Note 185 — Chapter III · SECURITY OF THE ROADS

The picture in this statute is so complete that there is scarcely need to quote other texts; they are, however, numerous. In the petitions to parliament will be found many complaints by private people for acts of violence of which they had been victims, for imprisonment by their enemies, robberies, arson, destruction of game or fish in the parks. Examples: petition of Agnes Atte Wode, she and her son beaten and robbed (ibid. i. p. 372); of Agnes of Aldenby, beaten by malefactors (“Rolls of Parliament,” i. p. 375); of the inhabitants of several towns of the county of Hertford, who have been imprisoned and forced to pay ransom by the knight John of Patmer (i. p. 389); of John of Grey, who was attacked by fifteen malefactors so resolute as to set fire to a town and storm a castle (i. p. 397); of Robert Power, who is robbed and his mansion sacked, his people beaten, by “men all armed as men of war” (i. p. 410); of Ralph le Botiller, who has seen his mansion pillaged and burnt by eighty men, who came with arms and baggage, bringing ropes and hatchets on carts (ii. p. 88), etc. In France, it is well known, the misdeeds of this kind were still more numerous but then a continual state of war was raging there.