Punishments Of The Portugese Inquisition
This public whipping, it turns out, is what you got for more-or-less successfully resisting the tortures of the Portuguese Inquisition:
According to this 1851 Book of Martyrs:
A young lady, named Maria de Coccicao, who resided with her brother at Lisbon, was taken up by the inquisitors, and ordered to be put to the rack. The torments she felt made her confess the charges against her. The cords were then slackened, and she was re-conducted to her cell, where she remained till she had recovered the use of her limbs ; she was then brought again before the tribunal, and ordered to ratify her confession. This she absolutely refused to do, telling them, that what she had said was forced from her by the excessive pain she underwent. The inquisitors, incensed at this reply, ordered her again to be put to the rack, when the weakness of nature once more prevailed, and she repeated her former confession. She was immediately remanded to her cell: and being a third time brought before the inquisitors, they ordered her to sign her first and second confessions. She answered as before, but added, ” I have twice given way to the frailty of the flesh, and perhaps may, while on the rack, be weak enough to do so again; but depend upon it, if you torture me an hundred times, as soon as I am released from the rack I shall deny what was extorted from me by pain.” The inquisitors then ordered her to be racked a third time; and during this last trial, she bore the torments with the utmost fortitude, and could not be persuaded to answer any of the questions put to her. As her courage and constancy increased, the inquisitors, instead of putting her to death, condemned her to a severe whipping through the public streets, and banishment for ten years.
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