Interesting variant to what fuhrer Johnson called the Dead Cat approach, if memory serves. A convenient villain to distract the angry populace: the ChewToy.
I’m belatedly reading the third of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell novels. There’s a scene where a bunch of heretics are publicly humiliated by abasing themselves to Cardinal Wolsey. They are then paraded around some central London location with kindling strapped around their torso as a warning that if they reoffend they will be burned.
Reading the above article soon afterwards I’m thinking: Thomas Cranmer and his ilk were ChewToys, all that time ago. Plus ca change.