‘Master Topcliffe’ – Torturer: With a legal system that, at the very least, requires an alleged offender to enter a ‘plea’ (although a full confession is always preferred), the office of ‘Torturer’ has long furnished the State with the pleas and confessions that the system demanded! ‘Master Topcliffe’, with his array of tools and special devices, has perfected the subtlety
of his art; that of inflicting just enough pain to extract a confession, but not too much to render his subject beyond his reach for……..the dead do not speak!
The history of State-sponsored torture is clouded in mystery; from the medieval times it reaching the heights of perfection during the late Tudor and Stuart periods (at the time of religious persecution) and was still employed, in a simplified form, as late as the Georgian period (relating to extracting pleas from alleged offenders).
This presentation, which is supported by an array of torture items and period accurate equipment, is suitable for an interior castle or dungeon location.