposed to be a ' brank ' — an instrument for punishing scolding women and others, and is probably of the date of Henry VII's reign." The Worcester corporation accounts con tain several allusions to the use of the brank and the gumm stoole, or ducking stoole "for scoulds," to which I shall have occa sion again to allude. One of these entries is : — "1658. — Paid for mending the bridle for bridleing of scoulds, and two cords for the same. js. ijd."
At Worcester is a somewhat similar speci men, which has been described by Mr. Noake
At Shrewsbury, a brank of simple form is still preserved by the corporation. It has never before been engraved, and I am en abled to add it to my present paper, through the kind attention of Mr. Pidgeon, the treas urer to the corporation, who, at my request, forwarded me the sketch from which the en
