Sometimes, if the trespass be not the more heinous, they are suffered
to hang till they be quite dead. And whensoever any of the nobility
are convicted of high treason by their peers, that is to say, equals
(for an inquest of yeomen passeth not upon them, but only of the lords
of parliament), this manner of their death is converted into the loss
of their heads only, notwithstanding that the sentence do run after
the former order. In trial of cases concerning treason, felony, or any
other grievous crime not confessed, the party accused doth yield, if
he be a noble man, to be tried by an inquest (as I have said) and his
peers; if a gentleman, by gentlemen; and an inferior, by God and by
the country, to wit, the yeomanry (for combat or battle is not greatly
in use), and, being condemned of felony, manslaughter, etc., he is
eftsoons hanged by the neck till he be dead, and then cut down and
buried. But if he be convicted of wilful murder, done either upon
pretended malice or in any notable robbery, he is either hanged alive
in chains near the place where the fact was committed (or else upon
compassion taken, first strangled with a rope), and so continueth till
his bones consume to nothing.
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