160 ANECDOTES OF FEUDAL TIMES IN ENGLAND. 



to receive the puppet, and hang it instead of the felon. Whether 

 Mortimer deemed himself too powerful to be affected by this 

 sentence, or regarded the ridiculous condition with which it was 

 invested, as a mere form of words, he did not condescend to honour 

 it with his compliance ; and in January the next year he was him- 

 self a suitor to the king at Asserugh, complaining that, in the interval, 

 the royal bailiff, Bogo, had seized into the king's hands the liberty 

 of Wiggemor. The bailiff, in reply, alleged the non-performance 

 of the delivery of a puppet or doll ; on which the king and council 

 granted that the liberty should be replevied to him until the puppet 

 in question should be rendered for execution to the king's bailiff at 

 the castle of Montgomery.* 



During the preceding reign, in 1240, an accident, says Manning, 

 happened in the Abbey of Waverley, which made a considerable 

 noise at the time, and furnishes us with a striking picture of the 

 times, as well as of the resolution and authority of an abbot. A 

 young man, it seems, about Easter, was received into the house in 

 the capacity of shoemaker to the convent, where he exercised his 

 craft without molestation till about the beginning of August, when a 

 party was sent by the king's orders to secure him on a charge of 

 murder. They accordingly came, and like good men and true, 

 notwithstanding the remonstrances and menaces of this holy body, 

 executed the commission they were sent upon, and carried the 

 young man away with them to prison. Astonished at this impious 

 outrage on their privileges, and foreseeing, as their annalist very 

 justly observes, that if things should go on at this rate there would 

 soon be an end of all distinction between religious and seculars, the 

 monks, having first agreed to suspend divine service in the house 

 until satisfaction should be made, dismissed their abbot to the legate, 

 cardinal Otho, or Ottobon, at that time in England, with a proper 

 representation of their case. The legate heard what they had to 

 say, but stirred not in the matter. The abbot hereupon laid it before 

 the king, requiring in pretty high terms, that God and Holy Church 

 should be avenged of those irreverent officers, by an immediate res- 

 titution of their charge. The king seemed well enough inclined to 

 gratify him ; but, the lords and great men of the council interfering, 

 all he could obtain was a promise to be heard upon his petition, on 

 condition of taking off the interdict under which he had laid his 

 convent. Accordingly, at the time appointed, the charters, muni- 

 ments, and privileges of the order were laid before the king and 

 council, who commented upon them as they thought fit, and not 

 much to the advantage or satisfaction of the complainants. At length, 

 however, the friends of Holy Church prevailed ; and it appearing 

 upon the face of the charters, &c. That the precincts of abbeys and 

 their estates were, by apostolical authority, exempted from the en- 

 croachments of all wicked and profane persons, f . e. from all lay 

 visitations whatsoever, and inviolable as the altars of churches ; and 

 that all manner of persons committing violence thereupon, stood ipso 



* Rotuli Parliament}, torn. I. p. 45. 



