Transcriber's Notes: Words in italics in the original are surrounded
with _underscores_. Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been
left as in the original. Ellipses match the original. A complete list
of corrections follows the text.
The History and
Romance of
Crime
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES
TO THE PRESENT DAY
THE GROLIER SOCIETY
LONDON
[Illustration: _Elizabeth Fry Reading to the Women Prisoners in
Newgate_
The sympathies of the Quaker lady, Elizabeth Fry, were
aroused by the sadly neglected condition of the women's
quarters in Newgate in 1813. She formed the Ladies' Committee
which secured many important reforms from Parliament. She was
a constant visitor to the old prison, where she brought hope
and comfort, and wrought great changes.]
Chronicles of Newgate
FROM THE TWELFTH TO
THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY
_by_
MAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFITHS
_Late Inspector of Prisons in Great Britain_
_Author of
"The Mysteries of Police and Crime"
"Fifty Years of Public Service," etc._
In Two Volumes
Volume 1
THE GROLIER SOCIETY
EDITION NATIONALE
Limited to one thousand registered and numbered sets.
NUMBER 307.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
The combat with crime is as old as civilization. Unceasing warfare is
and ever has been waged between the law-maker and the law-breaker.
The punishments inflicted upon criminals have been as various as the
nations devising them, and have reflected with singular fidelity their
temperaments or development. This is true of the death penalty which in
many ages was the only recognized punishment for crimes either great
or small. Each nation has had its own special method of inflicting it.
One was satisfied simply to destroy life; another sought to intensify
the natural fear of death by the added horrors of starvation or the
withholding of fluid, by drowning, stoning, impaling or by exposing the
wretched victims to the stings of insects or snakes. Burning at the
stake was the favourite method of religious fanaticism. This flourished
under the Inquisition everywhere, but notably in Spain where hecatombs
perished by the _autos-da-fé_ or "trials of faith" conducted with great
ceremony often in the presence of the sovereign himself. Indeed, so
terrible are the records of the ages that one turns with relief to the
more humane methods of slowly advancing civilization,—the electric
chair, the rope, the garotte, and even to that sanguinary "daughter of
the Revolution," "la guillotine," the timely and merciful invention of
Dr. Guillotin which substituted its swift and certain action for the
barbarous hacking of blunt swords in the hands of brutal or unskilful
executioners.
Savage instinct, however, could not find full satisfaction even in
cruel and violent death, but perforce must glut itself in preliminary
tortures. Mankind has exhausted its fiendish ingenuity in the invention
of hideous instruments for prolonging the sufferings of its victims.
When we read to-day of the cold-blooded Chinese who condemns his
criminal to be buried to the chin and left to be teased to death by
flies; of the lust for blood of the Russian soldier who in brutal glee
impales on his bayonet the writhing forms of captive children; of the
recently revealed torture-chambers of the Yildiz Kiosk where Abdul
Hamid wreaked his vengeance or squeezed millions of treasure from
luckless foes; or of the Congo slave wounded and maimed to satisfy the
greed for gold of an unscrupulous monarch;—we are inclined to think of
them as savage survivals in "Darkest Africa" or in countries yet beyond
the pale of western civilization. Yet it was only a few centuries ago
that Spain "did to death" by unspeakable cruelties the gentle races of
Mexico and Peru, and sapped her own splendid vitality in the woeful
chambers of the Inquisition. Even as late as the end of the eighteenth
century enlightened France was filling with the noblest and best of her
land those _oubliettes_ of which the very names are epitomes of woe:
La Fin d'Aise, "The End of Ease;" La Boucherie, "The Shambles;" and La
Fosse, "The Pit" or "Grave;" in the foul depths of which the victim
stood waist deep in water unable to rest or sleep without drowning.
Buoyed up by hope of release, some endured this torture of "La Fosse"
for fifteen days; but that was nature's limit. None ever survived it
longer.
The _oubliettes_ of the Conciergerie, recently revealed by excavations
below the level of the Seine, vividly confirm the story of Masers
de Latude, long confined in a similar one in Bicêtre. He says: "I
had neither fire nor artificial light and prison rags were my only
clothing. To quench my thirst, I sucked morsels of ice broken off
from the open window; I was nearly choked by the effluvium from the
cellars. Insects stung me in the eyes. I had nearly always a bad taste
in my mouth, and my lungs were horribly oppressed. I endured unceasing
pangs of hunger, cold and damp; I was attacked by scurvy; in ten days
my legs and thighs were swollen to twice their ordinary size; my body
turned black; my teeth loosened in their sockets so that I could not
masticate; I could not speak and was thought to be dead."
Perhaps the refinement of torture, however, had been reached under
the cowardly and superstitious Louis XI, whose iron cages were of such
shape and size that the prisoners could languish in them for years
unable either to stand upright or to stretch full length upon the
floor. One feels the grim humour of fate that condemned the Bishop of
Verdun, their inventor, to be the first to suffer in them.
Life-long confinement under such conditions was the so-called
"clemency" of rulers desiring to be thought merciful. Supported
first by hope, then deadened by despair, men endured life in these
prisons for years only to leave them bereft of health or reason. The
famous names of those who languished in them is legion. Fouquet, the
defaulting minister of Louis XIV, whose magnificence had rivalled that
of the king himself, was punished by such captivity for twenty years.
The "Man with the Iron Mask," whose identity, lost for three centuries,
has been proved beyond a doubt after careful comparison of all
theories,—pined his life away in one of them, accused, like Dreyfus,
of having sold a secret of state.
