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The Law of Treason in the English Border Counties in the Later Middle Ages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2011

C. J. Neville
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Extract

In the parliament held at Leicester in the spring of 1414, King Henry V was confronted with a long list of grievances on the part of the common folk of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmorland. A formal petition decried the contempt with which the terms of truces made with Scotland and royal letters of safe conduct were treated. The commons further complained that men of the liberties of Tynedale, Redesdale, and Hexham daily committed “many murders, treasons, homicides … robberies, and other misdeeds,” and that “some of the said persons shelter and support many people of Scotland, counselling and comforting [them] in their robbery and despoiling.” Finally, they said, in contravention of the terms of the truce, men of Scotland “also take them prisoner, keeping them … until they make ransom of their own volition, all this with the aid, assent and comfort of the said persons so enfranchised.”

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Articles
Information
Law and History Review , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , Spring 1991 , pp. 1 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 1991

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References

Notes

1. Rotuli Parliamentorum 4:21–22.

2. In 1304, for example, the sheriff of Cumberland was forgiven the arrears of the ferm of his county, a sum he had been unable to raise because of the destruction and poverty caused there by the Scots. The bishop of Carlisle was granted a similar respite in 1314–15 on the same grounds. In 1328 and 1376 the inhabitants of Northumberland, and in 1347 those of Cumberland, petitioned for and were granted pardon of all ferms and taxes owed the crown. Rot. Part. 1:163, 313; 2:25, 176, 349. Other examples of special concessions may be found in ibid., 1:161, 410; 3:82, 181; 4:360, 379; 6:224–25, 394. The Close and Patent Rolls are replete with notices of similar grants and concessions made by the Crown on behalf of the impoverished northerners. See also Willard, J. F., “The Scotch Raids and the Fourteenth-Century Taxation of Northern England,” University of Colorado Studies 5 (1906–1908): 237–42Google Scholar, and, for the period of Robert Bruce in particular, Scammell, J., “Robert I and the North of England,” English Historical Review 73 (1958): 385–403CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. Statutes of the Realm 2:177–79 (2 Henry V, s. 1, cc. 5, 6).

4. The act was revised and amplified in 1421, when the inhabitants of Redesdale were included in its provisions. Rot. Parl. 4:143 and Stat. Realm 2:206–7 (9 Henry V, s. 1, c. 7). The liberties of Tynedale, Redesdale, and Hexham were but three of several regions in northern England which enjoyed a peculiar judicial relationship with the Crown. Some were controlled by secular lords, but they might also be in the hands of ecclesiastical landlords: The most powerful of these was the bishop of Durham, who governed directly virtually all that county. Other liberties in the border counties included Cockermouth and Coupland (Cumberland), Kendal (Westmorland), Norham with Bedlington, and Tynemouth (Northumberland). On the more general subject of the intrusion of the common law into regions of traditionally private jurisdiction in England in the course of the fifteenth century, see Post, J. B., “Local Jurisdiction and Judgment of Death in Later Medieval England,” Criminal Justice History 4 (1983): 1–21Google Scholar.

5. Bellamy, J. G., Crime and Public Order in England in the Later Middle Ages (London, 1973), 106Google Scholar.

6. The agreement, dated 2 December 1341, is enrolled in Calendar of Close Rolls, 1341–43, at 353–54. A full text may be found in Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense, ed. T. Duffus Hardy (Rolls Series, 1878), 4:244–47.

7. The act defined breaches of the truce generally as the slaying or robbery of persons within the marches of England towards Scotland.

8. These records are housed in the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane, London, under the classification of JUST 1 (Assize Rolls) and JUST 3 (Gaol Delivery Rolls). All the surviving records relating to the three northern counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmorland have been examined. These include not only enrollments of trial proceedings, but also the surviving bodies of files, agendas, and calendars relating to individual cases and assize sessions.

9. Several classifications of chancery documents contain the details of special inquisitions into criminal offences initiated by the crown, notably the calendared Close and Patent Rolls, and the collections known as Criminal Inquisitions (C144), Inquisitions Miscellaneous, (C145), and Chancery Miscellanea (C47).

