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the Lord, given to Moses on Mount Sinai, is invoked by Clarence, with the plea that if this Divine law is violated, the murderers had best take heed, for the vengeance of the Lord will be hurled upon their heads that break his law.

Sec. 324. Benefit of sanctuary.

"Buck.

him.

You break not sanctuary in siezing

The benefit thereof is always granted

To those whose dealings have deserv'd the place,
And those who have the wit to claim the place:
This prince hath neither claimed it, nor deserv'd it:
And therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it:
Then, taking him from thence that is not there,
You break no privilege nor charter there.
Oft have I heard of sanctuary men;

But sanctuary children, ne'er till now."

The right of sanctuary is here referred to and Buckingham contends that the privilege or benefit of sanctuary does not extend to children, but only to adults who have the wit to claim the privilege. Of course this is a narrow construction of the law. The right of sanctuary, at common law, was the right to claim exemption from service of criminal or civil process while the person against whom such process was addressed, was the inmate of a religious house, or sanctuary. Complete immunity to the civil law was afforded by this privilege. Religious sanctuaries were quite common, in Europe, at an early day and they afforded complete protection to all persons from arrest, whether accused of crime, or pursued for debt."

But it was always essential to plead the right of sanctuary and if a criminal who had resorted to a sanctuary, neglected to claim the exemption from the civil laws, he

1 King Richard III, Act III, Scene I.

2 Bouvier's Law Dictionary.

'Under the Anglo-Saxons, the immunity indulged to places of worship was both humane and politic, for it avoided the shedding of blood. I Reeve's History Eng. Law, p. 198.

was held to have waived the benefit of sanctuary, so to this extent the claim of Buckingham was correct, as presented by the Poet.1

Sec. 325. Movables.—

"Glo.

of me

And, look, when I am king, claim thou

The earldom of Hereford, and all the movables
Whereof the king, my brother, was possess'd."

Richard here promises Buckingham all the personal property and chattels of which the King died possess'd, as movables, in law, are those things which attend the person of the owner, in contradistinction to those things which are immovable, or fixed. This is peculiarly a law term and is rarely used by others than lawyers, because of its technical meaning.

1III Reeve's History Eng. Law, p. 331; IV Reeve's History Eng. Law, p. 253; Bro. Sanct. 11. By 26 Henry VIII, c. 13, the privilege of sanctuary was denied to those guilty of high treason, and by other statutes during this reign, those claiming sanctuary were subjected to certainly limitations and required, while enjoying the privilege, to wear certain insignia, or badges to distinguish them. IV Reeve's Hist. Eng. Law, p. 469.

Cardinal Wolsey, after his disgrace, sought the benefit of sanctuary, at the Abbey of Leicester, in King Henry VIII, as follows: "Grif. . . O father Abbot, an old man, broken with the storms of state, Is come to lay his weary bones among ye; give him a little earth for charity." (Act IV, Scene I.)

Aufidius is made to say in Coriolanus:

“Auf... nor sleep, nor sanctuary, being naked, sick: nor fane, nor Capitol

The prayers of priests, nor times of sacrifice,

Embarquements all of fury, shall lift up

Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst

My hate to Marcius."

'King Reihard III, Act III, Scene I.

(Act I, Scene IX.)

2 Bl. Comm. 384; 2 Stephen's Comm. 67; Tiedeman, R. P. (3d ed.), Sec. 1.

Sec. 326. Bigamy.

"Buck.

A beauty-waning and distressed widow,
Even in the afternoon of her best days,

Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,
Seduc'd the pitch and height of all his thoughts
To base declension and loath'd bigamy."

Because of the former contract, by King Edward, to marry the Lady Lucy, Buckingham here urges that he was, at law, her lawful husband and hence his later marriage with Lady Gray, was illegal, since he was the husband of a living wife already. This conclusion, of course, is far fetched, but it was used for the purpose.

Bigamy is the willful contracting of a second marriage, when the contracting party knows that the first is still subsisting. The construction adopted by Buckingham, in this verse, is rather that of the canonists, who treated it as bigamy to have once married a widow."

