Earth and Space News: Richard Puddlicott suspect 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid

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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

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

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.

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, November 30, 2018

Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Puddlicott Execution Nov. 28, 1304

Summary: Richard Puddlicott was hanged Nov. 28, 1304, and skinned for the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid of Chapter House Crypt jewels April 30-May 3, 1303.

Richard Puddlicott admitted to the Westminster Abbey refectory raid of November 1302 and the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid April 30-May 3, 1303, perhaps because he anticipated avoiding hanging as a cleric.

Puddlicott's confession bore no date even though historical preservation brought it as an attachment of the Rippinghale confession Dec. 3, 1303, to National Archives in Kew. John Bakewell, John de Drokensford, Ralph de Sandwich, Roger de Southcote and Walter of Gloucester caused Puddlicott's capture June 16-18, 1303, with £2,200 in crown jewels. They described "Ge hanaps de mazer et XXXII quilers d'argent furent emblez en abbaye de Westminster hors du freytour e furent trovee od mesme celi Rici."

Commissioners extracted "basket of mazers and 32 silver spoons with Abbey arms from the refectory and they were found in the possession of the said Richard."

King Richard I (June 17, 1239-July 7, 1307) formed four four-member commissions to find felons and royal treasures filched from the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid.

The commission by Edward's writ June 16, 1303, got Puddlicott from London Sheriff Hugh le Pourte's five-day custody, out of one-day sanctuary and into the Tower. Paul Doherty, in The Great Crown Jewels Robbery of 1303 for Carroll & Graf Publishers, Sept. 26, 2005, has the next two commissions concerned with monks. The commission Nov. 14, 1303, unlike those Aug. 14 and Oct. 10, indicated that "Ad negocium illud audiendum et terminandum secundum legem et consuetudinem nostri regni."

Edward judged that William Bereford, Roger de Brabazon, Ralph de Sandwich and Walter of Gloucester hear and end that business per our kingdom's laws and customs."

The fourth commission kick-started the second inquiry Jan. 9, and 13-14, 1304, in the Tower, just as the first kindled inquiries July 4-6, 1303, in London.

Edward listed verdicts by juries of "the Knights and other upright and lawful men of London and the countries of Middlesex and Surrey" under well-known leaders. Jurors made two indictments against goldsmith John of Newmarket and three each against Westminster Abbey monks Thomas de Dene, Alexander de Newport and Alexander de Pershore. They named Edelina, William Palmer's mistress, and sacristy page Adam the Skinner each thrice and John de Lenton, Gillelma's husband and Long Ditch landowner, five times.

Jurors observed six indictments each against Abbey servant John Ramage/le Riche and excommunicated, outlawed ex-priest John de Rippinghale and seven against mason John of St. Albans.

Jurors presented eight Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid indictments each against Palmer, Fleet Prison deputy Keeper and Keeper of Westminster Palace; Puddlicott; sacristan Adam de Warfield.

Jury indictments qualified Palmer definitely, and likely Lenton, Newmarket, Rippinghale and St. Albans, March 5, 1304, for hanging from the Smithfield elms near St. Bartholomew's Priory. Edward's order March 25, 1304, released 10 monks April 3, 1304, regarding their rights as clergy even though Puddlicott, despite clerical status, remained in the Tower. Doherty suggests that Benedictines sabotaged Puddlicott's claim because it was untrue, despite two centuries of Puddlicott family support to Benedictines, or because they needed a scapegoat.

Edward triumphed by retaking Stirling from the Scots, retrieving his treasure and terrifying the English with six executions, including Puddlicott's hanging Nov. 28, 1304, and skinning.

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

Richard Puddlicott was wheelbarrowed to his public execution at the Elms, Smithfield (upper center; inserted blue arrow); W.R. Shepherd's Historical Atlas (1926), page 75; Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection: Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin @ https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/shepherd/london_plan_1300.jpg;
via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/historicalatlas0000will/page/n89/mode/2up

drawing of Richard Puddlicott as sole plunderer of Westminster Abbey Crypt, Cottonian Manuscripts, "nero," D. II, f. 192d (The British Library): History Things @history_things, via Twitter Jan. 11, 2017, @ https://twitter.com/history_things/status/819424724166017024

For further information:

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.

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

Shepherd, William R. (Robert). 1911. Historical Atlas. New York NY: Henry Holt and Company.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_6Zc9AAAAYAAJ

Friday, June 22, 2018

Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid: Arrests June 18-19, 1303

Summary: A confession that embraced Church and Sanctuary rights for Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid suspects ensured arrests in 1303 and executions in 1304-5.

St. Michael, Crooked Lane, London's Candlewick Ward, was a parish church in London's Candlewick Ward where Richard de Puddlicote sought sanctuary in June 1303; J. Elmes and T.H. Shepherd's London and Its Environs (1831), Plate 166: Not in copyright, via Internet Archive

Inquiries into and investigations of the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid April 30-May 3, 1303, allowed high-profile arrests of John of Newmarket, John of St. Albans and Richard Puddlicott June 18-19, 1303.

