CHAPTER IX.
Old Newgate.
At the beginning of the twelfth century,--whether in the reign of Henry the First, or Stephen is uncertain,--a fifth gate was added to the four principal entrances of the city of London; then, it is almost needless to say, surrounded by ramparts, moats, and other defences.

This gate, called _Newgate_, "as being latelier builded than the rest," continued, for upwards of three hundred years, to be used as a place of imprisonment for felons and trespassers; at the end of which time, having grown old, ruinous, and "horribly loathsome," it was rebuilt and enlarged by the executors of the renowned Sir Richard Whittington, the Lord Mayor of London: whence it afterwards obtained amongst a certain class of students, whose examinations were conducted with some strictness at the Old Bailey, and their highest degrees taken at Hyde-park-corner, the appellation of Whittington's College, or, more briefly, the Whit.

It may here be mentioned that this gate, destined to bequeath its name--a name, which has since acquired a terrible significance,--to every successive structure erected upon its site, was granted, in 1400, by charter by Henry the Sixth to the citizens of London, in return for their royal services, and thenceforth became the common jail to that city and the county of Middlesex.

Nothing material occurred to Newgate, until the memorable year 1666, when it was utterly destroyed by the Great Fire.

It is with the building raised after this direful calamity that our history has to deal.
Though by no means so extensive or commodious as the modern prison, Old Newgate was a large and strongly-built pile.