Murder of the Bishop of Exeter

Historia Roffensis [1275-1346]. [15th October 1326] On the Wednesday before the feast of Saint Luke, all the leaders and commoners gathered in the city of London at the Guildhall, entering into council on how they might deceitfully capture and kill the Bishops of London and Exeter, along with other royal justiciars, who were then assembled at the house of the Friars Preachers. They also plotted to plunder the merchants in the city, using as justification the arrival of the queen, declaring that those who refused to adhere to her should be publicly deemed traitors to the kingdom. As a result, ambushes were set in certain places to watch for the arrival of the Bishop of Exeter. When he came and sought refuge in the Church of St. Paul, he was seized at the church entrance by criminals, dragged out, struck, and severely wounded. These sons of the devil pulled him through the streets and alleys to the Great Cross in Cheapside, fearing not to lay hands on the Lord's anointed. There, stripping him of his garments, they, more cruel than pagans, brutally beheaded a man who was faithful, prudent, and wise, and most necessary to the realm. They placed his severed head on a butchers' block, threw his body to the dogs to be devoured, and forbade his burial.

Die Mercurii proxima ante festum S. Lucas convenerunt in civitate London, apud la Gyld Hall, omnes majores et minores, consilium ineuntes quomodo episcopos Londoniensem et Exoniensem et alios regis justiciaries, ad Fratres Predicatores tune congregates, dolo caperent et occiderent, et mercatores in civitate deprasdarent, accepta occasione de adventu reginas, quod reginæ adhasrere nolentes proditores regni. publice censerentur. Unde factum est quod in certis locis positas sunt insidiæ ad explorandum adventum episcopi Exoniensis. Qui cum venisset et ad ecclesiam S. Pauli confugisset, in hostio ecclesiæ a malefactoribus comprehensus, extractus, percussus, et graviter vulneratus, traxerunt eum per plateas et vicos usque ad magnam crucem in Chepe filii diaboli, non verentes manum ponere in christum Domini. Sed eum spoliantes et vestibus suis exuentes, ausu crudeli pejores quam pagani virum utique fidelem, providum et discretum ac regno valde necessarium truculenter decapitarunt, caput de corpore abscissum super collistrigium statuentes, corpus canibus ad corrodendum projicientes, et ad sepeliendum prohibuerunt.

Annales Paulini. 15th October 1326. Meanwhile, the Bishop of Exeter (age 65) came from one of his manors, and intending to pass through the city to the Tower of London, he entered by Newgate. Hearing the uproar and shouting of the people near the Church of St Michael ad Bladum, he became afraid and turned aside, fleeing to the Church of St Paul. But his pursuers, joined by others coming to meet him, like madmen, seized him at the north door of the church. They struck him on the head and pulled him from his horse, and dragging him cruelly through the churchyard, they took him into the marketplace of Westcheap. There, after stripping him in shameful fashion, they beheaded him, along with his two squires, John de Paddington and William Walle. Their naked bodies lay in the middle of the market all day, a horrific sight to all who looked upon it. The bishop's head was sent to the lady queen at Bristol. Later that day, after Vespers were sung at St Paul's, the lesser canons and vicars of that church, out of respect for his dignity, came with a cross and honorably recovered the bishop's body. They brought it into St Paul's Church, where it lay through the night. On the next day, it was carried to the Church of St Clement Danes, near the manor of the deceased bishop. This was the church to which he had secured perpetual patronage for his successors, the Bishops of Exeter, from the brethren of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Warwick, whom he had compensated with another church said to be worth twice as much. But the rector of St Clement's, ungrateful though he had been appointed by the same bishop, refused to allow the sacred burial of his body in the churchyard. So the body was taken to a nearby church of the Holy Innocents, which had been abandoned and entirely ruined, and there, without its head, the bishop was buried. Later, by the efforts of the Dean and Chapter of Exeter, the body was exhumed and brought to Exeter, on the 17th of February, and reburied there.

Interim venit episcopus Exoniensis de quodam manerio suo, et, cum voluisset transisse per medium civitatis ad Turrim Londoniensem, intrans per portam de Neugate, et ad ecclesiam Sancti Michaelis ad bladum audiens hujusinodi tumultum et clamorem populi, timuit, et se divertit fugiendo ad ecclesia Sancti Pauli. At illi insequentes, et alii obviantes ei ut furibundi, apprehenderunt eum ad ostium ecclesia boriale; percusserunt in capite, et de equo traxerunt, et, sic per medium cimiterium eum crudeliter trahentes, in foro de Westchepe, ibi eum miserabiliter despoliantes decollaverunt cum suis duobus armigeris J. de Padingtone et W. Walle; et jacuerunt cadavera nuda per totmn diem in medio foro, horribile spectaculum cunctis intuentibus, Caput vero episcopi missum fuit domine regine apud Bristolliam. Eodem die corpus vero episcopi, post vesperas decantatas in ecclesia Sancti Pauli, minores canonici et vicarii ejusdem ecclesim cum cruce honorifice quaesierunt, propter statum sue dignitatis, et ad ecclesiam Sancti Pauli deportaverunt; et tota nocte illa in dicta ecclesia requiescens corpus, et in crastino ductum fuit ad ecclesiam Sancti Clementis Dacorum prope manerium dicti episcopi defuncti, cujus ecclesie perpetuam collationem successoribus suis ecclesiæ Exoniensis conferendam impetravit a fratribus ecclesiæ Sanctæ Sepulchræ Dominiæ de Warewick, et eos remuneravi de quadam alia ecclesia que valuit in duplum ut asserebatur. Et quia rector illius ecclesiæ, ut ingratus, eo quod promotus fuit ad eandem per dictum episcopum, sacre sepulturæ in suo cimiterio tradi non permisit, ductum fuit ad quandam ecclesiam Sanctorum Innocentium, que prope fuit prædictam ecclesiam Sancti Clementis, derelictam et omnino destrnctam, et ibidem fuit sine capite humatum. Sed postea, ex procuratione decani et capituli Exoniensis, dictum corpus exhumatum fuit ex prædicto loco et deportatum Exoniam, videlicet xiii kalendas Martii.

