This privilege, it is said, was granted to all offences, excepting high
treason and sacrilege, till after the year 1350. At first it was
extended not only to the clergy but to any person that could read, who,
however, had to vow that he would enter into holy orders; but with the
increase of learning this "benefit to clergy" was restricted by several
Acts of Parliament, and it was finally abolished only so late as the
reign of George IV.
In _Pasquils Jests and Mother Bunches Merriments_, a book of _facetiae_
very popular in the 16th century, a story is told of a criminal at the
Oxford Assizes who "prayed his clergy," and a Bible was accordingly
handed to him that he might read a verse. He could not read a word,
however, which a scholar who chanced to be present observing, he stood
behind him and prompted him with the verse he was to read; but coming
towards the end, the man's thumb happened to cover the remaining words,
and so the scholar, in a low voice, said: "Take away thy thumb," which
words the man, supposing them to form part of the verse he was reading,
repeated aloud, "Take away thy thumb"--whereupon the judge ordered him
to be taken away and hanged. And in Taylor's _Wit and Mirth_ (1630): "A
fellow having his book [that is, having read a verse in the Bible] at
the sessions, was burnt in the hand, and was commanded to say: 'May God
save the King.
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