not to
prejudice the accused by an apparent assumption of guilt. If a person
was charged with murder, the bailiffs were obliged to approach him with
white wands as a sign that they had no intention of committing or
provoking a breach of the peace. They then summoned him to yield himself
to the peace of "our lord the King." If they came in the first instance
armed in a warlike manner with swords, etc., it was lawful for him to
defend himself, and there is one instance on record in which a man did
this, fighting a pitched battle with the bailiffs in the garden of his
inn, and being afterwards upheld by the court. If, however, the person
would not surrender, when summoned in a peaceable way, force might be
employed against him. But the officers had first to find or overtake
him; and in this they might be anticipated by those who had suffered
injury. Obviously, therefore, the homicide, who had no confidence in the
justice of his case, would be well advised in flying without delay to
"the bosom of Mother Church."

The refugee was as often as not an habitual criminal, who might have
broken out of prison on the eve of execution. Some light on this point
is derived from the Northumberland Assize Rolls of the years 1256 and
1279. For instance: "Robertus de Cregling et Jacobus le Escoe', duo
extranei, capti fuerunt pro suspicione latrocinii per ballivos Willelmi
de Valencia et imprisonati in prisona ejusdem Willelmi apud Rowebyr'
(Rothbury). Et predictus Robertus postea evasit de prisona ad ecclesiam
de Rowebyr' et cognovit ibi latrocinium et abjuravit regnum coram
Willelmo de Baumburg tunc coronatore."

Offenders were obliged to state the nature of the crimes alleged against
them, and the Durham register shows that by far the largest number were
murderers and homicides. Some claimed the rights of sanctuary for debt,
some for stealing horses or cattle and burglary; and others for such
crimes as rape, theft, harbouring a thief, escaping from prison,
failing to prosecute, and being backward in their accounts. Townships
which failed to arrest the criminal before he reached the church, or
allowed him to escape after he had taken refuge in it, were fined by the
King's Justices, the circumstances proving that the institution was
tolerated as a necessary evil by those responsible for the maintenance
of law and order--not regarded with favour.

The Thucydidean speech of the Duke of Buckingham on the removal of the
Queen of Edward IV.,