Records of like cruelty and indifference to human suffering blackened
the pages of English history until the merciful ministrations of John
Howard and of Elizabeth Frye aroused the slumbering pity of Great
Britain, and alleviated the conditions of prisoners all over the world.
In all lands, in all ages, in all stages of civilization, man has
left grim records of vengeful passion. No race has escaped the stigma,
perhaps no creed. It would almost seem that nations had vied with each
other in the subtlety of their ingenuity for producing suffering. The
stoical Indian, the inscrutable Chinese, the cruel Turk, the brutal
Slav, the philosophic Greek, the suave and artistic Italian, the
stolid German, the logical and pleasure-loving French, the aggressive
English,—all have left their individual seal on these records of
"man's inhumanity to man."
From the gloom of these old prisons have sprung many of the most
fascinating stories of the world,—stories so dramatic, so thrilling,
so pathetic that even the magic fiction of Dickens or Dumas pales
beside the dread realities of the Tower, the Bastile, the Spielberg,
the "leads" of the Palace of the Doges, the mines of Siberia, or the
Black Hole of Calcutta.
What heroic visions history conjures for us! Columbus languishing in
chains in Spain; Savonarola and Jean d'Arc passing from torture to the
stake; Sir William Wallace, Sidney, Raleigh, Lady Jane Grey, Sir Thomas
More, irradiating the dim cells of London's Tower; Madame Roland,
Charlotte Corday, Marie Antoinette, beautifying the foul recesses of
the Conciergerie; gentle Madame Elizabeth soothing the sorrows of the
Temple; Silvio Pellico in the Spielberg; Settembrini and the Patriots
of the Risorgimento in the prisons of Italy; the myriad martyrs of
Russia in the dungeons of the Czar or the wilds of Siberia—all pass
before us in those magic pages, uttering in many tongues but in one
accord their righteous and eternal protest against the blind vengeance
of man.
INTRODUCTION
In antiquity and varied interest old Newgate prison, now passed away
before the ceaseless movement of London change, yields to no place
of durance in the world. A gaol stood on this same site for almost a
thousand years. The first prison was nearly as old as the Tower of
London, and much older than the Bastile. Hundreds of thousands of
"felons and trespassers" have from first to last been incarcerated
within. To many it must have been an abode of sorrow, suffering,
and unspeakable woe, a kind of terrestrial inferno, to enter which
was to abandon every hope. Imprisonment was often lightly and
capriciously inflicted in days before British liberties were fully
won, and innumerable victims of tyranny and oppression have been
lodged in Newgate. Political troubles also sent their quota. The gaol
was the half-way house to the scaffold or the gallows for turbulent
or short-sighted persons who espoused the losing side; it was the
starting-place for that painful pilgrimage to the pillory or whipping
post which was too frequently the punishment for rashly uttered
libels and philippics against constituted power. Newgate, again, was
on the highroad to Smithfield; in times of intolerance and fierce
religious dissensions numbers of devoted martyrs went thence to suffer
for conscience' sake at the stake. For centuries a large section of
the permanent population of Newgate, as of all gaols, consisted of
offenders against commercial laws. While fraudulent bankrupts were
hanged, others more unfortunate than criminal were clapped into gaol
to linger out their lives without the chance of earning the funds by
which alone freedom could be recovered. Debtors of all degrees were
condemned to languish for years in prison, often for the most paltry
sums. The perfectly innocent were also detained. Gaol deliveries
were rare, and the boon of arraignment and fair trial was strangely
and unjustly withheld, while even those acquitted in open court were
often haled back to prison because they were unable to discharge the
gaoler's illegal fees. The condition of the prisoners in Newgate
was long most deplorable. They were but scantily supplied with the
commonest necessaries of life. Light scarcely penetrated their dark
and loathsome dungeons; no breath of fresh air sweetened the fetid
atmosphere they breathed; that they enjoyed the luxury of water was due
to the munificence of a lord mayor of London. Their daily subsistence
was most precarious. Food, clothing, fuel were doled out in limited
quantities as charitable gifts; occasionally prosperous citizens
bequeathed small legacies to be expended in the same articles of
supply. These bare prison allowances were further eked out by the
chance seizures in the markets; by bread forfeited as inferior or of
light weight, and meat declared unfit to be publicly sold. All classes
and categories of prisoners were herded indiscriminately together:
men and women, tried and untried, upright but misguided zealots with
hardened habitual offenders. The only principle of classification
was a prisoner's ability or failure to pay certain fees; money could
purchase the squalid comfort of the master's side, but no immunity from
the baleful companionship of felons equally well furnished with funds
and no less anxious to escape the awful horrors of the common side of
the gaol. The weight of the chains, again, which innocent and guilty
alike wore, depended upon the price a prisoner could pay for "easement
of irons," and it was a common practice to overload a newcomer with
enormous fetters and so terrify him into lavish disbursement. The gaol
at all times was so hideously overcrowded that plague and pestilence
perpetually ravaged it, and the deadly infection often spread into the
neighbouring courts of law.
