The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 1/2Griffiths, Arthur
History
The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 1/2
Griffiths, Arthur
Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England); Prisons -- England; Punishment -- Great Britain
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 proto-martyr--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; 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.”[40]
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,
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