A place of confinement for debtors, and for every sentenced by the court of King's Bench to suffer imprisonment: but those who can purchase the liberties have the benefit of walking through , and a part of the borough, and in fields.

Stow informs us, that

the courts of King's Bench and Chancery have oftentimes been removed to other places; and so have likewise the gaols that serve those courts, as in the year1304, Edward I. commanded the courts of the King's Bench and the Exchequer, which had remained seven years at York, to be removed to their old piece, at London. And in the year 1387, the eleventh of Richard II. Robert Tresilian, chief justice, came to the city of Coventry, and there sat the space of a month as justice of King's Bench, and caused to be indicted in that court about the number of two thousand persons of that country, &c.

It seemeth, therefore, that for that time, the prison or gaol of that court was not far off. Also in the year 1392, the sixteenth of the same Richard, the archbishop of York being lord chancellor, for good will that he bare to his city, caused the King's Bench and Chancery to be removed from London to York. But before long they were returned to London.

The prisoners in this prison of the King's Bench were formerly not only restrained by their liberty, but were further punished by reason of the streightness of room, there being more about the middle of queen Elizabeth's reign committed there than before, as well for debt, trespass, as other causes; by reason of which streightening and pestering one another, great annoyances and inconveniences grew among the prisoners, that occasioned the death of many; so that within six years last past (it was now about the year 1579) very near a hundred persons died; and between Michaelmas and March, about a dozen persons, besides others that had been extremely sick and hardly recovered; and some remained still sick, and in danger of their lives, through a certain contagion, called the sickness of the house, which many times happened among them, ingendering chiefly, or rather only, of the small or few rooms, in respect of the many persons abiding in them; and there, by want of air, breathing in one another's face as they lay, which could not but breed infection, especially when any infectious person was removed from other prisons thither. And many times it so happened, namely, in the summer season, that through want of air, and to avoid smothering, they were forced in the night time to cry out to the marshal's servants, to raise and open the doors of the ward, whereby to take air in the yard for their refreshing. Whereupon these prisoners, about March, 1579, put up a petition to the lords of the queen's privy council, setting forth all this their lamentable condition; and beseeched them to take some order for the enlarging of the said rooms, for the preservation of their lives that then remained there, as of others that should fortune to be committed thither; and also for building some chapel, or place of common prayer, they being driven to use for that purpose a certain room, through which was a continual recourse. And that they would the rather be moved thereunto, in that the same house or lands were the queen's inheritance, and the marshal there answerable to her highness for a yearly rent therefore, and also being her highnesses principal gaol.

For seconding this petition sir Owen Hopton, knight, lieutenant of the Tower, Fleetwood, the recorder, and several aldermen and justices of the peace, sent their letter to the lords testifying the truth of the above said complaint; and moreover assuring their honours that there was not one convenient or several room in the whole house wherein they might sit for executing the queen's majesty's commission; but were forced to use a little low room, or parlour, adjoining to the street, where the prisoners daily dined and supped; so that were it not for the discharging their duties that way, and some tender remorse towards the help of some prisoners' hard cases, they could be contented to tarry from thence, as well as some other of their colleagues did for the inconveniency aforesaid.

The prison occupies an extensive area of ground; it consists of large pile of building, about yards long. The south, or principal front, has a pediment; under which is the chapel. There are pumps of spring and river water. Here are rooms, or apartments, of which are called state-rooms, which are much larger than the others.

Within the walls are a coffee-house and public-houses; and the shops and stalls for meat, vegetables, and necessaries of almost every description, give the place the appearance of a public market; while the numbers of people walking about, or engaged in various amusements, are little calculated to impress the stranger with an idea of distress, or even of confinement.

The walls surrounding the prison are about feet high, and are surmounted by ; but the liberties, or rules, as they are called, comprehend all St. George's-fields, side of , and part of the , forming an area of about miles in circumference. These rules are usually purchasable after the following rate, by the prisoners: guineas for small debts; guineas for the of debt, and about half that sum for every subsequent . Dayrules, of which may be obtained in every term, may also be purchased for the day, and for the others. Each description of purchasers must give good security to the governor, or, as he is called, marshal. Those who buy the mentioned may take up their residence any where within the precincts described; but the day rules only authorize the prisoner to go out on those days for which they are bought. These privileges render the King's Bench the most desirable (if such a word may be thus applied) place of incarceration for debtors, in England; and hence persons so situated frequently remove themselves to it by from the most distant prisons in the kingdom. A strict attention to the rules is very seldom enforced: a fact so notorious, that when the late lord Ellenborough, as chief justice of the King's Bench, was applied to for an extension of the rules, his lordship very gravely replied, that he really could perceive no grounds for the application, since to his certain knowledge, the rules already extended to the East Indies! In cases of this kind, however, when discovery takes place, the marshal becomes answerable for the escape of the debtor.