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 Earl of Dorset committed the prisoner (Coleman) to Newgate, where he has been ever since detained, and could not bring the writings to the secretary;” “prays that he may be allowed to come to him for that purpose.” Christopher Crowe, a prisoner in Newgate, and another victim to the oppression of a great noble, about the same date (1632) petitions the council: “I am in great misery,” he says, “having no friends nor means.” For six weeks he has had for his allowance but a halfpenny in bread one day and a farthing’s worth the next. “Is heartily sorry for his words spoken against the Marquis of Hamilton, and prays enlargement.” Others in Newgate sought noble protection, and petitioned the great peers to procure release. John Meredith petitions Henry Earl of Holland, Captain of the Guard, reminding him that when he (Meredith) and his wife were committed to Newgate, his lordship on their appeal had sent an order for their discharge, which had been disregarded, and now, “having lain in prison a fortnight, he prays that he and his wife may forthwith be enlarged.” This has no effect, so Meredith and his wife Joan petition the Earl of Manchester, Lord President. “They had now remained in prison three weeks; pray for an enlargement from Newgate gratis,[53] and that the sergeants who arrested them may be committed.”
Prisoners of still greater consequence languished often hopelessly in Newgate Gaol. Now it is the wardens of divers city companies for not making up their proportion towards the previous year’s provision of corn; now a respectable freeman and stationer, William Cooke, who had built a shed of timber in the open street in High Holborn adjoining Furnival’s Inn. He was committed to Newgate till he should demolish the same. But, as Inigo Jones and others represent to the council, “he lies in prison, and the shed continues,” and they suggest an order to the principals of Furnival’s Inn, or to the sheriffs of London, to take the shed away. Next comes a greater personage, John Andrews, the Mayor of Sudbury, who has unhappily fallen foul of a messenger of the Star Chamber named Potter. This messenger came to Andrews with a warrant claiming his assistance for the apprehension of certain unlicensed dealers in tobacco in Sudbury, to which warrant he “gave due obedience.” Potter was presently himself brought before the mayor, “accused of many blasphemies and oaths,” and for compounding for money with the culprit who had unlawfully trafficked in tobacco. Upon this the mayor told Potter that he thought him worthy to be committed to prison. Potter then fell to abusing the mayor in scoffs and threatening speeches, telling him that he would have him set in the stocks, and that he cared not a pin for the mayor’s authority. The exasperated Andrews committed Potter to prison. But Potter’s threats were not without substantial foundation, for Andrews’ action is deemed improper, and he is himself committed to Newgate. From thence he humbly submits himself, and prays discharge from that loathsome prison.
Even an alderman was not safe. Thomas Middleton in 1603, having been duly elected alderman, refused to be sworn, whereupon he was committed to Newgate by the Lord Mayor and court of aldermen, “according to their oaths and the custom of the city.” For this they were sharply reproved by the king, and ordered to release him immediately, “as he was employed in important state service which privileged him from arrest.”
These were days of widespread oppression, when Strafford, Laud, the Star Chamber, and ecclesiastical courts gave effect to the king’s eager longings for arbitrary power. The following is from a half-mad fanatic who has offended the relentless archbishop. “The petition of Richard Farnham, a prophet of the most high God, a true subject to my king, and a prisoner of my saviour Christ, in Newgate, to Archbishop Laud and the rest of the high commissioners, whom he prays to excuse his plainness, being no scholar. … Desires to know the cause of his being detained so long in prison, where he has been kept a year next April without coming to his answer. Thinks they have forgotten him. If he be a false prophet and a blasphemer and a seducer, as most people report that he is, the high commissioners would do well to bring him to trial. What he wrote before he came into prison and what he has written since he will stand to. … If he does not get his answer this summer he intends to complain to the king, believing that it is not his pleasure his subjects should suffer false imprisonment to satisfy the archbishop’s mind.” Of the same year and the same character is this other petition from William King, a prisoner in Newgate “for a little treatise delivered to Lord Leppington.” Has remained in thraldom twenty-seven months; expresses contrition and prays enlargement on bail, or that he may be called to answer. Forty years more were to elapse before the passing of the Habeas Corpus Act; but the forgoing will show how grievously this so-called palladium of an Englishman’s liberties was required.
Pardons free or more or less conditional were, however, vouchsafed at times. Release from prison was still, as before, and for long after, frequently accompanied by the penalty of military service. This had long been the custom. On declaration of war in the earlier reigns, it was usual to issue a proclamation offering a general pardon to those guilty of homicides and felonies on condition of service for a year and a day. Even without this obligation prisoners in durance might sue out a pardon by intercession of some nobleman serving abroad with the king. But later on the release was distinctly conditional on personal service. The Lord Mayor certifies to the king (1619) that certain prisoners in Newgate, whose names and offences are given, are not committed for murder; so they are reprieved, as being able-bodied and fit to do service in foreign parts. Another certificate states that William Dominic, condemned to death for stealing a purse value £4, is reprieved, “this being his first offence,