The foregoing is an imperfect but by no means highly coloured picture
of Newgate as it existed for hundreds of years, from the twelfth
century to the nineteenth. The description is supported by historical
records, somewhat meagre at first, but becoming more and more ample
and better substantiated as the period grows less remote. It is this
actual Newgate, with all its terrors for the sad population which
yearly passed its forbidding portals, which I have endeavoured to
portray.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION 5
I. MEDIÆVAL NEWGATE 13
II. NEWGATE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 40
III. NEWGATE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 71
IV. NEWGATE AFTER THE GREAT FIRE 90
V. THE PRESS-YARD 129
VI. NOTABLE EXECUTIONS 156
VII. REMARKABLE ESCAPES 210
VIII. NEWGATE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 242
IX. LATER RECORDS 277
X. HIGHWAYMEN AND PIRATES 321
List of Illustrations
ELIZABETH FRY READING TO THE WOMEN PRISONERS
IN NEWGATE _Frontispiece_
THE SESSIONS HOUSE, CLERKENWELL GREEN,
LONDON _Page_ 85
THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT, OLD BAILEY,
LONDON " 178
THE PRISON OF NEWGATE " 246
CHRONICLES OF NEWGATE
CHAPTER I
MEDIAEVAL NEWGATE
Earliest accounts of Newgate prison—The New Gate, when
built and why—Classes of prisoners incarcerated—Brawlers,
vagabonds, and "roarers" committed to Newgate—Exposure
in pillory and sometimes mutilation preceded imprisonment—The
gradual concession of privileges to the Corporation—Corporation
obtains complete jurisdiction over Newgate—The sheriffs
responsible for the good government of prisons on appointment—
Forbidden to farm the prison or sell the post of keeper—The
rule in course of time contravened, and keepership became
purchasable—Condition of the prisoners in mediæval times—
Dependent on charity for commonest necessaries—A breviary
bequeathed—Gaol fell into ruin and was rebuilt by Whittington's
executors in 1422—This edifice two centuries later restored,
but destroyed in the great fire of 1666.
The earliest authentic mention of Newgate as a gaol or prison for
felons and trespassers occurs in the records of the reign of King
John. In the following reign, A. D. 1218, Henry III expressly
commands the sheriffs of London to repair it, and promises to reimburse
them for their outlay from his own exchequer. This shows that at that
time the place was under the direct control of the king, and maintained
at his charges. The prison was above the gate, or in the gate-house, as
was the general practice in ancient times. Thus Ludgate was long used
for the incarceration of city debtors.
To the gate-house of Westminster were committed all offenders taken
within that city; and the same rule obtained in the great provincial
towns, as at Newcastle, Chester, Carlisle, York, and elsewhere.
Concerning the gate itself, the New Gate and its antiquity, opinions
somewhat differ. Maitland declares it to be "demonstrable" that Newgate
was one of the four original gates of the city; "for after the fire of
London in 1666," he goes on to say, "in digging a foundation for the
present Holborn bridge, the vestigia of the Roman military way called
Watling Street were discovered pointing directly to this gate; and this
I take to be an incontestable proof of an original gate built over the
said way in this place."
Of that ancient Newgate, city portal and general prison-house combined,
but scant records remain. A word or two in the old chroniclers, a
passing reference in the history of those troublous times, a few brief
and formal entries in the city archives—these are all that have been
handed down to us.
But we may read between the lines and get some notion of mediæval
Newgate. Foul, noisome, terrible, are the epithets applied to this
densely crowded place of durance.[15:1] It was a dark, pestiferous
den, then, and for centuries later, perpetually ravaged by deadly
diseases.
Its inmates were of all categories. Prisoners of state and the most
abandoned criminals were alike committed to it. Howel, quoted by
Pennant, states that Newgate was used for the imprisonment of persons
of rank long before the Tower was applied to that purpose. Thus Robert
de Baldock, chancellor of the realm in the reign of Edward II, to
whom most of the miseries of the kingdom were imputed, was dragged to
Newgate by the mob. He had been first committed to the Bishop's Prison,
but was taken thence to Newgate as a place of more security; "but the
unmerciful treatment he met with on the way occasioned him to die
there within a few days in great torment from the blows which had been
inflicted on him." Again, Sir Thomas Percie, Lord Egremond, and other
people of distinction, are recorded as inmates in 1457. But the bulk
of the prisoners were of meaner condition, relegated for all manner
of crimes. Some were parlous offenders. There was but little security
for life or property in that old London, yet the law made constant
war against the turbulent and reckless roughs. Stowe draws a lively
picture of the state of the city at the close of the twelfth century.
One night a brother of Earl Ferrers was slain privately in London. The
king (Edward I) on hearing this "swore that he would be avenged on the
citizens." It was then a common practice in the city for "an hundred
or more in company of young and old to make nightly invasions upon the
houses of the wealthy, to the intent to rob them, and if they found any
man stirring in the city they would presently murder him, insomuch that
when night was come no man durst adventure to walk in the streets."
Matters at length came to a crisis. A party of citizens, young and
wealthy, not mere rogues, attacked the "storehouse of a certain rich
man," and broke through the wall. The "good man of the house" was
prepared and lay in wait for them "in a corner," and saw that they were
led by one Andrew Bucquinte, who carried a burning brand in one hand
and a pot of coals in the other, which he essayed to kindle with the
brand. Upon this the master, crying "Thieves!" rushed at Bucquinte and
smote off his right hand. All took to flight "saving he that had lost
his hand," whom the good man in the next morning delivered to Richard
de Lucy, the king's justice. The thief turned informer, and "appeached
his confederates, of whom many were taken and many were fled." One,
however, was apprehended, a citizen "of great countenance, credit,
and wealth, named John Senex, or John the Old, who, when he could not
acquit himself by the water dome, offered the king five hundred marks
for his acquittal; but the king commanded that he should be hanged,
which was done, and the city became more quiet."
Long before this, however, Edward I had dealt very sharply with
evil-doers. By the suspension of corporation government following that
king's conflict with the city authority, "all kinds of licentiousness
had got leave to go forward without control."
