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
“And when they came to Master Sheriff, which was Master Ascham, and
showed him how Master Philpot was handled in Newgate, the sheriff,
hearing this, took his ring off his finger and delivered it unto that
honest man that came with Master Philpot’s man, and bade him go unto
Alexander the keeper and command him to take off his irons and handle
him more gently, and give his man again that which he had taken from
him. And when they came to the said Alexander and told their message
from the sheriff, Alexander took the ring, and said, ‘Ah, I perceive
that Master Sheriff is a bearer with him and all such heretics as he is,
therefore to-morrow I will show it to his betters;’ yet at ten by the
clock he went to Master Philpot where he lay and took off his irons, and
gave him such things as he had taken before from his servant.”
Alexander’s zeal must have been very active. In 1558 it is recorded that
twenty-two men and women were committed to Newgate for praying together
in the fields about Islington. They were two and twenty weeks in the
prison before they were examined, during which Alexander sent them word
that if they would hear a mass they should be delivered. According to
Foxe a terrible vengeance overtook this hard-hearted man. He died very
miserably, being so swollen that he was more like a monster than a man.
The same authority relates that other persecutors came to a bad end.
Bishop Hooper soon followed Rogers to the stake. The same Monday night,
Feb. 4, 1555, the keeper of Newgate gave him an inkling that he should
be sent to Gloucester to suffer death, “and the next day following,
about four o’clock in the morning before day, the keeper with others
came to him and searched him and the bed wherein he lay, to see if he
had written anything, and then he was led to the sheriffs of London and
other their officers forth of Newgate, to a place appointed not far from
Dunstan’s Church, Fleet Street, where six of the Queen’s Guards were
appointed to receive him and to carry him to Gloucester, ...” where
execution was to be done.
We obtain a curious insight into the gaol at Newgate during Mary’s reign
from the narrative of the ‘Hot Gospeller.’ Edward Underhill, a yeoman of
the Guard, was arrested in 1553 for “putting out” a ballad which
attacked the Queen’s title. Underhill was carried before the Council,
and there got into dispute with Bourne, a fanatic priest whom he called
a papist. “Sir John Mason asked what he meant by that, and he replied,
‘If you look among the priests of Paul’s you will find some
mumpsimusses there. This caused much heat, and he was committed to
Newgate.” At the door of the prison he wrote to his wife, asking her to
send his night-gown, Bible, and lute, and then he goes on to describe
Newgate as follows:[42]--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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