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Part 1: A Medieval Burglary - Section 1 · King Edward I of England: Three Essays

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Part one of King Edward the First of England Three Essays. This is a
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LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
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or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by David Wales.
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King Edward the First of England Three Essays by Thomas Frederick Taut. A medieval
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burglary Part one, Section one. The burglary about which I have to speak
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tonight, I did not discover by ransacking the picturesque and humorous annals of medieval
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crime. I came across the details of this incident when seeking for something quite
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different. For it happened when I was attempting to investigate the technicalities of the
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history of the administrative department known as the King's Wardrobe. But so human a
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story did something to cheer up the weary paths of dry as dust. And
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he hands it on to you in the hope that you will not find it
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absolutely wanting in instruction and amusement. Now, my burglary was the burglary of
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the King's Treasury, or more precisely, of the treasury of the King's Wardrobe,
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within the precincts of the Abbey at Westminster. The date of the event
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was twenty four April thirteen three. More precisely, according to the chief Burglar's
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own account, it was on the evening of that day that the burglar effected
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an entrance into the King's treasury, from which he tells us he escaped with
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as much booty as he could carry on the morning of twenty six April.
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Who had committed the burglary is a problem which was not quite settled even by
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the trials which followed the offense, though these trials resulted in the hanging of
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some half a dozen people at least. But after the hanging of the half
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dozen, it was still maintained in some quarters that the burglary was committed by
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one robber only, though charges of complicity in his guilt were in common fame
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extended to something like one hundred individuals, And in this case common fame was
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not, I think at fault. I wish, first of all to explain
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the meaning of the sentence rather cryptic to the generality in which I spoke of
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my burglary, as that of the robbery of the treasury of the King's Wardrobe
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within Westminster Abbey. For this purpose. I must ask you to carry your
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minds back to the Westminster of the early years of the fourteenth century. Westminster
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was then what Kensington was in the eighteenth or early nineteenth century, a court
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suburb aloof from the traffic and business of the great city of London. Now
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the twin centers of Westminster were the King's Palace and the adjacent Benedictine Abbey.
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The rough plan, which I am permitted to print on the opposite page,
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will show the close relation of the two great groups of buildings. It was
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much closer in many ways than the relations between the Houses of Parliament, the
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modern representative of the old Palace, and the present abbey buildings. If these
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latter largely remain despite many destructive alterations and details in their ancient site, we
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must remember that there was nothing like the broad modern road that separates the east
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end of the abbey from Westminster Hall and the House of Lords. A wall
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enclosed the royal precincts and went westward to within a few feet of the Monk's
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Infirmary and the end of Saint Margaret's Church. The still existing access to the
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abbey on the east side of the south transept through the door by which you
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can still go into Poet's Corner, having the Chapter House on your left and
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Henry the Seventh Chapel on your right was the poor by which immediate access to
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the palace could be gained through a gate in this wall. The space between
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the abbey and the palace wall was occupied by the churchyard of Saint Margaret's,
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the parish church, or rather its successor, still crouches beneath the shade of
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the neighboring Minster. This churchyard covered the ground now taken up by Henry the
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Seventh Chapel, which of course was not as yet in existence. In the
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midst of this grassy plot stood the Chapter House of the Monks of Westminster,
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with its flying buttresses and its single pillar supporting its huge vault, then newly
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erected by the pious zeal of Henry the Third. Westminster Abbey was founded by
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Edward the Confessor and substantially refounded by Henry the Third, who had shown immense
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care and lavish large sums on a grandiose scheme for the rebuilding of the Great
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House of Religion, which contained the shrine of his favorite saints, in whose
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honor he had given his son the name of Edward. The rebuilding went on
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into the reign of Edward the First, who was not much inferior to his
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father in his zeal for the church, and was a doubly bound to honor
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his father's wishes and the memory of his own patron saint. In the closing
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years of the thirteenth century, circumstances compelled Edward the First to desist from this
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work. The king now found himself dragged into enormous expenses by the French,
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Scottish and Flemish wars. He was perforce turned from church building to get men
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and money for his wars. The finances of England under Edward the First were
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less elastic than under mister Lloyd George, and modern credit and banking were then
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in their very infancy. Edward the First, though he imposed taxes which would
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make the most stalwart militarist of to day quiver, soon found himself hopelessly in
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debt. To meet his burdens, the king constantly employed differentiated taxation, but
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the differentiation was calculated by rather a different method from that in fashion nowadays.
