NEWGATE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Prison records meagre—Administration of justice and state
of crime—Leniency alternates with great severity—Criminal
inmates of Newgate—Masterless men—Robbery with violence—
Debtors—Conscience prisoners—Martyrs in reign of Henry VIII
—Religious dissidents: Porter, Anne Askew—Maryan persecutions
—Rogers—Bishop Hooper—Alexander, the cruel gaoler of Newgate
—Philpot—Underhill the Hot Gospeller in Newgate—Crime in
Elizabeth's reign—The training of young thieves—Elizabethan
persecutions: both Puritans and papists suffered—The seminary
priests—Political prisoners—Babington's conspiracy—
Conspiracies against the life of Elizabeth—Gaolers of the
period generally tyrants—Crowder, keeper of Newgate, called
to account.
The prison records of the sixteenth century are very meagre. No
elaborate system of incarceration as we understand it existed. The
only idea of punishment was the infliction of physical pain. The
penalties inflicted were purely personal, and so to speak final; such
as chastisement, degradation, or death. England had no galleys, no
scheme of enforced labour at the oar, such as was known to the nations
of the Mediterranean seaboard, no method of compelling perpetual toil
in quarry or mine. The germ of transportation no doubt was to be found
in the practice which suffered offenders who had taken sanctuary to
escape punishment by voluntary exile,[41:1] but it was long before the
plan of deporting criminals beyond seas became the rule. "In Henry
VIII's time," says Froude, "there was but one step to the gallows
from the lash and the branding-iron." Criminals did not always get
their deserts, however. Although historians have gravely asserted that
seventy-two thousand executions took place in this single reign, the
statement will not bear examination, and has been utterly demolished by
Froude. As a matter of fact offenders far too often escaped scot-free
through the multiplication of sanctuaries—which refuges, like that of
St. Martin's-le-Grand, existed under the very walls of Newgate—the
negligence of pursuers, and not seldom the stout opposition of the
inculpated. Benefit of clergy claimed and conceded on the most shadowy
grounds was another easy and frequent means of evading the law. Some
judges certainly had held that the tonsure was an indispensable proof;
but all were not so strict, and "putting on the book," in other words,
the simple act of reading aloud, was deemed sufficient. So flagrant
was the evasion of the law, that gaolers for a certain fee would assist
accused persons to obtain a smattering of letters, whereby they might
plead their "clergy" in court. It may be added that although the abuse
of the privilege was presently greatly checked, it was not until the
reign of William and Mary that benefit of clergy was absolutely denied
to burglars, pickpockets, and other criminal offenders.
Yet there were spasmodic intervals of the most extraordinary severity.
Twenty thieves, says Sir Thomas More in his "Utopia," might then be
seen hanging on a single gibbet. Special legislation was introduced to
deal with special crimes. Although there was an appropriateness in the
retribution which overtook him, the sentence inflicted upon the Bishop
of Rochester's cook in 1531, under a new act passed for the purpose,
was ferociously cruel. This man, one Richard Rose or Rouse, was
convicted of having poisoned sixteen persons with porridge specially
prepared to put an end to his master. The crime had been previously
almost unknown in England, and special statutory powers were taken to
cope with it. An act was at once passed defining the offence to be
high treason, and prescribing boiling to death as the penalty. Rose
was accordingly, after conviction, boiled alive in Smithfield. It may
be added that this cruel statute, which may be read _in extenso_ in
Froude, was soon afterwards repealed, but not before another culprit,
Margaret Davy by name, had suffered under its provisions for a similar
offence.
It is only a passing glimpse that we get of the meaner sort of criminal
committed to Newgate in these times. The gaol, as I have said, was but
the antechamber to something worse. It was the starting-point for the
painful promenade to the pillory. The jurors who were forsworn "for
rewards or favour of parties were judged to ride from Newgate to the
pillory in Cornhill with paper mitres on their heads, there to stand,
and from thence again to Newgate." Again, the ringleaders of false
inquests, Darby, Smith, and Simson by name, were, in the first year of
Henry VII's reign (1509), condemned to ride about the city with their
faces to their horses' tails, and paper on their heads, and were set on
the pillory at Cornhill. After that they were brought back to Newgate,
where they died for very shame.
A few extracts will serve further to describe the criminal inmates of
Newgate in those times. The quotations are from the "Remembrancia,"
1579-1664. Searches appear to have been regularly made for suspected
persons, who when caught were committed to ward. Thus, 1519, a search
was made in the house of William Solcocke in Holborne, and it was
found that one Christopher Tyllesley had lain there two nights. "He
has no master, and is committed to Newgate." Again, "in the house
of Christopher Arundell one Robert Bayley: has no master, and is
committed to Newgate." To Newgate were also committed any who were bold
enough to malign the great Cardinal Wolsey, in the plenitude of his
power, as was Adam Greene in June, 1523, a prisoner in Ludgate, who
repeated to the keeper what he had heard from a "bocher" (butcher), to
the effect that Wolsey had told the king that all London were traitors
to his Grace. Greene was warned to keep silent, but he said "he would
abide by it, for he had it from a substantial man who would also abide
by it."
