HISTORIC SCANDAL

Evening Star, Issue 22628, 21 April 1937, Page 2

HISTORIC SCANDAL

' WHEN THIEVES ROBBED ROYAL TREASURY Westminster Abbey will be the stage for the drama of England’s Coronation ceremony this year. The ancient church, founded on monastic stones and linked through the centuries with the Royal palace of Westminster, has indeed become the stage that represents best the life and times of the people themselves. It is difficult to speak of crime and Westminster Abbey in the same breath. Yet crime there has been, centuries ago, when England was in crude shape and many terrors stalked the land. In 1303, during the reign of Edward 1., thieves entered the Westminster Abbey and stole the Treasury of the King’s Wardrobe. And there was grave scandal.

In those days there were two centres at Westminster—the King’s Palace and the Benedictine Abbey. The church had been founded by Edward the Confessor and refounded by Henry HI., who was generous in his donations to rebuild the great house of religion which contained the shrine of his favourite saint, after whom he named his son, Edward I. When the King and his court moved to York certain officials of the palace, presumably under William’s influence, banded together by night, celebrating their freedom from proper supervision by hearty drinking and disreputable conduct. It is' regrettable to add that a number of the monks from the Abbey were also included in these medieval parties. . For the sake of our narrative we must leave the deputy-keeper and his disreputable friends for a moment. A new character has stepped from the wings. Richard of Puddlicott, as this man was known, began life as a clerk in holy orders, but became a wandering trader in wool, cheese, and butter. PERSONAL GRUDGE. He was in the habit of visiting Ghent and Bruges—those great clothing towns—with his parcels of wool, and at the ehd of the thirteenth century was arrested with other merchants as surety for the debts King Edward had accumulated in the Low Countries. Richard of Puddlicott escaped, but left all his property behind. Thereafter he had a personal grudge aganst the king. Either by accident or design Puddlicott came under the influence of the merrymakers of Westminster. He became one of the chosen few who, with the monks and William of the Palace had little respect for the reigning Edward. Now, underneath the chapter house, in the Abbey, was a crypt used as a storehouse for the Royal “ Wardrobe.” Here was kept £IOO,OOO worth of valuables, equal to a year’s revenue for the State. The room was solidly built, with walls 13ft thick. _ There was but one access. Steps to it led from the south transept—where tq-day we find the Poets’ Corner—and these were broken halfway as a precaution against violence. Probably, too, the treasures of the sacristy were stored in the column of the crypt—the plate and golden goblets of the Mass. During the subsequent inquiry it was revealed that Puddlicott’s boon companion was the Abbey sacrist, Adam of Warfield. One morning a fisherman netted a silver goblet in the Thames. It aroused as much speculation as did the finding by a passer-by of silver cups and goblets in Westminster Churchyard and in nearby .hedgerows. As far away as Kentish Town, York, Lynn, and remoter towns foreign money found its way into the hands of money-changers. These strange discoveries, plain enough to the London townsfolk, came to the ears of, the King at Linlithgow. He appointed a special commission to investigate, and sent John Droxford, keeper of the wardrobe, south to open the crypt. Sure enough, in gold and silver and florins of Florence, £IOO,OOO was gone.

Despite the lapse of two months since the robbery, treasure already began to return to the authorities. The lodgings of William of the Palace and of Richard Puddlicott and his mistress were searched and a wealth of bullion found. Wholesale arrests were made. The entire convent of Westminster, including the abbot and„4B monks, were indicted and sent to the Tower. They were soon joined by 32 others. There was a great public outcry. A second Royal Commission was appointed of judges of the King’s Bench, including Sir Roger Brabazon and the shrewdest judge of, the time, William Beresford. ROLE OF MARTYR.

It was difficult to get to the truth of the crime. Richard of Puddlicott, assuming an astonishing role of martyr, swore that he, and he only, was to blame for the actual' robbery. He asserted that he bored through the 13ft of stone and sowed hemp grass to hide the hole from passers-by. He forbade a butcher agistment for his sheep in the churchyard to give himself a clearer right of way. On April 24, 1303, he got through, he swore, to the crypt, where he remained, gloating over the treasures, until the evening of April 26, He said that he dropped a lot of his booty as ho got away through the churchyard. Historians, however, maintain that Richard! made himself the scapegoat.

Numbers of people were implicated, oven leading goldsmiths in the city who bought the valuables, among whom was William Torel, artist-goldsmith, whose beautiful decorations still exist in the Abbey. Half the neighbourhood] of Westiininster must have been cognisant of the crime. DRAGGED ON FOR YEAR. The trial, with numerous inquiries, dragged on for a year. The truth? Probably with the assistance of the monks, Richard Puddlicott forced a door of the Abbey and remained! in the crypt so that he could hand out the treasure to his confederates. It is on record that they ate, drank, _ and, revelled unffd midnight, for two nights running, in a house inside the Fleet [’risen. They then went, armed and horsed, to Westminster, returning towards daybreak loaded wnth booty._ After 12 months six lay culprits were hanged. Richard and 10 monks were reserved for further crossexamination, because they all claimed benefit of clergy. Puddlicott was kept alive for two years and then he was hanged. But the chief treasury of the King’s Wardrobe was moved to the safety of the To.wer of London.