They were given wages and clothing allowances and
had meals in the hall at tables according to their degree.
The authority of the King's privy seal had become a great office
of state which transmitted the King's wishes to the Chancery and
Exchequer, rather than the King's personal instrument for sealing
documents. Now the king used a signet kept by his secretary as his
personal seal. Edward IV made the household office of secretary,
who had custody the king's signet seal, a public office. The
secretary was generally a member of the council. Edward IV
invented the benevolence, a gift wrung from wealthy subjects.
King Edward IV introduced an elaborate spy system, the use of the
rack to torture people to give information, and other
interferences with justice, all of which the Tudor sovereigns
later used. Torture was used to discover facts, especially about
co-conspirators, rather than to elicit a confession, as on the
continent. It was only used on prisoners held in the Tower of
London involved in state trials and could only be authorized by
the king's closest councilors in virtue of the royal prerogative.
The rack stretched the supine body by the wrists and legs with
increasing agony at the joints until the limbs were dislocated.
Some victims were permanently crippled by it; others died on it.
Most told what they knew, often at the very sight of the rack.
Torture was forbidden in the common law, which favored an
accusatorial system, in which the accuser had to prove guilt,
rather than an inquisitional system, in which the accused had to
prove innocence.
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