Instances of more serious crimes are recorded. In March, 1528, Stephen
reports to Thomas Cromwell that between the hours of six and seven,
"five thieves knocked at the door of Roderigo the Spaniard, which
dwelleth next the goldsmith against your door.[44:1] Being asked who
was there, they answered, 'one from the court, to speak with Roderigo.'
When the door was opened three of them rushed in and found the said
Roderigo sitting by the fire with a poor woman dwelling next to Mrs.
Wynsor. Two tarried and kept the door, and strangled the poor woman
that she should not cry. They then took Roderigo's purse, and killed
him by stabbing him in the belly, but had not fled far before two of
them were taken and brought to Newgate."
Debtors were too small fry to be often referred to in the chronicles
of the times. Now and again they are mentioned as fitting objects
for charity, royal and private. In the king's book of payments is
the following entry, under date May, 1515: "Master Almoner redeeming
prisoners in Newgate, Ludgate, and the Compter, £20." The State Papers,
1581, contain a commission to the lord mayor, recorder, and sheriffs
of London, and many others, all charitable folk, and some sixty in
numbers, to compound with the creditors of poor debtors, at that time
prisoners in Newgate, Ludgate, and the two Compters of the city.
Although debtors in gaol who volunteered for service on shipboard were
discharged by proclamation from the demands of their creditors, as a
general rule committal to Newgate on account of monetary mismanagement
appears to have been more easily compassed than subsequent release.
The same volume of State Papers contains a petition from Richard Case
to Lord Burghley, to the effect that he had been committed to Newgate
"upon the unjust complaint of Mr. Benedict Spinola, relative to the
lease of certain lands and tenements in London." The petitioner further
"desires to be discharged from prison, and to have the queen's pardon,"
but there is no allusion to his enlargement.[45:1] The impolicy of
confining debtors was not to be fully realized till three more
centuries had passed away. But as early as 1700 a pamphlet preserved in
the "Harleian Miscellany," and entitled "Labour in Vain," anticipates
modern feeling and modern legislation. The writer protests against
the imprisonment of debtors, which he compares to shutting up a cow
from herbage when she gives no milk. "In England we confine people to
starve, contrary to humanity, mercy, or policy. One may as reasonably
expect his dog," he says, "when chained to a post should catch a hare,
as that poor debtors when in gaol should get wherewithal to pay their
debts."
Details of the incarceration and sufferings of prisoners for
conscience's sake, in an age when polemics were backed up by the
strong arm of the law, are naturally to be met with more frequently
in the partisan writings of the time. Throughout the reigns of Henry
VIII, Mary, and even in that of Elizabeth, intolerance stalked rampant
through the land, filling the prisons and keeping Smithfield in a
blaze. Henry was by turns severe on all creeds. Now Protestants, now
Catholics suffered. He began as an ardent champion of Romish doctrines,
and ended by denying the supremacy of the Pope. In the first stage
he persecuted so-called heretics, in the second he despoiled Church
property, and sent monks and priors to gaol and to the gallows. Foxe
gives a long and detailed list of the Protestant martyrs from first to
last.
One of the most prominent was Richard Bayfield, a monk of Bury, who
became an inmate of Newgate. Foxe relates that a letter of inquiry was
issued by the Bishop of London to the lord mayor and sheriffs to be
present at St. Paul's on the 20th November, 1531, to receive the said
Richard Bayfield, alias Soundesam, "a relapsed heretic after sentence."
The sheriffs carried him to Newgate, whence they were commanded again
to bring him into Paul's upper choir, there to give attendance upon the
bishop. Later on they are ordered to have him into the vestry, and then
to bring him forth again in Antichrist's apparel to be degraded before
them. "When the bishop had degraded him," says old Foxe, "kneeling upon
the highest step of the altar, he took his crosier staff and smote him
on the breast, then he threw him down backwards and brake his head, so
that he swooned; and when he came to himself again he was led forth
through the choir to Newgate, and there rested about an hour in prayer,
and so went to the fire in his apparel manfully and joyfully, and there
for lack of a speedy fire was two quarters of an hour alive."
Henry, was, however, impartial in his severity. In 1533 he suffered
John Frith, Andrew Hewett, and other Protestants, to the number of
twenty-seven, to be burned for heresy. The years immediately following
he hunted to death all who refused to acknowledge him as the head of
the Church. Besides such imposing victims as Sir Thomas More, and
Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, many priests suffered. In 1534 the prior
of the London Carthusians, the prior of Hexham, Benase, a monk of Sion
College, and John Haite, vicar of Isleworth, together with others, were
sentenced to be hanged and quartered at Tyburn. In 1538 a friar, by
name Forrest, was hanged in Smithfield upon a gallows, quick, by the
middle and the arm-holes, and burned to death for denying the king's
supremacy and teaching the same in confession to many of the king's
subjects. Upon the pile by which Forrest was consumed was also a wooden
image, brought out of Wales, called "Darvell Gatheren," which the
Welshmen "much worshipped, and had a prophecy amongst them that this
image would set a whole forest on fire, which prophecy took effect."
