“Formerly Debtors that were not able to satisfy their debts, put themselves into this prison of Ludgate for shelter from their creditors. And these were merchants and tradesmen who had been driven to want by losses at sea. When King Philip, in the month of August, 1554, came first through London, these prisoners were thirty in number, and owed 10,000 pounds, but compounded for 2000 pounds, who represented a well-penned Latin speech to that Prince to redress their miseries, and by his royal generosity to free them. ‘And the rather for that place was not Sceleratorum Carcer, sed Miserorum Custodia, _i.e._ a gaol for villains, but a place of restraint for poor unfortunate men; And that they were put in there, not by others, but themselves fled thither; and that not out of fear of punishment, but in hope of better fortune.’ The whole letter was drawn by the curious pen of Roger Ascham, and is extant among his epistles, _Lib._ III.” (Cunningham). The rules and customs of Ludgate are given by Strype: “If a freeman or freewoman of London be committed to Ludgate, they are to be excused from the Ignominy of irons, if they can find sureties to be true prisoners, and if the sum be not above £100. There is another custom for the liberal and mild imprisonment of the citizens in Ludgate; whereby they have indulgence and favour to go abroad into any place, under the guard and superintendency of their keeper; with whom they must return again to the prison at night. “This custom is not to hinder and delay Justice nor to defraud men of their debts and executions, as it is quarrelled against by some, but serves for a mitigation of their punishment; and tends rather for the expedition of their discharge, and speedy satisfaction of their creditors. While they may go and inform themselves, upon their mutual reckonings, both what they owe, and what is due unto them.” For further account of this prison see _London in the Eighteenth Century_, pp. 581-87. In the year 1659, one Marmaduke Johnson, a prisoner in Ludgate, presented a memorandum on the prison and its Government to the Lord Mayor. In this document he sets forth the history of the prison, its constitution and laws, its officers, its charities, and the grievances of the prisoners. A great many benefactors have left money to the prison, amounting in all to about £60 a year. In addition, the Lord Mayor allowed the prisoners a basket of broken meat every day; and provisions of some kind were every day, to some small extent, bestowed upon them by the markets. Besides which there were two grates, one in Ludgate, and the other on the Blackfriars side, where all day long a man stood crying, “Pity the poor prisoners.” There were about fifty of the prisoners “on the Charity,” as it was called. But the warders and turnkeys, by their exactions, got most of the money. =Ludgate Hill= was formerly Bowyer Lane. On the south, until a few years ago, were to be seen some fragments of London Wall, now vanished.