Now Hist. or arch. A place in which there is little ease for him who occupies it; a narrow place of confinement; spec. the name of a dungeon in the Tower of London, and of an ancient place of punishment for unruly apprentices at the Guildhall, London. Also, the pillory or stocks.
a. 1529. Skelton, Col. Cloute, 1171. Lodge hym in Lytell Ease Fede hym with beanes and pease!
1548. Elyot, Dict., s.v. Arca, A streicte place in a prisone, called littell ease.
1550. Latimer, Last Serm. bef. Edw. VI. (1562), 115. Was he not worthy to be cast in bocardo or lytle ease?
1608. Middleton, Family of Love, III. i. D 1 b. How dost thou brooke thy little ease, thy Trunk? [To a person who has been carried in a trunk.]
a. 1623. W. Pemble, Wks. (1635), 548. As a prisoner of the Jayle, or one that is in little ease.
1663. Dryden, Wild Gallant, I. ii. I sweat to think of that garret … why ’tis a kind of little ease, to cramp thy rebellious prentices in.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 312/1. There is another like place of punishment in our House of Correction in Chester … it is called the Little Ease, a place cut into a Rock, with a Grate Door before it.
1738. Curiosity, or Gentl. & Lady’s Libr. (1739), 54. Here ev’ry Creditor has Right to teize, And make his Home a real Little-Ease [Note. A Place of Punishment in Guildhall, London, for unruly ’Prentices].
1752. Carte, Hist. Eng., III. 736. A loathsome filthy hole or dungeon in the Tower, called Little Ease.
1840. H. Ainsworth, Tower Lond., xiii. The walls of the cell, which was called the Little Ease, were so low, and so contrived, that the wretched inmate could neither stand, walk, sit, nor lie at full length within them.
1899. F. T. Bullen, Log Sea-waif, 10. The pantry: a sort of little-ease in a corner of the cuddy.
transf. 1638. Featly, Strict. Lyndom., II. 58. In the Romish Purgatory all soules are in little-ease.
1681. Whole Duty Nations, 6. To grant nothing to this consideration, is rather to crowd men into a Little-ease in Religion, than to unite them.
