The Rise of England 193Punishing a man by exposing him at a pillory, sixteenth-century England.
The prosecution of serious crimes increased rapidly during Elizabeth's
reign, peaking between 1590 and 1620. Vagrancy was the most prevalent
of these offenses, as people took to the road in search of food. Vagrants
were arrested and placed in stocks for three days, before being sent home.
Thefts rose in number and audacity. A contemporary estimated that there
were twenty-three different categories of thieves and swindlers, including
“hookers,” who snatched linen and clothes with a long pole from windows,
“priggers of prancers” (horse thieves), and “Abraham men,” who “feign
themselves to be mad.” The theft of goods worth more than twelve
shillings could bring the death penalty, but more often offenders were pub
licly whipped, branded, mutilated by having an ear cut off, or sent to serve
as oarsmen in the galley ships. Women were often treated more harshly
than men, unless they were pregnant. Although only about 10 percent of
those convicted of capital crimes were actually executed, such punishment
was particularly brutal, including slow strangulation by hanging and being
slowly crushed to death by weights.
The English upper classes, convinced that most crimes went unpun
ished, became obsessed with maintaining order, a fact reflected in several
of Shakespeare's plays, in which ordinary people appear as potential
threats to social order. Many Elizabethans believed that social order
depended on the maintenance of social hierarchy and the securing of obe
dience to the moral authority of government. Thus, the Tudors formulated