Earth and Space News: 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid

Showing posts with label 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid. Show all posts

Friday, December 28, 2018

Westminster Abbey Refectory Raid: A Confession, A Cup, A Key, A King

Summary: A London Sheriff and seven Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid justices never prioritized righting the Westminster Abbey Refectory raid.

Confessions, indictments, inventories and orders about the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid acknowledged three incidents that arose from the antecedent Westminster Abbey Refectory raid even though they apparently never accomplished its recovery.

The first event, a bungled cup December 1302, became the second-last of the three to be brought up before the king's appointed justices July 6, 1303. The second incident concerned the Westminster Abbey Refectory door key among John de Lenton's possessions upon his arrest as a Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid suspect. The third occurrence dealt with Westminster Abbey Refectory raid descriptions in Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid suspect Richard de Puddlicott's confession sometime around Dec. 3, 1304.

Three events June 25, 1303, September 1305 and Feb. 10, 1307, never entered into commissions, confessions or indictments and ensured Westminster Abbey Refectory silver's eternal exile.

Thames River boatmen furnished Suffolk jurors for Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid indictments July 6, 1303, with three facts about Westminster Abbey Refectory raid filched silver.

Boatmen gave the name Geoffrey Atte Stigle for a Thames River fisherman whose net gathered "a precious cup" among the catch just before Dec. 25, 1302. Stigle had not known "that it was a crime," "that it was a felony," that he handed Westminster Abbey Refectory raid stolen silver to area silversmiths. The interaction never implicated Stigle even though a Westminster Abbey Refectory raid key initiated John de Lenton's arrest June 16-23, 1303, and hanging March 5, 1304.

Lenton likely joined four unknowns hanged with Fleet Prison Keeper and Westminster Palace deputy Keeper William Palmer March 5, 1304, at Smithfield, near St. Bartholomew's Priory.

Lenton, acquaintance of Benedictine community sub-prior Alexander de Pershore (died 1311?) and Westminster landowner just west of the Abbey at Long Ditch, likely kept the key.

Oxfordshire merchant Puddlicott listed himself as solely liable for staging the Westminster Abbey Refectory raid and the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid and selling the loot. And yet contemporary records mentioned that Lenton "ge une clef fust trovee en Le cofre mesme celi Johan accordant a mesme le clef du avandit freytour." The Norman French noted, "a key was found in the Coffee of the same John [de Lenton] which matched the very key to the above-mentioned refectory."

The Westminster Abbey Refectory raid occurred in a Benedictine community building even though the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid occurred in the Chapter House's royal-operated Crypt.

London Sheriff Hugh Pourte placed Puddlicott under arrest June 18-19, 1303, pulled him out of sanctuary June 25, 1303, and put him in the Tower Prison.

Contemporary records quantified Puddlicott's on-hand, on-site, unsold royal plunder at £2,200 even though they never queued up his Westminster Abbey Refectory raid booty in Pourte's custody. Pourte retired after his 1302-1303 sheriffship with the Westminster Abbey Refectory raid plunder, recovered while Puddlicott remained in his custody June 18/19-24/25, 1303, in his residence. King Edward I's (June 17, 1239-July 9, 1307) order Feb. 10, 1307, stated that Pourte should return "all the cups which were lately stolen" by Puddlicott.

Paul Doherty, in The Great Crown Jewels Robbery of 1303 for Carroll & Graf Publishers Sept. 26, 2005, thinks that Pourte never turned in Puddlicott's plunder.