At length the frequency of robberies and murders produced the great
penal statute of the 13 Edward I (1287). By this act it was decreed
that no stranger should wear any weapon, or be seen in the streets
after the ringing of the _couvre-feu_ bell at St. Martin's-le-Grand;
that no vintners and victuallers should keep open house after the
ringing of the said bell under heavy fines and penalties; that "whereas
it was customary for profligates to learn the art of fencing, who were
thereby emboldened to commit the most unheard-of villainies, no such
school should be kept in the city for the future upon the penalty of
forty marks for every offence." Most of the aforesaid villainies were
said to be committed by foreigners who incessantly crowded into London
from all parts; it was therefore ordered that no person not free of the
city should be suffered to reside therein; and even many persons thus
avouched were obliged to give security for their good behaviour.
The "Liber Albus," as translated by Riley, gives the penalties for
brawling and breaking the peace about this date. It was ordained that
any person who should draw a sword, _misericorde_ (a dagger with a thin
blade used for mercifully despatching a wounded enemy), or knife, or
any arm, even though he did not strike, should pay a fine to the city
of half a mark, or be imprisoned in Newgate for fifteen days. If he
drew blood the fine was twenty shillings, or forty days in Newgate; in
striking with the fist two shillings, or eight days' imprisonment, and
if blood was drawn forty pence, or twelve days. Moreover, the offenders
were to find good sureties before release, and those on whom the
offence was committed had still recovery by process of law.
Nor were these empty threats. The laws and ordinances against prowlers
and vagabonds, or night-walkers, as they were officially styled, were
continually enforced by the attachment of offenders. Many cases are
given in the memorials of London.
Thus Elmer de Multone was attached on indictment as a common
night-walker in the ward of Chepe; in the day, it was charged, he was
wont to entice persons and strangers unknown to a tavern and there
deceive them by using false dice. He was furthermore indicted "in
Tower ward for being a cruiser and night-walker against the peace,
as also for being a common 'roarer.'[18:1] Multone was committed
to prison. Others met with similar treatment. John de Rokeslee was
attached as being held suspected of evil and of beating men coming
into the city;" "Peter le Taverner, called Holer," the same, and for
going with sword and buckler and other arms; John Blome was indicted
"as a common vagabond for committing batteries and other mischiefs
in the ward of Aldresgate and divers other wards." "A chaplain," our
modern curate, Richard Heryng, was attached on similar charges, but
was acquitted. Not only were the "roarers" themselves indicted when
taken in this act, but also those who harboured them, like John Baronu,
mentioned in the same document as attached for keeping open house at
night, and receiving night-walkers and players at dice. The prohibition
against fencing-masters was also rigorously enforced, as appears by
the indictment of "Master Roger le Skirmisour, for keeping a fencing
school for divers men, and for enticing thither the sons of respectable
persons so as to waste and spend the property of their fathers and
mothers upon bad practices, the result being that they themselves
become bad men. Master Roger, upon proof to a jury that he was guilty
of the trespasses aforesaid, was committed to Newgate."
Incarceration in Newgate, however, was meted out promptly for other
offences than those against which the last-mentioned legislation was
directed. Priests guilty of loose living, Jews accused rightly or
wrongly, now of infanticide, of crucifying children, now of coining
and clipping, found themselves in the gaol for indefinite periods.
People, again, who adulterated or sold bad food were incontinently
clapped into gaol. Thus William Cokke of Hesse (or Hayes) was charged
with carrying a sample of wheat in his hand in the market within
Newgate, and following one William, the servant of Robert de la Launde,
goldsmith, about from sack to sack, as the latter was seeking to buy
wheat, telling him that such wheat as the sample could not be got for
less than twenty-one pence per bushel, whereas on the same day and at
the same hour the same servant could have bought the same wheat for
eighteen pence. Cokke, when questioned before the mayor, recorder,
and certain of the aldermen, acknowledged that he had done this to
enhance the price of wheat to the prejudice of all the people. He
was in consequence committed to gaol, and sentenced also to have the
punishment of the pillory. The same fate overtook Alan de Lyndeseye
and Thomas de Patemere, bankers, who were brought before the bench at
Guildhall, and with them "bread they had made of false, putrid, and
rotten materials, through which persons who bought such bread were
deceived and might be killed." The fear of imprisonment, again, was
before the eyes of all who sought to interfere with the freedom of the
markets. Thus it is recorded in the ordinances of the cheesemongers,
that "whereas the hokesters (hucksters) and others who sell such wares
by retail do come and regrate such cheese and butter before prime rung,
and before that the commonalty has been served, may it be ordained that
no such hokesters shall buy of any foreigner before the hour of prime
on pain of imprisonment at the will of the mayor." Similar penalties
were decreed against "regrating" fish and other comestibles for the
London markets.
In 1316 Gilbert Peny was bound in the third time in default for selling
bread deficient in weight. He had been twice drawn on the hurdle, and
it was therefore now adjudged that he should be drawn once more, and
should then forswear the trade of a baker in the city for ever. One
of many similar cases is that of William Spalyng, who, for selling
putrid beef at "les Stokkes," the stocks market near Walbrook, was put
upon the pillory, and the carcasses were burnt beneath. Another who
made shoes of unlawful material had them forfeited. Bakers who stole
dough from the moulding-boards of other bakers were exposed on the
pillory with the dough hung about their necks. Richard le Forester, for
attempting to defraud with a false garland or metal chaplet for the
head, was sentenced to stand in the pillory, and afterwards to forswear
the city for a year and a day. Traders convicted of having blankets
vamped in foreign parts with the hair of oxen and of cows were
punished, and the blankets were burnt under the pillory on Cornhill.
