CHAPTER XII.

THE FLEET PRISON.

The Fleet Used as a State Prison at an Early Date - Persons Incarcerated There: Bishops Gardiner and Hooper, Doctor Donne, Martin Keys, Prynne, Lilburne, James Howell, Lords Surrey and Falkland, Sir Richard Baker, Oldys, Wycherley, Sandford-Tyranny and Tortures Practised in the Prison — General Oglethorpe- Prison Burnt at the Great Fire - Fleet Marriages-Keith, the Notorious Fleet Parson.

COULD the walls of the old Fleet Prison have spoken, what fearful tales of vice, misery, and misfortune might they not have unfolded! This interesting pile, with its host of melancholy and historical associations, has passed away for ever. It was very soon after its demolition had commenced that the author wandered through its dingy apartments and narrow corridors, which then offered a striking contrast, by their utter stillness and desolation, to what they must have presented but a short time before, when they were the scenes of reckless riot and crowded wretchedness.

The Fleet-prisona de la Fleet - was used as a state prison at least as early as the twelfth century. In the first year of the reign of Richard