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 It may be added that this cruel statute, which may be read _in extenso_ in Froude, was soon afterwards repealed, but not before another culprit, Margaret Davy by name, had suffered under its provisions for a similar offence.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."