PERSONS OF NOTE IMPRISONED IN THE FLEET.

FOR nearly eight centuries was the Fleet a place of security or confinement, and the terror of evil-doers of almost every grade: its cells and dungeons were tenanted by political and religious martyrs; besides a host of men of more pliant consciences, whom the law stigmatised as debtors.

The early history of the prison is little better than a sealed book; the burning of the building by Wat Tyler being the only noticeable event. By the regulations of this period, the Warden might arm the porters at the gates with halberts, bills, or other weapons.

In the reigns of Edward VI. and Queen Mary, several victims of those bigoted times were committed here. Bishop Hooper was twice sentenced to the Fleet, which he only quitted in 1555, for the stake and the fire at Gloucester. In the Fleet his bed was 66 a little pad of straw, with a rotten covering, his chamber was vile and stinking." It was expected that he would have accompanied Rogers, a prebendary of St. Paul's, to the stake; but Hooper, after his trial, was led back to his cell, to be carried down to Gloucester, to suffer among his own people. Next morning he was roused at four o'clock, and being committed to the care of six of Queen Mary's guard, they took him, before it was light, to the Angel Inn, St. Clement's, then standing in the fields; thence he was taken to Gloucester, and there burnt, with dreadful torments, on the 9th of February : the spot is marked by a statue of the Bishop, beneath a gothic canopy, which was inaugurated in 1863, on the 308th anniversary of Hooper's martyrdom. The Fleet was originally the prison for persons

committed from the Court of Star Chamber. Bacon, in early life, held the office of Registrar of this infamous Court, worth about 1,600l. per annum. In his Life of King Henry VII. he characterises the Court as “one of the sagest and noblest institutions of the kingdom ;” "composed of good elements, for it consisteth of counsellors, peers, prelates, and chief judges."

From the reign of Elizabeth to the sixteenth of Charles I. (1641), the Star Chamber was in full activity. Among the political victims consigned to the Fleet were Prynne and Lilburne. Prynne was committed here for writing his Histriomastix, taken out of the prison, and, after suffering pillory, branding, mutilation of the nose, and loss of ears, was remanded to the Fleet. Lilburne, "Free-born John,” and his printer, were committed to the Fleet for libel and sedition: the former was smartly whipped at "the cart's tail," from the prison to the pillory, placed between Westminster Hall and Star Chamber, and subsequently "doubly ironed" in the prison-wards.

After the abolition of the Star Chamber, in 1641, the Fleet became a prison for contempt of the Courts of Chancery, Common Pleas, and Exchequer ; and it continued a prison for debtors, for which purpose it appears to have been used from the thirteenth century at least, by a petition from John Frauncey, a debtor in the Fleet, A.D. 1290.

Wycherley, the wit and dramatist, lay in the Fleet seven years, ruined through his Countess' settlement being disputed, was thrown into prison, and is said to have been at last relieved by James II., who having gone to see Wycherley's Plain Dealer acted, was so delighted, that he gave orders for the payment of the

author's debts, and settling a pension of 2007. a year on him. The history has an apocryphal air.

Sir Richard Baker, the Chronicler, was one of the most unfortunate debtors confined here: he married in 1620, and soon after got into pecuniary difficulties, and was thrown into the Fleet Prison, where he spent the remaining years of his life, and died in 1644-45, in a state of extreme poverty. Mr. Cunningham, from the Rate-books of St. Clement's Danes, tells us that Sir Richard lived in Milford-lane, Strand, from 1632 to 1639; possibly Lady Baker resided here. Sir Richard wrote his Chronicle, published 1641, and other works, as a means of subsistence during his imprisonment. The Chronicle was for a century the popular book among the squires and ancient country gentlemen of the school of Sir Roger de Coverley. Sir Richard's residence in the Fleet was not very compatible with reference to authorities and antiquarian research; though full of errors, it has given more pleasure and diffused more knowledge than historical works of far higher pretensions: it is now little read; but we may remark, by the way, that some historical works written and most read in our time, are by no means the most accurate. Baker's Chronicle is certainly one of the most amusing "prison books," and has been treated with much unmerited ridicule. Sir Richard was buried in the nearest church, old St. Bride's, the burial-place of the Fleet Wardens. Francis Sandford, author of the Genealogical History, died in the Fleet in 1693.

To Howel's imprisonment here we owe his very entertaining Familiar Letters, several of which are dated from here. By "A Letter to the Earl of B., from the Fleet," Nov. 20, 1643, Howel was arrested

"one morning betimes," by five men, armed with "swords, pistils, and bils," and some days after committed to the Fleet; and he adds, "As far as I see, I must lie at dead anchor in this Fleet a long time, unlesse some gentle gale blow thence to make me launch out." Then we find him solacing himself with the reflection that the English people are in effect but prisoners, as all other islanders are. Other Letters, by Howel, are dated from the Fleet, 1615-6-7; some are dated from various places, but are believed to have been written in the Fleet: still they bear internal evidence that Howel had visited these places.

Howel's Letters, already mentioned, have had a reflex in our time in Richard Oastler's Fleet Papers, "a weekly epistle on public matters," inscribed to Thomas Thornhill, Esq., of Fixby Hall, Yorkshire, whose steward Oastler had been, and at whose suit he was imprisoned here: he was liberated by subscription, February 12, 1844, and has left an interesting account of his imprisonment. Of Oastler, a colossal bronze group, by Philip, has been erected at Bradford, in memory of his advocacy of the Ten-Hours Factory Bill.

Among the distinguished prisoners here, was the impetuous Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, who was first committed here for sending a challenge; he was allowed in the prison the use of two servants to wait upon him, but not permitted to entertain any of his friends at table. He made several applications for his release : he pleads to the Privy Council "the fury of reckless youth," and the inoffensiveness of his past life; and begs, that if he may not be liberated, he may, at least, be removed to a place of confinement in better air; he

was then removed to Windsor, and in four days released. In 1543, Surrey was summoned before the Privy Council, at the instance of the City authorities, for having eaten flesh in Lent; and for having with young Wyatt, the poet's son, and Pickering, gone about the streets at midnight breaking windows with stone-bows. To the first charge he pleaded a license; submitting to sentence on the second, for which he was again sent to the Fleet. During his imprisonment he wrote his Satire upon the Citizens, in which he pretends that he broke their windows to awaken them to a sense of their iniquities, commencing:

London hast thou accused me

Of breach of laws? the root of strife,
Within whose breast did boil to see,
So fervent hot, thy dissolute life;
That even the hate of sins that grow
Within thy wicked walls so rife,

For to break forth did convert so,
That terror could it not repress.

Surrey's grave irony has misled the editor of his Poems, who states the poet's motive to have been a religious one; a very absurd defence of a vinous frolic of window-breaking.

We pass to another class of committals. Keys was sent here for marrying the Lady Mary Grey, the sister of Lady Jane Grey; Dr. Donne, for marrying Sir George More's daughter without her father's knowledge; Sir Robert Killigrew, for speaking to Sir Thomas Overbury as he came from visiting Sir Walter Raleigh; the Countess of Dorset, for pressing into the Privy Chamber, and importuning James I., "contrary to commandment;" and Lucius Carey, Viscount Falkland, for sending a challenge.