go whistle. Men's wives run
thither with their husband's plate, and say they dare not abide with
their husbands for beating. Thieves bring thither their stolen goods,
and live thereon riotously; there they devise new robberies, and nightly
they steal out they rob and rive, kill and come in again, as though
those places give them not only a safeguard for the harm they have done,
but a licence also to do more."

There is one aspect of the privilege, not mentioned in this balanced
judgment, which deserves consideration and that is the inadequacy of the
law to assure victims of injustice against oppression. As an instance of
the sort which, it may be hoped, was not too common, we may take the
following (undated) petition:

"Margery, who was the wife of Thomas Tany, late _chivaler_ of the
College of Windsor, & is Executrix of his last will and testament,
pleads that whereas on the Thursday ... in the Feast of Corpus Christi
in the late insurrection proclamation was made that all who had any
right or title to recover any debts or bequests whatsoever should come
before the King at the Tower of London and shew their evidence, &c,
without delay, she, the s'd Margery, and her eldest son John Thorpe,
came with a bill to present to the King for recovery of debts due to her
by force of the will & test of her s'd baron & of the judgments given &
rendered by three Chancellors of the King; and they had not leisure to
present the bill then, but on the morrow, Saturday, delivered the s'd
bill to the King in his Wardrobe in London. But forasmuch as the Father
in God, the Archb'p of Canterbury, then Chancellor of England and Judge
in this, ... had sequestrated all the goods and chattels of Sir William
Mugge, then Dean of the said College, escheated into the hands of Walter
Almaly, present Dean of the s'd College, commanding by letters patent
the s'd Walter, under certain penalties, that no livery should be made
until satisfaction had been done to the s'd Margery for the debts due
from the said W^m. to the said M. by the said test, and that John de
Thorp, younger son of the s'd Marg^t., had received a mandate from the
s'd Chancellor to summon the s'd Walter and Sir Richard Metford to
appear & answer before the Chancellor, the s'd Sir Walter caused the s'd
John Thorp, eldest son of the s'd Margery, to be arrested and kept him
in prison for three days, wrongfully and in contempt of the King ... and
besides this the s'd Sir Walter caused the