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

London Sheriff Hugh Pourte, who was also a stock-fishmonger, had Richard Puddlicott, 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid and 1302 Abbey refectory raid prime suspect stay in Pourte's house in St. Magnus parish, an area populated by fishmongers and stock-fishmongers; London Bridge (black inserted arrow) and London's Fishmongers' Hall (inserted green arrow) and St. Magnus the Martyr Church, namesake of St. Magnus parish (inserted red arrow); Southwark's St. Mary's Overie (Southwark Cathedral)(inserted blue arrow); detail of "Panorama of London (Central Section)" in 1543 by Flemish topographical artist Anton von den Wyngaerde (ca. 1512/1525-May 7, 1571) in Maps of Old London (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1908) by G.E. Mitton, pen name of English editor, guide-book writer, novelist and writer Geraldine Edith Mitton (Oct. 14, 1868-March 25, 1955): Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maps_Of_Old_London_Wyngaerde_Part_2.jpg;
Not in copyright, via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/mapsofoldlondon00mitt/page/n37/mode/1up;
CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikisource @ https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Maps_of_Old_London/Wyngaerde;
Public Domain, via Project Gutenberg @ https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/40274/pg40274-images.html

Oxfordshire merchant Richard Puddlicott claimed sole responsibility in his December 1303 confession for the 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid and its antecedent, a raid of the Abbey's refectory in 1302; drawing and engraving of refectory, with "the wall & arcade c. 1066 -- the windows c. 1380," by English architectural engraver and draughtsman John Henry LeKeux (March 23, 1812-Feb. 4, 1896) in G.G. Scott's Gleanings From Westminster Abbey (1861), page 199 (plate XXX): via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/gleaningsfromwes00scot_0#page/n280/mode/1up;
Not in copyright, via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/gleaningsfromwe00scotgoog/page/n277/mode/1up;
via Google Books Read free of charge @ https://www.google.com/books/edition/Gleanings_from_Westminster_Abbey/vkBEklt6W2AC?hl=en&gbpv=0

For further information:

Benham, William; Charles Welch. 1901. Mediaeval London. London, England: Seeley and Co. Limited; New York, NY: The Macmillan Company.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/mediaevallondon00benh/

Doherty, Paul. 2005. The Great Crown Jewels Robbery of 1303. New York NY: Carroll & Graf Publisher.

Harvey, Barbara F., ed. 1965. Documents Illustrating the Rule of Walter de Wenlok, Abbot of Westminster 1283-1307. Vol. II. Camden Fourth Series. London, England: Offices of the Royal Historical Society.

Keay, Anna. 2011. The Crown Jewels. London UK: Thames & Hudson Ltd.

Marriner, Derdriu. 20 April 2018. "Richard Puddlicott and the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid, 1303." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/04/richard-puddlicott-and-westminster.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 4 May 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid in April and May 1303 in England." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/05/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 11 May 2018. "Mysteries of the April-May 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/05/mysteries-of-april-may-1303-westminster.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 1 June 2018. "King Edward I's Letter on the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/06/king-edward-is-letter-on-westminster.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 8 June 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Royal Proclamation June 16, 1303." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/06/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid_8.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 15 June 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Palmer Confession June 17, 1303." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/06/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 22 June 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Arrests June 18-19, 1303." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/06/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid_22.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 29 June 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Indenture June 22, 1303." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/06/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid_29.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 6 July 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Palmer Confession July 6, 1303." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/07/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 13 July 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Goldsmiths Talk July 4, 1303." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/07/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid_13.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 27 July 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Aldermen Interviews July 29, 1303." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/07/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid_27.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 3 August 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Westminster Jurors Aug. 6, 1303." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/08/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 10 August 2018. "Edward I's Second Letter on the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/08/edward-is-second-letter-on-westminster.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 28 September 2018. "Westminster Abbey Refectory Raid and London Sheriff Hugh Pourte." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/09/westminster-abbey-refectory-raid-and.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 5 October 2018. "Edward I's Third Letter on the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/10/edward-is-third-letter-on-westminster.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 12 October 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: 'Falsely Indicted' Monks?" Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/10/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 19 October 2018. "Appellants Not Involved in the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/10/appellants-not-involved-in-westminster.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 26 October 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid Commission Oct. 26, 1303." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/10/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid_26.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 2 November 2018. "Queen of Mercy to Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid Female Suspects." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/11/queen-of-mercy-to-westminster-abbey.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 9 November 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Female Suspects Left Behind." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/11/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid_9.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 16 November 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Two Freed Female Suspects." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/11/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid_16.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 23 November 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Margaret and the Barber Sisters." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/11/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid_23.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 30 November 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Puddlicott Execution Nov. 28, 1304." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/11/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 7 December 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Rippinghale Confession Dec. 3, 1303." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/12/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid_7.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 14 December 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Puddlicott Confession." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/12/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 21 December 2018. "Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid Boatman, Refectory Raid Fisherman." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/12/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid_21.html

