A mediaeval burglary : $b A lecture delivered at the John Rylands Library on the 20th January, 1915Tout, T. F. (Thomas Frederick)
History
A mediaeval burglary : $b A lecture delivered at the John Rylands Library on the 20th January, 1915
Tout, T. F. (Thomas Frederick)
Great Britain -- History -- Edward I, 1272-1307; Richard, of Pudlicott, -1305; Westminster Abbey
It is pleasant to say that by the time Droxford went to work much of
the treasure, which had been scattered broadcast, was being brought
back and that more was soon to follow. The first investigations as to
where the treasure had been carried led to fruitful results. A good
deal of it was found hidden beneath the beds of the keeper of the
palace and of his assistant. Still more was found in the lodgings of
Richard Pudlicott and his mistress. Adam the sacrist, and some of his
brother monks and their servants, were discovered to be in possession
of other missing articles. Altogether, when Droxford had finished his
inventory, a large proportion of the articles which had been lost were
reclaimed. Ultimately it seems that the losses were not very severe.
Wholesale arrests were now made. Richard Pudlicott was apprehended on
25 June, and William of the Palace soon experienced the same fate.
Before long the connexion which the monks had had with the business
seemed so well established that the whole convent, including the abbot
and forty-eight monks, were indicted and sent to the Tower, where they
were soon joined by thirty-two other persons. This time the king’s net
had spread rather too widely, and the indiscriminate arrest of guilty
and innocent excited some measure of sympathy, even for the guilty.
The majority of the clerical prisoners were released on bail, but some
half-dozen laymen and ten monks were still kept in custody. Both the
released and the imprisoned culprits raised a great outcry, sending
petitions to the king demanding a further enquiry into the whole matter.
The first commission meanwhile had been empanelling juries and
collecting evidence. But the matter was so serious that in November a
second royal commission was appointed to hear and determine the matter.
The members of this second commission were chosen from among the most
eminent of the king’s judges, including the chief justice of the king’s
bench, Sir Roger Brabazon and the shrewdest judge of the time, William
Bereford, afterwards chief justice of common pleas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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