10. Rezneck, S., “The Early History of the Parliamentary Declaration of Treason” English Historical Review 42 (1927): 497CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The statute is found in Stat. Realm 1:319–20 (25 Edward III, s. 5, c. 2).

11. Bellamy, J. G., The Law of Treason in England in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, passim. The discussion on the background of the statute which follows draws heavily on Dr. Bellamy's seminal study, but see also Rezneck, “Parliamentary Declaration of Treason,” passim, and Thornley, I. D., “The Act of Treasons, 1352,” History 6 (1921): 106–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. Rot. Parl. 2:166.

13. Ibid. 2:239.

14. Bellamy, Law of Treason, 87, 100. See also Thornley, “The Act of Treasons, 1352,” 107.

15. JUST 3/135 m 8d.

16. JUST 3/135 m 10d.

17. JUST 3/135 m 8d.

18. JUST 3/135 m 3. The widespread and continuing popular hostility felt toward the Scots in the fourteenth century is reviewed briefly in Barnie, J., War in Medieval English Society: Social Values in the Hundred Years War 1337–99 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1974), 49–52Google Scholar.

19. Keen, M. H., “Treason Trials under the Law of Arms,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 12 (1962): 95–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Keen, M. H., The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages (London, 1965), 63–81Google Scholar, 156–85.

20. Annales Londonienses, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, ed. W. Stubbs (R.S., 1882), 1:141. The judicial proceedings against Wallace are recounted in ibid. 1:139–42.

21. Rot. Parl. 2:3. Other incidents of this nature are discussed in Keen, “Treason Trials,” 93–95, and in Harcourt, L. W. Vernon, His Grace the Steward and Trial of Peers (London, 1907), 298–361Google Scholar. The latter work includes transcripts of several King's Bench records relating to the treason trials referred to.

22. The case, enrolled in PRO KB27/349 Rex m 23, is cited in Bellamy, Law of Treason, 62. Other cases of ransom-taking which were construed as treason are discussed in ibid., 68, 92.

23. An approver was a suspect who agreed to identify and accuse his accomplices in crime in return for postponement of his own trial. See Hamil, F. C., “The King's Approvers: A Chapter in the History of the English Common Law,” Speculum 11 (1936): 238–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24. JUST 3/135 m 10.

25. JUST 3/135 m 10d.

26. JUST 3/135 m 13.

27. JUST 3/135 m 13. The woman attempted to resist the efforts of William, son of Ranald Todd, to burgle her home and abduct her husband. She was thrown onto the open fire and was so badly burned that she died immediately.

28. The approver, Robert de Brokenhouse, went so far as to volunteer the additional information that John del Crag had received the sum of 10 marks as his share of the victim's ransom. JUST 3/35 m 10.

29. Stat. Realm 1:320.

30. In the numerous rolls of gaol delivery which survive from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, there are recorded fewer than a half dozen cases of false moneying.

31. Stat. Realm 1:320.

32. Bellamy, Law of Treason, 93–107.

33. JUST 3/141/A m 40d.

34. JUST 3/141/A m 45.

35. Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1354–58, at 614.

36. However, he managed to remain at large, “lurking in the march of Scotland doing much damage to the king's lieges,” for some two years.

37. JUST 3/143 m 1d.

38. JUST 3/145 m 8d.

39. JUST 3/145 m 24.

40. For example, JUST 3/145 mm 28, 33 (1363).

41. Rotuli Scotiae in Turri Londonensi et in Domo Capitulari Westmonasteriensi Asservati, ed. Macpherson, D. et al. (Record Commission, 1814), 1:894Google Scholar.

42. Bellamy, Law of Treason, 105.

43. See, for example, Historia Anglicana, ed. H. T. Riley (R.S., 1863–64), 1:340, 373, 387–89, 409–10, 437–38; 2:41–44, 112, 118, 131–33, 142, 175–76, 180; Chronicon Angliae, ed. E. M. Thompson (R.S., 1874), 165–66, 202–3, 219–20, 239–40; The Westminster Chronicle, ed. Hector, L. C. and Harvey, B. (Oxford, 1982), 40–43Google Scholar, 50–51, 58–59, 86–87, 100–1, 132–35, 138–39, 344–45, 370–71, 382–84, 396–97. For a brief discussion of the escalation of cross-border warfare in the decade following the succession of Richard II to the English throne, see Nicholson, R., Scotland: The Later Middle Ages (Edinburgh, 1974), 93–99Google Scholar.

