heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

234 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
negative but ; says that the offence was committed by some of the family,
of whose names he is totally ignorant. The King (i.e. I suppose the
Court), adjudged that the trespass was an egregious outrage upon Holy
Mother Church, and an open violation and contempt of the King's
sovereignty, and ought not to be unpunished, and that he ought to be
accountable for any transaction which transpired under his roof, and at
the hands of those who fed at his table. Whereupon all the family of
Bogo de Clare were brought up, excepting Henry de Brabant, John Denham,
Roger de Berkham, and some others (the actual perpetrators, I suppose),
who had escaped and fled beyond the seas.
" The jurors examined divers
" knights and clerics, and others of the family of the said Bogo, and find
"that it was done without his cognisance, precept, or assent." He was,
therefore, "hailed to answer at the King's pleasure, when the real per-
" petrators of the offence might be discovered." In the interview the abovenamed
delinquents were outlawed, and writs issued to the various sheriffs
for their apprehension.
The name of Bogo de Clare is associated with Merton College,
Oxford, as well as York Minster ;
but how far Bogo was or was not a
benefactor of Merton College,
it is difficult, perhaps, to decide. The facts
are these: Walter de Merton, when Chancellor in 1260, obtained from
Richard, Earl of Gloucester, as his feudal superior, a charter, empowering
him to assign his manors at Farley and Maiden, in Surrey, to the Priory
of Merton, for the support of scholars "residing at the school." The
expression is not very clear, but it
probably meant exhibitioners to be
entertained at the University of Oxford. In 1266, a royal charter was
issued by Henry III., giving to the College, then settled at Maiden, the
advowson of St. Peter-in-the-East, for impropriation with all the chapels
appertaining to it, one. of which was that of St. Cross, now Holywell
Church (History of Merton College
:
Broderick).
At that time it would seem to have been part of the preferment, as
already mentioned, of Bogo de Clare, who is recorded not only to have
there, by causing a thief, named
claimed but exercised "la haute justice"
Bensington, to be hanged on his own gallows, by his own bailiffs.
Walter de Chauncey is mentioned in the archives of the College as having
been sometime " Baillive to Bogo de Clare, Lord of the Manor of Holy-
" well," as being Rector of St. Peter-in-the-East.
It would seem that Bogo de Clare died somewhere about 1296,
for in the Exchequer Pleas roll, 24 and 25 Edward I.,
" Nicholas, Bishop
" of Sarum, is attached to answer Percival de Ast and Thomas de Estwyk,
"executors of the will of Bogo de Clare, deceased, in part payment of
" debts which the said executors owe to the Lord the King for the said
"deceased, on the plea that he may pay them ^122 gs. &/., which he