On another occasion there was a fierce riot at Rainham. There the
manor had become divided into three portions, as we have seen was the
case at Rougham. One Thomas de Hauville had one portion, and Thomas
de Ingoldesthorp and Robert de Scales held the other two portions.
Thomas de Hauville, peradventure, felt aggrieved because some rogue
had not been whipped or tortured cruelly enough to suit his notions
of salutary justice, whereupon he went to the expense of erecting a
brand new pillory, and apparently a gallows too, to strike terror
into the minds of the disorderly. The other parceners of the manor
were indignant at the act, and collecting nearly sixty of the people
of Rainham, they pulled down the new pillory and utterly destroyed
the same. When the case came before the judges, the defendants
pleaded in effect that if Thomas de Hauville had put up his pillory
on his own domain they would have had no objection, but that he had
invaded their rights in setting up his gallows without their
permission.
If the gentry, and they who ought to have known better, set such an
example, and gave their sanction to outrage and savagery, it was only
natural that the lower orders should be quick to take their pattern
by their superiors, and should be only too ready to break and defy
the law. And so it is clear enough that they were.
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