Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/193

 THE CASTLE OF EXETER. 137 of late had 'perished through wante :^'' upon which the Jus- tices ordered the constables " to be dihgent in collecting the money for the gaole, that the poor prisoners do not perish thro' their default." Our annals record the melancholy fate of the Judge (Mr. Serjeant Flowerby), eleven of the jury, and five of the magistrates, victims of the jail fever at the trial of the prisoners at the Lent Assizes for Devon of 1585. In consequence of this frightful visitation, the Assizes were held for a time in other places. For the transaction of special business, the Justices were allowed to assemble in the Chapter House; and we find Bishop Woolton and his successors. Bishops Babington and Cotton, occasionally presiding at their meetings. In 1607, at a meeting of the magistrates in the Chapter House, it was resolved that every knight in the county, being a justice, and every esquire that had been sheriff, should pay towards the building of a convenient Session House within the Castle of Exeter the sum of 40^., and every esquire, being a justice, 20^., with every gentleman within the county, being lawyers, whose names hereafter follow, viz. : — John Hele, Elles Hele, William Martyn, Hugh Wyat, Robert Davye, Thomas Lee, Humphry Weare, Alexander Maynard, Thomas Risdon, Philip Risdon, James Welclie, Nicholas Duck, Richard Martyn, John Molford, Philip Molton, John Hatche, George Stafford, esquires ; and all other gentle- men not herein named, being lawyers within the county, should pay towards the same 13^. 4of. ; and a committee was appointed to take order about building the Session House. It appears that several of the persons ordered to pay demurred to contribute their quota, insomuch that in 1609 the Judges of Assize, Fleming and Tanfield, addressed letters to the defaulters to make good their payments before the 26th of August that year; and in 1610 the same two Judges ordered warrants of distress to be executed on those who remained in default. In 1614, the Justices held their Sessions at Bedford House ; but ten years later they were enabled to sit in "the Grand Jury Howse," which Westcote, p. 141, describes as " the spacious hall and rooms newly re-edified." After this, was contemplated the building of a House of Correction, " upon the lands of the Prince's Highness in the Castell of Exon," and negociations for the purpose were opened with the Lords of the Council ; but the premises