Similarly, false gloves, braces, and pouches were burnt in the High
Street of Chepe near the stone cross there. John Penrose, a taverner,
convicted of selling unsound wine, was adjudged to drink a draught
of the said wine, and the remainder was then poured out on his head.
Alice, wife of Robert de Cranstom, was put in the "thew," or pillory
for women, for selling ale by short measure; and so was Margery Hore
for selling putrid soles, the fish being burnt, and the cause of her
punishment proclaimed. Two servants of John Naylere were placed in the
stocks upon Cornhill for one hour, and their sacks burnt beside them,
for selling a deficient measure of charcoal, while their master's
three horses were seized and detained by the mayor's sergeant until
he (Naylere) came and answered for the aforesaid falsity and deceit.
William Avecroft having unsound wine, the sheriffs were ordered to pour
all the wine in the street and wholly make away with it, according to
the custom of the city.
Interesting reference may also be made to the "Liber Albus" which
contains other ordinances against brawlers and loose livers. The
former, whether male or female, were taken to the pillory, carrying
a distaff dressed with flax and preceded by minstrels. The latter,
whether male, female, or clerics, were marched behind music to Newgate
and into the Tun in Cornhill.[23:1] Repeated offences were visited
with expulsion, and the culprits were compelled to forswear the city
for ever. The men on exposure had their heads and beards shaved, except
a fringe on their heads two inches in breadth; women who made the
penance in a hood of "rag" or striped cloth had their hair cut round
about their heads. Worse cases of both sexes were shaved, like "an
appealer," or false informer. The crime of riotous assembling was very
sharply dealt with, as appears from the proclamation made on the king's
(Edward III) departure for France. It was then ordained that "no one of
the city, of whatsoever condition he shall be, shall go out of the city
to maintain parties, such as taking leisure, or holding 'days of love'
(days of reconciliation between persons at variance), or making other
congregations within the city or without in disturbance of the peace of
our lord the king, or in affray of the people, and to the scandal of
the city." Any found guilty thereof were to be taken and put into the
prison of Newgate, and there retained for a year and a day; and if he
was a freeman of the city, he lost his freedom for ever.
The city authorities appear to have been very anxious to uphold their
prerogatives, jealous of their good name, and to have readily availed
themselves of Newgate as a place of punishment for any who impugned it.
A certain John de Hakford, about the middle of the fourteenth century,
was charged with perjury in falsely accusing the chief men in the city
of conspiracy. For this he was remanded by the mayor and aldermen to
Newgate, there to remain until they shall be better advised as to
their judgment. A little later, on Saturday the morrow of St. Nicholas
(6 Dec., 1364), this judgment was delivered, to the effect that the
said John shall remain in prison for one whole year and a day, and the
said John within such year shall four times have the punishment of the
pillory, that is to say, one day in each quarter of the year, beginning
on the Saturday aforesaid, and in this manner: "The said John shall
come out of Newgate without hood or girdle, barefoot and unshod, with
a whetstone hung by a chain from his neck and lying on his breast, it
being marked with the words 'a false liar,' and there shall be a pair
of trumpets trumpeting before him on his way to the pillory, and there
the cause of this punishment shall be solemnly proclaimed, and the
said John shall remain in the pillory for three hours of the day, and
from thence shall be taken back to Newgate in the same manner, there
to remain until his punishment be completed in manner aforesaid."
This investiture of the whetstone was commonly used as a punishment
for misstatement;[25:1] for it is recorded in 1371 that one Nicholas
Mollere, servant of John Toppesfield, smith, had the punishment of the
pillory and whetstone for "circulating lies," amongst others that the
prisoners at Newgate were to be taken to the Tower of London, and that
there was to be no longer a prison at Newgate.
A sharper sentence was meted out about the same date to William
Hughlot, who for a murderous assault upon an alderman was sentenced to
lose his hand, and precept was given to the sheriffs of London to do
execution of the judgment aforesaid.
Upon this an axe was brought into court by an officer of the sheriffs,
and the hand of the said William was laid upon the block, there to be
cut off. Whereupon John Rove—the alderman aggrieved—in reverence of
our lord the king, and at the request of divers lords, who entreated
for the said William, begged of the mayor and aldermen that the
judgment might be remitted, which was granted accordingly. The culprit
was, however, punished by imprisonment, with exposure on the pillory,
wearing a whetstone, and he was also ordered to carry a lighted wax
candle weighing three pounds through Chepe and Fleet Streets to St.
Dunstan's Church, where he was to make offering of the same.
However sensitive of their good name, the mayor and aldermen of those
times seem to have been fairly upright in their administration of the
law. The following case shows this:
A man named Hugh de Beone, arraigned before the city coroner and
sheriff for the death of his wife, stood mute, and refused to plead,
so as to save his goods after sentence. For thus "refusing the law of
England," the justiciary of our lord the king for the delivery of the
gaol of Newgate, committed him back to prison, "there in penance to
remain until he should be dead."
Long years elapsed between the building of Newgate and the date when
the city gained complete jurisdiction over the prison. King Henry III's
orders to repair the gaol at his own charge has been mentioned already.
