Fet Milner

The Most Obedient Daughter

The Spanish, in their pursuit of a clean and Catholic nation under the Inquisition, have had a variety of the finer implements of torture named after them. The Spanish Boot, the Spanish Chair, the Spanish Tickler: all these were common tools of coercion around the globe, but those confessors, bishops, and priors that formed the Inquisition were so obsessive in their application that they have been rightfully renamed. Other infernal devices, less popular in Spain than elsewhere, have retained their original titles. Of these, the most intriguingly named must be the "Scavenger's Daughter", or Skevington's Gyve.

Sir Leonard Skevington, the Daughter's inventor, was once the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, and in his official capacity devised this method of extreme constriction. The gyve is a set of shackles all connected by an extendable rod. By placing the prisoner's wrists, ankles and neck within these restraints, a screw attached to the rod enabled the torturer to compress their victim as much or as little as desired. By extreme constriction it was possible to gradually crush or fracture most of the vertebrae in the spine; by extreme tightening of the shackles it was possible to crush the bones of the wrists or ankles. As a tool to transport prisoners without risk of escape, it was superb; but it was better still as a torture. In modern times, it is possible to purchase a Daughter from a variety of internet sources, proving the timelessness of its design.

The most fascinating description of the Daughter that I've found, though, is entirely fictitious. In one article, the Scavenger's Daughter is described as "a broad hoop that fitted about the torso and arms". This hoop, like Skevington's original, could be tightened. Upon tightening this creation, horrifically, blood could be literally squeezed from the body, exiting via the eyes, nose, ears, mouth, fingertips, toes, and no doubt those places pleasantly described as the "nether regions". Having discovered this description I took it upon myself to find out if such a wonderful device did, in fact, exist. Sadly, to date I have found no further references to it, but I have instead found other wonderful machineries, such as the Witch's Claw (which tore the breasts from women by raking them against a wall fitted with massive hooks) and the Pear of Anguish (certainly the most beautifully named of anal / vaginal probes, it was possible to open it out into a kind of steel flower which, when withdrawn from the unfortunate orifice, would fatally mutilate).

But still I am left with the image of a tool capable of squeezing the blood from a victim. Somewhere in the world is the person that thought of it, whose imagination surely equals that of Sir Leonard Skevington and could have been, should they be so inclined, a fine designer for the Spanish Inquisition.

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