Here also was imprisoned Colonel Lovelace, who wrote within the gloomy walls the well-known lines:
"When, linnet-like, confinéd I With shriller note shall sing The mercye, sweetness, majesty, And glories of my King; When I shall voyce aloud how good He is, how great should be, Th' enlarged winds that curl the flood Know no such liberty.
"Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage: Minds, innocent and quiet, take That for an hermitage. If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free, Angels alone, that soare above, Enjoy such liberty."
Here were confined, also, Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester; and Sir Jeffrey Hudson, the little dwarf, who was first in the service of the Duchess of Buckingham, and afterwards in that of Queen Henrietta Maria, and was twice painted by Vandyck. Hudson died in the prison. Hampden, Sir John Eliot, and Lilly, the astrologer, were imprisoned at various times, and Titus Oates died in the gatehouse in his sixty-third year. Richard Savage, the poet, adds another name to the list. In 1776 the Dean and Chapter of Westminster ordered that the gatehouse should be pulled down, but one wall, adjoining the house once inhabited by Edmund Burke, was still standing in 1836.
Close by was Thieving Lane, through which thieves were taken to the prison without passing by the sanctuary and claiming its immunity.
Within the High Gate was the Abbey Precinct, and with this we pass into by far the most interesting part of Westminster--that part that may be called the nucleus, round which cluster so many historical memories that the mere task of recording them is very great.
As we, in imagination, pass through the ancient prison gate, at the east end of Victoria Street, we find on the left Prince's Street, formerly called Long Ditch. His Majesty's Stationery Office stands on the east, a large dull brick building, stuccoed in front, built round a courtyard. Lewisham Street and Parker Street are long narrow foot-passages, running east and west, the latter a cul-de-sac. The tablet on the wall is much worn, but seems to have borne the date "Parker Street, 1621." This is in accordance with the lines of old flat-casemented, two-story houses which line each side of the street.