The Fleet: Its Rivers, Prison, and MarriagesAshton, John
History
The Fleet: Its Rivers, Prison, and Marriages
Ashton, John
Fleet Prison (London, England); Fleet, River (England)
"In the Winter Time they assemble themselves by five of the
Clock in the Morning to the House where they make their
Conventicle for the Sabbath Day, Men and Women together. There
they continue in their kind of Prayers, and Exposition of
Scriptures, all the Day. They Dine together. After Dinner make
Collections to pay for their Diet. And what money is left, some
of them carryeth to the Prisons, where any of their sort be
committed.
"In their prayers, one speaketh, and the rest do groan and sob,
and sithe,[105] as if they could wring out Tears. But say not
after him that prayeth. Their Prayer is _Extemporal_."
In January, 1600, Lord Grey of Wilton was committed to the Fleet, by
Queen Elizabeth's order, for assaulting the Earl of Southampton, on
horseback, in the public street.
There is a fair bibliography of the Fleet prison in the seventeenth
century. In 1620-1 there was a broadsheet published "A briefe
collection of the exactions, extortions, oppressions, tyrannies,
and excesses towards the liues, bodies and goods of prisoners, done
by _Alexander Harris_, Warden of the Fleete, in his foure yeares
misgouernment, ready to be proued by oath and other testimonies." This
was answered by Harris, and his MS., which is in the possession of the
Duke of Westminster, was published by the Camden Society in 1879,
entitled the "[OE]conomy of the Fleete; or an Apologeticall Answeare
of Alexander Harris (late Warden there) unto XIX Articles set forth
against him by the prisoners." Of which book more anon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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