Mitton, G.E. (Geraldine Edith). 1908. Maps of Old London. London, England: Adam and Charles Black.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/mapsofoldlondon00mitt

Palgrave, Sir Francis, ed. 1836. "Appendix: Records Relating to the Robbery at the Treasury, 31 Edw. I." The Antient Kalendars and Inventories of His Majesty's Exchequer Together with Other Documents Illustrating the History of That Repository. Vol. I: 251-299. London England: Commissioners of the Public Records of The Kingdom.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/antientkalendars01grea_0#page/251/mode/1up

Rothwell, Harry, ed. 1957. The Chronicle of Walter of Guisborough. Previously Edited as the Chronicle of Walter of Hemingford or Hemingburgh. Camden Series Volume LXXXIX. London, England: Royal Historical Society.

Scott, George Gilbert. 1863. Gleanings From Westminster Abbey. Oxford and London, England: John Henry and James Parker.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/gleaningsfromwes00scot_0

Friday, December 21, 2018

Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid Boatman, Refectory Raid Fisherman

Summary: A boatman with Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid items and a fisherman with Westminster Abbey Refectory raid cup did not concern royal justices.

Thames River boatman Godde was briefly imprisoned in Tower of London prison for alleged involvement in the 1302 Westminster Abbey refectory raid and in the 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid but fisherman Geoffrey Atte Stigle was neither indicted nor imprisoned for catching a Westminster Abbey coat of arms-embellished silver cup in his net and selling it to a silversmith; London's boat traffic, with Tower of London's White Tower (foreground) and London Bridge (upper background), ca. 1415-1440, during 25-year imprisonment of Charles, Duke of Orléans in Tower of London: The British Library, No known copyright restrictions, via Flickr

Informants behind London, Suffolk, Surrey and Westminster indictments July 4-6, 1303, arising from the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid April 30-May 3, 1303, alluded to the November 1302 Westminster Abbey Refectory raid.

Jurors arranging Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid indictments July 4-6, 1303, alluded to Thames River boatmen acquainted with one of their own acquiring Westminster Abbey Refectory raid silver by Dec. 25, 1302.

Perhaps it baffled the king's five appointed commissioners when boatmen and jurors brought two burglaries at meeting places between the first's end and the second's beginning. Possibly it confused one commissioner and four justices that incomplete silver for five Abbey great feasts never caught the Abbot's, the Prior's and the Refectorian's attention. Probably it dawned on the fisherman whose net drew up, and the silversmith whose dealings dispersed, a "precious cup" decorated with Westminster Abbey coat of arms.

The Westminster Abbey Refectory raid sometime during November 1302 endures as an unsolved mystery whose extracted silver cups, dishes and hampers perhaps ended up forever exiled.

River boatmen furnished jurors from the shire of Suffolk with the fact of Thames River fisherman Geoffrey Atte Stigle's finding a "precious cup" before Christmas 1302.

Suffolk jurors gave raid-related indictments in Southwark the day of Fleet Prison Keeper and Westminster Palace deputy Keeper William Palmer's confession in London July 6, 1303. Royal justices John Bakewell, Walter de Gloucester, Ralph de Sandwich and Roger de Southcote heard about Stigle the fisherman and Godde the Westminster King's Bridge boatman. The Palmer confession implicated Godde as barge operator for six Westminster Abbey monks with two "great baskets bound by black cord" and "of a great weight."

Godde journeyed from east of the juxtaposed Abbey and Palace grounds to London the week of the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid April 30-May 3, 1303.

The Palmer confession kept Godde in the Tower of London prison "on suspicion," with Westminster Abbey monks Walter de Erksdale/Erskdale and Simon de Henley only briefly.

