3-066-153 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Bocarda [sic], or Old Prison at Oxford, where Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley were confined, 1881. '...the prison in the gate-house, at the north entrance to the town...was a place of confinement for debtors and minor offenders, who were jocosely called "the Bocardo birds;"...In this prison it was that Archbishop Cranmer, Bishop Ridley, and Bishop Latimer, who had been the foremost clergymen of the Protestant Established Church of England through the reign of Edward VI., were confined during many weeks previous to their death...Ridley and Latimer were burned on October 16, 1555, in the city ditch under the north wall, close to Bocardo; and Cranmer, having been spectator of their martyrdom, himself suffered the same fate on March 21, 1556...the old tower or gate-house became part of the buildings attached to the Ship Inn, in the stable-yard of that hostelry, adjacent to St. Michael's Church. The demolition of the building has lately occasioned some remark, which has led us to make it the subject of an Illustration. The actual stake or post to which Cranmer was chained, in order to be put to death, and the iron shackle that fastened his body, have been preserved by local antiquaries; the key of Bocardo is in the Ashmolean Museum'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.