sent me to the Tower, where I remained till three o’clock.” At the Tower strenuous efforts were made to get her to accuse others. They pressed her to say how she was maintained in prison; whether divers gentlewomen had not sent her money. But she replied that her maid had “gone abroad in the streets and made moan to the ’prentices,” who had sent her alms. When further urged, she admitted that a man in a blue coat had delivered her ten shillings, saying it came from my Lady Hertford, and that another in a violet coat had given her eight shillings from my Lady Denny—“whether it is true or not I cannot tell.” “Then they said three men of the council did maintain me, and I said no. Then they did put me on the rack because I confessed no ladies or gentlemen to be of my opinion, and thereon they kept me a long time; and because I lay still, and did not cry, my Lord Chancellor and Master Rich took pains to rack me with their own hands till I was nigh dead. Then the lieutenant (Sir Anthony Knevet) caused me to be loosed from the rack. Incontinently I swooned, and then they recovered me again. After that I sat two long hours, reasoning with my Lord Chancellor, on the bare floor.” At last she was “brought to a house and laid in a bed with as weary and painful bones as ever had patient Job; I thank my Lord God there-for. Then my Lord Chancellor sent me word, if I would leave my opinion, I should want nothing; if I did not, I should forthwith to Newgate, and so be burned. …”
Foxe gives full details of her torture in the Tower. At first she was let down into a dungeon, and the gaoler, by command of Sir Anthony Knevet, pinched her with the rack. After this, deeming he had done enough, he was about to take her down, but Wriottesley, the Lord Chancellor, “commanded the lieutenant to strain her on the rack again; which, because he denied to do, tendering the weakness of the woman, he was threatened therefore grievously of the said Wriottesley, saying he would signify his disobedience to the king. And so consequently upon the same, he (Wriottesley) and Master Rich, throwing off their gowns, would needs play the tormentors themselves. … And so, quietly and patiently praying unto the Lord, she abode their tyranny till her bones and joints were almost plucked asunder, in such sort as she was carried away in a chair.” Then the chancellor galloped off to report the lieutenant to the king; but Sir Anthony Knevet forestalled by going by water, and obtained the king’s pardon before the complaint was made. “King Henry,” says Foxe, “seemed not very well to like of their so extreme handling of the woman.”
Soon after this Mistress Askew was again committed to Newgate, whence she was carried in a chair to Smithfield, “because she could not walk on her feet by means of her great torments. When called upon to recant she refused, as did the martyrs with her.” Whereupon the Lord Mayor, commanding fire to be put under them, cried, “Fiat Justitia,” and they were burned.
The Maryan persecutions naturally filled Newgate. It would weary the reader to give lengthened descriptions of the many martyrs who passed through that prison to Smithfield. But a few of the victims stand prominently forward. Two of the earliest were John Rogers, vicar of St. Sepulchre and prebendary of St. Paul’s, and Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester. Rogers was the proto-martyr—the first sacrificed to the religious intolerance of Mary and her advisers. Foxe says that after being a prisoner in his own house for a long time, Rogers was “removed to the prison called Newgate, where he was lodged among thieves and murderers for a great space.” He was kept in Newgate “a full year,” Rogers tells us himself, “at great costs and charges, having a wife and ten children to find; and I had never a penny of my livings, which was against the law.” He made “many supplications” out of Newgate, and sent his wife to implore fairer treatment; but in Newgate he lay, till at length he was brought to the Compter in Southwark, with Master Hooper, for examination. Finally, after having been “very uncharitably entreated,” he was “unjustly, and most cruelly, by wicked Winchester condemned.” The 4th February, 1555, he was warned suddenly by the keeper’s wife of Newgate to prepare himself for the fire, “who being then found asleep, scarce with much shogging could be awakened.” Being bidden to make haste, he remarked, “If it be so, I need not tie my points.” “So was he had down first to Bonner to be degraded, whom he petitioned to be allowed to talk a few words with his wife before his burning”—a reasonable request, which was refused. “Then the sheriffs, Master Chester and Master Woodroove, took him to Smithfield; and his wife and children, eleven in number, ten able to go, and one at the breast, met him as he passed. This sorrowful sight of his own flesh and blood could nothing move him, but that he constantly and cheerfully took his death with wonderful patience in the defence and quarrel of Christ’s gospel.”[40]
While detained in Newgate, Master Rogers devoted himself to the service of the ordinary prisoners, to whom he was “beneficial and liberal,” having thus devised “that he with his fellows should have but one meal a day, they paying, notwithstanding, the charges of the whole; the other meal should be given to them that lacked on the other (or common) side of the prison. But Alexander their keeper, a strait man and a right Alexander, a coppersmith indeed, … would in no case suffer that.”
