This story is deemed apochryphal by some authorities as being utterly inconsistent with the mild, beneficent, and just character of the Justiciary. Foss, who refers to it as a dereliction from the path of judicial integrity, says—
"Presuming the story to be true, the Chief Justiciary's merit must have been great indeed to induce the King to pardon so monstrous a perversion of justice," adding, "some doubt, however, cannot but be attached to the relation, not merely from its extravagant ferocity and the impunity of its perpetrators, but from the assertion of the work which bears Glanville's name, who says—'None of the Judges have so hardened a front, or so rash a presumption, as to dare to deviate, however slightly, from the path of justice, or utter a sentence in any measure contrary to the truth.' It is scarcely possible to suppose that a King so just as Henry II. would have overlooked the guilt of the Judge, or have visited the innocence of the accused with imprisonment."
On the other side, Roger de Hoveden relates the story with some circumstantiality, under the date of 1184, who was not only a contemporary, but was a native of Howden, not many miles distant from Plumpton. He adds further, that "The Knight (Gilbert) being rescued from death, was kept in prison by Ranulph de Glanville until the King's death (1189)." In the Annals of the Exchequer also, we find given the expenses of conveying Gilbert de Plumpton from York to Worcester, on this occasion.
What became of Gilbert and Eleanor afterwards is not recorded, or mentioned in the tradition, but we may hope that after his release on the accession of Richard I., they were reunited, and that their oppressor, having died the following year, they were enabled to pass the remainder of their lives in tranquility and happiness.
[The Topcliffe Insurrection.]
"I wayle, I wepe, I sobbe, I sighe full sore,
The dedely fate, the dolefulle destenny
Of him that is gone, alas! without restore,
Of the blode royall descendinge nobelly;
Whos lordshepe doutles was slayne lamentably,
Thorow tresen ageyn hym compassyd and wrought,
Trew to his Prince, in worde, in dede, and thought."
—Skelton.
THE prevailing blemish in the character of King Henry VII. was avarice, which led him, through his rapacious ministers, Empson and Dudley, to oppress the people with extortionate taxation. To save his exchequer he avoided foreign wars, and once only did he cross the sea with that object, in the cause of Anne of Bretagne, whose fief was claimed by the French King; but on arriving at Boulogne, King Charles, appealing to his master-passion, bought him off by means of a large bribe. For the purpose of this war, Parliament, in February, 1489, granted a tax of one-tenth of a penny, for a subsidy of £75,000. This oppressive tax was very unpopular, and especially so in Yorkshire and the north, the people about Thirsk, particularly, being loud in their murmurs. They were goaded on by the rough and excited harangues of one John à Chambre, whom Lord Bacon describes as "a base fellow called John Chambre, a very brute feu, who bore most sway among the vulgar." He had for his fellow leader Sir John Egremont, who, although not quite so boisterous and unpolished as Chambre, was equally resolute and vigorous in his opposition to fiscal extortion; and these two leaders gathered around them a body of rustics and mechanics, who armed themselves with such weapons as they could procure, such as scythes, bill-hooks, and bludgeons. Vowing they would not lay down their arms until the tax was repealed, they went from village to village, and town to town, inveighing against the King's evil counsellors, explaining their designs, and enlisting recruits to their banner.