Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 edition. Excerpt: ...1 Bart.Ang. trans. Trevisa, lib. vn. c. 20. 'Works, Fortescue, J., 1869, I. p. 466. Hal. Rel. p. 34. The Paston Letters from time to time reflect the results of such a condition of affairs. John Paston's aunt, who owes a London merchant 20 marks, "dare not adventure her money to be brought up to London for fear of robbing, which causeth her to beseech John Paston to pay the said money in discharging of the matter."1 The fears of Margaret Paston for her husband's safety when he was away were only too well founded, and now and again her anxiety rises above her usual business-like news, and her relation of minor affairs. At the end of a letter of 1461, she writes, "At the reverence of God, beware how you ride or go, for naughty and evil-disposed fellowships God for his mercy send us a good world."2 Ten years later, the fear of robbers still troubled men wishing to send money to London. "I should send you money...but I dare not put it in jeopardy, there be so many thieves stirring. John Loveday's man was robbed unto his shirt as he came homeward."3 Yet no doubt John Loveday's man, relating his adventure to his cronies, and thinking it over, considered he had escaped lightly, with no bones broken and only the loss of his clothes to lament. Perhaps nothing throws a more sinister light on the methods and barbarities of the robbers of those days than the story in Capgrave's English Chronicles which relates that in 1416 three beggars stole three children at Lynn. They put out the eyes of one, broke the back of a second, and cut off the hands and feet of the third, in the hope that these infirmities would draw forth abundant alms from all who beheld them.4 The frequency of ambushes is so marked at this time that it...
