The "cruel trilemma"[REF] was an English ecclesiastical and judicial weapon[REF] developed in the first half of the 17th century, and used as a form of coercion and persecution.
Outcry over this process led to the foundation of the right to not incriminate oneself being established in common law and was the direct precursor of the right to silence and non-self-incrimination in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.