As imprisonment proliferated in cases of debt, its prominence also grew as an instrument of political and religious discipline. Incarceration sent a clear message about the consequences of religious and political dissent. Yet conversely, it also offered new modes of publicity and organisation to opponents of ecclesiastical and civil government. Chapter 6 explores how prisons became both venues for illicit political and religious activity and emblems of absolute power. Between the early stages of the Reformation and Charles I’s Personal Rule, incarceration became a mark of honour, a source of fame and a tool of publicity, all of which took on new significance during the civil war. Notably, with the rise of imprisonment for debt in the latter half of the sixteenth century, the prison’s increased social significance leant it new rhetorical power in political contexts. As everyday anxieties about the threat of incarceration grew, the prison became an ever more poignant as a symbol of tyranny, oppression and lost liberty. Martyrologies that emphasised spiritual solitude and monasticism in prison gave way to greater emphasis on common experiences of incarceration. This chapter thus explores new rhetorical and interpersonal connections between political activism and increasingly widespread incarceration from the reformation to the civil war