the manor of Laughton, for the restoration of his forest rights, unjustly withholden by her, exhibiting in support of his claim the charter of Gilbert de Aquila, his founder.[1] The prior claimed to have pannage and herbage in all the outlying woods of the Honor of the Eagle, viz. in Wilmeton, Clavregge (in Waldron), Hawkehurste (E. Hoathly), Dicker, Broyll, Wandern (Waldron), and in a place called Bromeknoll in Eshedonne, and also in the woods of the manor of Lecton (Laughton).
In the year 1318 a more formidable antagonist enters the lists against the prior, in the person of King Edward II, who sues him for disobedience to a royal mandate in not admitting one Robert Henry to a corrody in his priory; a corrody being an allowance of victuals and clothing to be annually furnished by the convent, reserved by a benefactor in consideration of his grant, and to be enjoyed by himself or other person upon his nomination. In this case the prior defended himself by pleading that he held his priory by the foundation of Gilbert de Aquila, with the assent of the king's grandfather, Henry III, "in liberam et perpetuam elemosinam," a form of grant which barred all claims for corrodies. It is not said what was the result of this suit, but certainly the prior seems to have had law and justice on his side.[2]
Thirty years later the prior had to submit to a forced loan, one of those arbitrary exactions which afterwards, casting aside all pretence of repayment and assuming the ill suited name of benevolences, acquired such great and well deserved unpopularity under the Tudors and the Stuarts. Probably it is only one out of many by which he, his predecessors, and successors, were oppressed. As these loans were seldom repaid, and never but after a long interval, this was, in fact, a mode of levying taxes by prerogative alone, without the consent of Parliament. In such a case it can hardly be contended that "taxation" was "no tyranny." The prior had to produce "one sack of wool."[3]
We have already seen that he had at least one litigation, and probably more than one, with the Abbot of Begeham. There is, however, no evidence on which we need disbelieve
