of the celebrated sanctuary at Westminster.
The story is not generally known, and Mr.
Shirley tells more fully than the chroniclers the
main points of it in his introduction to the
Fasciculi Zizaniorum (Bundles of Tares)
Magistri Johannis Wiclif.

In one of the Spanish campaigns of the Black
Prince, two esquires, named Haule and Schakel,
had taken prisoner the Count de Denia, a relation
of the reigning house of Castille. He had
agreed to pay a certain ransom, and, returning
to Spain, had left his eldest son as a hostage in
his place. John of Gaunt, who in right of his
wife was now laying claim to the crown of
Castille, found that the possession of the young
count's person would aid his design. He therefore
offered the esquires a price for their prisoner,
which was refused. Foiled in this, he put
forward some claims on the part of the crown; and
demanded that in the mean time the prisoner,
who was the subject of litigation, should be
secured in the Tower. He again met with a
refusal. He then procured an act of Parliament
ordering the committal of Haule and
Schakel to the Tower if the prisoner were not
produced. This was in the session of one thousand
three hundred and seventy-seven. But he
was destined still to be baffled. The young
count, from loyalty either to his native sovereign
or his captors, remained concealed on parole,
and Haule and Schakel went to the Tower. Soon
after, however, the two prisoners appear to have
become alarmed for their safety. They escaped
from the Tower, and took sanctuary at
Westminster. To the sanctuary, accordingly, the duke
followed them. On the morrow of St. Lawrence,
August 11th, 1378, in the very middle of
high mass, one of his retainers, Ralph de Ferrers,
entered the sacred precincts with forty armed
men, killed Haule on the spot, and took Schakel
back by force to his prison. Terror at the wild
outrage seems to have been the first feeling of
the bishops; but at length the archbishop
summoned courage to unsheath the sword of St.
Peter, and, with five of his suffragans, publicly
excommunicated the authors, enactors, and
abettors of the sacrilege. Moreover, the
archbishop petitioned the " first estate," the king in
parliament, "that satisfaction and amends to
God and the holy Church, and to the parties
damaged thereby, be fully done." A chapter of
certain "doctors in theology of canon and civil
law," aided by the justices, defined the privilege
of sanctuary. In their decision (see Rolls of
Parliament, Petition No. 27, vol. iii. p. 37) they
laid down a law which affected by far the greater
number of those who sought this privilege to
protect themselves from the secular authorities.
The doctors determined " that neither in case of
debt, account, nor trespass, if the man should
not lose life or limb, did the holy Church grant
immunity." And, besides, they say that neither
God, nor pope, nor king, nor prince could grant
such a privilege. And, indeed, could any prince
see fit to grant such a privilege, the Church,
which is the fount and nourishment of all virtue,
could not accept such a privilege whence sin or
fault, or the occasion of sin or fault, could arise,
"gar pecche est et occasion de pecche pur delaier
une Homme voluntrifment de son dette et jouste
recoverir del soen." This exemption of arrest
for debt had evidently for some time been felt as
a grievous infliction by the community at large.
In the same year, as part of the reply to another
petition, specially concerning the particular
sanctuary of Westminster, it is declared that the
charter of King Edgar and two charters of St.
Edward (the Confessor) were examined, and
found to contain no such privilege as exemption
from arrest for debt by privilege of sanctuary.
"But, nevertheless, for the especial affection that
the king bore to Westminster than to any other
place in his kingdom, and notoriously for the
reverence to the noble body of St. Edward, and
the other great relics there (such as the veil and
some of the milk of the Virgin, the bladebone
of St. Benedict, the finger of St. Alphaze, the
head of St. Maxilla, and half the jaw-bone of St.
Anastasia), and because his noble progenitors lie
there, his Majesty declares that they who by
losses at sea, fire, robbery, or other mischief,
without fraud or collusion, shall be so
impoverished that they cannot pay what they owe,
and enter the sanctuary of Westminster to avoid
imprisonment, shall be freely and safely allowed
to remain, with immunity for their persons, so
that meanwhile they may be enabled to make
terms with their creditors." A pretty wide loop-
hole, forsooth! wide enough to let any number
of debtors creep through, and return to the
shelter which the Church as the " fount, &c.,"
couldn't hold out to those who wished " delaier
une homme voluntrifment" of what they owed
him, allowing them, besides, as a graceful joke,
the contingency of their being able " to make
terms with their creditors." This freedom from
arrest for debt in the precincts of sanctuary
was, however, an unsettled point elsewhere.
The abbot of St. John of Colchester and the
abbot of Abyndon, in his town of Culneham, in
Oxfordshire, anno 1393-94, claimed franchise,
privilege, and immunity of all manner of people
coming and fleeing wiihin the precincts of their
said abbeys, for debt, detention, trespass, and all
other personal actions. They were bidden to
attend before the council, and declare their
privileges and immunities.

So grossly, moreover, was "sanctuary" abused,
that in the fourth year of King Henry the
Fourth (1402-3) the Commons petitioned the
king and council against the sanctuary of St.
Martin's-le-Grand.

On the very ground now occupied by the
Post-office stood a large and fair college, founded
A.D. 700. William the Conqueror confirmed all
its privileges in 1068, making it independent of
every other ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and from
regal and even papal control. By a statute of
the time of Edward the Third, I find, in Strype's
edition of Stow, that, " in proof of its tuition the
judge that sitteth there for the King, as in a
place not of the City, but by privilege separate
(the Maior not called thereto, as he is to the
deliverance of Newgate and other such Acts in