The Chronicles of Newgate (Vol. 1&2). Griffiths Arthur
of gaol—Condition of prisoners—Fanatical conduct of keeper—Nefarious practices of turnkeys—They levy black mail—“Coney catching” described—Several cases of such swindling—Civil war reflected in prison records—More Irish arrested at Devonshire—Sent to London and lodged in Newgate for examination—Arbitrary imprisonment imposed by House of Lords on Richard Overton—Case of Colonel Lilburne—“Free born John”—Newgate annals record transfer of power to Commonwealth—Royalists in gaol—Also prisoners of mark—The Portuguese ambassadors’ brother in Newgate charged with murder, and executed—Also Lord Buckhurst and others.
THE disturbing elements of society continued much the same in the early part of the seventeenth century as in the years immediately preceding. There were the same offences against law and order, dealt with in the same summary fashion. Newgate was perpetually crowded with prisoners charged with the same sort of crimes. Bigotry and intolerance continued to breed persecution. All sects which differed from that professed by those in power were in turn under the ban of the law. The Romish priest still ventured into the hostile heretic land where his life was not worth a minute’s purchase; Puritans and Nonconformists were committed to gaol for refusing to surrender their heterodox opinions: these last coming into power were ruthlessly strict towards the openly irreligious backslider. Side by side with these sufferers in the cause of independent thought swarmed the depredators, the wrong-doers, whose criminal instincts and the actions they produced were much the same as they had been before and as they are now.
The devoted courage of the Jesuit emissaries in those days of extreme peril for all priests who dared to cross the channel claims for them a full measure of respect. They were for ever in trouble. When caught they met hard words, scant mercy, often only a short shrift. Repeated references are made to them. In the State Papers July 1602 is a list of priests and recusants in prison, viz. “Newgate—Pound (already mentioned), desperate and obstinate; … in the Clink, Marshalsea, King’s Bench, are others; among them Douce, a forward intelligence, Tichborne, Webster, perverter of youth,” &c. They were ever the victims of treachery and espionage.[49] “William Richardson, a priest of Seville College (the date is 1603), was discovered to the Chief Justice by one whom he trusted, and arraigned and condemned at Newgate for being a priest and coming to England. When examined he answered stoutly, yet with great modesty and discretion, moving many to compassionate him and speak against the Chief Justice, on whom he laid the guilt of his blood.” He was executed at Tyburn, hanged and quartered, but his head and quarters were buried. “Such spectacles,” says the writer, Ant. Rivers, to Giacomo Creleto, Venice, “do nothing increase the gospel. …” A further account says that William Richardson, alias Anderson, was betrayed by a false brother, sent to Newgate, and kept close prisoner over a week, no one being allowed to see him. The Chief Justice, interrupting other trials, called for him, and caused him to be indicted of high treason for being a priest and coming to England. All of which he confessed, and there being no evidence against him, the Chief Justice gave his confession in writing to the jury, who found him guilty. “He thanked God and told the Chief Justice he was a bloody man, and sought the blood of the Catholics. He denied that he was a Jesuit or knew Garnet[50]. …”
These priests were not very rigorously guarded. On the 27th November 1612 seven escaped from Newgate. They must also have been very indifferently lodged. When a number of them were transferred for greater security to Wisbeach Castle, they petitioned that they were unable to provide themselves with bedding and other necessaries for their removal, and begged that orders might be taken for their providing. The keeper was closely watched lest he should be too easy with his prisoners. Questions are suggested to be put to him, examining him as to his connivance with recusants, and allowing them to escape or enjoy great liberty. In 1611 Sir Thomas Lake writes to Lord Salisbury to the effect that the king is resolved the keeper of Newgate shall be very severely punished for allowing reverence to priests and masses to be said in the prison.[51] It was evident they were permitted some license, although contraband, for Secretary Conway issues instructions on May 13, 1626, to the provost marshal of Middlesex directing him to search for popish books, massing stuff, and reliques of popery in Newgate. Even in Elizabeth’s time it appears that mass was said in Newgate, and one John Harrison, when charged in 1595 with being in possession of certain popish relics and papers, admitted that he had been married in Newgate by an old priest then in prison with his (H.’s) wife and himself.