The greatest trials were reserved for the religious dissidents who
dared to differ with the king. Henry was vain of his learning and of
his polemical powers. No true follower of Luther, he was a Protestant
by policy rather than conviction, and he still held many tenets of the
Church he had disavowed. These were embodied and promulgated in the
notorious Six Articles, otherwise "the whip with six tails," or the
Bloody Statute, so called from its sanguinary results. The doctrines
enunciated were such that many could not possibly subscribe to them;
the penalties were "strait and bloody," and very soon they were widely
inflicted. Foxe, in a dozen or more pages, recounts the various
presentments against individuals, lay and clerical, for transgressing
one or more of the principles of the Six Articles; and adds to the
aforesaid, "Dr. Taylor, parson of St. Peter's, in Cornhill; South,
parish priest of Allhallows, in Lombard Street; Some, a priest; Giles,
the king's beer-brewer, at the Red Lion, in St. Katherine's; Thomas
Lancaster, priest; all which were imprisoned likewise for the Six
Articles." "To be short," he adds, "such a number out of all parishes
in London, and out of Calais, and divers other quarters, were then
apprehended through the said inquisition, that all prisons in London,
including Newgate, were too little to hold them, insomuch that they
were fain to lay them in the halls. At last, by the means of good
Lord Audeley, such pardon was obtained of the king that the said Lord
Audeley, then Lord Chancellor, being content that one should be bound
for another, they were all discharged, being bound only to appear in
the Star Chamber the next day after All Souls, there to answer if they
were called; but neither was there any person called, neither did any
appear."
Bonner, then Bishop of London, and afterwards one of the queen's
principal advisers, had power to persecute even under Henry. The
Bible had been set up by the king's command in St. Paul's, that
the public might read the sacred word. "Much people used to resort
thither," says Foxe, to hear the reading of the Bible, and especially
by one John Porter, "a fresh young man, and of a big stature," who was
very expert. It displeased Bonner that this Porter should draw such
congregations, and sending for him, the Bishop rebuked him very sharply
for his reading. Porter defended himself, but Bonner charged him
with adding expositions of the text, and gathering "great multitudes
about him to make tumults." Nothing was proved against Porter, but
"in fine Bonner sent him to Newgate, where he was miserably fettered
in irons, both legs and arms, with a collar of iron about his neck,
fastened to the wall in the dungeon; being there so cruelly handled
that he was compelled to send for a kinsman of his, whose name is also
Porter, a man yet alive, and can testify that it is true, and dwelleth
yet without Newgate. He, seeing his kinsman in this miserable case,
entreated Jewet, the keeper of Newgate, that he might be released out
of those cruel irons, and so, through friendship and money, had him up
among other prisoners, who lay there for felony and murder." Porter
made the most of the occasion, and after hearing and seeing their
wickedness and blasphemy, exhorted them to amendment of life, and "gave
unto them such instructions as he had learned of in the Scriptures; for
which his so doing he was complained, and so carried down and laid in
the lower dungeon of all, oppressed with bolts and irons, where, within
six or eight days, he was found dead."
But the most prominent victim to the Six Articles was Anne Askew,
the daughter of Sir William Askew, knight, of Lincolnshire. She was
married to one Kyme, but is best known under her maiden name. She
was persecuted for denying the Real Presence, but the proceedings
against her were pushed to extremity, it was said, because she was
befriended in high quarters. Her story is a melancholly one. First,
one Christopher Dene examined her as to her faith and belief in a very
subtle manner, and upon her answers had her before the lord mayor, who
committed her to the Compter. There, for eleven days, none but a priest
was allowed to visit her, his object being to ensnare her further.
Presently she was released upon finding sureties to surrender if
required, but was again brought before the king's council at Greenwich.
Her opinions in matters of belief proving unsatisfactory, she was
remanded to Newgate. Thence she petitioned the king, also the Lord
Chancellor Wriottesley, "to aid her in obtaining just consideration."
Nevertheless, she was taken to the Tower, and there tortured. Foxe puts
the following words into her mouth: "On Tuesday I was sent from Newgate
to the Sign of the Crown, where Master Rich and the Bishop of London,
with all their power and flattering words, went about to persuade me
from God, but I did not esteem their glosing pretences. . . . Then
Master Rich sent me to the Tower, where I remained till three o'clock."
At the Tower strenuous efforts were made to get her to accuse others.
