The Chronicles of Newgate (Vol. 1&2). Griffiths Arthur
sovereigns at his table, viz. the kings of England, France, Scotland, and Cyprus, with the Prince of Wales and many more notables. This Picard was one of the Guild of Merchant Vintners of Gascony, a Bordeaux wine merchant, in fact, and a Gascon by birth, although a naturalized subject of the English king. The Vintners gave the city several lord mayors.
Richard II. was not so well disposed towards the city. Recklessly extravagant, wasteful and profuse in his way of living, he was always in straits for cash. The money needed for his frivolous amusements and ostentatious display he wrung from the Corporation by seizing its charters, which were only redeemed by the payment of heavy fines. The sympathies of the city were therefore with Henry Bolingbroke in the struggle which followed. It was able to do him good service by warning him of a plot against his life, and Henry, now upon the throne, to show his gratitude, and “cultivate the good understanding thus commenced with the city, granted it a new charter.” The most important clause of Henry’s charter was that which entrusted the citizens, their heirs and successors, with the custody “as well of the gates of Newgate and Ludgate, as all other gates and posterns in the same city.” The same clause gave them the office of gathering the tolls and customs in Cheap, Billingsgate, and Smithfield there rightfully to be taken and accustomed;[18] “and also the tronage, that is to say, the weighing of lead, wax, pepper, allom, madder, and other like wares, within the said city for ever.” The great concession was, however, in the reign of Edward IV., whose charter was the fullest and most explicit of any previously granted. By this the mayor, recorder, and aldermen who had been Lord Mayor were constituted perpetual justices of the peace of the city; they were also appointed justices of oyer and terminer; their customs were to be accepted as established beyond controversy by the declaration of the mayor through the recorder; they were exempted from serving as jurors, and so forth, beyond the city. The borough of Southwark was once more clearly placed under the jurisdiction of the city; the citizens were entitled to the goods and chattels of traitors and felons, and the privilege of the annual Southwark Fair, with the pie powder court, was confirmed.
By this time the gate and prison must have passed under the control of the civic authorities. They had, however, already enjoyed the privilege of contributing to its charges. This appears from an entry as far back as September 1339, in the account of expenditure of Thomas de Maryus, chamberlain. The item is for “moneys delivered to William Simond, Sergeant of the Chamber, by precept of the mayor and aldermen, for making the pavement within Newgate, £7 6s. 8d.” How complete became the power and responsibility of the Corporation and its officers is to be seen in the account given in the ‘Liber Albus’ of the procedure when new sheriffs were appointed.[19] They were sworn on appointment, and with them their officers, among whom were the governor of Newgate and his clerk. After dinner on the same day of appointment the old and new sheriffs repaired to Newgate, where the new officials took over all the prisoners “by indenture” made between them and the old.[20] They were also bound to “place one safeguard there at their own peril,” and were forbidden to “let the gaol to fenn or farm.” Other restrictions were placed upon them. It was the sheriffs’ duty also, upon the vigil of St. Michael, on vacating their office, to resign into the hands of the mayor for the time being the keys of Newgate, the Cocket or Seal of Newgate, and all other things pertaining unto the said sheriffwick.[21] All the civic authorities, mayor, sheriffs, aldermen, and their servants, including the gaoler of Newgate, were forbidden to brew for sale, keep an oven, or let carts for hire; “nor shall they be regrators of provisions, or hucksters of ale, or in partnership with such.” Penalties were attached to the breach of these regulations. It was laid down that any who took the oath and afterwards contravened it, or any who would not agree to abide by the ordinance, should be forthwith “ousted from his office for ever.” It was also incumbent upon the sheriffs to put “a man sufficient, and of good repute, to keep the gaol of Newgate in due manner, without taking anything of him for such keeping thereof, by covenant made in private or openly.” Moreover, the gaoler so appointed swore before the Lord Mayor and aldermen that “neither he nor any of them shall take fine or extortionate charge from any prisoner by putting on or taking off his irons, or shall receive moneys extorted from such prisoners.” He was permitted to levy fourpence from each upon release, “as from ancient time has been the usage, but he shall take fees from no person at his entrance there;” indeed, he was warned that if he practised extortion he would be “ousted from his office,” and punished at the discretion of the mayor, aldermen, and common council of the city.
