FORCIBLE ABDUCTION.

The following singular circumstance is related by Dr. Whitaker in his History of Craven:—

Gilbert Plumpton, in the 21 of Henry II., committed something like an Irish marriage with the heiress of Richard Warelwas, and thereby incurred the displeasure of Ranulph de Glanville, great justiciary, who meant to have married her to a dependant of his own. Plumpton was in consequence indicted and convicted of a rape at Worcester; but at the very moment when the rope was fixed, and the executioner was drawing the culprit up to the gallows, Baldwin, bishop of Worcester, running to the place, forbade the officer of justice, in the name of the Almighty, to proceed: and thus saved the criminal’s life.