The law is that thou shalt return from hence, to the place where thou camest, and from thence to the place of execution, where thou shalt hang by the neck till the body be dead, dead, dead and the Lord have mercy upon thy soul.
The eighteenth century is notorious for the creation of the Bloody Code (1618-1815) of capital laws in the English criminal legal system. The administration of justice and the importance of punishment to the maintenance of ruling class power in an urbanising and industrialising society led to this brutal code which imposed the death penalty for often trivial offences. But was the Bloody Code that bloody? Historians suggest that the Bloody Code was merely a death threat or terror based system that was not always enforced.
Change in England in the modern era is frequent and generally passes through parliament quite rapidly. History, however, is unlike the present. Most things in English society remained the same for decades, and sometimes even centuries. …
