 was, in the main, a man of moderation and probity. - Hume's History
of England, vol. iii. p. 324.
But if he [the Protector,] gave offence by assuming too much state, he deserves
great praise on account of the laws passed this session, by which the rigor of
former statutes was much mitigated, and some security given to the freedom of
the constitution. All laws were repealed which extended the crime of treason
beyond the statute of the twenty-fifth of Edward III; all laws enacted during
the late reign extending the crime of felony; all the former laws against
Lollardy or heresy, together with the statute of the Six Articles. None were to
be accused for words, but within a month after they were spoken. By these
repeals several of the most rigorous laws that ever had passed in England were
annulled; and some dawn, both of civil and religious liberty, began to appear to
the people. A repeal also passed of that law, the destruction of all laws, by
which the king's proclamation was made of equal force with a statute. - Ibid.,
vol. iii. p. 339.
 
Boiling to Death. In the reign of Henry VIII, poisoners were, by act of
parliament, condemned to be boiled to death. This act was repealed in the
following reign.
In Germany, even in the 17th century, this horrible punishment was inflicted on
coiners and counterfeiters. Taylor, the Water Poet, describes an execution he
witnessed in Hamburg, in 1616. The judgment pronounced against a coiner of false
money was that he should »be boiled to death in oil; not thrown into the vessel
at once, but with a pulley or rope to be hanged under the armpits, and then let
down into the oil by degrees; first the feet, and next the legs, and so to boil
his flesh from his bones alive.« - Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull's Blue Laws, True and
False, p. 13.
The Famous Stocking Case. A woman and her daughter, nine years old, were hanged
in Huntingdon for selling their souls to the devil, and raising a storm by
pulling off their stockings! - Ibid., p. 20.
 
14 Leigh Hunt's The Town, p. 408, quotation from an early tourist.
 
15 From The English Rogue; London, 1665.
 
16 Canting terms for various kinds of thieves, beggars and vagabonds, and their
female companions.
 
17 Enslaving. So young a king, and so ignorant a peasant were likely to make
mistakes
