| | INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE DURING THE ELIZABETHAN ERA Various means of tortures were use to extract confessions for crime. Women did not escape torture and punishment during this violent era - Anne Askew was put to the rack for her religious beliefs, and subsequently died, during the reign of Elizabeth's father King Henry VIII. The highest nobles were automatically exempt from torture but other courtiers were not. Instruments and means of torture, for unproven crimes, included the following: |