in our law books called disgradation and deposition, the act of depriving or stripping a person of a dignity or degree of honour, and taking away the title, badge, and privileges thereof.

The degradation of a peer, a priest, a knight, a gentleman, an officer, or such like person, is performed with different ceremonies. That which anciently obtained in degrading a person from his nobility is very curious. It was practised in the time of Francis I upon Captain Fangel, who had in a cowardly manner given up Fontarabia, of which he was governor. On this occasion, twenty or thirty cavaliers, sans peur et sans reproche, were assembled; before whom Fangel was accused of treason and breach of faith by a king-at-arms. Two scaffolds were erected; the one for the judges, heralds, and pursuivants, and the other for the guilty cavalier, who was armed at all points, and his shield placed on a stake before him, reversed with the point upwards. There also assisted twelve priests in surplices, who sung the vigils of the dead. At the close of each psalm they made a pause, during which the officers of arms stripped the condemned of some piece of his armour, beginning with the helmet, and proceeding thus till he was quite disarmed; which being done, they broke his shield in three pieces with a hammer. Then the king-at-arms emptied a basin of hot water on the criminal’s head; and the judges, putting on mourning habits, went to the church. This being performed, the degraded was drawn from off the scaffold with a rope tied under his arm-pits, laid on a bier, and covered with mortuary clothes, the priest singing some of the prayers for the dead; and then he was delivered to the civil judge and the executioner of justice.

A more domestic instance is that of Sir Andrew Harcla, earl of Carlisle, who, on being attainted and convicted of treason, by the 18th Edward II, coronum regis, after judgment had been pronounced on him, his sword was broken over his head, and his spurs hewn off his heels, was thus addressed by Sir Anthony Lucy, the judge, “Andrew, now thou art no knight, but a knave.” By statute 13th Car. II, William Lord Monson, Sir Henry Mildmay, and others, were degraded from all titles of honour, dignities, and pre-eminences, and prohibited to bear or use the title of lord, knight, esquire, or gentleman, or any coat of arms, for ever afterwards. It has been maintained that the king may degrade a peer; but it appears from modern authorities that a peer cannot be degraded but by act of parliament.

As to ecclesiastics, we have an instance of degradation before condemnation to death, in the eighth century, at Constantinople. It is in the person of the patriarch Constantine, whom Constantine Copronymus caused to be executed. He was made to ascend the ambo, when the patriarch Nicetas sent some of his bishops to strip him of the pallium, and to anathematize him; after which, they made him go out of the church backwards.

But we have a much later instance in our own history. When Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, was degraded by order of Queen Mary, he was dressed in episcopal robes made of canvas, invested with the mitre, the pastoral staff was placed in his hand, and in this attire he was shown to the people. When this was done he was stripped of his mock attire piece by piece. Subsequently it was not deemed necessary to go through the ceremony of degradation before putting a priest to death, on account of the delays and difficulties which sometimes occurred. Pope Boniface pronounced that six bishops were required to degrade a priest; but the difficulty of assembling so many bishops rendered the punishment frequently impracticable. In England, a priest, after being delivered to his ordinary, if he could not purge himself of the crime with which he was charged, underwent the disgrace of having his gown and other robes stripped over his ears by the common hangman; after which he was declared divested of his orders.

It has been decided, however, that degradation does not efface the priestly character. Degradation seems only to differ from deposition by the addition of a few ignominious ceremonies which custom has sanctioned. Accordingly, in the affair of Arnoul, archbishop of Rheims, sentenced in the council of Orleans in 991, it was deliberated what form they should follow in the deposition: whether that of the canons, that is, simple deposition; or that of custom, namely, degradation. It was decided that he should surrender the ring, pastoral staff, and pallium, but that his robes should not be torn off. In effect, the canons prescribe no more than a mere reading of the sentence. Degradation, therefore, properly consists in those ceremonies that have been added by custom, namely, the stripping off the ornaments and the tearing the pontifical vestments.