Financial arrangements let Godde loose on bail with Erksdale/Erskdale and Henley and left them off lists of Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid prisoners for July/August 1303. Indictments July 4-6, 1303, before the Palmer confession, and July 29 and Aug. 6, 1303, and Jan. 9 and 13-14, 1304, after it, never mentioned Godde. The 1303-1304 indictments, Palmer's confessions June 17 and July 6, 1303, and Richard de Puddlicott's and John de Rippinghale's Dec. 3, 1304, confessions never named Stigle.

The London goldsmiths who offered testimony at the Guildhall July 5, 1303, observed that they "did not know that it was a crime" over stolen objects.

The river boatmen who provided Suffolk jurors at Southwark July 6, 1303, with puzzling evidence that predated the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid presented similar protestations.

River boatmen and fishermen probably qualified among London's and Westminster's socio-economically significant populations since they queued up alternative shore-to-shore transport in-between horse and pedestrian shore-to-shore bridges. King Edward I (June 1, 1239-July 7, 1307) required his appointed justices to research the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid, not the Westminster Abbey Refectory raid. Stigle suffered no indictments or imprisonment since he sold a silver cup that somehow slipped into his net from Westminster Abbey Refectory, not Royal Treasury, shelves.

Edward's five royal commissioners took back Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid precious items, metals and stones, not Westminster Abbey Refectory raid silver cups, dishes and hampers.

Westminster Abbey's refectory, which was raided November 1302, was sited on the South Cloister, and the Abbey's Royal Treasury storage, which was raided April 30-May 3, 1303, was located on the East Cloister; drawing and engraving of South Cloister, "shewing part of the masonry of the 11th century -- with wall & details of the 14th," by English architectural engraver and draughtsman John Henry LeKeux (March 23, 1812-Feb. 4, 1896) in G.G. Scott's Gleanings From Westminster Abbey (1861), Plate I, frontispiece: 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:

Doherty, Paul. 2005. The Great Crown Jewels Robbery of 1303. New York NY: Carroll & Graf Publisher.

Keay, Anna. 2011. The Crown Jewels. London UK: Thames & Hudson Ltd.

Friday, December 14, 2018

Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Puddlicott Confession Dec. 3, 1303

Summary: Richard Puddlicott's confession Dec. 1303, tied Dec. 17, 1302, to Westminster Abbey refectory raid plunder and Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury plans.

Richard Puddlicott's confession Dec. 3, 1303, cast major blame on himself for the 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid and the 1302 Westminster Abbey refectory raid and removed blame from Westminster monks as Thieving Lane thieves; Westminster's Thieving Lane allowed for transporting the accused to Westminster Abbey Gate House prison without passing through the precinct of Westminster Abbey, thereby preventing the accused from claiming the right of sanctuary; illustration of Thieving Lane, with Westminster's Towers in background, by English antiquarian and engraver John Thomas Smith (1766–1833) in Edward Walford's Old and New London (1881), vol. III, page 481: Not in copyright, via Internet Archive

Richard Puddlicott associated Dec. 17, 1302, with selling the last of the Westminster Abbey refectory raid silver and starting the digging for the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid April 30-May 3, 1303.

Nothing bore dates for the Westminster Abbey refectory raid beyond Richard Puddlicott's confession broaching "About the same time the King departed towards Barnes, the night following." Paul Doherty, in The Great Crown Jewels Robbery of 1303 for Carroll & Graf Publishers, Sept. 26, 2005, calculates November 1302 for the refectory raid's commencement. He delivers an English translation of the description, designated Le dit Richard de Podelecote ("Richard Puddlicott Said It"), in Norman French for "a high-ranking King's clerk."

The clerk never entered the date even though the Puddlicott confession exists attached to John de Rippinghale's confession Dec. 3, 1303, in National Archives at Kew.

Puddlicott furnished a self-description as "itinerant trader in wool, cheese and butter who was arrested in Flanders for the King's debt in the city of Bruges."

