Sally Salisbury, holding flowers in her hand. Mezzotint by J. Smith after G. Kneller.

Sally Pridden, a courtesan who took the name Salisbury, "At the Three Tuns tavern in Chandos Street, Covent Garden, on the evening of 22 December 1722, Sally picked up a breadknife and stabbed her lover the Honourable John Finch, third son of the second earl of Nottingham, in an angry argument over a theatre ticket. Although she immediately repented her action and Finch was not mortally wounded she was charged with attempted murder and sent to Newgate gaol to await trial. ...Sally pleaded not guilty and was acquitted of any intention to murder, but was found guilty of assault and wounding. She was fined, given a year's prison sentence, and a further two years' suspended sentence. Already in ill health from the appalling prison conditions, she did not survive her year's sentence and her deteriorating condition was the subject of bulletins in the London Journal. She died in Newgate, of gaol fever, "almost reduced to a Skeleton" (London journal, 15 Feb 1724), in February 1724" (Oxford dictionary of national biography)