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It was differentiation according to status, not according to wealth. The clergy who
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were not expected to fight, were expected to pay more heavily than the laymen.
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Let us take as an instance of how things were then done the taxes
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levied in twelve ninety four, when the fighting country districts were called upon to
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pay a tenth of their movables and taxation, and the wealthier and more peaceful
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towns were asked for a sixth from the clergy. A tax equal I think
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to a modern income tax of ten shillings in the pound was demanded, and
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it is said that when the Dean of Saint Paul's heard of this unprecedented impost
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he fell dead on the spot. If such heroic efforts I mean the King's,
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not the deans, were necessary in twelve ninety four at the beginning of
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England's troubles, how much worse things must have become by thirteen oh three,
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after ten years of storm and stress. By this date, Edward the First's
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finances were indeed in a bad state. Historians are only now gradually beginning to
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realize how embarrassed the great King was in the last years of his reign,
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and how desperate were some of his attempts to fill his eckchecker. The whole
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of Edward's declining years were not equally strenuous, though his finances steadily grew worse.
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Before the end of the Old Century, Edward had got over the worst
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of his troubles abroad. He therefore determined to devote himself with characteristic energy to
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the conquests of the rebel Scots. Since therefore Scotland now became the King's chief
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anxiety made his headquarters in the north of England. In those days where the
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king lived there the machinery of government was to be found. For though England
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in the thirteenth century had centralized institutions, those institutions were not centralized in a
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local capital. It is true that one English city was immensely more important than
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all the rest. London in the thirteenth as in the eighteenth century, was
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relatively to other towns, even greater and more important than is the case nowadays.
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Of course, Edward the fir London to our eyes would be quite a
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little place. But at a time when there was outside London perhaps no town
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of more than ten thousand inhabitants, and very few of that population, a
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city four or five times that size was something portentous. Yet this greatness of
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London was due to its commercial activity much more than to the fact that it
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was the capital of the country or its seat of government. In reality,
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there was no capital in the modern sense. For the English tradition was that
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the government should follow the king. It was only very gradually that the governing
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machinery of the land was permanently settled in Westminster or London. There was,
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however, already a tendency towards making the great city, or rather its neighboring
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court suburb, a center of permanent administrative offices, a capital in the modern
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sense. Thus, the Court of Common Pleas had been settled in London since
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Magna Carta, and the Exchequer, that is, the Department of Finance,
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had also been fixed there since the reign of Henry the Second. These were,
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however, still the exceptions which proved the rule. The Office of the
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Chancery, which was not then a law court, but the secretarial office of
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State, followed the king. So also who did certain branches of the administration,
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which depended on the court, and were intended first of all to be
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the machinery for the government of the king's household. In the Middle Ages,
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no distinction was made between the king and the kingdom. If the king had
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devised a useful machine for governing his household and estates, he naturally used it
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for any other purpose for which he thought it would be useful. We find
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therefore the court offices of administration and finance working side by side with the national
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offices, not only in dealing with household affairs, but in the actual work
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of governing the country. The most important of these household offices was that called
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the king's wardrobe. Originally, the wardrobe was, of course the closet in
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which the King hung up his clothes, and the staff belonging to it were
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the ballots and servants, whose business it was to look after them. From
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this modest beginning, the king's wardrobe had become an organized office of government.
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Its clerks rivaled the officers of the Exchequer in their dealings with financial matters,
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and the officers of the Chancery in the number of letters, mandates, orders,
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and a general administrative business which passed through their hands. The wardrobe always
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followed the king in war time than it was far away from London at or
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near the scene of fighting. In such periods it became the great spending Department,
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while the Exchequer normally remained at Westminster, collecting the revenue of the country
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and forwarding the money to the Wardrobe, which spent it. For five years.
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Before thirteen o three, the King had thrown his chief energies into the
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conquest of Scotland. Under these circumstances, London and Westminster saw little of him.
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Moreover, he found a convenient to have near him in the North,
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even the sedentary offices of government. Accordingly, in twelve ninety eight, Edward
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transferred the Exchequer, the law courts, and the Chancery to York. From
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twelve ninety eight then to thirteen oh three, York, rather than Westminster,
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might have been called the capital of England, and the king's appearances to the
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South were few and far between. The occasion of such visits was generally his
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desire to get money and to make arrangements with his creditors. From such a
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short sojourn, the King went north in the early months of thirteen o three.
