ge and fair;
For when myself lay there the noxious air
Choked up my spirits. None but captives, wife,
Can know what captives feel."

Stow, however, seems to deny this story, and suggests that it arose from
some mistake. The stone with the inscription was preserved by Stow when
the gate was rebuilt, together with Forster's arms, "three broad
arrow-heads," and was fixed over the entry to the prison. The
enlargement of the prison on the south-east side formed a quadrant
thirty-eight feet long and twenty-nine feet wide. There were prisoners'
rooms above it, with a leaden roof, where the debtors could walk, and
both lodging and water were free of charge.

Strype says the prisoners in Ludgate were chiefly merchants and
tradesmen, who had been driven to want by losses at sea. When King
Philip came to London after his marriage with Mary in 1554 thirty
prisoners in Lud Gate, who were in gaol for L10,000, compounded for at
L2,000, presented the king a well-penned Latin speech, written by "the
curious pen" of Roger Ascham, praying the king to redress their
miseries, and by his royal generosity to free them, inasmuch as the
place was not _sceleratorum carcer, sed miserorum custodia_ (not a
dungeon for the wicked, but a place of detention for the wretched).

Marmaduke Johnson, a poor debtor in Lud Gate the year before the
Restoration, wrote a curious account of the prison, which Strype
printed. The officials in "King Lud's House" seem to have been--1, a
reader of Divine service; 2, the upper steward, called the master of the
box; 3, the under steward; 4, seven assistants--that is, one for every
day of the week; 5, a running assistant; 6, two churchwardens; 7, a
scavenger; 8, a chamberlain; 9, a runner; 10, the cryers at the grate,
six in number, who by turns kept up the ceaseless cry to the passers-by
of "Remember the poor prisoners!" The officers' charge (says Johnson)
for taking a debtor to Ludgate was sometimes three, four, or five
shillings, though their just due is but twopence; for entering name and
address, fourteen pence to the turnkey; a lodging is one penny,
twopence, or threepence; for sheets to the chamberlain, eighteenpence;
to chamber-fellows a garnish of four shillings (for non-payment of this
his clothes were taken away, or "mobbed," as it was called, till he did
pay); and the next day a due of sixteen pence to one of the stewards,
which was called table money. At his discharge the several fees were as