They pressed her to say how she was maintained in prison; whether
divers gentlewomen had not sent her money. But she replied that her
maid had gone abroad in the streets and made moan to the 'prentices,
who had sent her alms. When further urged, she admitted that a man in
a blue coat had delivered her ten shillings, saying it came from my
Lady Hertford, and that another in a violet coat had given her eight
shillings from my Lady Denny—"whether it is true or not I cannot
tell." "Then they said three men of the council did maintain me, and I
said no. Then they did put me on the rack because I confessed no ladies
or gentlemen to be of my opinion, and thereon they kept me a long time;
and because I lay still, and did not cry, my Lord Chancellor and Master
Rich took pains to rack me with their own hands till I was nigh dead.
Then the lieutenant (Sir Anthony Knevet) caused me to be loosed from
the rack. Incontinently I swooned, and then they recovered me again.
After that I sat two long hours, reasoning with my Lord Chancellor,
on the bare floor." At last she was "brought to a house and laid in a
bed with as weary and painful bones as ever had patient Job; I thank
my Lord God therefor. Then my Lord Chancellor sent me word, if I
would leave my opinion, I should want nothing; if I did not, I should
forthwith to Newgate, and so be burned. . . ."
Foxe gives full details of her torture in the Tower. At first she was
let down into a dungeon, and the gaoler, by command of Sir Anthony
Knevet, pinched her with the rack. After this, deeming he had done
enough, he was about to take her down, but Wriottesley, the Lord
Chancellor, "commanded the lieutenant to strain her on the rack again;
which, because he denied to do, tendering the weakness of the woman,
he was threatened therefore grievously of the said Wriottesley, saying
he would signify his disobedience to the king. And so consequently
upon the same, he (Wriottesley) and Master Rich, throwing off their
gowns, would needs play the tormentors themselves. . . . And so, quietly
and patiently praying unto the Lord, she abode their tyranny till her
bones and joints were almost plucked asunder, in such sort as she was
carried away in a chair." Then the chancellor galloped off to report
the lieutenant to the king; but Sir Anthony Knevet forestalled by going
by water, and obtained the king's pardon before the complaint was made.
"King Henry," says Foxe, "seemed not very well to like of their so
extreme handling of the woman."
Soon after this Mistress Askew was again committed to Newgate, whence
she was carried in a chair to Smithfield, "because she could not walk
on her feet by means of her great torments. When called upon to recant
she refused, as did the martyrs with her." Whereupon the lord mayor,
commanding fire to be put under them, cried, "Fiat Justitia," and they
were burned.
The Maryan persecutions naturally filled Newgate. It would weary the
reader to give lengthened descriptions of the many martyrs who passed
through that prison to Smithfield. But a few of the victims stand
prominently forward. Two of the earliest were John Rogers, vicar of
St. Sepulchre and prebendary of St. Paul's, and Hooper, Bishop of
Gloucester. Rogers was the protomartyr—the first sacrificed to the
religious intolerance of Mary and her advisers. Foxe says that after
being a prisoner in his own house for a long time, Rogers was "removed
to the prison called Newgate, where he was lodged among thieves and
murderers for a great space." He was kept in Newgate "a full year,"
Rogers tells us himself, "at great costs and charges, having a wife and
ten children to find for; and I had never a penny of my livings, which
was against the law." He made "many supplications" out of Newgate,
and sent his wife to implore fairer treatment; but in Newgate he lay,
till at length he was brought to the Compter in Southwark, with Master
Hooper, for examination. Finally, after having been "very uncharitably
entreated," he was "unjustly, and most cruelly, by wicked Winchester
condemned." The 4th February, 1555, he was warned suddenly by the
keeper's wife of Newgate to prepare himself for the fire, "who being
then found asleep, scarce with much shogging could be awakened." Being
bidden to make haste, he remarked: "If it be so, I need not tie my
points." "So was he had down first to Bonner to be degraded, whom he
petitioned to be allowed to talk a few words with his wife before his
burning"—a reasonable request, which was refused. "Then the sheriffs,
Master Chester and Master Woodroove, took him to Smithfield; and his
wife and children, eleven in number, ten able to go, and one at the
breast, met him as he passed. This sorrowful sight of his own flesh and
blood could nothing move him, but that he constantly and cheerfully
took his death with wonderful patience in the defence and quarrel of
Christ's gospel."
While detained in Newgate, Master Rogers devoted himself to the service
of the ordinary prisoners, to whom he was "beneficial and liberal,"
having thus devised "that he with his fellows should have but one meal
a day, they paying, notwithstanding, the charges of the whole; the
other meal should be given to them that lacked on the other (or common)
side of the prison. But Alexander their keeper, a strait man and a
right Alexander, a coppersmith, indeed . . . would in no case suffer
that."