Forty years later the same monarch pretended to be keenly concerned
in the good government of Newgate. Returning from Bordeaux when his
son Edward had married the sister of the King of Spain, Henry passed
through Dover and reached London on St. John's Day. The city sent
to congratulate him on his safe arrival, the messengers taking with
them a humble offering of one hundred pounds. The avaricious king was
dissatisfied, and, instead of thanking them, intimated that if they
would win his thanks they must enlarge their present; whereupon they
gave him a "valuable piece of plate of exquisite workmanship, which
pacified him for the present." But Henry was resolved to squeeze more
out of the wealthy burgesses of London. An opportunity soon offered
when a clerk convict, one John Frome, or Offrem,[27:1] charged with
murdering a prior, and committed for safe custody to Newgate, escaped
therefrom. The murdered man was a cousin of Henry's queen, and the
king, affecting to be gravely displeased at this gross failure in
prison administration, summoned the mayor and sheriffs to appear before
him and answer the matter. The mayor laid the fault from him to the
sheriffs, forasmuch as to them belonged the keeping of all prisoners
within the city. The mayor was therefore allowed to return home, but
the sheriffs remained prisoners in the Tower "by the space of a month
or more;" and yet they excused themselves in that the fault rested
chiefly with the bishop's officers, the latter having, at their lord's
request, sent the prisoner to Newgate, but being still themselves
responsible with the bishop for his safe-keeping. These excuses did
not satisfy the king, who, "according to his usual justice," says
Noorthouck, "demanded of the city, as an atonement of the pretended
crime, no less than the sum of three thousand marks." The fine was not
immediately forthcoming, whereupon he degraded both the sheriffs, and
until the citizens paid up the enormous sum demanded, he caused the
chief of them to be seized and clapped into prison.
The city was ready enough, however, to purchase substantial privileges
in hard cash. Many of its early charters were thus obtained from
necessitous kings. In this way the Corporation ransomed, so to speak,
its ancient freedom and the right of independent government.
In 1327 a further point was gained. The support of the citizens had
been freely given to Queen Isabella and her young son in the struggle
against Edward II. On the accession of Edward III a new charter, dated
in the first year of his reign, was granted to the city of London.
After confirming the ancient liberties, it granted many new privileges;
chief among them was the concession that the mayor of London should be
one of the justices for gaol delivery of Newgate, and named in every
commission for that purpose. The king's marshal might in future hold no
court within the boundary of the city, nor were citizens to be called
upon to plead, beyond them, for anything done within the liberties. No
market might be kept within seven miles of London, while the citizens
were permitted to hold fairs and a court of "pye powder" therein;
in other words, a court for the summary disposal of all offences
committed by hawkers or peddlers, or perambulating merchants, who have
_les pieds poudres_, or are "dusty-footed."[29:1] Other privileges
were obtained from the king during his reign. A second charter granted
them the bailiwick of Southwark, a village which openly harboured
"felons, thieves, and other malefactors," who committed crimes in
the city and fled to Southwark for sanctuary. Again, the election of
the mayor was established on a more settled plan, and vested in the
mayor and aldermen for the time being. Another charter conceded to the
Corporation the honour of having gold and silver maces borne before the
chief functionary, who about this period became first entitled to take
rank as lord mayor. The vast wealth and importance of this great civic
dignitary was to be seen in the state he maintained. The lord mayor
even then dispensed a princely hospitality, and one eminent citizen in
his reign, Henry Picard by name, had the honour of entertaining four
sovereigns at his table, viz., the Kings of England, France, Scotland,
and Cyprus, with the Prince of Wales and many more notables. This
Picard was one of the Guild of Merchant Vintners of Gascony, a Bordeaux
wine-merchant, in fact, and a Gascon by birth, although a naturalized
subject of the English king. The vintners gave the city several lord
mayors.
Richard II was not so well disposed towards the city. Recklessly
extravagant, wasteful and profuse in his way of living, he was always
in straits for cash. The money needed for his frivolous amusements and
ostentatious display he wrung from the Corporation by forfeiting its
charters, which were only redeemed by the payment of heavy fines. The
sympathies of the city were therefore with Henry Bolingbroke in the
struggle which followed. It was able to do him good service by warning
him of a plot against his life, and Henry, now upon the throne, to show
his gratitude, and "cultivate the good understanding thus commenced
with the city, granted it a new charter." The most important clause
of Henry's charter was that which entrusted the citizens, their heirs
and successors, with the custody "as well of the gates of Newgate and
Ludgate, as all other gates and posterns in the same city."
By this time the gate and prison had passed under the control of the
civic authorities, and they enjoyed the privilege of contributing to
its charges. This appears from an entry as far back as September,
1339, in the account of expenditure of Thomas de Maryus, chamberlain.
The item is for "moneys delivered to William Simond, sergeant of the
chamber, by precept of the mayor and aldermen, for making the pavement
within Newgate, £7 6_s._ 8_d._" How complete became the power and
responsibility of the Corporation and its officers is to be seen in the
account given in the "Liber Albus" of the procedure when new sheriffs
were appointed. They were sworn on appointment, and with them their
officers, among whom were the governor of Newgate and his clerk. After
dinner on the same day of appointment the old and new sheriffs repaired
to Newgate, where the new officials took over all the prisoners "by
indenture" made between them and the old.[31:1] They were also bound to
"place one safeguard there at their own peril," and were forbidden to
"let the gaol to fenn or farm."
