“There can be no franchise without grant from the king. For the king can grant that any person who enters such a place, having committed treason, shall not be taken therefrom. And this shows that it can be done without the assent of Pope or Bishop, and that the Pope cannot do it within this realm. For to pardon or dispense with treason, pertains exclusively to the king. And a place of safety, is as a _privilege_, not as sanctuary. But when the Pope has consecrated the place, then it is sanctuary, not before.... But the principle of protection arises by our law, of which the cognizance belongs to us.” And this view obtaining, the Abbot was denied his suit and it was finally held that no right of sanctuary existed in case of a charge of treason.[44] Illustrating the growing tendency to limit the privilege of sanctuary during the reign of Henry VII., another significant case, will not be studied in vain. Two felons were taken out of sanctuary, at Southwark and when arraigned for their crimes before Sir Thomas Frowike, Chief Justice, they pleaded their sanctuary and prayed to be restored. They were commanded to plead to the felonies with which they were charged, on the merits, but refused, claiming that as they were wrongfully taken out of sanctuary they were bound to plead to the indictment; the court, however, found that they had not been taken out of sanctuary and then, without arraigning them again, ordered that they be subjected to the terrible _peine forte et dure_, for standing mute and refusing to plead. So final judgment was entered, notwithstanding their right to sanctuary, that they be taken to the jail, from whence they came, and laid upon the bare ground, and that so much weight be laid upon them as they could suffer and more, and that they should have nothing to eat but bread and water; and that so they should be kept, continually, until they died.[45] As indicative of the cruelty and barbarism then obtaining, this judgment is an important index and that such a judgment should have been rendered against men claiming the privilege of sanctuary, was not only contrary to the law of _peine forte et dure_, which punishment was only assessed upon those standing mute and refusing to plead at all, and not to those claiming an exemption given them by such a well settled custom approved by the laws and decisions of the courts for many centuries, but it was certainly contrary to the spirit and intent of the law and condemns the judges pronouncing such a harsh judgment, even unto this late day.