Armitage after a careful examination of
documents contends for eighty-six. But there may have been many
others. In Stephen's reign castles spread like an evil sore over the
land. His traitorous subjects broke their allegiance to their king and
preyed upon the country. The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ records that
"every rich man built his castles and defended them against him, and
they filled the land full of castles. They greatly oppressed the
wretched people by making them work at these castles, and when the
castles were finished they filled them with devils and evil men. Then
they took those whom they suspected to have any goods, by night and by
day, seizing both men and women, and they put them in prison for their
gold and silver, and tortured them with pains unspeakable, for never
were any martyrs tormented as these were. They hung some up by their
feet and smoked them with foul smoke; some by their thumbs or by the
head, and they hung burning things on their feet. They put a knotted
string about their heads, and twisted it till it went into the brain.
They put them into dungeons wherein were adders and snakes and toads,
and thus wore them out. Some they put into a crucet-house, that is,
into a chest that was short and narrow and not deep, and they put
sharp stones in it, and crushed the man therein so that they broke all
his limbs.
Pages:
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134