This Alexander Andrew or Alexander, as he is simply called, figures
in contemporary records, more especially in the writings of Foxe, as a
perfect type of the brutal gaoler. "Of gaolers," says Foxe, "Alexander,
keeper of Newgate, exceeded all others." He is described as "a cruel
enemy of those that lay there (Newgate) for religion. The cruel wretch,
to hasten the poor lambs to the slaughter, would go to Bonner, Story,
Cholmley, and others, crying out, 'Rid my prison! rid my prison! I
am too much pestered by these heretics.'" Alexander's reception of
an old friend of his, Master Philpot, when committed to Newgate, is
graphically told by the old chronicler. "'Ah, thou hast well done to
bring thyself hither,' he says to Philpot. 'I must be content,' replied
Philpot, 'for it is God's appointment, and I shall desire you to let me
have some gentle favour, for you and I have been of old acquaintance.'
'Well,' said Alexander, 'I will show thee great gentleness and favour,
so thou wilt be ruled by me.' Then said Master Philpot, 'I pray you
show me what you would have me to do.' He said, 'If you will recant I
will show you any pleasure I can.' 'Nay,' said Master Philpot, 'I will
never recant whilst I have my life, for it is most certain truth, and
in witness thereof I will seal it with my blood.' Then Alexander said,
'This is the saying of the whole pack of you heretics.' Whereupon he
commanded him to be set upon the block, and as many irons upon his legs
as he could bear, for that he would not follow his wicked mind. . . .
'But, good Master Alexander, be so much my friend that these irons
may be taken off.' 'Well,' said Alexander, 'give me my fees, and I
will take them off; if not, thou shalt wear them still.' Then Master
Philpot said, 'Sir, what is your fee?' He said four pounds was his fee.
'Ah,' said Master Philpot, 'I have not so much; I am but a poor man,
and I have been long in prison.' 'What wilt thou give me, then?' said
Alexander. 'Sir,' said he, 'I will give you twenty shillings, and that
I will send my man for, or else I will lay my gown to gage. For the
time is not long, I am sure, that I shall be with you, for the bishop
said I should be soon despatched.' Then said Alexander unto him, 'What
is that to me?' and with that he departed for a time, and commanded him
to be had into limbo. And so his commandment was fulfilled; but before
he could be taken from the block the clerk would have a groat. Then
one Willerence, steward of the house, took him on his back and carried
him down his man knew not whither. Wherefore Master Philpot said to
his man, 'Go to Master Sheriff, and show him how I am used, and desire
Master Sheriff to be good unto me;' and so his servant went straightway
and took an honest man with him.
"And when they came to Master Sheriff, which was Master Ascham, and
showed him how Master Philpot was handled in Newgate, the sheriff,
hearing this, took his ring off his finger and delivered it unto that
honest man that comes with Master Philpot's man, and bade him go unto
Alexander the keeper and command him to take off his irons and handle
him more gently, and give his man again that which he had taken from
him. And when they came to the said Alexander and told their message
from the sheriff, Alexander took the ring, and said, 'Ah, I perceive
that Master Sheriff is a bearer with him and all such heretics as
he is, therefore to-morrow I will show it to his betters;' yet at
ten by the clock he went to Master Philpot where he lay and took off
his irons, and gave him such things as he had taken before from his
servant."
Alexander's zeal must have been very active. In 1558 it is recorded
that twenty-two men and women were committed to Newgate for praying
together in the fields about Islington. They were two and twenty weeks
in the prison before they were examined, during which Alexander sent
them word that if they would hear a mass they should be delivered.
According to Foxe a terrible vengeance overtook this hard-hearted
man. He died very miserably, being so swollen that he was more like a
monster than a man. The same authority relates that other persecutors
came to a bad end.
Bishop Hooper soon followed Rogers to the stake. The same Monday night,
February 4, 1555, the keeper of Newgate gave him an inkling that he
should be sent to Gloucester to suffer death, "and the next day
following, about four o'clock in the morning before day, the keeper
with others came to him and searched him and the bed wherein he lay, to
see if he had written anything, and then he was led to the sheriffs of
London and other their officers forth of Newgate, to a place appointed
not far from Dunstan's Church, Fleet Street, where six of the Queen's
Guards were appointed to receive him and to carry him to Gloucester,
. . ." where execution was to be done.
We obtain a curious insight into the gaol at Newgate during Mary's
reign from the narrative of the "Hot Gospeller." Edward Underhill, a
yeoman of the Guard, was arrested in 1553 for "putting out" a ballad
which attacked the queen's title. Underhill was carried before the
Council, and there got into dispute with Bourne, a fanatic priest whom
he called a papist. "Sir John Mason asked what he meant by that, and he
replied, 'If you look among the priests of Paul's you will find some
mumpsimusses there.' This caused much heat, and he was committed to
Newgate." At the door of the prison he wrote to his wife, asking her to
send his nightgown, Bible, and lute, and then he goes on to describe
Newgate as follows:
"In the centre of Newgate was a great open hall; as soon as it was
supper-time the board was covered in the same hall. The keeper, whose
name was Alexander, with his wife came and sat down, and half a dozen
prisoners that were there for felony, Underhill being the first that
for religion was sent into that prison. One of the felons had served
with him in France. After supper this good fellow, whose name was
Bristow, procured one to have a bed in his (Underhill's) chamber who
could play well upon a rebeck. He was a tall fellow, and after one of
Queen Mary's guard, yet a Protestant, which he kept secret, or else
he should not have found such favour as he did at the keeper's hands
and his wife's, for to such as loved the gospel they were very cruel.
