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 6s. 8d." 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: