"The lord King wishes also that those who shall be tried and shall be absolved by the law, if they be of very bad testimony and are publicly and disgracefully defamed by the testimony of many and public men, shall forswear the lands of the King, so that within eight days they shall cross the sea, unless the wind detains them; and with the first wind which they shall have afterwards they shall cross the sea; and they shall not return any more to England unless by the mercy of the lord King; and there, and if they return, shall be outlawed; and, if they return, they shall be taken as outlaws."
The same fate was in store for any felon who deviated from the highway in proceeding to his assigned port. He might not, however, be reserved for judicial execution, being at the mercy of his captors, who could do as they pleased with him. "Some robbers indeed, as well as some thieves, are lawless—outlaws as we usually call them—some not; they become outlaws, or lawless, moreover, when, being lawfully summoned, they do not appear, and are awaited and even sought for during the lawful and fixed terms, and do not present themselves before the law. Of these therefore the chattels and also the lives are known to be in the hands of those who seize them, nor can they for any reason pertain to the King."[11] ("Dialogus de Scaccario," x.).
An outlaw, as such, was incapable of exercising the most ordinary rights—he could not devise, inherit, own, or sell lands or houses. Civilly, he was dead. The only question is whether these disqualifications attached to him as the effects of felony or the resultant outlawry. The point was tested in a case which came before the Common Bench in 1293, and decided by an eminent justice of the period in relation to a certain Geoffrey, who had committed felony, and before this became known had disposed of tenements to one John de Bray. "Inasmuch," said Metingham, "as all those who are of his blood are debarred from demanding through him who committed the felony, in like manner every assign ought to be barred from defending the right to tenements which have come from the hands of felons; and it is found by the Inquest that Geoffrey was seised after the felony was committed. And inasmuch as felony is such a poisonous thing that it spreads poison on every side, the Court adjudges that William [the lord, who had brought a writ of escheat] do recover his seisin, and that John be in mercy for the tortious detinue."
Sanctuary for treason was abolished in 1534, and for crime in 21 Jac. I., but debtors enjoyed the time-honoured immunity, at Whitefriars and elsewhere, till 1697.
URBAN
CHAPTER XIII
BURGHAL INDEPENDENCE
Just as the Universities and the Judiciary were found to have a common link in the Order of the Coif, so we find that the Judiciary and the City were bound each to each by the existence of by-laws, or, as they were termed in a technical sense, "customs." Although, to avoid misapprehension, these "customs" may be styled by-laws, and many of them strictly answer to the description, on the whole they bore a very different relation to the laws of the land from the by-laws of modern corporations, the latter being purely subsidiary, while the former affected the most important issues, and, in the absence of much general legislation, possessed all the validity of statute law.