Other restrictions were placed upon them. It was the sheriffs' duty
also, upon the vigil of St. Michael, on vacating their office, to
resign into the hands of the mayor for the time being the keys of
Newgate, the cocket or seal of Newgate, and all other things pertaining
unto the said sheriffwick. All the civic authorities, mayor, sheriffs,
aldermen, and their servants, including the gaoler of Newgate, were
forbidden to brew for sale, keep an oven, or let carts for hire;
"nor shall they be regrators of provisions, or hucksters of ale, or
in partnership with such." Penalties were attached to the breach of
these regulations. It was laid down that any who took the oath and
afterwards contravened it, or any who would not agree to abide by the
ordinance, should be forthwith "ousted from his office for ever." It
was also incumbent upon the sheriffs to put "a man sufficient, and of
good repute, to keep the gaol of Newgate in due manner, without taking
anything of him for such keeping thereof, by covenant made in private
or openly." Moreover, the gaoler so appointed swore before the lord
mayor and aldermen that "neither he nor any of them shall take fine or
extortionate charge from any prisoner by putting on or taking off his
irons, or shall receive moneys extorted from such prisoners." He was
permitted to levy fourpence from each upon release, "as from ancient
time has been the usage, but he shall take fees from no person at his
entrance there;" indeed, he was warned that if he practised extortion
he would be "ousted from his office," and punished at the discretion of
the mayor, aldermen, and common council of the city.
It will be made pretty plain in subsequent pages, that these wise and
righteous regulations were both flagrantly ignored and systematically
contravened. The rule against farming out the prison may have been
observed, and it cannot be clearly proved that the sheriffs ever took
toll from the gaoler. But the spirit of the law, if not its letter,
was broken by the custom which presently grew general of making the
gaolership a purchasable appointment. Thus the buying and selling of
offices, of army commissions, for instance, as we have seen practised
till recent years in England, at one time extended also to the
keeperships of gaols. It is recorded in the Calendar of State Papers
that one Captain Richardson agreed for his place as keeper of Newgate
for £3,000. A larger sum, viz., £5,000, was paid by John Huggins to
Lord Clarendon, who "did by his interest" obtain a grant of the office
of keeper of the Fleet Prison for the life of Huggins and his son. One
James Whiston, in a book entitled "England's Calamities Discovered,
or Serious Advice to the Common Council of London," denounces this
practice, which he stigmatizes as "bartering justice for gold."
"Purchased cruelty," the right to oppress the prisoners, that is to
say, in order to recover the sums spent in buying the place, "is now
grown so bold that if a poor man pay not extortionary fees and ruinous
chamber-rent, he shall be thrown into holes and common sides to be
devoured by famine, lice, and disease. I would fain know," he asks,
"by what surmise of common sense a keeper of a prison can demand a
recompense or fee from a prisoner for keeping him in prison? . . . Can
he believe that any person can deserve a recompense for opening the
door of misery and destruction? . . . But now such is the confidence of
a purchaser, that to regain his sum expended he sells his tap-house
at prodigious rates, . . . he farms his sheets to mere harpies, and his
great key to such a piece of imperious cruelty (presumably his chief
turnkey) as is the worst of mankind." Following the same line of
argument, he says: "It will perhaps be thought impertinent to dispute
a gaoler's demands for admitting us into his loathsome den, when even
the common hangman, no doubt encouraged by such examples, will scarce
give a malefactor a cast of his office without a bribe, demands very
formally his fees, forsooth, of the person to be executed, and higgles
with him as nicely as if he were going to do him some mighty kindness."
Eventually an act was passed specifically forbidding the sale of such
places. This statute affirms that "none shall buy, sell, let, or take
to farm, the office of undersheriff, gaoler, bailiff, under pain of
£500, half to the king and half to him that shall sue."
Let us return to mediæval Newgate. Whatever the authority, whether
royal or civic, the condition of the inmates must have been wretched in
the extreme, as the few brief references to them in the various records
will sufficiently prove. The place was full of horrors; the gaolers
rapacious and cruel. In 1334 an official inquiry was made into the
state of the gaol, and some of the atrocities practised were brought to
light. It was found that prisoners detained on minor charges were cast
into deep dungeons, and there associated with the worst criminals. All
were alike threatened, nay tortured, till they yielded to the keepers'
extortions, or consented to turn approvers and swear away the lives
of innocent men. These poor prisoners were dependent upon the charity
and good-will of the benevolent for food and raiment. As far back as
1237 it is stated that Sir John Pulteney gave four marks by the year to
the relief of prisoners in Newgate. In the year 1385 William Walworth,
the stalwart mayor whose name is well remembered in connection with
Wat Tyler's rebellion, gave "somewhat" with the same good object. "So
have many others since," says the record. The water-supply of the
prison, Stowe tells, was also a charitable gift. "Thomas Knowles,
grocer, sometime mayor of London, by license of Reynold, prior of St.
Bartholomew's in Smithfield, and also of John Wakering, master of the
hospital of St. Bartholomew, and his brethren, conveyed the waste of
water at the cistern near unto the common fountain and Chapel of St.
Nicholas (situate by the said hospital) to the gaols of Ludgate and
Newgate, for the relief of the prisoners."
In 1451, by the will of Phillip Malpas, who had been a sheriff some
twelve years previous, the sum of £125 was bequeathed to "the relief
of poor prisoners." This Malpas, it may be mentioned here, was a
courageous official, ready to act promptly in defence of city rights.
In 1439 a prisoner under escort from Newgate to Guildhall was rescued
from the officers' hands by five companions, after which all took
sanctuary at the college of St. Martin's-le-Grand. "But Phillip Malpas
and Robert Marshal, the sheriffs of London, were no sooner acquainted
with the violence offered to their officer and the rescue of their
prisoner, than they, at the head of a great number of citizens,
repaired to the said college, and forcibly took from thence the
criminal and his rescuers, whom they carried in fetters to the Compter,
and thence, chained by the necks, to Newgate."
