172 Dll. CKAKLT0X OX THE LIBERTY OE TYNEDALE. 



from, hydrophobia. Wife beating is not, it seems, a modern 

 accomplishment; for Thomas Scot, of Simonburn, wounded his 

 wife Emma so severely with an axe, that she died four days 

 after. A little further up the Tyne, Lynch law appears to be 

 occasionally resorted to. Thomas de Caphopper was taken for a 

 burglary, and there and then decapitated without authority, 

 even of the Coroner, by the people of Donkleywood, Thorney- 

 burn, and Tarset. The Coroner seems to have possessed greater 

 powers in those days than at present. Adam Stokoe and Maurice 

 Scot are summoned for the murder of Adam Thompson. Adam 

 Stokoe denies the homicide, and escapes ; but Maurice Scot 

 acknowledges baving taken Thompson's life, but avers that he 

 did it against his will, being forced thereunto by the Coroner, 

 William de Bellingham, with many stripes and injurious words, 

 and by threats of instant death, unless he decapitated the said 

 Adam Thompson. Treasure trove was strictly claimed by the 

 King, and the results of this law were probably as disastrous 

 then as they are at the present day. Some of the clergy did a 

 little house-breaking at times on their own account. Symon, the 

 clerk, and Richard Alpendache, clerk, forcibly entered the dwell- 

 ing-place of John the Fuller, and carried away his goods and 

 cattle. The parson of Whitfield fled his parish after stealing a 

 cow from one of his neighbours ; and the parson of Corbridge was 

 taken for the same crime, "et pro pluribus latro-ciniis," but was 

 claimed by the Bishop of Durham, and died in the episcopal 

 prison. Adam, the servant of Brother Take, was hanged at 

 Wark for breaking into the house of Ralph, of Caldecoates. 

 Agnes, the wife of John Cuper, of Wark, was killed at the 

 mill, at Wark, by the breaking of the millstone, wbile she 

 stood by overlooking the grinding of her corn ; but as the mill 

 belonged to the King, there was no deodand with the verdict 

 of accidental death. Huctred, of Linacres, was fined half a marc 

 for refusing to feed the King's dogs ; and Richard Humble, Gil- 

 bert, the miller of Ealingham, and Alexander, the miller of 

 Wark, were each fined forty pence for killing salmon out of 

 season. This, we believe, is one of the earliest instances of laws 

 being put in force for the protection of the noble fish. The 



