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Born digital. Article written by Tara Drouillard for English 327 at the University of Windsor, 2001. Edited by Janelle Jenstad.
This article provides an overview of the prison system in early modern London, paying particular attention to how early modern playwrights such as
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In London and within a mile, I weene, There are of Iayles or Prisons full eighteene, And sixty Whipping-posts, and Stocks and Cages, Where sin with shame and sorrow hath due wages.
In his pamphlet until they were either
brought to trial or released
(Salgado 176). Newgate was the
only prison where the most notorious of criminals were sent to be held
before execution.
In Elizabethan times, people were arrested for many different reasons,
such as vagrancy, petty theft,
. It
was easy for a person to swear out a warrant against someone and have
him or her arrested, as long as one had the money to pay for it (Salgado 164). Constables, like
the incompetent
the least they could expect was to be burned through the gristle of the ear, branded or whipped till their backs ran blood(Salgado 21). After they were punished, those who were arrested were sent to the appropriate prison (i.e., religious offenders to the Clink, both religious and maritime offenders to the Marshalsea, debtors to the King’s Bench or the Counters) (Dobb 89–90).
Each of the prisons in London had different levels of accommodation for
its prisoners. Which section of the prison that the prisoner ended up in
depended not on the offence with which he was charged, but on how much
money the prisoner was willing or able to give to various people in the
prison administration, such as gaolers, keepers, tipstaffs, and others
(Salgado 168). Dobb notes
that, officially, keepers were to charge fees only for the prisoners’
committal, discharge, and exemption from fetters (Dobb 94). However, prisoners had to pay more
money if they wanted their own cell, meat and claret at every meal, and
tobacco (Salgado 169). Prisoners lived
comfortably in this manner as long as they were able to pay for it. When
they could no longer afford to live at this level of the prison, they
had to move to one of the lesser but relatively comfortable areas, and
finally to the worst area of the prison, once they could no longer
afford to live in moderate comfort. Although each of the prisons had a
lowest level, at the Counters this section
was known as the Hole, where the poor prisoners were cramped together
into a small space and often died of starvation and cold (Salgado 170), or from the lack of
exercise and poor sanitation (Dobb
98). The little food that was available at the common Gaol at
Newgate and the Hole at the Counters was provided by charities and
gifts from the Lord Mayor, the Sheriffs, and the City companies (Salgado 98).
There was no set limit for how long a person stayed in prison. Thus the
length of a prison sentence varied from prisoner to prisoner. Debtors
were not able to leave prison until they settled with their creditor(s)
(Dobb 92). Some of those
who were to be executed were able to avoid their punishment by becoming
hangmen, like
The practice of pressing, also known as
Prisoners who remained mute when asked to plead were warned three times of the punishment they would receive and given several hours to consider before they were pressed (Parry 98). The prisoner would receive the Judgement of Penance:
That you go back to the prison whence you came, to a low dungeon into which no light can enter: that you be laid on your back on the bare floor, with a cloth round your loins, but elsewhere naked; that there be set upon your body a weight of iron as great as you can bear and greater; that you have no sustenance save on the first day three morsels of the coarsest bread, on the second day three draughts of stagnant water from the pool nearest to the prison door, on the third day again three morsels of bread as before, and such bread and such water alternately from day to day till you die.
The procedure of pressing was sometimes varied so that the prisoners would have their arms and legs tied to four corners of the room where they were being pressed. Parry cites an example of a man who withstood the pressure of four hundred pounds for two hours before pleading not guilty, as well as that of another man who withstood the pressure of five hundred pounds for half an hour before agreeing to submit a plea (Parry 101, 102).
Pressure was obviously considered to be a normal practice in
Oh, I am pressed to death /Through want of speaking!(Shakespeare 3.4.71–72), and in
Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping, and hanging(Shakespeare 5.1.533–534). These are just two examples of how
The practice of pressing, with the purpose of eliciting a plea from
prisoners, continued until the eighteenth century, when it was replaced
with the more humane practice of tying the thumbs together and twisting
the cord (Parry 102). Pressure
was officially abolished by George III, and it
was later enacted under George IV that any
prisoner standing mute would be considered to be pleading not guilty
(Parry 103).
Although
Shakespeare 2.1.255–269ESCALUS Come hither to me, master
Elbow ; come hither, Master Constable. How long have you been in this place of constable?ELBOW Seven year and a half, sir.
ESCALUS I thought, by the readiness in the office, you had continued in it some time. You say, seven years together
ELBOW And a half, sir.
ESCALUS Alas, it hath been great pains to you. They do you wrong to put you so oft upon’t. Are there not men in your ward sufficient to serve it?
ELBOW Faith, sir, few of any wit in such matters. As they are chosen, they are glad to choose me for them. I do it for some piece of money and go through with all.
Through this dialogue,
Through
I am as well acquainted here as I was in our house of profession. One would think it wereShakespeare 4.3.1–11Mistress Overdone ’s own house, for here be many of her old customers. First, here’s young Master Rash; he’s in for a commodity of brown paper and old ginger, nine-score and seventeen pounds, of which he made five marks, ready moneyThen is there here one Master Caper, at the suit of Master Three-pile the mercer, for some four suits of peach-coloured satin, which now peaches him a beggar.
In