Well this is a bit of a different piece – but that’s what the Whatever post is all about. Ladles and Jellypoons we give you an essay by Geraint Jonathan.
A pioneer in the use of manacles, Richard Topcliffe’s imagination knew bounds, if you’ll not forgive my saying so. He was a man who lived and breathed his work – going so far as to design his very own ‘torture-machine’, compared with which, in his own words, “the rack is mere child’s play.”
Such was Topcliffe’s eminence that by the 1590s he had become both adjective and euphemism. To be accused of “Topcliffian practices” at the time was to be considered a very nasty piece of work indeed. Topcliffe himself was delighted by the uses made of his name – indeed he took succour from the knowledge that mere mention of it sufficed to induce a collective shudder in the populace.
That he preened himself in the glare of his reputation was clear to those unfortunate enough to find themselves in his company, but who were, nonetheless, fortunate enough to leave it with their limbs intact and speech unimpaired. John Gerrard, for example, arrested in 1594, recalled Topcliffe’s addressing him, “You know who I am? I am Topcliffe. No doubt you have heard people talk about me?”
As the state’s principal ‘rack-meister’, it was Topcliffe’s job to extract information from those perceived to be a threat to national security. Often reporting directly to the Queen, Topcliffe’s methods of interrogation were distinguished by the variety of implements deployed – as well as by Topcliffe’s own little improvised touches – such as placing a simple pebble under the spine of one of those unfortunates already stretched to breaking point on the rack.
Topcliffe put in the hours; no day was too long in the service of Her Majesty. He was fond too of the names bestowed on the tools of his craft, those colloquial sobriquets coined generations earlier – with names like ‘scavenger’s daughter’, or ‘the iron-maiden’ or ‘chokepears’. It was much the same with the names of dungeons; ‘Little Ease’ was a favourite.
To say that Topcliffe is alive and well is too obvious a point to make, but perhaps always a point worth making in view of that very fact. He is still to be found enjoying his work any day of the week, in any number of countries the world over. He is still conscientious to a fault, aspiring to combine in his person those qualities still recognized as ideal in the best torturers, namely zest, efficiency and persistence. He is still relishing the prospect of another day; it is a happy face stares back at him from the mirror of a morning. Topcliffe, wherever he is, is there in his thousands. And doubtless hard at work at this very moment. As for the historical Richard Topcliffe, safely antique in his malevolence, a droll note in the telling is all very well – but applied to any equivalent case from more recent times and that same note of course becomes instantly repugnant. And in the case of Richard Topcliffe, dead these four hundred years, that repugnance is, I think, a fitting note on which to end. We shall always see his like again.
literally stories 
Geraint
I forgot to hit send last time. But this is a brilliant look at a repellent person whose “work” was followed by Stalin, Pol Pot and Gitmo bay. And it still lends a stink to the human race.
Great job!
Leila
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Thanks Leila – if belatedly!
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Geraint
On one level, perhaps only Roman crucifixion could do justice to the methods of Mr. Topcliffe, except that I’m not so sure the Romans performing their tasks enjoyed their work, or their fame, to the level of Topcliffe, which makes him an advance in human civilization, both in psychological penetration, and in the nature of fame…
This hybrid genre work, which seems part history, part prose poem, and part savage moral indignation, reminds me of Dr. Jonathan Swift, in the way it pulls no punches and has no forgiveness for those masculine aspects of humanity that do not deserve to be forgiven (and this kind of aggression is always masculine, even when it’s a woman pulling the levers or yanking the puppet strings).
Mark Twain has an essay called “The United States of Lyncherdom” which belongs beside “Not Quite the National Treasure.” The way Charlie Chaplin pilloried Hitler in one of his films also comes to mind.
The restraint, and the paradox, of this essay are two technical writing aspects that help give it its amazing power to jolt one out of the apathetic slumber much of humanity resides in at the moment. There is also a fearlessness of gaze here. And a universal (global) awareness of the past, present, and future.
Topcliffe is prophetic. Much of the torture doled out by various “advanced” civilizations these days is mere psychology…the threat of internal exile without a name, the threat of having the seat you’re sitting in yanked out from under your rear end again without warning, the threat of what will happen if you disobey the boss’s disordered orders or look at her crosswise one more time, or the threat of alienation that’s present in the possibility of being atomized and ejected, rejected, forgotten, and ignored, and that keeps so many people walking into the future while happily wearing the blinders of conformity (and meanwhile the world burns, getting hotter by the moment)….Your savagely accurate, and Symbolist, poem in prose is about more than physical torture. The threat of a world where a tiny, greedy, grasping, LAUGHING minority are now telling everyone else what to do, like one of the “Fulfillment Centers” of the Amazon Madness that drive their workers to exhaustion, anonymity, and dehumanization so the packages will get delivered on time (and the profits for one or two will keep piling up obscenely, perversely), and which is THE EXACT OPPOSITE of democracy…
As RIMBAUD said before vanishing, “I’m really beyond the grave, and no more assignments, please.”
D.W.B.
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Geraint
“The Vampire who makes us behave ordains that we amuse ourselves with what she doles out to us…To roll with one’s wounds, through the wearying air and the sea…with physical torment…with tortures that laugh…” – Rimbaud
Perhaps another kind of invisible epigraph for this Symbolist (Realist) work…
Dale
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Thanks Dale, your comments always valued. Hadn’t thought to make those connections.
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One has to wonder what goes wrong and when to turn a small child into a monster and yet it happens over and over. This was a well sritten and fascinating piece – thank you – dd
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Thanks Diane.
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Geraint
I hadn’t thought much about it, but torture is certainly high on the list of human traits, along with sympathy, resentment, charity, and greed. I guess we are pretty much a mess. I think it all started in The Garden over some confusion regarding an apple tree, although Topcliffe’s brand of torture seems more pragmatic, God’s more mean-spirited. (I hope I’m wrong.)
Thanks for the Sunday sendoff. — Gerry
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Your comment appreciated Gerry.
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A well-crafted and biting satire. It convinced me to look up if there really was a Richard Topcliffe. I like it when that happens.
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Thanks David.
Shakespeare himself will have been one of those who shuddered at the name.
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I shall do my upmost to use ‘Topcliffian’ in conversation at some point soon! Your last line is both wry and full of unfortunate truth.
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