of Richard III. Owen Tudor, father of Hen ry VII, also took refuge in this abbey. With the passing of feudal times, with the coming of our modern civilization, our age of reason, the necessity of the institution of sanctuary grew less and less apparent. Under Henry VIII the privilege began to be re stricted, not only in the number of sanctuary churches, but also in the crimes for which these churches could afford protection. The murderer, the house-breaker, the highway robber, and those guilty of rape or arson, could no longer find a refuge within the sacred walls. This was the beginning of the
end. By statute of James I the old usage of sanctuary was totally abolished. But an institution which has flourished for centuries does not die without a struggle. Long after its legal abolishment, it existed in such fact that the old refuges were still the haunts of men whom fear of the law made desperate, and, as an old writer puts it, "it was seldom that the officers of justice ven tured to execute a warrant or serve a sum mons among ' the bravoes of Alsatia,' the birds of St. Martin's nest, the ' freemen ' of the Borough, or the boys of 'Westminster Knoll.'"
