Appendix CASE ONE - Collection Point® | The Total Digital Asset ...

The Early Development of the Laws of the Anglo-Scottish Marches 37
their penalties in step with those imposed at days of truce. It should be
stressed that march days and what came to be known as warden courts
possessed distinct though complementary jurisdictions. The former dealt
with allegations of truce-breaking and claims for damages brought by Scots
and English, and vice-versa, the latter with breaches of truce which were
apparently presented by a jury - as early as 1348 inquiries as to thieves and
truce-breakers were to be made 'by the oath of honest and lawful men of those
parts' - naming only the jurors' compatriots as responsible. 40 The former was
an international assembly, but in England, at least, the warden court was a
royal court, able to impose financial penalties and expected to account for
them to the exchequer. 41
An apparent exception to the rule that proceedings in the two courts were
usually initiated in different ways, those at march days originating in personal
accusations, whereas warden courts were able to receive presentments on oath
as well as individual complaints, is provided by the case of one John Prince,
described in 1394 as having been 'indicted in accordance with the law of the
marches for homicide committed on the said marches in breach of the truce
. . .' He had fled to Yorkshire, where he was arrested for other felonies, but he
was nevertheless to be handed over to the earl of Northumberland 'to stand to
right for that homicide according to march law at the next march day to be held
there . . ,' 42 It is not clear, however, how such an indictment could have been
made except in a warden court, and it is possible that it had first been
made in a warden court but was to be tried at a march day, perhaps because
a private accusation had followed the public charge. There must in fact have
been a good deal of duplication of accusation at the two courts, even though in
1384 the warden court acquired a more distinctive character when its authority
was widened to give it cognizance of military cases involving the spoils of war
and of treasonable contacts with the Scots. 43 1384 was also the year in which
open warfare was resumed after a truce lasting since 1357. Pillaging over the
border became lawful, but it was a practice always liable to give rise to disputes
among those engaged in it. Contacts with the Scots, as the king of England's
enemies, could always be construed as treasonable, but such prosecutions as
have been recorded, usually for collaboration in crime, were heard before
justices of gaol delivery. 44 The latter, however, generally steered clear of
the northern counties in times of war or the threat of it - there were no
gaol deliveries recorded in Cumberland between 1384 and 1390, for instance
- and the wardens, with their newly-extended jurisdiction, took over. That
40
RotuliScotie, i, 718-19. By the 1430s the warden appears to have been able to act as a sort of public
prosecutor by bringing accusations of truce-breaking in his own court, DURH3/37, m 8d.
41
Cf. E 101/53/17.
42
C 54/235, m 5.
43
RotuliScotie, ii, 81.
44
H. Summerson, 'Crime and Society in Medieval Cumberland', Transactions of the Cumberland and
Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, Second Series, Ixxxii (1982), 114-15.