"It has been very generally asserted," says Dr. Jamieson, "that part of the cargo of the invincible Armada was a large assortment of "thumbikens", which it was meant should be employed as powerful arguments for convincing the heretics." The country of the "inquisition" was certainly a fit quarter from whence to derive so congenial an instrument; but other accounts, as we have said, and these apparently unquestionable, assign it a later introduction... In the torturing of Spence, Lord Fountainhall mentions the origin of the "thumbikens", stating that this instrument "was a new invention used among the colliers upon transgressors, and discovered by Generals Dalyell and Drummond, they having seen them used in Muscovy." The account of Bishop Burnet gives of the torturing of Spence confirms the then recent use of the "thumbikens". ... This point we think is put beyond all doubt by the following act of the privy council in 1684, quoted in Wodrow's invaluable history: "Whereas there is now "a new invention and engine called the thumbikens" ... the Lords of His Majesty's Council do therefore ordain, that when any person shall be put to the torture, that the boots and the thumbikens both be applied to them..."