Large numbers of the English felons, at an early day, by this practice known as _abjuration of the realm_, were induced to leave England and annually many such “undesirable citizens” took passage from Dover, to France or Flanders, under the threat of delivery to the civil authorities, to answer for their crime, if they did not voluntarily assume this perpetual banishment and suffer the forfeiture of their estate to the crown.[17] After _abjuration of the realm_, if the prisoner afterwards returned to England, without the license of the king, so to do, he was regarded as an outlaw and, when caught, was condemned to be hanged, unless he was a clerk, in which event, he was allowed to claim the _benefit of clergy_, and to be discharged, after the usual preliminaries and the punishment inflicted upon those claiming clergy for such a crime as the sanctuary criminal had committed.[18] During the period of the forty days, while the criminal was enjoying his privilege of sanctuary, the _villata_ where the crime was committed was required to watch the sanctuary, to prevent his escape, without _abjuration of the realm_; if the coroner did not come for the period of forty days, the township was required to watch the church for this full period and if the criminal escaped, because of the failure to do so, the township was amerced accordingly.[19] The privilege of sanctuary was recognized by the code of Ina, King of West Saxony, in 693, and the fifth section of the code provides that if a felon, who had been convicted of a capital offense fled to a church, or sanctuary, his life should be spared and if any criminal adjudged to be flogged, sought refuge in such consecrated place, the stripes, that he would otherwise receive, should be withheld from him.[20] In the year 887, under a statute of Alfred the Great, the privilege of three nights was allowed the criminal seeking the protection of the church, to enable him to prepare for his safety, and by this same provision of the law, if anyone violated the privilege of sanctuary, during the period named, by inflicting blows, wounds, or bonds, upon the sanctuary criminal, he was obliged to pay the sum of One hundred and twenty shillings to the ministers of the church, whose precincts had been invaded.[21] The Mirror of Justice, reports that King Alfred caused a judge to be hanged, who had invaded the jurisdiction of the holy orders and removed, by civil process, a criminal who had sought the protection of sanctuary[22] and it is certain that the right was not only safe-guarded by the law, in the time of Alfred, but that Ethelred and all subsequent Saxon kings expressly sanctioned the privilege.[23] With the advent of William the Conqueror, the law of sanctuary, with the other Saxon laws that he did not repeal, became more fixed and definite, but the extent of the privilege was more or less varied, by the laws or practices of the different subsequent kings.