Celebrated indeed was the Ivy Lane Club, in Ivy Lane off Paternoster Row. Dr. Samuel Johnson started the gathering to promote literary discussion and to lighten and relieve his heavy working hours in Gough Square, and it met every Friday evening, at the beefsteak house called the King's Head.
Cut through the grounds of old Warwick Palace, where Paternoster Row ends, is Warwick Lane. There is a reminder here of a long ago time, in a carved panel of 1668, set in the wall of the first house from Newgate Street on the west side of the way, depicting the grand old man of those historic days—Warwick the King Maker. Bulwer Lytton has interestingly combined history and fiction in his spirited tale the "Last of the Barons," dealing with the life of the Earl of Warwick, who literally held the fortunes of kings in the hollow of his hand.
One of the oldest streets of London is Newgate, named during the reign of Henry I. at the time Old St. Paul's was being repaired. Then the street from Cheapside to Ludgate was blocked and impassable and a new gate was pierced through the wall of the city, where now Old Bailey touches Newgate Street, so as to make a direct road to Ludgate and to Ludgate Hill. The very beginning of Newgate Prison was here at this gate, for the rooms over the arch were used as a prison.
Where the New Central Criminal Court now is, famous Newgate Prison stood for more than one hundred years the chief prison of London. The building of Newgate was begun in 1770. In 1780, when scarcely completed, it was partly destroyed by the No-Popery rioters. At the head of these was Lord George Gordon, and the lawless scenes are picturesquely written of in Charles Dickens' novel of the times, "Barnaby Rudge." Of the many famous prisoners of old Newgate were Jack Sheppard, Titus Oates, Claude Duval, Dick Turpin, and Lord George Gordon himself who died here a prisoner. DeFoe was detained here for publishing his "Shortest Way with Dissenters," and William Penn for preaching in the streets. For eighty years the open space in front of Newgate was used for public executions, taking the place of Tyburn.
Prisoners were taken from Newgate to Tyburn for execution, and as they passed the church of St. Sepulchre, each was given a nosegay of flowers. Another custom of this church, carried on for many years by means of a legacy left by a Christian Londoner, was in having the church clerk ring a bell beneath the windows of the cell of the condemned the night before his execution, so that he might be reminded to make his peace with God, reciting as he rang his bell:
All you that in the condemned hold do lie,
Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die;
Watch all and pray, the hour is drawing near
That you before the Almighty shall appear;
Examine well yourselves, in time repent,
That you may not to eternal flames be sent;
And when St. Sepulchre's bell to-morrow tolls,
The Lord above have mercy on your souls.
Within this church of St. Sepulchre were interred the remains of Captain John Smith, who is said to have married the Indian princess Pocahontas. He died in 1631, and his epitaph reads:
Here lies one conquered
that hath conquered kings.