“Deeper, and deeper still,” down beneath the very foundations of the building, at the foot of a dark narrow winding stair, fast crumbling to decay, is yet another dungeon, long since closed for any practical purposes; the eye of curiosity alone happily is permitted to penetrate its depths. Dark and damp, however, as it is, it would seem preferable to the dismal “_lock ups_,” a light, of modern introduction, from the street above, giving it a less intensely black look. Here it was that poor old Bilney spent his last hours of life; and the groined and vaulted roof, constructed upon the plan of so many of the cellars of that period of civil and domestic architecture, gives to the place a strangely ecclesiastical look in these days, and imagination has little difficulty in calling up the priest of the subterranean temple, who has been pictured to our eyes as there testing the powers of his endurance, by holding his finger in the lighted flame of the candle, to satisfy his friends that he should not shrink from the bodily pangs that were on the morrow to earn for him the crown of martyrdom. Solemn and sad are the memories clustered around these dreary tombs of liberty, nor is their atmosphere tempting to linger in, even upon a visit of curiosity.
The winding stair from _the dungeon_ leads into what is now a porch-way, but which must once have been the site of the old chapel, built for the use of the prisoners. This chapel was dedicated to St. Barbara, the prisoner’s saint, who, according to the legend of the Romish church, “was imprisoned by her father, in a high strong tower, to the end that no man should behold her,” and therefore St. Barbara is always represented with a tower. She is commemorated on the fourth of December, as St. Barbara, the Virgin and Martyr. Here, were formerly kept all the goods and chattels appertaining to the mayorality and civic feasts, in addition to the services belonging to the chapel itself; but about the era of the Reformation the chapel was pulled down, to make way for secular offices. How busy those good reformers were in abolishing every place dedicated to worship, that their judgment deemed supernumerary! When the treasury tower fell in, it crushed a prison, known by the name of “_Little Ease_;” the full details of whose attractions we are left in ignorance of. Upon the first floor, near the site of the chapel, was once the large chamber, where the sealing of the cloths manufactured in the city was carried on, since converted into an assize court, where the notorious lawmongers of this city, with their brother dignitaries of the bar, join forces to promote the ends of justice, their clients, and their own. There is a queer old document extant, wherein the number of learned gentlemen permitted to follow the profession of the law in this city was limited, “because,” as the preamble states, “when there were no more than six or eight attorneys at the most coming to the king’s courts, great tranquillity reigned in the city and county, and little trouble or vexation was made by untrue and foreign suits; and now, so it is, that in the said city and county there be fourscore attornies, or more, the more part having nothing to live upon but only his gain by the practice of attorneyship, and also the more part of them not being of sufficient knowledge to be an attorney, &c. &c., whereby proceed many suits more of evil will and malice than of the truth of the thing, to the manifold vexations, and no little damage of the inhabitants of the said city and county.” Wherefore it was enacted, that there should be but six attorneys in the county, and two in the city, for the future. When this admirable statute was repealed, we know not, but conceive it must have been long, long ago, for so many brass-plate signs to have sprung up in evidence of a numerous progeny taking place of the solitary two. Whether the repeal was a _reform_ calculated to benefit the city, experience best can prove; but if the character of the “common folk” in these parts is faithfully given by the author of “English Worthies,” we may presume them to have been considerably inconvenienced by the scarcity of tools with which to play their favourite game. He says, “that the common folks of Norfolk are possessed of such skill in the law, that they are said to study the law at the plough’s tail, and some would persuade us that they will enter an action for their neighbour’s horse only looking over the fence.”