'Well,' said Underhill, 'I have sent for my Bible, and, by God's grace,
therein shall be my daily exercise; I will not hide it from them.'
'Sir,' said he, 'I am poor; but they will bear with you, for they see
your estate is to pay well; and I will show you the nature and manner
of them, for I have been here a good while. They both do love music
very well; wherefore, you with your lute, and I to play with you on my
rebeck, will please them greatly. He loveth to be merry and to drink
wine, and she also. If you will bestow upon them, every dinner and
supper, a quart of wine and some music, you shall be their white son,
and have all the favour they can show you.'"
The honour of being "white son" to the governor and governess of
Newgate was worth aspiring after, as it meant many privileges and much
favour. Underhill duly provided the desired entertainment. The governor
gave him the best room in the prison, with all other admissible
indulgences.
"At last, however, the evil savours, great unquietness, with over many
draughts of air, threw the poor gentleman into a burning ague. He
shifted his lodgings, but to no purpose; the evil savours followed him.
The keeper offered him his own parlour, where he escaped from the noise
of the prison; but it was near the kitchen, and the smell of the meat
was disagreeable. Finally the wife put him away in her store closet,
amidst her best plate, crockery, and clothes, and there he continued
to survive till the middle of September, when he was released on bail
through the interference of the Earl of Bedford."
There was a truce to religious persecution for some years after Mary's
death. Throughout Edward's reign and the better part of Elizabeth's it
was only the ordinary sort of criminal who was committed to the gaol of
Newgate. The offences were mostly coining, horse-stealing, and other
kinds of thefts.
"One named Ditche was apprehended at the session holden at Newgate
on 4th December, 1583, nineteen times indicted, whereof he confessed
eighteen, who also between the time of his apprehension and the
said sessions impeached many for stealing horses, whereof (divers
being apprehended) ten were condemned and hanged in Smithfield on
the 11th December, being Friday and horse-market there."[62:1] The
"Remembrancia" gives a letter from Mr. Valentine Dale, one of the
masters of the Court of Requests, to the lord mayor, stating that
the wife of John Hollingshead had petitioned the queen to grant a
reprieve and pardon to her husband, a condemned felon, and directing
the execution to be stayed, and a full account of his behaviour and
offence forwarded to her Majesty. The lord mayor in reply says that
he had called before him the officers of Newgate, who stated that
Hollingshead had been for a long time a common and notorious thief.
This was the fourth time he had been in Newgate for felonies, and
upon the last occasion he had been branded with the letter T (thief).
Coiners were very severely dealt with. The offence was treason, and
punished as such. There are many cases on record, such as—"On the 27th
of January Phillip Meshel, a Frenchman, and two Englishmen were drawn
from Newgate to Tyburn, and there hanged. The Frenchman quartered who
had coined gold counterfeit; of the Englishmen, the one had clipped
silver, and the other cast testers of tin." "The 30th of May Thomas
Green, goldsmith, was drawn from Newgate to Tyburn, and there hanged,
beheaded, and quartered, for clipping of coin, both gold and silver."
Towards the end of the reign, in spite of the stringent acts against
vagrancy, the country swarmed with rogues and beggars—vagabonds
who laid the farmers under contribution, and terrified all honest
folk out of their lives. In London crime was rampant. Even then it
had its organization; there were houses which harboured thieves, in
which schools were maintained for the education of young pickpockets.
Maitland tells us that in the spring of 1585, Fleetwood, the recorder,
with several other magistrates searched the town and discovered seven
houses of entertainment of felons. They found also that one Walton, a
gentleman born, once a prosperous merchant, "but fallen into decay,"
who had kept an alehouse which had been put down, had begun a "new
business." He opened his house for the reception of all the cutpurses
in and about the city. In this house was a room to teach young boys to
cut purses. Two devices were hung up; one was a pocket, the other was a
purse. The pocket had in it certain counters, and was hung round with
hawk's bells, and over them hung a little sacring[63:1] bell. The purse
had silver in it, and he that could take out a counter without any
noise was allowed to be a public _foyster_; and he that could take a
piece of silver out of the purse without noise of any of the bells was
adjudged a clever _nypper_. These places gave great encouragement to
evil-doers in these times, but were soon after suppressed.
