Therefore the jurors are in mercy for
presenting what they ought not to have presented.
19. William, Hawise's son, appeals Richard, son of Robert of
Somercotes, for that he came in the king's peace to his
house at Somercotes, and broke his house and robbed him
of...[an abrasion] shillings, and a cape and surcoat, and
twenty-five fowls, and twenty shillings worth of corn
[grain], and wounded him in the head with the wound that he
shows; and this he offers to prove against him as the court
shall consider etc. And Richard comes and defends the breach
of the king's peace and the housebreaking, wounding and
robbery, but confesses that he came to a certain house,
which William asserts to be his [William's], as to his
[Richard's] own proper house, which escheated into his hand
on the death of Roger his villein, and there he took certain
chattels which were his villein's and which on his villein's
death were his [Richard's] own: to wit, five thraves of
oats, thirteen sheaves of barley, and twenty-five fowls; and
he offers the king twenty shillings for an inquest [to find]
whether this be so or no. And William says that Richard says
this unjustly, for the said Roger never had that house nor
dwelt therein, nor were those chattels Roger's, but he
[William] held that house as his own, and the chattels there
seized were his.
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