44. Rot. Parl. 3:30. See also ibid. 2:345; 3:42, 63–64.

45. Ibid. 3:22–23.

46. Ibid. 2:349–50; 3:69, 181, 270–71. See also CPR, 1370–74, 293; CPR, 1374–77, 434–35; CPR, 1377–81, 308; CPR 1385–89, 42–43, 203, 230, 312; Ancient Petitions relating to Northumberland, ed. Fraser, C. M. (Surtees Soc, 1961)Google Scholar, nos. 29, 30, 109, 182, 196, 197; Northern Petitions Illustrative of Life in Berwick, Cumbria and Durham in the Fourteenth Century, ed. Fraser, C. M. (Surtees Soc., 1981)Google Scholar, nos. 113, 114.

47. Rot. Parl. 2:345; 3:80–81, 138, 146, 200, 213, 214, 233, 251.

48. Rot. Scot. 1:958. By 1373 the office of warden had undergone substantial development. It was first created in 1296, in response to the outbreak of war with Scotland. In these early years the wardens were granted authority by means of special commissions to levy the men of the marches in their defence. In 1309 the office became permanent; by midcentury commissions further empowered the wardens to keep the truce by punishing violations of it “according to the laws and customs of the marches.” The next significant development in the history of the office occurred, as noted, in 1373. For a review of the wardens' powers to 1399, see Reid, R. R., “The Office of Warden of the Marches; its Origins and Early History,” English Historical Review 32 (1917): 481–83Google Scholar and, more recently, Storey, R. L., “The Wardens of the Marches of England towards Scotland, 1377–1399,” English Historical Review 72 (1957): 593–603CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The problem of understanding the precise role played by the medieval wardens in the judicial and administrative organization of the north is discussed in Neville, C. J., “Border Law in Late Medieval England,” Journal of Legal History 9 (1988): 335–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49. Truces were arranged or extended in 1377, 1380, 1381, 1384, 1385, 1386, and 1389, and ambassadors empowered to treat for peace were commissioned throughout the 1380s. See Historia Anglicana 1:373; 2:41–42; The Westminster Chronicle, 40–42, 86–87, 100–1, 376–77; Rot. Scot. 2:12, 14, 36, 45, 51, 62–63, 70, 72, 75–76, 79, 82–84, 88–89, 92, 93, 99, 101–2; Foedera, Conventiones, Litterae, etc., ed. Rymer, T. (facsimile edition of The Hague edition, 1739–45), 3.3.69–70, 108–9, 122–23, 156–57Google Scholar, 182, 205; 3.4.39–42.

50. Rot. Scot. 2:81.

51. Rot. Parl. 3:62.

52. The texts of several letters exchanged between the wardens of England and Scotland and their respective kings regarding terms of truce and arrangements for days of march may be found in British Library MS Cotton Vespasian F. VII fols. 7, 17, 18, 34. Only some of these valuable documents have been fully transcribed and printed. See Chrimes, S. B., “Some Letters of John of Lancaster as Warden of the East Marches towards Scotland,” Speculum 14 (1939): 13–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53. In February 1382, for example, two keepers of the truce in Cumberland were commissioned to arrest and imprison William Knifeshaw and Geoffrey Walsh, “who with others have stolen and brought into England the goods of divers men of Scotland.” CPR, 1381–85, 135–36. Knifeshaw and some fourteen accomplices were the subjects of another commission of enquiry less than a month later; this time the commissioners, who counted among their members the warden of the West March, were empowered to make restitution to the victims. CPR, 1381–85, 135. Other examples are found in ibid., 137–38, 586; CPR, 1385–89, 85, 89, 412; CPR, 1388–92, 340; Rot. Parl. 3:255–56.

