interregnum, though frequently in forms that would emphasize its deterrent
rather than reformative potential by insisting that the labour be performed in
public—in mines, or with the prisoners chained to carts.^61
The more extreme Leveller ideas about capital punishment almost certainly
failed to persuade many people. But those that addressed the need for non-
capital punishments for minor property crimes were speaking to a problem that
one can only think was of concern to large numbers of men in the trading,
artisanal, shopkeeping, and professional population of London. Indeed, they
reflected aspects of prosecuting practices actually being carried out in London,
where minor property offenders were simply not being taken to the criminal
courts but punished, if at all, by a spell in the house of correction. Others antici-
pated schemes that would be embraced after the Revolution of 1689. There is
evidence, at the least, that the problems addressed by the radical proposals were
of concern to a wider public, and that the ideas expressed were not as unusual,
or as removed from the established range of views, as they might seem at first
sight. What was unusual was the opportunity that the civil war and interregnum
provided for their public expression and discussion.
Little in fact was to change on the surface; no significant initiatives embody-
ing fundamental reform were agreed to in the parliaments of the interregnum
in which the defence of property remained a matter of central concern.^62 The
restoration of the monarchy in any case meant the rejection of everything that
had been done and contemplated since 1642 , and the closing down of public
speculation about fundamental structures. The criminal law was once again the
king’s to administer, once again dependent on his personal engagement and the
ameliorative capacity of the prerogative of mercy to shape the pattern of its en-
forcement to the needs of the moment. And yet changes introduced in practice
in the 1650 s were not only retained but expanded upon—particularly in the ex-
tended uses made of transportation. The need for a more effective response to
the varieties of urban crime than simply a reliance on the terror of the gallows
remained fundamental, and continued to shape the way the law was actually
administered at the Old Bailey.
Punishment in practice, 1660‒1689
As in so many other respects, the return of the monarchy meant the return of the
courts, the law, and the penal regime as of 1642. And to all outward appearance,
little was to change in the next thirty years. The courts continued to administer
282 The Old Bailey in the Late Seventeenth Century
Pieter Spierenburg, The Prison Experience: Disciplinary Institutions and Their Inmates in Early Modern Europe
(New Brunswick, 1991 ), chs 2 – 3.
(^61) Emphasis was also placed on the value of other forms of shaming and humiliating punishments—
branding offenders on the face, for example, or forcing them to wear a uniform or an iron collar around
their necks for life (Veall, Popular Movement for Law Reform, ch. 5 ).
(^62) Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution( 1972 ),
216 – 18.