Note 39 — XVI. SANCTUARIES.
Reading edition
A flecher, or fletcher, was an arrow-maker.
Under such circumstances as these, it is not wonderful that complaints of the misuse of sanctuary rights became frequent. In 1324 ten prisoners escaped from Newgate Jail, of whom five took refuge in one or other of the London churches, and thence escaped out of the country. In 1376 Parliament complained to the King that certain people got money or goods on loan, made pretended gifts of all their property to their friends, then went into sanctuary, and stayed there till their creditors were glad to accept some small portion of the debt in payment for the whole; after which they came out, received back their pretended gifts, and lived merrily on their ill-gotten wealth. Cases even occurred in which thieves and murderers left their place of sanctuary at nightfall, committed fresh crimes during the night, and returned to the ‘chair of peace’ again before daybreak.
So great did the scandal of this misuse of the privileges afforded by sanctuaries eventually become, that in 1623 Parliament passed a law that:
No sanctuarie or priviledge of sanctuary shal be hereafter admitted or allowed in any case.
The law was again passed in 1697, but it was not until the reign of George I. that the last sanctuary in our country was demolished.