Alphonsus, emperor of Germany, reprinted in facsimile from the ...

xxivAlphonsusoffended Queen lest the latter "slit her nose" or "spurnher unto death. "In Middleton's Anything for a QuietLife, Knavesby proposes to go home and cut his "wife'snose off." Aiken records {Memoirs of the Court ofJames /, vol. i, pp. 189-190) that Jonson, Marston,and Chapman were in danger of having their ears andnoses slit upon complaint of Sir James Murray, gentlemanof the bedchamber, who took offence at theirlines regarding the Scots in their joint play EastwardHo.The ear, however, more often than the nose sufferedmutilation. The offences for which these punishmentswere imposed were frequently of a trivial character.Ii^ I559> ^ dishonest purveyor who had taken smeltsfor the queen's provision and had then sold them at anadvanced price was as a punishment placed for threedays in the pillory in Cheapside, with a "bawdricke ofsmelts" about his neck, and upon his forehead a paperindicating his offence. As a culmination to these indignitieshe was to have lost one of his ears, but owingto the petition of the Lord Mayor, he was insteadcondemned to a prolonged imprisonment (Hayward,Annals of the First Four Years of Elizabeth's Reign, p.30). Thomas Pound, a Lancashire gentleman, uponwhom had been imposed a fine for infringement of thelaws against Catholics, under Elizabeth, was a victimof the bigotry from which the reign of her successorwas not free. Pound had ventured to send a petitionto the King on behalf of one Skitel, a neighbour of his,who had been condemned to death for "harbouring aJesuit." For his temerity Pound was sentenced topay a fine of £1000 and to stand in the pillory atWestminster and Lancaster. It was further proposedthat he should have an ear cut off at each ofthese places. Owing to the public indignation occa-