Wiktionary
durance vile
n. (context obsolete English) A long prison sentence.
Usage examples of "durance vile".
He can't protect anyone if they kill him on Jasbir or lock him away in durance vile for the next century!
There's your villain, baby girl-the politically appointed bureaucrat who has most unjustly held you in durance vile.
Believe me, I have done durance vile in slammers a lot worse than this.
Worthy, it seemed, had been given a ticket-of-leave, and was being held in the back room of the post office under the ancient statute of durance vile.
He had stored up several months' worth of rut in durance vile (mining corundum for emeralds and rubies that he would never see) after having been nipped up at Jorinne's orbiting space station.