Thomas Walsingham [-1422]. [15th October 1326] On the same day, continuing their fury, the mob attacked the residence of the Bishop of Exeter, Master Walter de Stapeldon. Setting fire to the doors, they quickly broke in. Not finding the bishop—whom they had come to destroy—they seized his jewels, silver vessels, and household goods. It happened, however, most unfortunately, that the bishop returned from the countryside at that very hour. Though he had been warned in advance of these plots, he feared nothing. Sitting confidently on his horse, he approached the north door of St Paul's, but was immediately seized by the raging crowd. He was struck, torn, thrown down, and at last dragged off to the place of execution. When they had dragged him to Cheapside, they cried out against him, calling him a public traitor, a deceiver of the king, and a destroyer of the liberties of the city. The bishop was wearing a kind of armour, commonly called an aketoun (a padded defensive garment); he was stripped of it, and of all his other clothing as well, and then beheaded. Two members of his household—a squire and a valet—were likewise slain. Having committed this sacrilegious murder, the crowd, as though in triumph, fixed the bishop's head on a tall pole, so that it might stand as a lasting reminder of the crime to all who passed by. His body was thrown without rites into a pit in an old cemetery that had once belonged to the friars commonly called the 'Frères Pies'—but which was now completely abandoned. There, as though excommunicated, he was buried without any funeral. The cause of their hatred was that, when he was Treasurer of the Realm, he had persuaded the King's Council that the itinerant justices should sit in the city of London. As a result, since many of the citizens were found guilty of offenses, they were punished accordingly—through loss of liberties, heavy financial penalties, and bodily punishments, as they had deserved. It was also said that he had raised a large number of fighting men against the queen and her son, the Duke of Aquitaine; and for this reason the Londoners, as they claimed, were eager to preempt his plans before they could be carried out.

Eodem die, continuantes suam rabiem, incurrerunt ad hospitium Exoniensis Episcopi, Magistri Walteri de Stapultone; et supposito igne in januis, concito sunt ingressi. Non invenientes autem Episcopum, ad quern perdendum venerant, jocalia sua, cum vasis argenteis et utensilibus, rapuerunt. Accidit autem, hora infortunata, Episcopum de campo reverti; qui quamvis præmiunitus fuisset de hiis molitionibus, eos tamen nullatenus metuebat; et cum satis audacter equo sedens venisset ad ostium Boreale Sancti Pauli, mox a furenti populo comprebensus est, percussus, laniatus, dejectus, et tandem ad supplicii locum tractus. Cumque traxissent eum ad vicum de Chepe, ubi acclamaverunt eum publicum proditorem, Regis seductorem, et eorum civitatis libertatum destructorem; indutus autem fuit Episcopus quadam armatura, quam "aketone" vulgariter appellamus; qua spoliatus, et etiam aliis omnibus indumentis, decapitatus est; aliis duobus de sua familia, scutifero scilicet et valecto, simili sorte peremptis. Perpetrato sacrilegio, velut pro triumpbo, caput fixerunt Episcopi in longo palo, ut esset aspicientibus diuturna memoria sceleris attentati. Cadaver vero Pontificis in quodam veteri coemeterio, quod fuerat quondam Fratrum quos "Freres Pyes" veteres appellabant, sed tamen penitus derelicto, absque ullis exequiis, velut excommunicatum, in quadam ibidem fovea projecerunt. Causa inimicitiarum fuerat, quia cum esset regni Thesaurarius, apud Regis Consilium procuravit, ut Justiciarii Itinerantes sederent in civitate Londoniarum. Qua occasione, quia in multis cives deliquorant, in amissione libertatum et emunctione pecuniæ ac castigatione corporum multipliciter, prout meruerant, sunt puniti. Dicebatur etiam, quod maximam pugnatorum collegerat multitudinem contra Reginam et filium suum Ducem Aquitanniæ; et ideo Londonienses studuerunt, ut dicebant, molitiones tempestivius prævenire.