Miscellaneous records include a fragment of a formularised appeal against the award...

Miscellaneous records include a fragment of a formularised appeal against the award of a duel against a cleric; and notes in a seventeenth century hand of references in the patent rolls (C 66) to the Court of Chivalry from the reign of Richard II to that of Henry VI. Other cases in the files are mostly imperfect and incomplete. In Allerdeson v Hore the action was brought by the plaintiff, a native of Leiden, not against the original captors of his ship, in effect a case of piracy in time of war, but against Thomas Hore, a serjeant at arms who had arrested the ship and its cargo in the king's name. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Allerdeson failed to appear at the day appointed, and Hore therefore went quit. In Thorp v Gyrdler, a case involving an Englishman and a Dane, part of the pleadings is a demurrer against the jurisdiction of the court. Other miscellaneous records include a certificate of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester as warden and admiral of the Cinque Ports that a certain place was in his jurisidiction - in effect, outside the jurisdiction of the Admiralty Court. The particular interest of C 47/6/6 no 5 is in indicating the tangential way in which information concerning the activity of the Admiralty court may be obtained. It appears to be a return to a certiorari, not by an admiral or his officers, but by the baillifs of Yarmouth, concerning the detention of two men of Harwich. The reason given, with a full copy of the warrant for arrest and imprisonment, was a writ of Robert Lord Morley, Admiral of the North, arising from the indictment by jury of the two men for felony, on matters falling within the compass of the Admiralty's jurisdiction. C 47/6/6 no 7, a schedule of goods to be accounted for, probably arises from the licensed or unlicensed activities of John Hauley of Dartmouth, for which see also C 47/6/4, C 47/6/6 nos 8, 9 and C 49/48 no12, the latter concerning a Spanish ship taken by Hauley. Other returns and subsidiary documents in Admiralty matters are C 47/6/9 no 5; C 47/6/6 no 12 and C 47/6/6 no 10. Two items are effectively misplaced. C 47/6/6 no 1 appears to be a fragment from the archive of the process of Montreuil, which was concerned primarily with acts of piracy committed mutatis mutandis between subjects of the kings of England and France, and also of Scotland, of which further records are in the series of Chancery, Diplomatic Documents (C 47/27-32) and, in the original, in Exchequer, Treasury of the Receipt, Diplomatic Documents (E 30) C 47/6/6 no 2, a certiorari in normal form, concerning the arrest by Richard earl of Arundel as admiral of an English merchant ship impressed for service under William de Bohun, earl of Northampton, to Brittany. Although the reason for the writ is not formally stated, the implication seems to be that it was a petition for compensation or restoration of goods by the ship's master, Thomas Warner. The depositions concerning shares in a ship arrested at Southampton, C 47/6/6 no 3, are subsidiary to proceedings before Edward I's council in an admiralty cause. Sewing holes in the schedule of claims attached to the depositions correspond, but appear also to suggest a third membrane, no longer preserved with the piece, and which may have more clearly indicated the context. Further documents in this case, heard before commissioners in a suit brought by Gaspar Arnaud of Spain, complaining against William de Sant and others of Bayonne, are in C 47/13/1 no 16. As in other instances, the defence of the men of Bayonne, that the Spaniards were open enemies of both the king and the men of Bayonne was accepted, and the goods were adjudged to be lawful prize. (Described at item level)

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Europe and Russia

Piracy and privateering

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Armed Forces (General Administration)