Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/398

 raised against the conduct of his judges. Weyland was the first victim. He was charged with inciting his esquires to commit a homicide, and of giving them refuge and protection after the perpetration of the murder. The ‘Annals of Dunstable’ (p. 355) say that he was found guilty of this by a jury; but the ‘Osney Annals,’ with more probability, assert that he ran away to avoid the king's judgment being passed upon him. Anyhow, before 19 Sept. the king had ordered all his estates to be seized (Cal. Patent Rolls, 1282–91, p. 323), and on 24 Sept. Ralph of Sandwich [q. v.] was made chief justice of the bench, ‘the king not desiring that Thomas de Weyland should exercise that office until further order’ (ib. p. 324). Thereupon Weyland fled for sanctuary to the convent of the Franciscans, established at Babwell, just outside the north gate of Bury St. Edmunds, where he was allowed to assume the friar's habit. The convent was watched by Sir Robert Malet, and as Weyland did not withdraw after the traditional forty days, Edward resolved to starve out the inmates. Great commotion was excited among the stricter clergy by the severity of the king. Archbishop Peckham wrote twice to Malet by 22 Nov., urging him to have pity on the poor friars. The primate now first discovered that Weyland was a subdeacon, and strove to claim for him the immunity of his clergy (, Letters, iii. 968–9). Edward allowed the friars to leave the convent, and eventually Weyland himself was starved out and conducted by Malet to the Tower. There Weyland was offered a threefold option. He might stand trial by his peers, endure perpetual imprisonment, or abjure the realm for ever. Other charges had in the interval been formulated against him. Moreover, the storm had now burst against the other judges, and further complaints were threatened. Accordingly Weyland agreed to abjure the realm. On 20 Feb. 1290 Sir R. Malet was appointed to deliver Weyland from the Tower, with power to grant him life and liberty if he confess his felony and abjure the realm (Cal. Rot. Pat. 1282–91, p. 344). On the same day Weyland abjured the realm. Dover was assigned as his port of embarkation, and thither the ex-judge went with bare feet, uncovered head, and cross in hand (Ann. Dunstaple, p. 356. For the ceremonial and legal incidents involved in the abjuratio regni, see A. Réville in Revue Historique, 1892, l. 1–42). He took refuge in France (, ii. 185). Unlike Ralph de Hengham [q. v.] and other judges, he was never pardoned or allowed to return. His subsequent history in exile is unknown.

Weyland's goods and chattels were forfeited by the mere fact of his abjuration, and were already in the king's hands. However, he had carefully provided against the complete ruin of his family by jointly enfeoffing his second wife, Margaret, and their son Richard with some of his property, while other lands had been held jointly by him, his elder son John, and his daughter Eleanor. A vigorous attempt was made by Gilbert de Clare, eighth earl of Gloucester [q. v.], to upset this arrangement with regard to the manor of Sodbury, of which Gloucester was capital lord. He urged that there was no precedent for the wife of a felon holding his lands during his life, and that it would be a great prejudice to all capital lords were this done. It was, however, decided that the joint feoffment had been formally made, and judgment in favour of Margaret and her son was duly given. She was, however, ordered not to give support, openly or secretly, to her banished husband (Rot. Parl. i. 66–67). In this and in similar cases Edward treated Weyland's family with such rigid justice that he even declined to set aside the ‘maritagium’ that Weyland had procured of the heir of John de Neville, though his kin pleaded that it would now be disparagement to marry him to the felon's daughter (ib. i. 52).

Weyland was twice married. Though Archbishop Peckham denied the validity of both of the marriages of the ex-subdeacon, they were never questioned by any other authority. By his first wife he seems to have been the father of Thomas and John de Weyland, both of whom retained scraps of his property (ib. i. 51). By Margaret de Mose, Maze, or Moyes, he was the father of Richard de Weyland, and probably also of his daughter Eleanor. His wife Margaret died in 1326 (Cal. Inq. post mortem, i. 317).

[Ann. of Dunstable (iii. 355–6), Ann. of Osney (iv. 320), and Ann. of Worcester (iv. 499) in Annales Monastici; Ann. London and Monk of Malmesbury in Chronicles Edward I and Edward II (i. 97, ii. 239); Peckham's Letters, pp. 169, 392, 968–9, B. Cotton, pp. 171–3, John Oxenedes, p. 273, all in Rolls Ser.; Hemingburgh, iii. 16 (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Political Songs, pp. 224–30 (Camden Soc.); Rot. Parl. i. 9, 23, 46–8, 51–3, 57, 59, 66–7; Parl. Writs, vol. i.; Calendars of Patent Rolls, Edward I; Cal. Doc. Ireland; Abbreviatio Rotulorum Originalium, Abbreviatio Placitorum; Cal. Rotulorum Cartarum; Rymer's Fœdera, vol. i.; Calendarium Genealogicum; Dugdale's Monasticon, vi. 1532; Excerpta e Rot. Fin. ii. 360–80; Madox's Hist. of the Exchequer; Dugdale's Origines Judiciales and Chronica Ser.; Foss's Judges of England, iii. 170–3; Blomefield's Norfolk.] 