A highwayman who, with the help of others, robbed the now famed Geoffrey Chaucer (author of Cantebury Tales), in Kent, England, in the year 1390. After a trial process Richard was hanged.
Please read below for details which I found so fascinating I let run on a bit:
On September 3, 1390 near the notorious "foul oak" in Kent, a huge, morose old tree where both hangings and robberies frequently took place -- according to the parliament of 1387, Nicholas Brembre one dark night hanged twenty-two felons there without bothering about a trial--as a newly formed, professional Kentish gang took position in the limbs and shadows to wait for its' prey. They were no country bumbkins: two could plead their clerical knowledge of Latin to escape the penalties of civil law; two were old hands at escaping jail; all the gang's members had probably had war experience, and they had all been operating for a long time with one gang or another and had never been taken as highwaymen.
But they miscalculated when they decided to rob the portly, graying servant of the king coming under them now, right on schedule, on his horse. Chaucer's horse whinnied and violently shied toward the centre of the road as the gang dropped suddenly on every side, swords drawn, and shouted (if we may trust in old folk songs), "Stand!" Chaucer, as a man of sense, obeyed. The highwaymen took his horse and other property, probably including the property of the one or two guards riding with him, then perhaps beat him up (since the word used in the indictment against them is "depredare", taken by force, rather than the weaker word "furari", steal), took from him 20 pounds ($4,800.00) belonging to the king, and fled.
It was of course Chaucer's business to have contacts all over central England and especially in Kent, and it was the law's special business to see that the king, above all, should never be robbed with impunity. Even if the gang had not been so foolhardy as to rob Chaucer a second and third time at Westminster and then at Hatcham (both on September 6), the crown might well have tracked them down. The man who seemed such easy pickings was the gang's undoing.
The records are confusing, or at any rate inconsistent, and have been variously interpreted. Chaucer may, some think, have been robbed only once, not three times. If we take the records literally, he lost 20 pounds, 6 shillings, and 8 pence ($4,880.00) at the foul oak on September 3, and on September 6 at Westminster 10 pounds ($2,400.00), and at Hatcham in Surrey approximately the same. The robbers were identified and brought to trial--or to a series of trials--before an unusually powerful commission of judges, with many of whom Chaucer had been aquatinted as JP. One of the robbers, Richard Brierly, a member of a gang that worked in various counties, pleaded not guilty then later changed his mind and turned states evidence (in effect), naming as his associates an Irishman, Thomas Talbot alias Broad, Talbot's clerk Gilbert, and William Huntingfield, previously a member of a Surrey gang. Later, Brierly accused one Adam Clerk of helping him in another robbery in Hertfordshire. Adam pleaded not guilty and challenged Brierly to judicial combat, which took place on May 3, 1391. Brierley was defeated and hanged. Adam was hanged a year later for another crime, a robbery at Tottenham. William Huntingfield, who had a special fondness for stealing horses and who had such charm that Richard Manston of Lancashire was willing to risk being hanged himself to help Huntingfield escape, was brought to trial June 17, 1391, on charges of having robbed Chaucer at Westminster and Hatcham. He was found guilty of the Westminster robbery and pleaded his clergy, that is, proved he could read Latin and thus claimed the right to be judged by a Church court. The Hatcham robbery required a Surrey jury, which was summoned for October 6, by which time Huntingfield had escaped from jail. He was recaptured and tried for prison breaking , to which he confessed. What became of him after that is uncertain. Since his plea of clergy is canceled on the Controlment Rolls, the likelihood is that, for all his Latin, he was hanged. As for Thomas Talbot, he too pleaded clergy and was handed over to the archdeacon of York in 1396 as a clerk convict., at which point he vanishes out of history. His clerk Gilbert was outlawed for failure to surrender himself but was apparently never caught and tried.
See Source: The Life and Times of Chaucer by John Gardner., pg 284-85, Published by Alfred A.Knopf, Inc., New York. 1977
Richard Brierley of London provided the following information to the BFHS
about the above mentioned Richard Brerelay:
Richard Brerelay, according to an ancient law book once shown to me by a
colleague, actually robbed Geoffrey Chaucer twice in 1390. Chaucer, as the
Clerk of the Works at the Manor of Eltham, was on his way to paying the
workmen who were constructing the latrines in Eltham Palace (which still
stands), and was robbed of the money by "one Richard Brerely and three other
men". Chaucer returned to Westminster and collected another �10 from the
treasury of King Richard II and began the journey again. At the "Fowle Oake"
at Hatcham, the unfortunate experience was repeated, only this time it
included the theft of his own possessions as well as his horse. He again
returned to Westminster and, in a royal writ dated 4th January 1391, was
discharged of his liability to repay the losses. In the interim, he had made
a third journey to Eltham, which mercifully was not intercepted by the
intrepid RB! To show his thanks to God, Chaucer had a cross erected at the
site of the earlier robberies - and the spot became known as New Cross,
which it still is today. Hatcham is chiefly remembered by the name of a
school in the area, but New Cross is now a major part of the metropolis, as
you are probably aware.