"The grim old Norman fortress"--the actual sanctuary--stood on the present site of the National Society's Depot. But the whole precinct of the Abbey shared the privilege; and the space now covered by St. Margaret's Church and churchyard was often occupied by a vast crowd of distressed or discontented citizens who desired, as they called it, to "take Westminster."
Sometimes, if they were of higher rank, they established their quarters in the great Northern Porch of the Abbey, with tents pitched, and guards watching round, for days and nights together.[26]
Thieves or malefactors would often break away from their captors, as they were being led by the winding "Thieven Lane" outside to their prison in the gatehouse, and darting into the consecrated ground would defy all attempts to lure them forth.
Rich men run thither with poor men's goods. There they build, there they spend and bid their creditors go whistle for them. Men's wives run thither with their husband's plate, and say they dare not abide with their husbands for beating. Thieves bring thither their stolen goods, and there live thereon. There devise they new robberies: nightly they steal out, they rob and reave, and kill, and come in again as though these places gave not only a safeguard for the harm they have done, but a license also to do more.[27]
The results of this state of things were felt long after the right of Sanctuary ceased to exist in James the First's reign. The district outside the precincts of Westminster has always been one of the very worst in London. The writer remembers some twenty years ago walking home with her relative, Mr. Froude, from Sunday afternoon service at the Abbey, through Great Peter street, and being told to take care of her purse as every house was a thieves' den. In many of them there was a dressed-up manikin hung with bells, on which little children were given lessons in stealing. If they picked the manikin's pockets without ringing the bells they were rewarded: but if a bell tinkled they were beaten. Happily this street and many others like it were swept away by the great new thoroughfare, Victoria street, and its branches; and noble men and women are working day and night to civilize and christianize the slums which lie to the south of the Abbey. But it will be many a year before that Augean stable is cleaned out, which originated with those who "took Westminster."