stical courts had ceased to take any effective action with
respect to clerks accused of offences against the king's laws; and by
the time of Henry VII. burning on the hand under the order of the king's
judges was substituted for the old process of compurgation in use in the
spiritual courts.

The effect of the claim of benefit of clergy is said to have been to
increase the number of convictions, though it mitigated the punishment;
and it became, in fact, a means of showing mercy to certain classes of
individuals convicted of crime as a kind of privilege to the educated,
i.e. to all clerks whether secular or religious (25 Edw. III. stat. 3);
and it was allowed only in case of a first conviction, except in the
case of clerks who could produce their letters of orders or a
certificate of ordination. To prevent a second claim it was the practice
to brand murderers with the letter M, and other felons with the Tyburn
T, and Ben Jonson was in 1598 so marked for manslaughter.

The reign of Henry VIII. was marked by extreme severity in the execution
of criminals--as during this time 72,000 persons are said to have been
hanged. After the formation of English settlements in America the
severity of the law was mitigated by the practice of reprieving persons
sentenced to death on condition of their consenting to be transported to
the American colonies, and to enter into bond service there. The
practice seems to have been borrowed from Spain, and to have been begun
in 1597 (39 Eliz. c. 4). It was applied by Cromwell after his campaign
in Ireland, and was in full force immediately after the Restoration, and
is recognized in the Habeas Corpus Act 1677, and was used for the
Cameronians during Claverhouse's campaign in south-west Scotland. In the
18th century the courts were empowered to sentence felons to
transportation (see DEPORTATION) instead of to execution, and this state
of the law continued until 1857 (6 _Law Quarterly Review_, p. 388). This
power to sentence to transportation at first applied only to felonies
with benefit of clergy; but in 1705, on the abolition of the necessity
of proving capacity to read, all criminals alike became entitled to the
benefit previously reserved to clerks. Benefit of clergy was finally
abolished in 1827 as to all persons not having privilege of peerage, and
in 1841 as to peers and peeresses. Its beneficial effect had now been
exhausted, since no clergyable offences remained capital crimes.

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