FORCIBLE ABDUCTION.

The following singular circumstance is related by Dr. Whitaker in his

History of Craven:--

Gilbert Plumpton, in the 21 of Henry II., committed something like an

Irish marriage with the heiress of Richard Warelwas, and thereby

incurred the displeasure of Ranulph de Glanville, great justiciary, who

meant to have married her to a dependant of his own. Plumpton was in

consequence indicted and convicted of a rape at Worcester; but at the

very moment when the rope was fixed, and the executioner was drawing the

culprit up to the gallows, Baldwin, bishop of Worcester, running to the

place, forbade the officer of justice, in the name of the Almighty, to

proceed: and thus saved the criminal’s life.

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