against him, albeit a double-edged one that might be turned against herself, since by virtue of that deed the estates should revert to the inimical uncle John.
In the morning Richard finally ejected the ladies, and barred the house doors against them.
The story of the legal proceedings that ensued is too long and too complicated for these pages, but may be summed up in the moral that "possession is nine points of the law." Katherine and her mother obtained a judgment against Richard for detention of their personal effects, etc., for £900, plus costs, which sum he never paid. He perhaps counted on immunity from imprisonment by reason of his position in the King's service. From a "State paper" it appears that the Earl of Cleveland, Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners, was applied to for leave to arrest Richard, at the suit of his creditors, and refused permission; notwithstanding which Richard was arrested and committed to the Fleet Prison for debtors. From the moment of his incarceration all resentment of Richard's iniquities may well be quenched in compassion, so grievous were the sufferings and degradations undergone by the inmates of those noisome and infectious precincts.
The old Fleet Prison was destroyed by the Great Fire of London on 4 September, 1666; and Richard was probably among the prisoners who were temporarily accommodated in Caron House, South Lambeth, and conveyed back to the Fleet on its re-erection, 21 January, 1668. But—though it may seem somewhat audacious to controvert on this point the deposition of his own son—he did not die therein. A "Coram Rege Roll" of the King's Bench, dated 22-23 Charles II, bears record that Richard Weekes, of North Weeke, in county Devon, was then in custody for debt to one