Somewhat better times dawned for the Roman Catholic ministers after the accession of Charles I. His queen, Henrietta Maria, was able to help them. Her favouring of papists was indeed one of the many causes of the discontent which culminated in civil war. The king himself addresses the keeper of Newgate to the effect that “at the instance of the queen we have granted Pulteney Morse, lately indicted upon suspicion of being a priest, and still prisoner at Newgate, to be enlarged upon security to appear before the council when he shall be thereunto called. He has given security to that purpose; we therefore command you to set him at liberty.” The queen herself at times personally applied for the release of prisoners confined in Newgate for matters of religion. Often priests committed escaped incarceration, and were found to be at liberty after arrest. But it was not always easy to obtain enlargement when once laid by the heels. Here is the petition to the queen (State Papers, May 1634) of Thomas Reynolds, a secular priest, who has been more than five years in Newgate, “where by the unwholesomeness of the air, the strictness of the imprisonment, and his great age he is fallen into many dangerous infirmities. He now prays the queen to move the king to release him. His application is backed up by a medical certificate signed by three doctors that petitioner is affected with sciatica, colic, defluxion of rheum, and the stone. He is fifty-eight years of age.” The result of the petition is not given.
It was not only in the case of the religious prisoners that freedom was difficult to compass. A very hard case is that of Thomas Coo, committed to Newgate on grounds that are not traceable. He states, October 1618, to Sir Julius Cæsar and Sir Fulk Greville that his loyal service in preserving the life of his sovereign by discovering the London insurrection has been rewarded with famine and a dungeon. He is resolved to live no longer, leaving his son “to conceal his mystical designs.”[52] Fifteen years later, but still in Newgate, he makes his “submission from Newgate dungeon dunghill, almost famished; acknowledging his contrition of heart, and stating his readiness to do any penance the council may command, beseeches to know what his punishment may be.” His long imprisonments in Newgate and elsewhere have “stript petitioner, even of clothes from his back, and from that of the bearer of the letter, his lame child.” He prays that he may be forthwith either banished according to their order of the 28th October of the 5th King Charles (1630), or be allowed close prisoner in some other place where he may have some allowance to preserve him from starving. Six years more pass, and again (1639) he petitions the council, stating that there was neither legal warrant for his commitment to the Fleet eight years, nor for his six years’ detention in Newgate, whither he was thence removed. There were sent with him certain transcribed papers, importing some orders and rules issuing out of the Star Chamber, Chancery, and King’s Bench, in which courts the prisoner was never defendant, convented, nor convicted. The only paper against him was a supposed Inner Star Chamber order of voluntary banishment, to the effect that the petitioner was to depart the kingdom within twenty days, dated 1629. “Gaolers,” says the poor prisoner, “are made his judges, and jurors only give their verdict to whom his carcase belongs to be interred.”
A light matter sufficed to secure committal to Newgate. John Williams in a petition states that he was committed to Newgate for being one at the depopulation of the forest of Dean. There he has remained for five years, and now prays enlargement, not having wherewith to maintain himself in prison with his wife and poor children, who were seemingly incarcerated with him. The coachmen of even great people were committed to Newgate for contravening the Star Chamber order as to the route they should take to and from the playhouse in Blackfriars. Frequenters were invited to go to and fro by water, but if they drove they were to be set down by the west end of St. Paul’s Churchyard or Fleet Conduit. Again Robert Coleman (1631), having found certain writings of the secretary and other noble personages, and thinking they belonged to the Earl of Dorset, went to the Old Bailey, where Lord Dorset was sitting on the bench, to deliver them up. “One Barnes was to be tried,” states Coleman subsequently in a petition, “and there was some one there to beg his estate, whereupon the