DUKE OF EXETER’S DAUGHTER

Duke of Exeter’s Daughter.A torture rack in the Tower of London, named after the Duke of

Exeter, Henry VI’s minister who assisted in introducing it to England. — Also termed brake.

“The rack … to extort a confession from criminals, is a practice of a different nature …. And

the trial by rack is utterly unknown to the law of England; though once when the dukes of Exeter

and  Suffolk  …  had  laid  a  design  to  introduce  the  civil  law  into  this  kingdom  as  the  rule  of

government, for a beginning thereof they erected a rack for torture; which was called in derision

the duke of Exeter’s daughter, and still remains in the tower of London: where it was occasionally

used as an engine of state, not of law, more than once in the reign of queen Elizabeth.” 4 William[Blacks Law 8th]

Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 320–21 (1769). [Blacks Law 8th]