It will be made pretty plain, I think, in subsequent pages, that these wise and righteous regulations were both flagrantly ignored and systematically contravened. The rule against farming out the prison may have been observed, and it may not be clearly proved that the sheriffs ever took toll from the gaoler. But the spirit of the law, if not its letter, was broken by the custom which presently grew general of making the gaolership a purchaseable appointment. The buying and selling of offices, of army commissions, for instance, as we have seen practised within recent years, at one time extended also to the keeperships of gaols. It is recorded in the Calendar of State papers that one Captain Richardson agreed for his place as keeper of Newgate for £3000. A larger sum, viz. £5000, was paid by John Huggins to Lord Clarendon, who “did by his interest” obtain a grant of the office of keeper of the Fleet prison for the life of Huggins and his son. One James Whiston, in a book entitled ‘England’s Calamities Discovered, or Serious Advice to the Common Council of London,’[22] strongly remonstrates against this practice, which he stigmatizes as “bartering justice for gold.” His language is plain and forcible. “Shall the public houses built at the city charges [it appears that at that time Ludgate, Newgate, the Fleet, and the Compters were all put up to the highest bidder] be sold for private lucre? … He that sells a gaoler’s place sells the liberty, the estate, the person, nay, the very lives of the prisoners under his jurisdiction.” “Purchased cruelty,” the right to oppress the prisoners, that is to say, in order to recover the sums spent in buying the place, “is now grown so bold that if a poor man pay not extortionary fees and ruinous chamber-rent, he shall be thrown into holes and common sides to be devoured by famine, lice, and disease. I would fain know,” he asks, “by what surmise of common sense a keeper of a prison can demand a recompense or fee from a prisoner for keeping him in prison? … Can he believe that any person can deserve a recompense for opening the door of misery and destruction? … But now such is the confidence of a purchaser, that to regain his sum expended he sells his tap-house at prodigious rates, … he farms his sheets to mere harpies, and his great key to such a piece of imperious cruelty (presumably his chief turnkey) as is the worst of mankind.” Following the same line of argument, he says “it will perhaps be thought impertinent to dispute a gaoler’s demands for admitting us into his loathsome den, when even the common hangman, no doubt encouraged by such examples, will scarce give a malefactor a cast of his office without a bribe, demands very formally his fees, forsooth, of the person to be executed, and higgles with him as nicely as if he were going to do him some mighty kindness.” Eventually an act was passed specifically forbidding the sale of such places. This statute affirms that “none shall buy, sell, let, or take to farm, the office of under-sheriff, gaoler, bailiff, under pain of £500, half to the king and half to him that shall sue.”
Before leaving the subject of the sheriffs’ jurisdiction in regard to Newgate, it may be interesting to refer to a conflict between them and the Corporation as to the right to appoint the gaoler. It is recorded in the State papers, under date March 1, 1638, that Isaac Pennington and John Wollaston were elected and sworn sheriffs for the ensuing year. They went, according to ancient custom, to Newgate, where, having received the keys and the charge of the prisoners from the former sheriffs, they substituted for the actual keeper one James Francklin, who about the 15th of the following October died. Accordingly the sheriffs appointed and settled Henry Wollaston as keeper of the gaol, who peaceably executed the duties of that place for six weeks. The rest of the story is best told in the language of the record. After that time “the Lord Mayor and aldermen, never charging Wollaston with any miscarriage, sent for him to their court at Guildhall, and demanded of him the keys of the said prison, who refusing to deliver them to any without the consent of the sheriffs, was then detained until some officers were sent from the said court, who forcibly brought the officer’s servants intrusted with the said keys and prisoners by the said Wollaston, and, without the knowledge or consent of the said sheriffs, delivered them to Richard Johnson, a young man