The first known confession that bore on the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid brought up John of St. Albans, one of 16 "consenting to the burglary." Perhaps the confessor William Palmer, deputy Keeper of Fleet Prison and Keeper of the Palace, considered Church rights for 14 ecclesiastics and Sanctuary for two non-ecclesiastics. It instead drove John de Drokensford (1260-May 9, 1329), the King's appointed investigator in London, to demand the identities and whereabouts of the 16's principal societies.

The confession and the ensuing entry into Abbey chambers and throughout Abbey grounds ended with Drokensford's team extracting three raid-related suspects from Chertsey, Dowgate and Southwark.

Paul Doherty, in The Great Crown Jewels Robbery of 1303 for Carroll & Graf Publishers Sep. 26, 2005, furnishes no names for the suspects' arresting officers.

Abbey monks gave Drokensford's team addresses for the goldsmith John of Newmarket at a washerwoman's house in Southwark and the merchant Richard de Puddlicott near Dowgate. They headed the Drokensford team by Chertsey for the mason John of St. Albans, whose house held stone-breaking tools and Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid loot. Doherty identifies Reginald de Hadham, prior-elect after William de Huntingdon's death in August 1305, among monks indicating Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid burglar's and beneficiaries' whereabouts.

The Drokensford team judged the goldsmith, the mason and the merchant guilty because of Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid loot at each of the trio's premises.

Drokensford and the king's appointed justices John Bakewell, Ralph de Sandwich, Roger de Southcote and Walter of Gloucester knew of a window as the raid's entryway.

Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid burglars lacked the keys to heavy, locked, thick doors and the wooden bridge for the gap between door- and floor-level stairs. That meant alternatively manipulating someone in and out after moving the 10-inch- (25.4-centimeter-) wide stone sill, bars and shutters to the Chapter House Crypt's sixth window. It needed a mason to nick, nip and nudge the bars and sill, a merchant to net the noteworthiest treasures and a goldsmith to nab clientlele.

Confinement in the Tower of London until March 5, 1304, occurred after the Southwark and Chertsey arrests of John of Newmarket and John of St. Albans.

Arrest placed Puddlicott in the custody of Hugh Pourte at the Sheriff of London's house with wife Marjorie Horn in St. Magnus parish near London Bridge.

Puddlicott quit the Pourte residence, with help from Gaucelin/Gaucelyn Le Servient's valet Richard, for sanctuary in St. Michael's Church on Candlewick Street after a five-day custody. London common bailiffs Thomas Attewell and Gaucelin/Gaucelyn Le Servient unlawfully removed Puddlicott from 40-day sanctuary June 25, 1303, to the Tower for hanging Nov. 28, 1305. Doherty suspects that the Tower Chaplain shrove the goldsmith and the mason before stripped-down tying to hurdle-lashed horses speeding to Smithfield's elm-tree gallows March 5, 1304.

A confession that tendered Church and Sanctuary rights triggered three arrests that thwarted tradition and turned their three victims into hanged corpses in 1304 and 1305.

Plan of London (above) St. Magnus Parish (green arrow; center right), St. Michael, Crooked Lane (green X; center right) and Westminster Abbey (blue arrow; bottom left);
Vicinity of London (below): Chertsey (red circle; lower left), London (red arrow; center), Southwark (red arrow; center) and Westminster (red arrow; center):
W.R. Shepherd's Historical Atlas (1926); Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection: Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

Plan of London (above): St. Magnus Parish (green arrow; center right), where Richard de Puddlicote was in custody in Sheriff Hugh Pourte's house; St. Michael, Crooked Lane (green X; center right), where Puddlicote sought sanctuary; Westminster Abbey (blue arrow; bottom left), scene of theft;
Vicinity of London (below): Chertsey (red circle; bottom left), where John of St. Albans the mason was arrested; London (red arrow; center); Southwark (red arrow; center), where John of Newmarket the goldsmith was arrested; Westminster (red arrow; center):
W.R. Shepherd's Historical Atlas (1926), page 75; Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection: Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin @ https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/shepherd/london_plan_1300.jpg

For further information:

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

Elmes, James; Thomas H. (Hosmer) Shepherd. 1831. London and Its Environs in the Nineteenth Century: Illustrated by a Series of Views From Original Drawings by Thomas H. Shepherd. Series the First, Comprising the Earlier Edifices, Antiquities, Etc. London, England: Jones & Co.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/londonitsenviron00shep

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

Shepherd, William R. (Robert). 1921. Historical Atlas. Second revised edition. New York NY: Henry Holt and Company.
Available via HathiTrust https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hnwr2d?urlappend=%3Bseq=95

Friday, April 20, 2018

Richard Puddlicott and the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid, 1303

Summary: Richard Puddlicott confessed to carrying out the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid, without co-conspirators, eight months after April 26-27, 1303.