Sec. 327. Levitical law against niece marrying uncle."K. Rich. Tell her, the king, that may command, en

treats.

Q. Eliz. That at her hands, which the king's King forbids."

Later, in the same play, Buckingham, in vain, urges his claim to "The earldom of Hereford and the movables," which had been promised him. (King Richard III, Act IV, Scene II.)

1 'King Richard III, Act III, Scene VII.

2 1 Russell, Crimes, 187; 2 Kent's Comm. 69.

6 Bacon's Abr., 454, 500.

For effect, in the spiritual court, of the espousal agreement made by Edward, with Lady Lucy, see 6 Bacon's Abr., p. 461. Urging the illegality of King Edward's marriage to Elizabeth Gray, because of the pre-contract of marriage by the King to Lady Lucy, Buckingham contends, in King Richard III: “Buck. You say, that Edward is your brother's son; So say we too, but not by Edward's wife: For first, he was contract to Lady Lucy." (Act III, Scene VII.)

'King Richard III, Act IV, Scene IV.

In this attempt to induce the mother to deliver her daughter into the hands of the murderer of her sons, Richard calculates, without reckoning with the mother instinct. After violating every sacred thing on earth, the Poet hurls back, the proffed advantage offered the mother, for her daughter's preferment in marriage with the murderer. Other relations could be violated, with impunity. Not the eternal source of humanity. Richard's dialectics were puerile against this shield of nature.

The mother points him to the Levitical law, "Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's brother," as a Divine impediment which would forbid her daughter from contracting such an illegal marriage, for this, as she tells him, "the king's King forbids."

Sec. 328. Richard III' inherited criminal instinct.

"Duch.

Thou cam'st on earth to make the

earth my hell.

A grievous burden was thy birth to me;
Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;

Thy school-days, frightful, desperate, wild and
furious;

Thy prime of manhood, daring, bold, and venturous;
Thy age confirm'd, proud, subtle, sly and bloody,
More mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred:

'Leviticus, Ch. XVIII, 14.

For construction and application of this spiritual law, in both the civil and ecclesiastic courts, in Europe, see 6 Bacon's Abr., pp. 454, 500.

Replying to King Richard's suit, for her daughter's hand, Queen Elizabeth asks him:

"Q. Eliz.

What were I best to say? her father's brother
Would be her lord? Or shall I say, her uncle?
Or, he that slew her brothers and her uncles?
Under what title shall I woo for thee?
That God, the law, my honour, and her love,
Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?"

(Act IV, Scene IV.)

What comfortable hour can'st thou name,
That ever grac'd me in thy company?"

From these lines it is apparent that the Poet, in his representation of the character of Richard, bases his criminal instincts upon what, in modern times, would be known to the law as inherited neurosis. Tracing his inherited criminal instinct, the criminologist has said: "His grandfather is executed by Henry V, for villainous treachery to his king, hired by French money for the act, yet with the secret intention of placing one of his own blood on the throne. Richard's father spent his whole life in agitating and plotting to get his presumed right to the throne recognized in which he finally succeeded, until he was killed in the battle of Sandal after having been taken prisoner by Henry VI, Queen Margaret and Clifford. That such a mind, restless, intriguing, and greedy after power, might be inherited by the son, Richard, and in him appear in a more marked degree, is, according to the law of heredity, quite a near possibility, and may at least explain a certain inclination to crime in him."2

1 King Richard III, Act IV, Scene IV.

2 Goll's Criminal Types in Shakespeare, pp. 168, 169.

.

Queen Margaret refers to Richard's natural criminality, as follows, in King Richard III: "Q. Mar. Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity, The slave of nature and the son of hell." (Act I, Scene III.)

The Duchess of York thus bewails the birth of her son, Richard, in King Richard III:

"Duch.

O my accursed womb, the bed of death;

A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,

Whose unavoided eye is murderous." (Act IV, Scene I.) Queen Margaret taunts the Duchess of York, with having given birth to such a criminal as Richard III, as follows:

"Q. Mar. .. Forth from the kennel of thy womb hath crept,
A hell-hound, that doth hunt us all to death:
That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes,
To worry lambs, and lap their gentle blood;
That foul defacer of God's handiwork;

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