" Nobody was suffered to molest
the felon on his journey seawards on pain of forfeiting goods and
chattels. This part of our subject receives excellent illustration from
the customary of the Cinque Ports:
"And when any shall flee into the church or churchyard for felony,
claiming thereof the privilege for any action of his life, the head
officer of the same liberty, where the said church or churchyard is,
with his fellow jurats or coroners of the said liberty, shall come to
him and shall ask him the cause of his being there, and if he will not
confess felony, he shall be had out of the said sanctuary; and if he
will confess felony immediately it shall be entered in record, and his
goods and chattels shall be forfeited, and he shall tarry there forty
days--or before, if he will, he shall make his abjuration in form
following before the head officer, who shall assign to him the port of
his passage, and after his abjuration there shall be delivered unto him
by the head officer, or his assignees, a cross, and proclamation shall
be made that while he be going by the highway towards the port to him
assigned, he shall go in the King's peace, and that no man shall grieve
him in so doing on pain to forfeit his goods and chattels; and the said
felon shall lay his right hand on the book and swear thus:
"'You hear, Mr. Coroner, that I, A. B., a thief, have stolen such a
thing, or have killed such a woman, or man, or a child, and am the
King's felon; and for that I have done many evil deeds and felonies in
this same his land, I do abjure and forswear the lands of the Kings of
England, and that I shall haste myself to the port of Dover, which you
have given or assigned me; and that I shall not go out of the highway;
and if I do, I will that I shall be taken as a thief and the King's
felon; and that at the same place I shall tarry but one ebb and flood if
I may have passage; and if I cannot have passage in the same place, I
shall go every day into the sea to my knees, and above, crying, "Passage
for the love of God and King N.
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