In the history of heists, there are a few that stand out for the astonishing amount of money that was stolen, The Dar Es Salaam Bank heist at 282 million dollars, or the robbery of the central bank of Iraq with almost a billion dollars stolen, Danny Ocean with 160 million dollars. But all of those pale compared to the time almost a years’ worth of tax revenue was stolen from the King of England.
Richard of Pudlicott was the ringleader of his band of robbers. From what we know, he began in the clergy but eventually became a wandering merchant selling items such as wool, cheese, and butter. In 1298 Richard was arrested in France for debts the King had accrued while waging war against them. He eventually escaped, but he lost all of his property which he valued at about 14 pounds. Broke and with no immediate prospects, Richard ended up in London, where he claims he was trying to get reimbursement from the King for his lost property.
Unlucky for Richard during this time, Edward was busy trying to conquer Scotland, and the court was spending almost all its time in York instead of London. When the King was away, Westminster was left under a caretaker called appropriately “the keeper of the King’s palace at Westminster” who additionally was the Keeper of Fleet Prison.” At this time, those offices were held by John Shenche, who came to the office through his wife, who inherited both from her father. Fleet Prison’s warden was naturally expected to spend most of his time there, so John delegated the palace’s responsibilities to the aptly named William of the Palace. During his time in London, who did Richard happen to befriend? If you guessed John Shenche and William of the Palace, pat yourself on the back.
In 1302 Edward I briefly returned to London, and Richard loitered around the palace trying to get an audience with the King where he could pitch his case for reimbursement. Despite his connections, Richard never managed to meet with the King before he left again for York, but his time was not wasted since while wandering around the palace, he saw the impressive silver plate used to transport food and decided he needed to come up with a way to “enable him to come at the goods he saw.”
He was able to commit his first robber rapidly. The King left London in August of 1302, and the very next day, Richard just happened to find a ladder propped against a window he could use to break into the Refectory and steal a significant amount of silverware he later sold.
As the saying goes, though, easy come, easy go, and within nine months, Richard was broke again. He figured it would be risky to rob the monks again, and Richard set his sights a little higher this time. This time, he was going to rob the treasury. He believed he would be successful as “he knew the premises of the Abbey, where the treasury was, and how he might come to it.” During this time, the treasury was kept in the Crypt of the chapter house at Westminster. The Crypt was only accessible through the church and down a series of steep steps.
This is where our story splits. We have the version Richard told in his confession and our best guess how it actually happened based on the copious amounts of information gathered from the various trials.
Richards Version
According to Richard, he decided the best way to break into the treasury was to dig a hole in the 13ft thick wall solid stone that supported the chapter house’s lower story.
He dug the hole from the eastern side of the building, which traditionally was open to the public. He claims to have single-handedly closed the area to the public, routing them around the building, and somehow even convinced a butcher that his grazing privilege had been revoked so he could have the area to himself. Additionally, he claims to have planted hemp seed in the churchyard that he said grew so rapidly it completely hid the hole he was digging and provided a hiding place for the goods he stole.
Richard completed his digging on April 24. He remained in the Crypt between that evening and the morning of the 26th when he escaped with as much as he could carry.
You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to poke some pretty basic holes in Richard’s claim:
- How could one person drill through 13-inches of stone with no one noticing for three months?
- How could Richard prevent the public from using a thoroughfare for three months? Would the Butcher really listen to someone with no official authority and round up all his sheep and graze elsewhere?
- It seems very unlikely for hemp to grow that fast, let alone in the middle of the English winter.
Suffice to say no one is buying the idea that Richard did this all by himself, not then and certainly not now.
What really happened
Trying to piece together the details of a crime that happened over 700 years ago is fraught with peril, but here’s what we think happened. The King had been in York almost full time since 1298; in a cats away situation, everyone, including the Monks who lived and ran Westminster Abby, had grown lax over the years. Before the crime, Richard, John Shenche, and William of the Palace were notorious for their drunken revelry around the area. The theory is that they recruited a monk named Adam of Warfield into their heist, and Adam simply let Richard into the Crypt to plunder to his heart content. When caught, Richard took one for the team and tried to be the fall guy, though as we’ll see, it was with limited success.
Everyone agrees with what happened next. Unexpected wealth flooded London. Silver goblets were being pulled from the Thames, and treasure was found literally littering the churchyard. Word eventually reached the Kind who sent John Droxford to investigate what was going on in London. On June 2, John did the first inspection of the Crypt since the robbery. Though by that time, items had had already started flowing back to the treasury. And once people start actively looking, the treasure was found in expected places: under the bed of William and Richard and with Adam and other monks at Westminster. Pretty quickly, most of the treasure was recovered.
As to be expected, Edward was furious. All the monks of Westminster Abbey, including their Abbott and 35 others, were immediately arrested and indicted, and he was looking for one punishment: death. Once things calmed down, many were ultimately released, and only ten monks were held for trial. Unsurprisingly Richard, William, and Adam were all found guilty, with William being the first of the group hanged in March of 1304.
Richard, Adam, and the other monks tried to claim ecclesiastical privilege, basically saying that since they are Monks, the King didn’t have the right to kill them. This put Edward in a bit of a pickle. To avoid a riot of the clergy, Edward delayed punishing Richard and the other monks. In 1305 Richard finally met his end, the other monks sold him out, and he was finally hanged while they were let go. Legend has it that after his death, Richard was flayed and his skin nailed to Abby’s door as a warning to other potential criminals. As medieval as that sounds, a study in 2005 found that while the door was old enough, in fact it’s the oldest known door in England, the fragments believed to be human skin were actually from an animal hide which once covered the door. Either way a sad if expected end for one of England’s most brash and brazen criminals.
