Westminster

by Walter Besant

2. On June 6 the King, being then at Linlithgow, heard of the robbery and very naturally fell into a wrath more than royal. He dispatched writ after writ, ordering the most searching investigation.

3. An investigation was made. In consequence of this all the monks of Westminster and forty other persons were taken to the Tower and kept there.

4. On the day of Annunciation, 1306, the monks were released.

The evidence, so far as it has been preserved, shows how the robbery was planned and carried out.

First there is the confession of Podelicote himself:

“He was a travelling merchant for wool, cheese, and butter, and was arrested in Flanders for the King’s debts in Bruges, and there were taken from him £14 1s., for which he sued in the King’s Court at Westminster at the beginning of August in the thirty-first year, and then he saw the condition of the Refectory of the Abbey, and saw the servants bringing in and out silver cups and spoons and mazers. So he thought how he might obtain some of those goods, as he was so poor on account of his loss in Flanders, and so he spied about all the parts of the Abbey. And on the day when the King left the place for Barnes, on the following night, as he had spied out, he found a ladder at a house which was near the gate of the Palace toward the Abbey, and put that ladder to a window of the Chapter House, which he opened and closed by a cord; and he entered by this cord, and thence he went to the door of the Refectory, and found it closed with a lock, and he opened it with his knife and entered, and there he found six silver hanaps in an aumbry behind the door, and more than thirty silver spoons in another aumbry, and the mazer hanaps under a bench near together; and he carried them all away, and closed the door after him without shutting the lock. And having spent the proceeds by Christmas he thought how he could rob the King’s Treasury. And as he knew the ways of the Abbey, and where the Treasury was and how he could get there, he began to set about the robbery eight days before Christmas with the tools which he provided for it, viz., two ‘tarrers,’ great and small knives, and other small ‘engines’ of iron, and so was about the breaking open during the night hours of eight days before Christmas to the quinzain of Easter, when he first had entry on the night of a Wednesday, the eve of St. Mark (April 24); and all the day of St. Mark he stayed in there and arranged what he would carry away, which he did the night after, and the night after that, and the remainder he carried away with him out of the gate behind the church of St. Margaret, and put it at the foot of the wall beyond the gate, covering it with earth, and there were there pitchers, cups with feet and covers. And also he put a great pitcher with stones and a cup in a certain tomb. Besides he put three pouches full of jewels and vessels, of which one was ‘hanaps’ entire and in pieces. In another a great crucifix and jewels, a case of silver with gold spoons. In the third ‘hanaps,’ nine dishes and saucers, and an image of our Lady in silver-gilt, and two little pitchers of silver. Besides he took to the ditch by the mews a pot and a cup of silver. Also he took with him spoons, saucers, spice dishes of silver, a cup, rings, brooches, stones, crowns, girdles, and other jewels which were afterwards found with him. And he says that what he took out of the Treasury he took at once out of the gate near St. Margaret’s Church, and left nothing behind within it.”

It will be observed that he takes the whole blame to himself and names no confederates. Was this loyalty to his friends? If so, it was loyalty of a very unusual kind. Another man, John de Rippingall, however, who also confessed, states that there were present two monks, two foresters, two knights, and about eight others.

The evidence of conspiracy was very strong. First, as regards the monks. Podelicote himself says that the work took him four months. Was there no help from within to keep this work secret? Consider: the robber was cutting through a massive stone wall; he would have to remove the stones one by one at night and replace them when he ceased at daybreak. But this kind of work cannot be done without making a considerable amount of mess. Now, the Sacrist and his officers had charge of the church and the close, and they were charged to watch “in the cemetery.” By the cemetery is meant, I suppose, the ground lying between the East end of the Abbey and the wall, now covered by Henry VII.’s Chapel.

Stanley, without any discoverable authority, calls the cloister-garth the cemetery. During that time of four months the Sacrist’s watch never once discovered this workman. I do not suppose a nightly patrol, but any kind of watch means some kind of irregular visit here and there.

The work would involve the removal of those stones which were underground. In order to effect this the flags must be taken up every night, if the passage was paved; if it was not, the difficulty of opening and closing the cavity for working in was very greatly increased. It seems to me, in fact, impossible that the thing could have been managed at all without confederates in the Abbey itself.