For food the prisoners were dependent upon alms or upon articles
declared forfeit by the law. All food sold contrary to the statutes
of the various guilds was similarly forfeited to the prisoners. The
practice of giving food was continued through succeeding years, and to
a very recent date. A long list of charitable donations and bequests
might be made out, bestowed either in money or in kind. A customary
present was a number of stones of beef. Some gave penny loaves, some
oatmeal, some coals. Without this benevolence it would have gone hard
with the poor population of the Gate-house gaol. It was not strange
that the prison should be wasted by epidemics, as when in 1414 "the
gaoler died and prisoners to the number of sixty-four;" or that the
inmates should at times exhibit a desperate turbulence, taking up
arms and giving constituted authority much trouble to subdue them,
as in 1457 when they broke out of their several wards in Newgate,
and got upon the leads, where they defended themselves with great
obstinacy against the sheriffs and their officers, insomuch that they,
the sheriffs, were obliged to call the citizens to their assistance,
whereby the prisoners were soon reduced to their former state.
One other charitable bequest must be referred to here, as proving that
the moral no less than the physical well-being of the prisoners was
occasionally an object of solicitude. In the reign of Richard II a
prayer-book was specially bequeathed to Newgate in the following terms:
"Be it remembered that on the 10th day of June, in the 5th year (1382),
Henry Bever, parson of the church of St. Peter in Brad Street (St.
Peter the Poor, Broad Street), executor of Hugh Tracy, chaplain, came
here before the mayor and aldermen and produced a certain book called
a 'Porte hors,' which the same Hugh had left to the gaol of Newgate,
in order that priests and clerks there imprisoned might say their
service from the same, there to remain so long as it might last. And so
in form aforesaid the book was delivered unto David Bertelike, keeper
of the gate aforesaid, to keep it in such manner so long as he should
hold that office; who was also then charged to be answerable for it.
And it was to be fully allowable for the said Henry to enter the gaol
aforesaid twice in the year at such times as he should please, these
times being suitable times, for the purpose of seeing how the book was
kept."
We are without any very precise information as to the state of
the prison building throughout these dark ages. But it was before
everything a gate-house, part and parcel of the city fortifications,
and therefore more care and attention would be paid to its external
than its internal condition. It was subject, moreover, to the
violence of such disturbers of the peace as the followers of Wat
Tyler, of whom it is written that, having spoiled strangers "in most
outrageous manner, entered churches, abbeys, and houses of men of
law, which in semblable sort they ransacked, they also brake up the
prisons of Newgate and of both the Compters, destroyed the books, and
set the prisoners at liberty." This was in 1381. Whether the gaol
was immediately repaired after the rebellion was crushed does not
appear; but if so, the work was only partially performed, and the
process of dilapidation and decay must soon have recommenced, for
in Whittington's time it was almost in ruins. That eminent citizen
and mercer, who was three times mayor, and whose charitable bequests
were numerous and liberal, left moneys in his will for the purpose of
rebuilding the place, and accordingly license was granted in 1422, the
first year of Henry VI's reign, to his executors, John Coventre, Jenken
Carpenter, and William Grove, "to reëdify the gaol of Newgate, which
they did with his goods." This building, such as it was, continued to
serve until the commencement of the seventeenth century.
I have been unable to ascertain any exact figure of this old Newgate,
either in its ancient or improved aspect. The structure, such as it
was, suffered so severely in the great fire of 1666 that it became
necessary to rebuild it upon new and more imposing lines. This may
be described as the third edifice: that of the twelfth century being
the first, and Richard Whittington's the second. Of this third prison
details are still extant, of which description will be given hereafter.
FOOTNOTES:
[15:1] An entry in a letter book at Guildhall speaks of the "heynouse
gaol of Newgate," and its fetid and corrupt atmosphere. Loftie, "Hist.
of London," vol. i. 437.
[18:1] The term "roarer," and "roaring boy," signifying a riotous
person, was in use in Shakespeare's day, and still survives in slang
(Riley).
[23:1] A prison for night-walkers and other suspicious persons, and
called the Tun because the same was built somewhat in fashion of a Tun
standing on the one end. It was built in 1282 by Henry Walers, mayor.
[25:1] Our ancestors, with a strong love for practical jokes and
an equally strong aversion to falsehood and boasting, checked an
indulgence in such vices when they became offensive by very plain
satire. A confirmed liar was presented with a _whetstone_ to jocularly
infer that his invention, if he continued to use it so freely, would
require sharpening.—Chambers's "Book of Days," ii. 45.
[27:1] Noorthouck calls him John Gate. See "Hist. of London," p. 49.
[29:1] Sir Edward Coke derives the title of the court from the fact
that justice was done in them as speedily as dust can fall from the
foot.
[31:1] Sheriff Hoare (1740-1) tells us how the names of the prisoners
in each gaol were read over to him and his colleagues; the keepers
acknowledged them one by one to be in their custody, and then tendered
the keys, which were delivered back to them again, and after executing
the indentures, the sheriffs partook of sack and walnuts, provided by
the keepers of the prison, at a tavern adjoining Guildhall. Formerly
the sheriffs attended the lord mayor on Easter Eve through the streets
to collect charity for the prisoners in the city prison. Sheriffs were
permitted to keep prisoners in their own houses, hence the Sponging
Houses. The "Sheriffs' Fund" was started in 1807 by Sir Richard
Phillips, who, in his letter to the Livery of London, states that he
found, on visiting Newgate, so many claims on his charity that he could
not meet a tenth part of them. A suggestion to establish a sheriffs'
fund was thereupon made public and found general support. In 1867 the
fund amounted to £13,000.