Appellants Not Involved in the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid

Summary: Only two of 81 appellants in October 1303 tried to thwart Westminster Abbey Refectory raid and Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid suspects.

Confinements to the Tower of London after the 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid included monks who were used to private chambers at the Abbey and those who were crowded into the Abbey's communal dormitory; illustration of Westminster Abbey's former dormitory after conversion to schoolroom for Westminster School, refounded by Elizabethan Royal Charter in 1560; Edward Walford's Old and New London (1881), vol. III, page 468: Not in copyright, via Internet Archive

From the Abbot's list of 81 "falsely indicted of the breaking of the Treasury at Westminster and of carrying away treasure to the value of a hundred thousand pounds," 79 appealed successfully.

The petition banded 32 accessories, retainers, servants and valets and 49 monks even though 25 of the former and 37 of the latter bore no indictments. Confinement in the Tower Prison for the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid clustered monks who claimed commodious chambers with those who crowded into the communal dormitory. It drew Abbot Walter de Wenlok (died Dec. 25, 1307), prior William de Huntingdon (died 1305), Refectorian Reginal de Hadham and his deputy/lieutenant/valet Roger de Aldenham.

The quartet respectively epitomized aloofness from, ignorance of, proactivity against and suspicions about Westminster Abbey refectory raid and Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid extractors and extractions.

Sub-prior Alexander de Pershore likely furnished John de Lenton, Westminster landowner in Long Ditch, the Westminster Abbey Refectory raid key to silver cups, dishes and hampers.

Adam de Warfield likely got John de Witney and Sacristy pages Walter de Ecclesford, Adam the Skinner and Hamo and Roger de Wenlok to lock entryways. Locked doors and gates halted latrine-users and livestock-grazers even though cloister-, dormitory- and infirmary-users likely heard the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid April 30-May 3, 1303. Westward-inclined quarters isolated Huntingdon and Wenlok even though nothing inhibited Aldenham's and Hadham's informing about irregularities in Abbey Refectory silver and Chapter House Crypt royal treasures.

Wenlok judged in 1307, "You [Hadham] falsely and maliciously caused your Lord Abbot to be summoned to the King's Exchequer in the matter of the robbery."

Indictments in 1303-1304 kept out fellow Abbey monks Robert Beby, William de Almaly, Guy de Ashewell, Lawrence de Beamfleet, Henry de Bircheston and William de Braybook.

Indictments never listed Richard de Colworth, Richard de Favelore, William de Glastonbury, William de Kertington, Peter de La Croix, Adam de Lalham or John de London. They likewise never mentioned Robert de Middleton, Robert de Reading, Roger de Ringstead, John de Salopia, Richard de Sudbury, Philip de Sutton or Henry de Temple. They never named Richard de Waltham, Henry and John de Wantage, Thomas de Woburn, John de Wrotting, John of Worcester, Henry Payne or Henry Atte Rye.

Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid indictments never occurred for accessories, retainers, servants or valets Robert Bolthod, John de Beamfleet, John de Bracyn or Joceus de Cornubia.

Abbey accessories, retainers, servants or valets and fellow appellants Ralph de Ditton, Ralph de Huntingdon, Richard de Hurley and Jeffrey de Kent likewise never provoked indictments.

Indictments never queued up John de Lalham, Godinus de Lamholt, John de Oxford, John de Sudbury, Richard de Weston, Richard del Eire and Richard la Brajue. They never revealed Peter le Mounier, Roger le Orfevere, Robert le Porter, Maurice Moell, Thomas of Knightsbridge, Geoffrey of the Cellar, John Sharpe and Richard Smart. Royal commissioner John de Drokensford (1260-May 9, 1329) searched the Abbey while sequestering the 81-member community whose non-indicted, subsequently released members slipped back into historical obscurity.

Two of the 81-member Benedict community tried to thwart Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid suspects, 53 told nothing and 79 trudged back from the Tower Prison.

As the abbot's and prior's quarters were west of the West Cloisters and the Chapter House and Pyx Chamber were accessed via the East Cloisters, Abbot Walter de Wenlok and Prior William de Huntingdon expressed ignorance of the 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raiders' comings and goings; map ca. 1535, Arthur Stanley's Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey (1868), frontispiece: Not in copyright, via Internet Archive

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Confinements to the Tower of London after the 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid included monks who were used to private chambers at the Abbey and those who were crowded into the Abbey's communal dormitory; illustration of Westminster Abbey's former dormitory after conversion to schoolroom for Westminster School, refounded by Elizabethan Royal Charter in 1560; Edward Walford's Old and New London (1881), vol. III, page 468: Not in copyright, via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/oldnewlondonnarr03thor#page/468/mode/1up

As the abbot's and prior's quarters were west of the West Cloisters and the Chapter House and Pyx Chamber were accessed via the East Cloisters, Abbot Walter de Wenlok and Prior William de Huntingdon expressed ignorance of the 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raiders' comings and goings; map ca. 1535, Arthur Stanley's Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey (1868), frontispiece: Not in copyright, via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/historicalmemori00stan#page/n7/mode/1up

For further information:

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