This Alexander Andrew, or Alexander, as he is simply called, figures in contemporary records, more especially in the writings of Foxe, as a perfect type of the brutal gaoler. “Of gaolers,” says Foxe, “Alexander, keeper of Newgate, exceeded all others.” He is described as “a cruel enemy of those that lay there (Newgate) for religion. The cruel wretch, to hasten the poor lambs to the slaughter, would go to Bonner, Story, Cholmley, and others, crying out,
The Torture Of The Boot.
‘Rid my prison! rid my prison! I am too much pestered by these heretics.” Alexander’s reception of an old friend of his, Master Philpot, committed to Newgate,[41] is graphically told by the old chronicler. “ ‘Ah, thou hast well done to bring thyself hither,’ he says to Philpot. ‘I must be content,’ replied Philpot, ‘for it is God’s appointment, and I shall desire you to let me have some gentle favour, for you and I have been of old acquaintance.’ ‘Well,’ said Alexander, ‘I will show you great gentleness and favour, so thou wilt be ruled by me.’ Then said Master Philpot, ‘I pray you show me what you would have me to do.’ He said, ‘If you will recant I will show you any pleasure I can.’ ‘Nay,’ said Master Philpot, ‘I will never recant whilst I have my life, for it is most certain truth, and in witness thereof I will seal it with my blood.’ Then Alexander said, ‘This is the saying of the whole pack of you heretics.’ Whereupon he commanded him to be set upon the block, and as many irons upon his legs as he could bear, for that he would not follow his wicked mind. … ‘But, good Master Alexander, be so much my friend that these irons may be taken off.’ ‘Well,’ said Alexander, ‘give me my fees, and I will take them off; if not, thou shalt wear them still.’ Then Master Philpot said, ‘Sir, what is your fee?’ He said four pounds was his fee. ‘Ah,’ said Master Philpot, ‘I have not so much; I am but a poor man, and I have been long in prison.’ ‘What wilt thou give me, then?’ said Alexander. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘I will give you twenty shillings, and that I will send my man for, or else I will lay my gown to gage. For the time is not long, I am sure, that I shall be with you, for the bishop said I should be soon despatched.’ Then said Alexander unto him, ‘What is that to me?’ and with that he departed for a time, and commanded him to be had into limbo. And so his commandment was fulfilled; but before he could be taken from the block the clerk would have a groat. Then one Willerence, steward of the house, took him on his back and carried him down his man knew not whither. Wherefore Master Philpot said to his man, ‘Go to Master Sheriff, and show him how I am used, and desire Master Sheriff to be good unto me;’ and so his servant went straightway, and took an honest man with him.
“And when they came to Master Sheriff, which was Master Ascham, and showed him how Master Philpot was handled in Newgate, the sheriff, hearing this, took his ring off his finger and delivered it unto that honest man that came with Master Philpot’s man, and bade him go unto Alexander the keeper and command him to take off his irons and handle him more gently, and give his man again that which he had taken from him. And when they came to the said Alexander and told their message from the sheriff, Alexander took the ring, and said, ‘Ah, I perceive that Master Sheriff is a bearer with him and all such heretics as he is, therefore to-morrow I will show it to his betters;’ yet at ten by the clock he went to Master Philpot where he