54. JUST 3/169 m 33.

55. JUST 3/169 m 43.

56. JUST 3/169 m 37d.

57. The truce of Leulinghen brought to a temporary halt open hostilities between the English and the French; it also provided for a period of truce with the Scots. The Westminster Chronicle, 376–77, 398 n. 2, 402 n. 8. For the text of the truce see Foedera 3.4.39–42.

58. CPR, 1388–92, 340.

59. CPR, 1391–96, 291.

60. JUST 3/176 m 21.

61. JUST 3/176 mm 20d, 21d.

62. In 1393 John del Hope was accused of having treasonably led his Scottish accomplices to Westlilburn, where they robbed and carried off to Scotland several lieges of the English king. JUST 3/176 m 24. John was to be tried again in 1394 on two further charges of robbery; he was said then to be a “common and notorious thief.” JUST 3/176 m 24d. John Archer was tried in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1394 on several charges of treasonable ransom-taking. He was called a “common and notorious thief and traitor.” JUST 3/176 m 26. Other indictments for treason in cases of ransom-taking are found in JUST 3/183 m 7d (1396), JUST 3/191 m 48 (1406) and JUST 3/191 m 51d (1411).

In 1393 William Storour was indicted for several thefts of divers goods belonging to a group of grocers, but also because he was renowned as a “notorious traitor and common thief.” JUST 3/176 m 23d. In 1410 Robert de Hodle was accused of having treasonably led a gang of Scottish thieves to the vill of Bingfold, where they committed several thefts. His indictment states that he is “a known leader into England of the said Robert Hunter [the Scottish ringleader] and various other known Scottish enemies.” JUST 3/53/4 m 1. Other indictments for theft in which the term proditorie appears are found in JUST 3/176 m 23d (1393), JUST 3/191 m 49 (1407) and JUST 3/191 m 51 (1411).

63. In 1396, for example, the abbots of Alnwick and Newminster in Northumberland made a piteous plea to the Crown asking to be forgiven payment of the tenth and fifteenth last granted in parliament, because “they have been reduced to such poverty by frequent attacks of the Scots and by personal ransoms that they are unable to pay.” CPR, 1391–96, 729. For the rivalry between the Percies and the Nevilles in the early fourteenth century and its effects on conditions in the north, see S. B. Chrimes, “Some Letters of John of Lancaster,” 3–12.

64. JUST 3/176 m 21.

65. In the sessions of 1390 the justices were told that Alice the wife of Thomas Evison was born and brought up in “that part of the kingdom of Scotland called Galloway, and was and has always been in the allegiance of the king of Scots.” She had come to the marches of England at the time of the first pestilence (the Black Death?), had married an Englishman, and had a family. Her husband was now deceased. The justices remitted the woman to gaol in Carlisle, where she remained for some two years. At the sessions of gaol delivery held on August 28, 1392, it was finally decided that Alice was, indeed, the subject of Scotland that she claimed to be, and she was released sine die.

66. Verdicts of guilt in cases of border treason, though never frequent, were handed down in cases of theft in 1393 (JUST 3/176 m 23d) and 1407 (JUST 3/191 m 49), ransom-taking in 1396 (JUST 3/183 m 7), and receiving known Scottish thieves in 1398 (JUST 3/184 m 15). In 1411 William Davison was tried for having treasonably gathered with several Scottish thieves in the vill of Angram, where they stole a horse, and again for having treasonably convened with another gang of Scots at Lowick, “where he sold to the said enemies the king's castle of Roxburgh.” William was said to be a “common traitor, thief, ambusher of the king's roads and depopulator of the fields.” He was found guilty of treason and felony and was sentenced to be drawn and hanged. (JUST 3/191 m 51). The sentence was unusual, in that the king had conceded in 1401–2 that persons accused of being communes latrones, depopulatores agrorum et insidiatores viarum should not henceforth be indicted for treason (Bellamy, Law of Treason, 116 n. 40). Davison's treason lay, rather, in his adherence to the king's sworn enemies. At the same sessions of gaol delivery a charge similar to that laid against William Davison was heard: Robert Kendal of Bamburgh “treasonably convened with Thomas Turnsbull, a Scottish enemy of the king, and treasonably delivered to him the king's castle of Roxburgh.” Kendal was tried and acquitted.

