[Illustration: _No. 230. A Party in the Stocks._]
[Illustration: _No. 231. An Offender Exposed to Public Shame._]
A material part of the punishment of the stocks, when employed in the open air, consisted, of course, in the public disgrace to which the victim was exposed. We might suppose that the shame of such exposure was keenly felt in the middle ages, from the frequency with which it was employed. This exposure before the public was, we know, originally, the chief characteristic of the cucking-stool, for the process of ducking the victim in the water seems to have been only added to it at a later period. Our cut No. 231, taken from an illumination in the unique manuscript of the “Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles,” in the Hunterian Library, at Glasgow, represents a person thus exposed to the scorn and derision of the populace in the executioner’s cart, which is drawn through the streets of a town. To be carried about in a cart was always considered as especially disgraceful, probably because it was thus that malefactors were usually conducted to the gallows. In the early romances of the cycle of king Arthur we have an incident which forms an apt illustration of the prevalence of this feeling. Sir Lancelot, when hastening to rescue his lady, queen Guenever, has the misfortune to lose his horse, and, meeting with a carter, he seizes his cart as the only means of conveyance, for the weight of his armour prevented him from walking. Queen Guenever and her ladies, from a bay window of the castle of sir Meliagraunce, saw him approach, and one of the latter exclaimed, “See, madam, where as rideth in a cart a goodly armed knight! I suppose that he rideth to hanging.” Guenever, however, saw by his shield that it was sir Lancelot. “‘Ah, most noble knight,’ she said, when she saw him in this condition, ‘I see well that thou hast been hard bested, when thou ridest in a cart.’ Then she rebuked that lady that compared him to one riding in a cart to hanging. ‘It was foul mouthed,’ said the queen, ‘and evil compared, so to compare the most noble knight of the world in such a shameful death. Oh Jhesu! defend him and keep him,’ said the queen, ‘from all mischievous end.’”
Our next cut (No. 232) is taken from the same manuscript in the British Museum which furnished us with No. 230. The playful draughtsman has represented a scene from the world “upso-down,” in which the rabbits (or perhaps hares) are leading to execution their old enemy the dog.