This
open space was just outside the turreted north wall of the city, and
was girt by tall elms, and near it was a sheet of water whereon the
London boys loved to skate when the frost came. It was the city
playground, and the city gallows were placed there before they were
removed to Tyburn. This dread implement of punishment stood under the
elms where Cow Lane now runs: and one fair day brave William Wallace
was dragged there in chains at the tails of horses, bruised and
bleeding, and foully done to death after the cruel fashion of the age.
All this must have aged the heart of the old gateway, and especially
the sad sight of the countless burials that took place in the year of
the Plague, 1349, when fifty thousand were interred in the burial
ground of the Carthusians, and few dared to attend the fair for fear
of the pestilence.
Other terrible things the gateway saw: the burning of heretics. Not
infrequently did these fires of persecution rage. One of the first of
these martyrs was John Bedley, a tailor, burnt in Smithfield in 1410.
In Fox's _Book of Martyrs_ you can see a woodcut of the burning of
Anne Ascue and others, showing a view of the Priory and the crowd of
spectators who watched the poor lady die. Not many days afterwards the
fair-folk assembled, while the ground was still black with her ashes,
and dogs danced and women tumbled and the devil jeered in the miracle
play on the spot where martyrs died.
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