67. Bellamy, Law of Treason, 137. The statutes include the legislation of 1414 concerning breaches of the truce and its subsequent alterations, an act of 1416 which dealt with the clipping and filing of coins, an act of 1423–4 which declared that persons held on suspicion of high treason should be convicted of that offence if they broke prison, an act of 1429–30 which touched on arson, and an act of 1460 which dealt with the succession to the throne. The fifteenth century also witnessed the elaboration of treason by words. See Thornley, I. D., “Treason by Words in the Fifteenth Century,” English Historical Review 32 (1917): 556–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Rezneck, S., “Constructive Treason by Words in the Fifteenth Century,” American Historical Review 33 (1928): 543–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68. JUST 3/53/4 m 1.

69. The records which survive from the days of march reveal that the wardens most often discussed topics such as the title to goods stolen from noble estates by the Scots during periods of truce, incidents of ransom-taking disguised as the honorable confinement of prisoners of war, and cases of alleged piracy on the high seas. Commissions to the wardens ordering inquisitions into such disputes were often issued as a result of a personal action initiated in chancery by aggrieved parties. See, for example, CPR, 1381–85, 83–84, 135, 137–38, 182, 531; CPR, 1385–89, 85, 89, 412; CPR, 1388–92, 340; CPR, 1396–99, 52; CPR, 1399–1401, 287, 371, 415; CPR, 1401–5, 213; CPR, 1405–9, 114; CPR, 1408–13, 231; Rot. Parl. 3:129. See also Nicholson, Scotland: The Later Middle Ages, 195; Storey, “The Wardens of the Marches,” 595–97. These disputes were occasionally settled according to trial by combat. CPR, 1391–96, 261; CPR, 1399–1401, 119; CPR, 1401–5, 410, 440; CPR, 1405–8, 101.

70. In October, 1380, John of Gaunt travelled north to hold a march day with an impressive following of 2800 men-at-arms. He was accompanied by the archbishop of York, the prior of St. John, and three earls, who also brought their own retinues of soldiers. PRO E404/78, cited in Storey, “The Wardens of the Marches,” 595. In 1383, expenses for a brief meeting on the marches between commissioners of the English and Scottish crowns totalled some five hundred marks. John of Gaunt's Register 1379–1383, ed. Lodge, E. C. and Somerville, R. (Camden Soc, 3d ser., 1937)Google Scholar, 2:288. Such magnificent gatherings were not much concerned with the relatively paltry losses of cows, sheep, or money suffered by the common folk in individual incidents of cross-border crime.

71. B. L. MS Cotton Vespasian F. VII, fol. 6, cited in Chrimes, “Some Letters of John of Lancaster,” 7. A transcript of the memorandum is printed in Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council, ed. N. H. Nicholas (Record Commission, 1834), 2:91–95.

72. B. L. MS Cotton Vespasian F. VII, fol. 112, transcribed in Chrimes, “Some Letters of John of Lancaster,” 23.

73. B. L. MS Cotton Vespasian F. VII, fol. 78, transcribed ibid., 25–26. For complaints concerning the poor state of repair of the fortifications in the marches in the first decade of the century see Rot. Parl. 3:518, 634; CPR, 1401–5, 182, 372; CPR, 1405–8, 51, 141.

74. The preamble to the act itself openly acknowledges the perilous state of affairs on the borders: “Forasmuch as before this time divers people, comprised within the truces made as well by our lord the king that now is, as by his noble father, and also divers other people having safe conducts … have been some slain, robbed and spoiled by the king's liege people and subjects, as well upon the high sea as within the ports and coasts of the sea… whereby the said truces and safe conducts have been broken and offended to the great dishonour and slander of the king, and against his dignity; and the said truces and the king's safe conducts… have been by divers of the king's liege people and subjects within the coasts of divers counties received, abetted, procured, concealed, hired, sustained and maintained: our said lord the king… hath ordained and declared….” Stat. Realm 2:178.