Puddlicott, self-presented as Richard de Puddlicott, gave up from his own money "fourteen pounds and seventeen shillings because of the King" reneging on debts to Flemings. He had "sued for this in the court of the King at Westminster around the beginning of August, the thirty-first year of Edward I" in 1302. He never identified royal writs Aug. 10 and 23, 1302, impelling Ghent's Mayor to release "merchants of London who had been arrested together with their merchandise."

Ghent's Mayor judged arrests "security for the payment of 730 marks due from the mayor, sheriff and commonality of the city of London to certain burgesses."

Edward (June 17, 1239-July 7, 1307) kept 730 marks from Ghent burgesses "to be distributed amongst such English merchants who had lost their goods in Flanders."

Royal correspondence listed nothing about Puddlicott's languishing just before then in a jail from which law enforcement let him loose only after liquidating his own loads. Page 248 of The Chronicle of Walter of Guisborough edited by Harry Rothwell in 1957 for Camden Society Volume LXXXIX mentions another motive for Puddlicott's raids. Sixteen commissioners netted "debased coinage which the Crown wished to destroy" from the Midlands' and western England's parish church and religious house deposit chests summer 1294.

Puddlicott's family operated as Oxford landowners with occupational overlaps as charter witnesses and money-disbursers for Abingdon's, Evesham's and Waverley's Benedictine monasteries from the 12th century onward.

Perceiving refectory "hampers of silver, dishes and mazers" prompted pondering "how he might acquire such goods, for he was poor due to the losses in Flanders."

Puddlicott queued a ladder and a knife to force a Chapter House window and the refectory door to six silver-filled hampers, 30-plus dishes and drinking cups. Westminster Abbey refectory raid revenues ran out "eight days before Christmas" despite Puddlicott's selling "the feet [base] of the cups, the dishes and hampers of silver." The spent sales started the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid since Puddlicott "knew his way around the precincts of the Abbey and where the Treasury was."

The Westminster Abbey refectory raid thwarted logic except as trial-running the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid and turning thoughts from monks as Westminster's Thieving Lane thieves.

In his Dec. 3, 1303, confession, Richard Puddlicott admitted not only to masterminding the 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid but also to a previous raid of Westminster Abbey's refectory (upper left), starting in November 1303; plan of Westminster Abbey and Palace drawn in 1303, the 31st year of the reign of King Edward I (June 17/18, 1239-July 7, 1307); Hubert Hall's The Antiquities and Curiosities of the Exchequer (1891), page 31: 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:

Besant, Walter. 1895. Westminster. London, England: Chatto & Windus.
Available via HathiTrust @ https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/012503906

Besant, Walter. 1902. Westminster. New edition. London, England: Chatto & Windus.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/westminster00besauoft

Doherty, Paul. 2005. The Great Crown Jewels Robbery of 1303. New York NY: Carroll & Graf Publisher.

Gough, Henry. 1900. Itinerary of King Edward the First Throughout His Reign, A.D. 1272-1307, Exhibiting His Movements From Time to Time, So Far as They Are Recorded. Vol. II: 1286-1307. Paisley, Scotland: Alexander Gardner.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/itineraryofkinge02gouguoft

Hall, Hubert. 1891. The Antiquities and Curiosities of the Exchequer. With Illustrations by Ralph Nevill. The Camden Library. New York NY: A.C. Armstrong & Son; London, England: Elliot Stock.
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015035120412
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/cu31924032413340

Keay, Anna. 2011. The Crown Jewels. London UK: Thames & Hudson Ltd.

Walford, Edward. 1881. Old and New London: A Narrative of Its History, Its People, and Its Places. Vol. III: Westminster and the Western Suburbs. London, Paris and New York: Cassell Petter & Galpin.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/oldnewlondonnarr03thor

Friday, December 7, 2018

Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Rippinghale Confession Dec. 3, 1303

Summary: The Rippinghale confession Dec. 3, 1303, to the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid took its author closer to, not father from, Smithfield's gallows.

