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Ay, and be borne to Newgate in Triumph, and be hanged in Triumph 'twill be cold Comfort, celebrating your Nuptials in the Press-Yard, and be wak'd next Morning, like Mr. Barnardine in the Play Will you please to rise and be hanged a little, Sir? Bel. What wouldst thou have me do? Gay. As many an honest Man has done before thee Cuckold him cuckold him. Bel. What and let him marry her!
If Newgate would resolve itself into a committee of the whole Press-yard, with Jack Ketch at its head, aided by confidential persons from the county prisons or the Hulks, and would make a clear breast, some data might be found out to proceed upon; but as it is, the criminal mind of the country is a book sealed, no one has been able to penetrate to the inside! Mr.
He pulled me along the noisome, black warren of passages, slamming the inner door viciously behind him. The press-yard the exercising ground for the condemned was empty; the last batch had gone out, my batch would be the next to come in, the turnkey said suddenly. It was a well of a place, high black walls going up into the desolate, weeping sky, and quite tiny.
The dreaded Topcliffe had upon one occasion nearly brought the head of the family, an aged widow lady, to the horrors of the press-yard, but her punishment eventually took the form of imprisonment. Searches at Braddocks had brought forth hiding-places, priests, compromising papers, and armour and weapons. Let us see with what success the house was explored in the Easter of the year 1594.
The prisoners were aided in their excesses by the enthusiasm of the fair sex. The following extract from another obscure work, "The History of the Press-yard," is too curious to be omitted.
It would make a cat sick." My sudden exaltation, my sudden despair, gave way to indifference. "Oh, coming, coming!" he shouted, in answer to an immense bellowing cry that loomed down the passage without. I heard him grumble, "Of course, of course. I shan't make a penny." Then he caught hold of my arm. "Here, come along, someone to see you in the press-yard."
I took this opportunity to satisfy my curiosity, pretending that I had been robbed in the Dunstable coach, and that I would go to see the two highwaymen. But when I came into the press-yard, I so disguised myself, and muffled my face up so, that he could see little of me, and consequently knew nothing of who I was; and when I came back, I said publicly that I knew them very well.
The press-yard, well known by name to newspaper readers, from its frequent mention in accounts of executions, is at the corner of the building, and next to the ordinary’s house, in Newgate-street: running from Newgate-street, towards the centre of the prison, parallel with Newgate-market.
Whether he did so or not I cannot tell; but I am apt to think that he applied himself to the Mayor or the Sheriffs of London; for the next day one of the Sheriffs, called Sir William Turner, a woollen- draper in Paul's Yard, came to the press-yard, and having ordered the porter of Bridewell to attend him there, sent up a turnkey amongst us, to bid all the Bridewell prisoners come down to him, for they knew us not, but we knew our own company.
Being come before him in the press-yard, he looked kindly on us and spoke courteously to us. "Gentlemen," said he, "I understand the prison is very full, and I am sorry for it. I wish it were in my power to release you and the rest of your friends that are in it.
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