Just west of the Charterhouse, reached from Smithfield by St. John Street, is another stranded islet of the past, St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell. This is the only remaining relic of the mediæval Priory of St. John, the chief English seat of the "Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem," founded in Henry I.'s reign by a baron named Jordan Briset and Muriel his wife. The early Priory was burnt by the rebels under Wat Tyler, and, when rebuilt, the newer building was used in many reigns as a resort of royalty. After many vicissitudes, the Order of St. John's Knights was suppressed by that archiconoclast Henry VIII. who, for the purpose, resorted to his usual persuasive methods of beheading, hanging, and quartering. Nevertheless, the Priory continued to be used as a Royal residence by Henry's daughter, Mary. The fragment of the old building that remains to us is its south gate, built by Prior Docwra in 1504. It is a fine bit of perpendicular architecture; on the gateway's north side are the arms of Docwra and of his Order, on the south side, those of France and England. In the centre of the groined roof is the Lamb bearing a flag, kneeling on the Gospels. The rest of the Priory buildings have long vanished; destroyed, for the most part, by the ambitious Protector Somerset, by whose order they were blown up for building materials for his fine new Strand palace. The later history of the old Gate is mainly journalistic; demonstrating that typical change from the calm of conventual seclusion to the thunder of printing-press publicity, so common in central London. Dr. Johnson lived here in his early days of hack work in the old rooms above the Gate, working for Cave the printer, the founder of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, at so much per sheet, and living here an inky, dirty, hermit-like existence; seeing no one, and "eating his food behind a screen, being too shabby for publicity." The chair he used is still treasured. (St. John's Gate is a familiar object to many who have not really seen it, owing to its representation, in pale purple, on the outside cover of the _Gentleman's Magazine_.) The gate is now appropriately occupied by the Order of St. John, a charitable institution devoted to ambulance and hospital work. Part of the old priory church may be seen in the fine Norman crypt of St. John's Church close by. People used to visit this crypt to see the coffin (now buried), of "Scratching Fanny, the Cock Lane Ghost": this was a fraud perpetrated by a girl and her father, for gain. A plausible story was invented, and many notable people were duped by it; but by Dr. Johnson's investigations the hoax was at length discovered.