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Despite all his efforts, it was only in that year that he was
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really able to put his main weight into the Scottish War. When our Burglary
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took place, King Court and government offices had been removed to York for over
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five years. Under medieval conditions, the eye of a vigilant taskmaster was an
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essential condition of efficiency. It followed that during Edward's long absence, things at
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Westminster were allowed to drift into an extraordinary state of confusion and disorder. Affairs
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were made worse by the fact that even kings were not always free to choose
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their own servants. Thus the King's palace at Westminster was in the hands of
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an hereditary keeper. There was nothing strange about this. In the Middle Ages,
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such offices were frequently held by hereditary right, just as in the East,
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everybody takes up his father's business as a matter of religious duty. Earl
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Curzon once pointed out to the Electors of Oldham that in India there are still
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hereditary tailors who did their work very well. However, this may be with
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tailors in the East and legislators in the West. The hereditary keeper of Edward's
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Palace of Westminster did not prove to be a very effective custodian of his master's
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property. His name was John Shench or Cenche, and he held two hereditary
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offices, that of keeper of the King's Palace at Westminster, and also the
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keepership of the Fleet Prison in right of his wife Joan, who had inherited
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both from her father. Thus, in addition to the keepership of the palace,
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John Shensche kept the King's Prison of the Fleet in the City of London.
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As a rule, John and his wife Joan had their habitation in the
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prison in the city. John therefore employed as his deputy at Westminster and underling
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a certain William of the Palace, who kept, or rather did not keep,
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for him, the King's Palace at Westminster. However, early in the
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year thirteen o three, John left his abode in the city where his wife
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remained, and took up his quarters in the palace. Apparently the prison was
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not so comfortable place for an easy going officer to live in as the palace.
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Perhaps too, the domestic restraints imposed of Anshinci in the city were burdensome
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to him. Certainly, gay times now ensued in the deserted palace. Soon
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John and William, in the absence of the higher authorities, seemed to have
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gathered together a band of disreputable boon companions of both sexes, whose drunken rebels
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and scandalous misconduct were soon notorious throughout the neighborhood. One element in this band
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of revelers was, I regret to say, a certain section of the monks
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of the neighboring monastery. For as the absence of the King and the court
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had left the palace asleep as it were, so also had the monastery at
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Westminster sunk into a deeper and more scandalous slumber. The enthusiasm, effort,
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and excitement which had marked the period of Henry the Third's reconstruction of Westminster Abbey
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had now died down. Medieval man, though zealous and full of ideas,
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was seldom persistent. It is a commonplace of history that when the first impulse
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of fervor that attended a new order a new foundation, had passed away,
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religious activity was followed by a strong reaction. The gray period of the monastery
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at Westminster had been during its reconstitution under Henry the Third, but that time
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of energy had now worked itself out, and the abbey had gone to sleep.
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The work of reconstruction had stopped from lack of funds. The royal favor,
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as well as the royal presence, was withdrawn gradually from the abbey.
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Moreover, a few years earlier, a disastrous fire devastated the monastic buildings and
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only just spared the chapter house and the abbey church. It looks as if
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the monks had to camp out in half ruined buildings till their home could be
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restored. All this naturally relaxed the reigns of discipline, the more so since
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the abbot, Walter of Winlock, was an old man whose hold on the
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monks was slight, and some of the chief officers of the abbey, the
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obentitaries, as they were called, were singularly incompetent or unscrupulous persons. It
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followed naturally that many of the fifty monks became slack, beyond ordinary standards of
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medieval slackness. It was both from obedientiiries and common monks that John SHINCHI and
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William of the Palace secured the companions for their unseemly revels. There now comes
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upon the scene a new figure, in fact, the hero of the Burglary,
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Richard of Pontlicot Richard of Pulicut, began life as a clerk, but
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abandoned his clergy for the more profitable calling of a wandering trader in wool,
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cheese and butter. England's economic position in those days reminds us of the state
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of things now prevailing in Argentina or Australia, rather that in modern industrial England.
