{193} Cl. Rot., 13 Hen III., given in “Lincs. N. & Q.,” vol. i, p. 49. From a very early period churches and churchyards were regarded as so sacred that a criminal, having reached one of these, like the Biblical cities of refuge, could not be disturbed. On the north door of Durham Cathedral there is a ponderous bronze knocker-ring, to which the criminal, clinging, was safe. There is another at Hexham, and at St. Gregory’s, Norwich. At Westminster, Worcester, Croyland, Tintern, and many other places, there was the same privilege. In Beverley Minster there is a remarkable stone called the “Frith-stool,” because it “freeth” the criminal from pursuit. It is recorded that in 1325 ten men escaped from Newgate, four of them to the Church of St. Sepulchre, and one to St. Bride’s. Nicholas de Porter joined in dragging a man from Sanctuary, who was afterwards executed. But this act was itself so great an offence, that he only obtained pardon through the Papal Nuncio, on doing penance in his shirt and bare head and feet in the church porch, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in Whitsun week. A result, however, of the abuse of Sanctuary was, that churches being so numerous over the country, criminals could always obtain a refuge, and the roads became infested with highwaymen. Henry VIII. passed Acts curtailing the privilege, and it was finally abolished by James I., 1624—“New Quarterly Mag.,” Jan., 1880. _Et alibi_. {194a} Collectanea, vol. ii., p. 300. {194b} Although these events happened more than 250 years ago, it does not require many links to connect that day with the present. The writer was informed, at the time he was putting these records together, that a man named John Barber died in Horncastle, aged 95, in the year 1855 or 1856, whose grandfather remembered Oliver Cromwell sleeping in the above-named house, then a mud and stud structure, on the night before Winceby fight. In the Register of West Barkwith is recorded the burial of Nicholas Vickers in 1719, who guided Cromwell over Market Rasen Moor after the battle. Cromwell may well, therefore, have returned to the same house at Horncastle before proceeding northward by Market Rasen. {196a} “Monasticon,” p. 45. {196b} “History of the House of Marmion,” p. 18. {197a} Berewick is a hamlet or minor manor attached to a larger. The word strictly means cornland (bere, or barley). This Dispenser, as his name (Latin Dispensator) implies, was steward to the Conqueror. His descendants were the Despensers, Earls of Gloucester. He was brother to the Earl Montgomery. Being a powerful man, he forcibly seized the lordship of Elmley from the monks of Worcester. At the time of Domesday he held 15 manors in Lincolnshire, seventeen in Leicester, four in Warwickshire, &c. {197b} Maddison’s “Wills,” series i., p. 360, No. 96.