In 1581 a fresh religious persecution began, happily without the
sanguinary accessories of that of Mary's reign. Elizabeth had no love
for the Puritans; she also began now to hate and fear the papists.
Orthodoxy was insisted upon. People who would not go to church were
sent first to prison, then haled before Sessions and fined a matter
of twenty pounds each. Still worse fared the adherents or emissaries
of Rome. In 1569 a man named John Felton had been drawn from Newgate
into Paul's Churchyard, and there hanged and quartered as a traitor for
affixing a bull of Pope Pius V on the gate of the Bishop of London's
palace. In 1578 it is recorded that "the papists are stubborn." So
also must have been the Puritans. "One Sherwood brought before the
Bishop of London behaved so stubbornly that the bishop will show
no more favour to those miscalled Puritans." Next began a fierce
crusade against the "seminary" priests, who swarmed into England like
missionaries, despatched _in partibus infidelium_ to minister to the
faithful few and bring back all whom they could to the fold. Newgate
was now for ever full of these priests. They adopted all manner of
disguises, and went now as soldiers, now as private gentlemen, now
openly as divines. They were harboured and hidden by faithful Roman
Catholics, and managed thus to glide unperceived from point to point
intent upon their dangerous business. But they did not always escape
observation, and when caught they were invariably laid by the heels and
hardly dealt with. Gerard Dance, _alias_ Ducket, a seminary priest, was
arraigned in 1581 at the Old Bailey before the queen's justices, and
affirmed that although he was in England, he was subject to the Pope
in ecclesiastical causes, and that the Pope had now the same authority
in England as he had a hundred years ago, and which he exercised at
Rome, "with other traitorous speeches, for which he was condemned to be
hanged, drawn, and quartered." The same year William Dios (a Spaniard),
keeper of Newgate, sent a certificate of the names of the recusants
now in Newgate, "viz., Lawrence Wakeman and others, . . . the two last
being of the precise sort." April 20, 1586, Robert Rowley, taken upon
seas by Captain Burrows going to Scotland, is committed first to
the Marshalsea, and from thence to Newgate. Next year, August 26th,
Richard Young reports to Secretary Walsyngham that he has talked with
sundry priests remaining in the prisons about London. "Some," he says,
"are very evil affected, and unworthy to live in England. Simpson,
alias Heygate, and Flower, priests, have justly deserved death, and
in no wise merit her Majesty's mercy. William Wigges, Leonard Hide,
and George Collinson, priests in Newgate, are dangerous fellows, as
are also Morris Williams and Thomas Pounde, the latter committed as
a layman, but in reality a professed Jesuit. Francis Tirrell is an
obstinate papist, and is doubted to be a spy."
We read as follows in an intercepted letter from Cardinal John Allen,
Rector of the English College at Rheims, to Mr. White, seminary
priest in the Clink Prison, and the rest of the priests in Newgate,
the Fleet, and the Marshalsea. "Pope Sextus sends them his blessing,
and will send them over for their comfort Dr. Reynolds, chief Jesuit
of the college at Rheims, who must be carefully concealed," . . . with
others, . . . "whose discourses would be a great joy to all heretics.
They will bring some consecrated crucifixes, late consecrated by his
Holiness, and some books to be given to the chiefest Catholics, their
greatest benefactors." This letter was taken upon a young man, Robert
Weston, travelling to seek service, "who seems to have had considerable
dealings with recusants, and to have made very full confessions."
It was easier for all such to get into Newgate, at that time, than
to obtain release. Henry Ash and Michael Genison, being prisoners
in Newgate, petition Lord Keeper Pickering for a warrant for their
enlargement upon putting in good security for their appearance; "they
were long since committed by Justice Young and the now Bishop of London
for recusancy, where they remain, to their great shame and utter
undoing, and are likely to continue, unless he extend his mercy." In
1598 George Barkworth petitions Secretary Cecil "that he was committed
to Newgate six months ago on suspicion of being a seminary priest,
which he is not; has been examined nine times, and brought up at
Sessions four times; begs the same liberty of the house at Bridewell
which was granted him at Newgate."
Political prisoners were not wanting in Newgate in the Elizabethan
period. In 1585 instructions are given to the recorder to examine one
Hall, a prisoner in Newgate, charged with a design for conveying away
the Queen of Scots. This was a part of Babington's conspiracy, for
which Throgmorton also suffered. Other victims, besides the unfortunate
queen herself, were Babington, Tichbourne, and many more, who after
trial at the Old Bailey, and incarceration in Newgate, were hanged in
St. Giles's Fields. The execution was carried out with great barbarity;
seven of the conspirators were cut down before they were dead and
disembowelled. Another plot against Elizabeth's life was discovered
in 1587, the actors in which were "one Moody, an idle, profligate
fellow, then prisoner in Newgate, and one Stafford, brother to Sir
Edward Stafford." The great Queen Bess in these last days of her reign
went in constant terror of her life; and a third conspiracy to poison
her, originating with her own physician and Lopez, a Jew, led to their
execution as traitors. Again, Squires, a disbanded soldier, was charged
with putting poison on the pommel of her saddle, and although he
admitted his guilt upon the rack, he declared when dying that he was
really innocent.
