Sir, 'Your Ingratitude for the many Kindnesses I have done you, shall not make me unthankful for the Good you have done me, in letting me see there is such a Man as you in the World. I am obliged to you for the Diffidence I shall have all the rest of my Life: I shall hereafter trust no Man so far as to be in his Debt.'
R.
Ludgate was originally built in 1215, by the Barons who entered London, destroyed houses of Jews and erected this gate with their ruins. It was first used as a prison in 1373, being then a free prison, but soon losing that privilege. Sir Stephen Forster, who was Lord Mayor in 1454, had been a prisoner at Ludgate and begged at the grate, where he was seen by a rich widow who bought his liberty, took him into her service, and eventually married him. To commemorate this he enlarged the accommodation for the prisoners and added a chapel. The old gate was taken down and rebuilt in 1586. That second gate was destroyed in the Fire of London.
The gate which succeeded and was used, like its predecessors, as a wretched prison for debtors, was pulled down in 1760, and the prisoners removed, first to the London workhouse, afterwards to part of the Giltspur Street Compter.
Sir John Denham's
Cooper's Hill.