THE FOREST OF PICKERING 109 



came into the king's hands through the forfeiture of the Earl 

 of Lancaster. Thomas of Lancaster had been executed at 

 Pontefract after the battle of Boroughbridge, in April, 1322, 

 so that all these offences had been committed in about a twelve- 

 month. The unsettled condition of the country, and particu- 

 larly of the Scarborough and Whitby districts, where the earl 

 had numerous friends and allies, had doubtless led many to think 

 that the forest laws could be then infringed with impunity. 

 Among the offenders were several of position, such as Sir 

 John de Fauconburg and Sir Robert Caponn, who led a large 

 company on 2Qth June, with eight greyhounds and bows and 

 arrows, and there took a hart and hind, and carried the venison 

 away to Skelton castle. At Martinmas, Sir Robert Caponn 

 made another entry into the same part of the forest with nine 

 men, and carried off three deer ; and on a third occasion, a few 

 days later, he came with seventeen unknown men, " for the 

 purpose of doing evil, but they took nothing." A minor 

 offender was convicted of entering Blandsby park and giving 

 the parker izd. and a silk purse to say nothing about it. 

 The king instructed the sheriff to arrest all these transgressors, 

 and to deliver them to John de Kilvington to be kept in prison 

 in Pickering castle until further orders. 



The forest did not in any way suffer from the northern in- 

 vasion of 1322, as it was saved by a war indemnity. For when 

 the Scots that year made a bold foray into England, under 

 Robert Bruce, and pillaged among other places the abbey of 

 Rievaulx, which closely adjoined the liberty of Pickering, 

 John Topcliffe, the rector of Seamer, and other leading men 

 of the district, with the assent of the whole community, pur- 

 chased the immunity of the vale and forest of Pickering from 

 the river Seven on the west to the sea on the east. The 

 covenant to effect this was made with Robert Bruce on I3th 

 October, 1322, through the Earl of Moray, for 300 marks to be 

 paid at Berwick. Nicholas Haldane, William Hastings, and 

 John Manneser, at the request of the whole community, gave 

 themselves up to Robert Bruce at Rievaulx on i7th October, 

 to sojourn as hostages in Scotland until the money was paid. 

 Afterwards the men of the community, although the Scots had 

 kept to their bargain, refused payment, and the three Pickering 

 hostages were still in prison in Scotland in July, 1325. 