All this time within Newgate there was turbulence, rioting, disorders,
accompanied seemingly by constant oppression. The prisoners were
ready to brave anything to get out. General gaol deliveries were made
otherwise than in due course of law. Those that were fit to serve
in the sea or land forces were frequently pardoned and set free. A
petition to the Lord Admiral (1589) is preserved in which certain
prisoners, shut out from pardon because they are not "by law bailable,"
beg that the words may be struck out of the order for release,
and state that they will gladly enter her Majesty's service. Many
made determined efforts to escape. "The 16th December, 1556," says
Holinshed, "Gregory, carpenter and smith, and a Frenchman born were
arraigned for making counterfeit keys wherewith to have opened the
locks of Newgate, to have slain the keeper and let forth the prisoners;
at which time of his arraignment, having conveyed a knife into his
sleeve, he thrust it into the side of William Whiteguts, his fellow
prisoner, who had given evidence against him, so that he was in great
peril of death thereby; for the which fact he was immediately taken
from the bar into the street before the justice hall, when, his hand
being first stricken off, he was hanged on a gibbet set up for the
purpose.
"The keeper of Newgate was arraigned and indicted for that the said
prisoner had a weapon about him and his hands loose, which should have
been bound."
Yet the keeper of Newgate and other gaolers were sometimes kept within
bounds. Two cases may be quoted in which these officials were promptly
brought to book. In 1555 the keeper of the Bread Street Compter, by
name Richard Husband, pasteler, "being a willful and headstrong man,"
who, with servants like himself, had dealt hardly with the prisoners
in his charge, was sent to the gaol of Newgate by Sir Rowland Hill,
mayor, with the assent of a court of aldermen. "It was commanded to
the keeper to set those irons on his legs which were called widows'
alms; these he wore from Thursday till Sunday in the afternoon." On the
Tuesday he was released, but not before he was bound over in an hundred
marks to act in conformity with the rules for the managing of the
Compters. "All which notwithstanding, he continued as before: . . . the
prisoners were ill-treated, the prison was made a common lodging-house
at fourpence the night for thieves and night-walkers, whereby they
might be safe from searches that were made abroad." He was indicted
for these and other enormities, "but did rub it out, and could not
be reformed, till the prisoners were removed; for the house in Bread
Street was his own by lease or otherwise, and he could not be put from
it." A searching inquiry was also made into the conduct of Crowder,
the keeper of Newgate in 1580, or thereabouts. The State Papers contain
an information of the disorders practised by the officers of Newgate
prison, levying fines and taking bribes, by old and young Crowders, the
gaolers. "Crowder and his wife," says the report, "be most horrible
blasphemers and swearers." The matter is taken up by the lords of the
Council, who write to the lord mayor, desiring to be fully informed of
all disorders committed, and by whom. "They are sending gentlemen to
repair to the prison to inquire into the case, and requesting the lord
mayor to appoint two persons to assist them." Sir Christopher Hatton
also writes to the lord mayor, drawing attention to the charges against
Crowder. The lord mayor replies that certain persons had been appointed
to inquire, but had not yet made their report. The Court of Enquiry are
willing to receive Crowder, but he persists in refusing to explain. "He
would not come to their meeting, but stood upon his reputation." The
result, so far as can be guessed, was that Crowder was pensioned off.
But he found powerful friends in his adversity. His cause was espoused
by Sir Thomas Bromley, Lord Chancellor, who informs the lord mayor
that he thinks Crowder has been dealt with very hardly, and that his
accusers were persons unworthy of credit.
FOOTNOTES:
[41:1] This abjuring the king's land was an act of self-banishment,
akin in its effects to the old Roman penalty of _aquæ et ignis
interdictio_. Any criminal who took sanctuary might escape the law,
provided that within forty days he clothed himself in sackcloth,
confessed his crime before the coroner, and after solemnly abjuring
the land, proceeded, cross in hand, to some appointed port, where he
embarked and left the country. If apprehended within forty days he was
again suffered to depart.—Note in Thom's "Stow," p. 157.
[44:1] Cromwell's house was in the city in Throgmorton Street, close to
the site of the monastic house of the Austin Friars.
[45:1] This Benedict Spinola must have been an Italian with some
influence. His personal relations with Burghley are manifest from a
letter of congratulation sent by him to Burghley on the safe arrival of
the Earl of Oxford at Milan. Other more or less confidential matters
are mentioned in connection with Pasqual and Jacob Spinola, Benedict's
brothers.
[62:1] Friday continued the day of horse-market until the closing of
Smithfield as a market for live cattle.
[63:1] The bell which was rung at mass on the elevation of the host.