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for any prison: it so easily provokes thoughts of keys turning in locks and body irons being rattled by helpless and despairing prisoners. The original ‘Clink’ was located on land controlled by the Bishops of Winchester. These bishops took a pragmatic view of the real world with all its flaws. Obviously, they decided, sin was an inescapable feature of the human condition – and therefore they might as well cash in on it. For that reason, the bishops allowed a large number of brothels, bawdy-houses and other disreputable establishments to operate on their land in Southwark, all the while maintaining their right to police and otherwise control them. These enterprises provided a consistent and generous income for hundreds of years, and some of the bishops themselves were not above enjoying the services of the prostitutes (who were often referred to as ‘Winchester Geese’). Those who used these establishments in Southwark sometimes broke the rules, and the bishops therefore needed a facility in which offenders could cool off and ruminate at leisure on the wages of sin. This, then, was the origin of ‘The Clink’.

    Sign outside the Clink Prison, Bankside.

    The Clink Prison Museum.
    It was in use as early as 1161. In 1381 it was attacked during the Peasants’ Revolt, and again in 1450 during Cade’s Rebellion. On both occasions the attackers took a great delight in releasing the inmates. ‘The Clink’ was noted for housing debtors and famous inmates including the Protestant Martyrs John Bradford and Bishop Hooper in 1555, as well as the Catholic recusants of the sixteenth and also seventeenth century. ‘The Clink’ went into a long decline after it was removed from the jurisdiction of the bishops. It burnt down in the Gordon Riots in 1780. It was not rebuilt.
    The Marshalsea
    Close by in the Borough was the Marshalsea. Dating from the fourteenth century, it was originally used as a state prison and was second only in importance in that respect to the Tower. When rebels attacked London, it almost seems to have been de rigeur to attack one or more prisons. The Marshalsea was no exception, being attacked by Wat Tyler’s rebels in 1381 and again by Jack Cade’s followers in 1450. Notorious for its awful conditions, there was a great riot and mass breakout at the Marshalsea in 1504. Those involved were ruthlessly hunted down and many of them hanged. This seems particularly vindictive given the fact that the building was a most ramshackle establishment from which escape must have been relatively simple. It is known that prisoners frequently bribed the keepers to be allowed to enjoy the pleasures that went with an exeat.

    Plaque to the Marshalsea Prison, off Borough High Street, Southwark.
    In 1557 this prison housed Gratwick, one of the Protestant martyrs who, after his trial, was burned to death in St George’s Fields. When Elizabeth succeeded her sister Mary on the throne, one of her first actions was to incarcerate Bonner, the last Catholic Bishop of London, in the Marshalsea, where he died some years later. In 1601 one Christopher Brooke took up residence for the unusual crime of giving a young lady by the name of Anne More in marriage to the poet John Donne without the knowledge – and therefore the consent – of her father.
    Conditions in the Marshalsea were atrocious. In 1728 it was reported that the inmates were suffering unduly because of the frugality and cruelty of the keeper, William Acton, who used the post to supplement his main income as a butcher. Many prisoners died of neglect and starvation. A row broke out but although there were calls for Acton to be charged with murder, he served only a short prison term and little was done to improve the regime. In 1738 an anonymous pamphlet called Hell in Epitome described the Marshalsea as, ‘An old pile most dreadful to the view, dismal as wormwood or repenting rue’.

    Remains of the Marshalsea Prison wall.
    As with a number of other prisons, the site of