75. In 1379 the ambassador from the court of Genoa was murdered in London by a band of thugs. The Crown ordered the case sent into chancery, from where it was referred to parliament. There it was declared that the crime should be construed as treason, because the king's letters of safe conduct had been violated by the perpetrators. The case is enrolled in PRO KB27/476 Rex m 75. A transcript of the enrollment is provided in Bellamy, Law of Treason, 232–34.

76. Ibid., 129, and Keen, Laws of War, 206. For a general discussion on the significance of letters of safe conduct, see ibid., 197–217. The inclusion of these sorts of offences within the scope of treason in contemporary France is discussed in Cuttler, S. H., The Law of Treason and Treason Trials in Later Medieval France (Cambridge, 1981), 4, 8, 31, 37Google Scholar.

77. Stat. Realm 2:178–79.

78. Rot. Parl. 4:68.

79. Ibid. 105.

80. Stat. Realm 2:198–99 (4 Henry VI, s. 2, c. 7).

81. The commons petitioned again for repeal of the statute in 1422, 1429, and 1433, but the government refused to alter its policy. Rot. Parl. 4:143, 351, 452. In 1435, upon hearing the complaint that the act permitted the king's adversaries and enemies to be “greatly encouraged and conforted to make war against the king's liege people,” the Crown relented insofar as it agreed to suspend all prosecutions for, and forfeitures arising from, offences committed against the act. The period of grace granted in 1435, however, was to endure for only seven years. Stat. Realm 2:294 (13 Henry VI, c. 8).

82. JUST 3/53/5 m 1. In noting that Jay had revealed to the Scotsman “the counsel of the lord king,” the jurors clearly intended to convey the idea that Jay had aided the king's enemies, an offence punishable as treason under the provisions of the act of 1352.

83. JUST 3/53/5 m 1.

84. JUST 3/199 m 17. Another indictment noted that the victim was forced to pay the hefty sum of forty pounds in order to secure his release. JUST 3/199 m 18 (1426). The law did not require that descriptive details such as these be included in the written charges. The jurors' concern to have them enrolled attests their determination to stress the gravity of the alleged offences.

85. JUST 3/199 mm 17, 18, 23 (1421, 1426, 1427).

86. Of the twenty-three indictments laid for theft and/or the sale of stolen goods to Scotsmen, fourteen include the phrase. JUST 3/53/5 m 1 (1419); JUST 3/199 mm 17, 17d, 18, 23d (1421, 1426, 1427); JUST 3/208 mm 26, 30, 34, 35d (1432, 1433, 1435, 1437).

87. This idea is conveyed by the use of two or more verbs to distinguish each stage of the alleged crime. Lawrence Nicholson, for example, was said to have treasonably fled to Scotland with forty stolen sheep, then to have delivered the animals into the hands of the king's Scottish enemies. JUST 3/199 m 17d (1427). Robert Boyse was alleged to have feloniously and treasonably taken six stolen oxen to one John Taylor, a Scot, to whom he then sold the booty. JUST 3/211 m 47d (1441). Others were accused of having delivered stolen goods to the enemy, the implication being that they had planned a rendezvous. JUST 3/199 mm 17, 19, 21 (1423, 1424, 1427) and JUST 3/211 mm 31, 32d (1444, 1446).

88. JUST 3/208 m 26. The indictment referred to the truce arranged between Scottish and English commissioners on 15 December 1430. Foedera 4.4.169–71.