In his 2005 history of the 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid, Paul Doherty notes the bravery and honor displayed by Richard Puddlicott in adhering to his confession despite betrayal by other participants; drawing of Richard Puddlicott as sole plunderer of Westminster Abbey Crypt, Cottonian Manuscripts, "nero," D. II, f. 192d (The British Library): History Things @history_things, via Twitter Jan. 11, 2017

Richard Puddlicott admitted to April 24-26, 1303, as the date of the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid in Westminster, England, and to absconding with a cross, a Marian image and royal treasures.

The self-described "itinerant trader in wool, cheese and butter" blamed King Edward I (June 17, 1239-July 7, 1307) for his becoming a burglar of Abbey treasures. He confessed, perhaps Dec. 3, 1304, to committing a criminal carryout of Abbey refectory silver cups, dishes and hampers and then another of Abbey royal treasures. He described drawing upon a ladder and a knife and upon "two tarriers, one large and the other small, knives and many other engines of iron."

Richard Puddlicott explained sales as ensuing from extracting Abbey refectory silver even though his confession ended without elucidating whether sales ensued from extricating Abbey royal treasures.

Puddlicott filled one "great jug" with a cup and precious stones, three sacks with jewels and vessels and 12 jugs with cups and jewels April 26.

One sack got broken and whole cups while another got "a great crucifix [the Cross of Neath], jewels, a case of silver and some gold dishes." He had "cups, plates, nine saucers and a silver-gilt image of Our Lady and two little jugs" in another and "a pot and cup of silver." He included "dishes, plates and saucers for spices, a crown cut up, a ring, clasps, precious stones, crowns, belts and other jewels" from the Royal Treasury.

Puddlicott justified the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid because "when his money failed [before Christmas], he thought, he might return to break into the King's Treasury."

Puddlicott kept the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid gold, jewels and silver "outside the breach" and "outside the gate close to the church of St. Margaret."

Puddlicott listed the cross, icon, jewels, plateware and vessels as loaded away from the St. Margaret church cemetery "without leaving anything behind him within that gate." He mentioned nothing about moving the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid objects eastward across Westminster Palace grounds, through Palace gates, to King's Bridge northwestward to London. He noted Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid belts, clasps, crowns, dishes, gems, jewels, ring and saucers "found in his possession" upon his arrest June 18-19, 1303.

The Puddlicott confession offered the raid's occurrence from being arrested in Bruges and paying "fourteen pounds and seventeen shillings" on the king's reneged debts to Flanders.

Puddlicott, from Oxford landowners near Benedictine monasteries in Abingdon, Evesham and Waverley since the twelfth century, presented suit at Westminster Palace in August 1302 for compensation.

The Puddlicott confession quoted nothing about the suit's outcome even though it quoted quitting Westminster Abbey of refectory silver in November and royal treasures in April. It revealed nothing about remaining in Sheriff Hugh Pourte's custody and bailiffs Gaucelin and Thomas Attewell removing Puddlicott from sanctuary in St. Michael's Church June 25. It never saved Puddlicott, despite self-stated clericalism, from non-ecclesiastical sentencing to wheelbarrowing to a Westminster hanging Nov. 28, 1305, and skinning for Chapter House door show-and-tell.

Who took clerical status and ecclesiastical exemptions from Puddlicott, who took full responsibility for the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid that took £100,000 in royal treasures?

Richard Puddlicott's seeking of sanctuary in St. Michael's Church, Crooked Lane, Candlewick Ward, London, was violated with his removal June 25, 1303, by two bailiffs; depiction of St. Michael's Church (top center) on ca. 1560 "Ralph Aggas" map of London: The British Library, No known copyright restrictions, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

Damon. 12 January 2017. "King-size Heist; Richard of Pudlicott Was The Dumbest Thief Of The 1300s." History Things.
Available @ http://historythings.com/king-size-heist-richard-pudlicott-dumbest-thief-1300s/

Doherty, Paul. 2005. The Great Crown Jewels Robbery of 1303: The Extraordinary Story of the First Big Bank Raid in History. New York NY: Carroll & Graf Publishers.

Harrod, Henry. 31 March 1870. "On the Crypt of the Chapter House, Westminster Abbey. Read March 31, 1870." Archaeologia: Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, vol. XLIV, issue 2 (1874): 373-382. London, England: Nichols and Sons, MDCCCLXXIII (1873).
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101076451788?urlappend=%3Bseq=163
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/archaeologiaopt244sociuoft#page/373/mode/1up

Herbert, William. 1833. The History and Antiquities of the Parish and Church of Saint Michael, Crooked Lane, London. Part III. London, England: Harvey & Darton.
Available via The British Library @ http://access.bl.uk/item/pdf/lsidyv391e07bd

History Things ‏@history_things. 11 January 2017. "King-size Heist; Richard of Pudlicott Was The Dumbest Thief Of The 1300s." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/history_things/status/819424724166017024

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Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/mediaevalburglar00toutuoft
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/bulletin02johnuoft#page/348/mode/1up