The right of sanctuary was most valuable, not only for political offenders, but also, and more frequently, for robbers. They escaped from prison, fled to the church, and saved their lives. “In this year,” 1324, say the “Croniques de London,”[207] “ten persons escaped out of Newgate, of whom five were retaken, and four escaped {168} to the church of St. Sepulchre, and one to the church of St. Bride, and afterwards all for-swore England.” But when the refugees were watched in the church by their personal enemies, their situation, as evidenced by the statute of 1315–1316, became perilous. The authors of a petition[208] to the king set forth in that year that armed men established themselves in the cemetery, and even in the sanctuary, to watch the fugitive, and guarded him so strictly that he could not even go out to satisfy his natural wants. They hindered food from reaching him; if the felon decided to swear that he would quit the kingdom his enemies followed him on the road, and in spite of the law’s protection dragged him away and beheaded him without judgment. The king reforms all these abuses,[209] and re-enacts the old regulations as to abjuration, which were as follows: “When a robber, murderer, or other evil-doer shall fly unto any church upon his confession of felony, the coroner shall cause the abjuration to be made thus: Let the felon be brought to the church door, and there be assigned unto him a port, near or far off, and a time appointed for him to go out of the realm, so that in going towards that port he carry a cross in his hand, and that he go not out of the king’s highway, neither on the right hand, nor on the left, but that he keep it always until he shall be gone out of the land; and that he shall not return without special grace of our lord the king.” The felon took oath in the following terms: “This hear thou, sir coroner, that I, N., am a robber of sheep, or of any other beast, or a murderer of one or of more, and a felon to our lord the King of England, and because I have done many such evils or robberies in this land, I {169} do abjure the land of our lord Edward King of England, and I shall haste me towards the port of such a place which thou hast given me, and I shall not go out of the highway, and if I do I will that I be taken as a robber and felon to our lord the king; and at such a place I will diligently seek for passage, and that I will tarry there but one flood and ebb, if I can have passage; and unless I can have it in such a place I will go every day into the sea up to my knees assaying to pass over; and unless I can do this within forty days, I will put myself again into the church as a robber and a felon to our lord the king. So God me help and his holy judgment.”[210]