89. JUST 3/208 m 32 (1434). Charges of being a trewbreker were levied against another Northumberland man at these sessions. Both suspects were convicted, though it does not appear that the justices construed their offences as treason, for their respective sentences did not include the punishment of being dragged to the gallows traditionally added to that of hanging for convicted traitors. Atkinson's indictment notes that, in addition to being a truce-breaker, he was a common and notorious intakker and outputtere. The terms are not rare in northern indictments: They were used in at least four other cases. JUST 3/169 m 33 (1382) and JUST 3/184 m 15 (1398). The latter term is found even earlier in a source other than the records of assize, in the Brut chronicles, composed in the mid-fourteenth century. In the section which relates the prophecies said to have been uttered by Merlin concerning the reign of Edward II, the traitor Sir Andrew de Harcla (executed in 1323 for conspiring with the Scots) is described as “Sir Andrew of Herkela, that is called the vnkynde outputter.” The Brut or the Chronicles of England, ed. Brie, F. W. (Early English Text Soc., vols. 131, 136 [1906–8]), 1: 245Google Scholar. The dating of the French version of the chronicles is discussed in J. Taylor, “The French Brut and the Reign of Edward II,” English Historical Review 72 (1957): 434–35. Precisely what was meant by the terms is made clear in the indictment for ransom-taking presented against John Baron in 1357: The suspect in this case was said to be “a common outputter of English goods to the king's Scottish enemies, taking for himself a part of those goods.” JUST 3/141A m 52. Intakers and outputters, who made a business of consorting in crime with the Scots apparently thrived in the liberties of the northern counties. The statute of 1421 concerning the franchises noted that “murders, treasons, manslaughters, robberies, the giving of consent and [other] offences by divers persons, thieves and felons, called intakers and outputters, dwelling within the franchise of Redesdale, in which franchise the king's writ does not run … have been done now of late….” Stat. Realm 2:207. Harboring of known spies: JUST 3/199 m 24 (1421); JUST 3/208 mm 20, 20d (1428) Forewarning the King's enemies: JUST 3/208 m 34d (1435).

90. JUST 3/208 m 25d.

91. Long before 1352 any tampering with the king's seal had been held to be treasonable. The statute of treasons confirmed the justices' practice in the matter. There existed no clear precedent on which to base a charge of treason in the falsifying of a warden's seal, but because this official derived his authority directly from the Crown by means of a royal commission, it was not difficult to argue by judicial construction that the suspect in this case had offended the dignity of the Crown.

92. Rot. Parl. 5:63.

93. Stat. Realm 2:323–24 (20 Henry VI, c. 9).

94. Cases of border-related crime, including some indictments of march treason, are found in JUST 3/54/27 m 1 (1442), JUST 3/211 mm 30, 31, 32, 32d, (1442, 1444, 1446), JUST 3/213 m 17 (1454).

95. Rot. Scot. 2:333–41; Foedera 5.2.16–19.

96. The first attempt to codify the ancient laws and customs of the marches had been made in 1249, in a meeting between representatives of the English and Scottish crowns. See Leges Marchiarum or Border Laws, ed. Nicholson, W. (London, 1705), 1–8Google Scholar.

97. Rot. Scot. 2:372.

98. Stat. Realm 2:358–59 (29 Henry VI, c. 2).

99. JUST S3/213 m 17. At the sessions of August, 1454, John Short, a laborer of Scotland, was charged with having stolen a horse and saddle. He was convicted and sentenced to hang. The case is an unusual one in several respects, not the least of which is the fact that Short was an acknowledged Scotsman. It is discussed in Neville, “Border Law in Late Medieval England,” 458.

100. See, for example, Rot. Parl. 5:224–25, 268; CPR, 1452–61, 106. The gaol delivery rolls themselves attest the ongoing disruption of life in the north: The clerk who drafted the rolls which record sessions held in the 1450s notes that the sessions were canceled in some years because of Scottish raids. JUST 3/211 mm 44, 44d, JUST 3/213 m 16.

101. Rot. Scot. 2:341–42.

102. Truces with the Scots were made or prolonged in 1451, 1453, 1457, 1459, 1460, 1463, 1464, 1465, 1472, 1473, 1483, 1484, 1486, 1487, 1491, 1492, 1493, and 1497. A formal peace was ratified in 1499, and was followed by a treaty of “peace and amity” in 1501.

103. An exhaustive list of the later fifteenth-century days of march is not possible here, but for examples of commissions empowering the wardens of the West and East Marches see Foedera 5.2.124–25 and Rot. Scot. 2:414 (11 June 1464).

104. Rot. Parl. 5:267.

105. Stat. Realm 2:363 (31 Henry VI, c. 3).

106. The most detailed account of the early workings of the king's council in the north remains that of Reid, R. R., The King's Council in the North (London, 1921), 42–91Google Scholar. See also Brooks, F. W., The Council of the North (Historical Association Pamphlet, 1966), 3–12Google Scholar.