for in August, 1309, his son Edward the Second, being then at Stamford, sent letters to the Sheriff, signifying that, whereas the late king, Edward, his father, "for the more convenience of the inhabitants of Leicestershire, had, with the consent of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, ordained that a public prison should be made in the town of Leicester, for the safe keeping of all prisoners taken within the said county; "and that, whereas he himself, after the death of his said father, had "by his writ commanded that the said prison, then not wholly finished, should be forthwith completely perfected, so that no prisoner should thenceforth be carried out of the said county of Leicester (as until then was the custom), to the prison at Warwick;" and that whereas he was now credibly given to understand that the said prison was at length accordingly finished; he therefore required "that the said sheriff should cause all such prisoners as should be thenceforth apprehended in the county of Leicester to be safely brought and kept in the said new prison at Leicester until they should thence be delivered in due course."
Four years after this prison was finished, a remarkable thing happened to one of the prisoners. Matthew of Enderby, a thief, who had been caught and taken "ad prisonam domini Regis Leycestriae," was convicted of larceny, and hanged. His body was then borne to the graveyard of the chapel of the hospital of St. John of Leicester, and, while it lay there, awaiting burial, the man came to life again. Such an event as this is an unusually bright spot in the annals of a prison, the dullness of which is relieved, as a rule, only by reports of prisoners' escapes. Many broke out of the county gaol, as they did also from the Castle dungeon and from the town prison. For instance, Elias of Staunton, approver, "broke the King's gaol at Leicester" in the year 1317, and fled for sanctuary to All Saints' Church. Next year a man escaped from the same prison to St. Peter's Church.
In the time of Edward the Second it was ordered, "with the assent of the commonalty," that a hall should be built beyond the county prison, for delivery of prisoners and holding of pleas in. There was, however, some delay in the building of this
43