John de Rippinghale was removed June 20, 1303, from Westminster Abbey's St. Peter's Sanctuary, before the expiration of his right of sanctuary; St. Peter's Sanctuary, Walter Besant's Westminster (1902), page 143: Not in copyright, via Internet Archive

The Rippinghale confession Dec. 3, 1303, to the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid April 30-May 3, 1303, appeared not to achieve its apparent aim of avoiding the death penalty for the author.

John de Rippinghale bore the nicknames John the Chaplain and John the Priest and the self-description of "formerly a monk of the Abbey of St. Peterborough." Appointees commissioned by King Edward I (June 17, 1239-July 7, 1307) captured John de Rippinghale "le jour du cherch fet" ("the day the search was made"). John Bakewell, John de Drokensford, Ralph de Sandwich, Roger de Southcote and Walter of Gloucester detained Rippinghale in the Abbey gatehouse's second-floor prison on Thieving Lane.

The appointed quintet extracted Rippinghale before his 40-day sanctuary expired on Abbey grounds northwest of the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid of the Chapter House Crypt.

Rippinghale furnished his confession as one of a few Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid suspects found in Westminster, not Newgate or the Tower of London, prison.

Rippinghale gave his confession as an approver (un appelour) whose King's evidence granted him exile instead of execution if it got his accomplices to the gallows. And yet he had an iron chisel and a hammer, as a "church-breaker," most recently into the Church of St. Mary de Woolnoth, during Abbey sanctuary. Paul Doherty, in The Great Crown Jewels Robbery of 1303, for Carroll & Graf Publishers, Sept. 26, 2005, identifies Rippinghale as from Lincolnshire instead of Peterborough.

The "former secular priest" joined "others" as excommunicated and outlawed in 1296 for refusing to pay a royal tax" despite the Bishop of Lincolnshire's 40-day extension.

National Archives in Kew keep the original confession in Norman French to the Coroner's Clerk, Coroner of Westminster Henry Cherring and Royal Commissioner Hugh de Veer.

Eighteen led breaking-in April 30 and looting coffers May 2-3, 1303, for "silver and other precious goods and jewels to the amount of four hundred pounds." Rippinghale mentioned Ralph de Morton, Ralph de Cannes, Simon of Somerset, John Peche, John of Spain, Robert Chaddre, John of Soonborne, John Malmain and Robert Romain. He named William de Val, Richard Puddlicott, Ralph de Bures, Ralph of St. Peterborough, John of St. Albans, William of Westminster and Richard de La Mare.

Morton, for changing jewels to £200 for Sir John de Ashewardeby "to save himself," and Nicholas the Jeweler of London occurred in the confession's second part.

Nicholas participated in the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid break-in, carryout and dispersal because he "brought goods from" Rippinghale and "separately paid each of their company."

Rippinghale queued £400 in jewels to Nicholas and, to Peterborough Abbey, £31 July 2, 1303, and £51 in coins and £20 in jewels Aug. 15-23, 1303. Bailiffs Robert of Ashebridge, Walter de la More and Henry de la Chambre retained £40 in metals and Nicholas de Langton released him for 40 shillings. Doherty suggests that Rippinghale sent commissioners after non-existent suspects, apart from Ralph de Morton, Richard de Puddlicott, John of St. Albans and William Palmer of Westminster.

Rippinghale likeliest turned up among four unnamed hangings with Palmer's March 25, 1304, for tendering misinformation that turned justices against him during the January 1304 indictments.

King Street Gate, demolished in 1723, was located at the northwest corner of the Abbey precinct and gave access to St. Peter's Sanctuary and the sanctuary close; Walter Besant's Westminster (1902), page 137: 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:

Besant, Walter. 1895. Westminster. London, England: Chatto & Windus.
Available via HathiTrust @ https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/012503906

Besant, Walter. 1902. Westminster. New edition. London, England: Chatto & Windus.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/westminster00besauoft

Doherty, Paul. 2005. The Great Crown Jewels Robbery of 1303. New York NY: Carroll & Graf Publisher.

Jokinen, Aniina. "The Sanctuary at Westminster." Luminarium: Encyclopedia Project. Accessed April 30, 2018.
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