LEIGHTON. 483 The sentence, so grateful to the remembrance of Laud, was inflicted in the following most shocking and barbarous manner: he was carried to Westminster, where he had one of his ears cut off, then one- side of his _nose slit ; he was branded on the cheek with a red-hot-iron, with the letters S. S. for a sower of sedition; he was put in the pillory, and kept there nearly two hours in frost and snow ; he was then tied to a post, whipped with a triple cord to that cruel degree, that every lash brought away the flesh ; and he himself affirmed, ten years after, that he should feel it to his dying day. And after this shocking barbarity, he was not permitted to return to his quartets in tbe Fleet in a coach prepared for the purpose ; but was compelled, in that lamentable condition and severe season, to go by water; On that day sevennight, his nose, ear, face, and back not being yet cured, he was taken to the pillory in Cheapside ; when the other ear was cut off, the other side of his nose slit, and the other cheek branded ; he was then set in the pillory, and whipped a second time. He was then carried back to the Fleet, wherehe was kept ten weeks in dirt and mire, not being sheltered from the rain and snow. He was shut up in close prison, and not suffered to breathe in the open air for ten or eleven years, until the meeting of the long parliament. And when he came forth from his long and miserable confinement, he could neither walk, see, nor hear. The sufferings of thislearned divine greatly moved' the compassion of the people ; and, surely, the records of the inquisition can hardly furnish an example of similar barbarity. The long parliament having assembled, Dr. Leighton presented a petition, November 7, 1640, to the house of commons, complaining of the hard usage he had met with ; which the house could not hear without several interruptions with floods of tears.± The 'petition being read, an order passed the house, " That Dr. Leighton shall have liberty by the warrant of this house, to go abroad in safe custody, to prosecute his petition here exhibited ; and that he be removed out of the common prison, where he now is, into some more convenient place, and have the liberty of the Fleet." A committee was at the same time appointed to take his case intomature consideration.$ Rushworth's Caner. vol. ii. p. 58.-Ludlow's Letter, p. 24. + A copy of this moving petition, the substance of which has been already given, is still preserved.-Essay on Charles I. p 88-86. Rushworth's Colter. vol. v. p. 20. 111.111110111MAWOnk-411.1.1atkil 147"..1n,
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