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She had little to sell abroad save raw materials, especially wool, which
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was largely exported to the great clothing towns of Flanders. This traffic took Pudlicut
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to Ghent and Bruges in the twelve ninety eight, when Edward the First had
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allied with the Flemings against the King of France, but his trading adventures were
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as unsuccessful as the king's military efforts in Flanders. Moreover, after the King's
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return to England, Pudlicut had the ill luck to be among those merchants arrested
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as a surety for the debts which Edward had left behind him in the Low
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countries. This unceremonious treatment of an alien in ally is a method of medieval
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frightfulness, which may be recommended to our alien enemies. But Edward's credit was
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so bad that we can hardly blame the Flemings for leaving no stone unturned to
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obtain payment of their debts. Whether they succeeded. I do not know.
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Before long Richard escaped from his Flemish jail, leaving his property in Flanders in
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the hands of his captors, nursing a grievance against the King, and with
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dire poverty facing him, he took lodgings in London, where, like many
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bankrupts, he seems to have generally had enough money to indulge in all the
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personal gratifications that he had a special mind to practice. It seems that in
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the pursuit of his disreputable pleasures, Publicat was brought into contact with John Shenshey,
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William of the Palace, and the other merrymakers, lay and ecclesiastical in
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the lodge of the King's Palace of Westminster. He had a specious excuse for
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haunting Westminster. All he was, he says himself, seeking a remedy in
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the King's courts for the property he had lost in Flanders. How he could
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find one when these courts were in York I cannot say, But as we
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shall see, many of Publicot's personal statements are difficult to reconcile with facts.
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However, Edward himself soon came to Westminster, but withdrew after a short stay,
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leaving Pudlicot unpaid. We have seen how near was the palace to the
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abbey, and how the palace keeper's monastic friends formed a living bridge between the
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two. One result of these pleasant social relations was that the Abbey of Westminster
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soon became familiar ground to Pudlicut. One day, when disturbed at the hopelessness
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of getting his grievances redressed by the King, he wont undered through the cloisters
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of the abbey and noticed with greedy eyes the rich stores of silver plate carried
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in and out of the refectory of the monks by the servants who were waiting
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on the brethren at meals. The happy idea struck him to seek a means
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to enable him to come at the goods which he saw. Thus the King's
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foundation might somewhat irregularly be made to pay the King's debts. Pudlicad soon laid
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his plans accordingly. The very day after the King left Westminster, Pudlicad found
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a ladder reared up against a house near the palace gate. He put this
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ladder against one of the windows of the chapter house. He climbed up the
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ladder, found a window that opened by means of a cord, opened the
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window, and swung himself by the same chord into the chapterhouse. Nance he
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made his way to the refractory and secured a rich booty of plate, which
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he managed to carry off and sell Publicot's success with the monk's plate did not
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profit him for long. Within nine months, and we may believe, surely
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this part of his not too vacious tale, the proceeds of the sale of
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the silver cups and dishes of the abbey had been eaten up. No doubt,
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the loose life he was living and the rebels with the keepers of the
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palace, involved a constant need for plentiful supplies of ready cash. Anyhow,
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by the end of thirteen o two, Richard was again destitute and looking out
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for something more to steal. It was doubtless dangerous to rob the monks anymore,
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and perhaps the intimacy which was now established between him and his monastic boon
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companions suggested to Richard a more excellent way of restoring his fortunes. His plan
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was now to rob the king's treasury, and his success seemed assured, since,
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as he tells us, he knew the premises of the abbey where the
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treasury was, and how he might come to it. How he profited by
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his knowledge, we shall soon see. But first we must for a moment
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part company with public UT's confession, which up to now I have followed with
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hesitation. But for the next stage of our story it is plainly almost the
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contrary of the truth. Before we can, with advantage explain why we can
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no longer trust his tale, it would be well for us to state what
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this treasury was and how it could be got at Let us begin with the
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word a treasury. In the fourteenth century, treasury meant simply a storehouse,
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or at its narrowest a storehouse of valuables. To us, the treasury is
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the government Department of Finance. But under Edward the first the State Office of
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Finance was the Exchequer, which, as we saw, was located normally at
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Westminister, but since twelve ninety eight at York. When at Westminster the Exchequer
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had a treasury or storehouse there also, yet in its absence it is not
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likely that it kept either valuables or money at Westminster. But side by side
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with the State Office was the household Office of Finance, the wardrobe, And
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though the wardrobe office was itinerating with the King, it still kept a treasury
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or storehouse at Westminster, and this, for the sake of greater safety,
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had been placed for some years at least within the precincts of the abbey.
