Some claimed the rights of sanctuary for debt,
some for stealing horses or cattle and burglary; and others for such
crimes as rape, theft, harbouring a thief, escaping from prison,
failing to prosecute, and being backward in their accounts. Townships
which failed to arrest the criminal before he reached the church, or
allowed him to escape after he had taken refuge in it, were fined by the
King's Justices, the circumstances proving that the institution was
tolerated as a necessary evil by those responsible for the maintenance
of law and order--not regarded with favour.
The Thucydidean speech of the Duke of Buckingham on the removal of the
Queen of Edward IV., with her younger son, the Duke of York, to the
sanctuary of Westminster in 1483, furnishes a searching criticism of the
use and abuse of this privilege in the practice of the fifteenth
century. Addressing the Privy Council, he is represented to have said:
"And yet will I break no sanctuary; therefore, verily, since the
privileges of that place and other like have been of long continued, I
am not he that will go about to break them; and in good faith, if they
were now to begin, I would not be he that should go about to make them.
Yet will I not say nay, but that it is a deed of pity that such men as
the sea or their evil debtors have brought in poverty should have some
place of liberty to keep their bodies out of the danger of their cruel
creditors; and also if the crown happen (as it hath done) to come in
question, while either part taketh other for traitors, I like well there
be some place of refuge for both.
Pages:
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202