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From the monastic point of view, it was doubtless and inconvenience that nearness to
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the royal dwelling compelled them to offer their premisses for the royal service. Accordingly,
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kings not infrequently made demands upon the abbey to use its buildings. Thus
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the Chapter House became a frequent place for meetings of Parliament, and at a
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later time it was used, and continued to be used till the nineteenth century,
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for the storage of official records. In the same way, Edward secured
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the crypt underneath the chapter House as one of the storehouses of his wardrobe.
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When the crypt was first used for this purpose I do not know, but
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records show us that it was already in use in twelve ninety one, at
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which date it was newly paved. It was not the only storehouse of the
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wardrobe. There was another treasury of the Wardrobe in the Tower of London,
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but this was mainly used for bulky articles, arms and armor, cloth,
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furs, furniture and the like. Most of what we should call treasure was
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deposited in the Westminster Crypt, and we are fortunate in having still extant a
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list of the jewels preserved there. In twelve ninety eight, the time when
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the Court began to establish itself for its five years of sojourn in the North,
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and thirteen o three, jewels and plate were still the chief treasures preserved
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there. Some money was there also, notably a store of gold florins of
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Florence, the only gold coins currently used in England at a time when the
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National Mints limited themselves to the coinage of silver. But I do not think
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there could have been much money, for Edward's needs were to pressing his financial
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policy too much from hand to mouth for the crypt at Westminster to be a
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hoard of coined money, like the famous Prussian Kriegsgeschets at Spandau, which we
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now rejoice to learn is becoming rapidly depleted. Whatever its contents, Edward estimated
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that their value was one hundred thousand pounds, a sum equivalent to a year's
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revenue of the English state in ordinary times Unluckily, medieval statistics are largely mere
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guesswork, but the amount of the guess at least suggests the feeling that the
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value of the treasures stored in the crypt was very considerable. The crypt under
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the chapter House is one of the most interesting portions of the abbey buildings at
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Westminster. It is little known because it is not, I think, generally
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shown to visitors. I am indebted to the kindness of my friend Bishop Ryle,
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the present Dean, for an opportunity of making a special inspection of it.
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It is delightfully complete and delightfully unrestored. The chief new thing about it
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seems the pavement, But the Dean's well informed verdure told me that it was
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within living memory that this pavement had replaced the flooring of twelve ninety one.
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Numerous windows give a fair amount of light to the apartment, though the enormous
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thickness of the walls some thirteen feet, it was said, prevent the light
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being very abundant even on a bright day. The central column, the lower
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part of the great pillar, from which radiates the high, soaring vaults of
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the chapter house above, alone breaks the present emptiness of the crypt. Considerable
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portions of the column are cut away to form a series of neatly made recesses.
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And there are recesses within these recesses which suggest in themselves careful devices for
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secreting valuables, for it would be easy to conceal them by the simple expedient
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of inserting a stone here and there where the masonry had been cut away,
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and so suggesting to the unwary and unbroken column. I should not like to
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say that these curious store places already existed in thirteen o three, but there
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is no reason why they should not. Certainly they fit in admirably with the
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use of the crypt as a treasury. One other point we must also remember
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about the dispositions of this crypt. There is only one access to it,
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and that is neither from the chapter house above, nor from the adjacent cloister,
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but from the church itself. A low vaulted passage is entered by a
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door at the southeast corner of the south transept of the abbey, now for
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many centuries the special burial place for poets imminent and otherwise. This passage descends
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by a flight of steep steps to the crypt itself, and the flight originally
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seems, I am told doubtless has another precaution against robbery to have been a
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broken one, suggesting that a steep drop, presumably spanned by a short ladder,
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further barred access to the crypt. We must remember, too, that
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this sole access to the treasury was within a few feet of the sacristy of
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the abbey. The sacristy was the chapel to the south of the south transept,
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and communicating with it, where the sacrist kept the precious vessels appropriated to
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the service of the altar. Altogether, it looks as if the crypt were
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originally intended as a storehouse for such church treasure. As the sacrist did not
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need for his immediate purposes from this use, it was diverted, as we
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have seen, to the keeping of the royal treasures. Nowadays, the sacristy
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is called the Chapel of Saint Faith and is used for purposes of private devotion.
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We must not forget the close connection in our period of the sacristy and
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the crypt. The connection becomes significant when we remember that among publicat's monastic boon
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companions at the palace keeper's lodge was the sacrist of the abbey Adam of Warfield
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and of Part one, Section one,