And
they asked for judgment and it was held that they should recover
their damages as assessed by the jury, but they would not give
judgment for damages caused by the vexation the plaintiff suffered
through the Chancery injunction. And they said that if the
Chancellor would not discharge the injunction, they would give
judgment if the plaintiff would ask for it.
An example of a petition to chancery in the 15th century is
Hulkere v. Alcote, as follows:
To the right reverend father in God and gracious lord bishop of
Bath, chancellor of England, your poor and continual bedwoman Lucy
Hulkere, widow of Westminster, most meekly and piteously
beseeches: that whereas she has sued for many years in the King's
Bench and in the Common Pleas for withholding diverse charters and
evidences of land, leaving and delaying her dower of the manor of
Manthorpe in Lincolnshire and also of the manor of Gildenburton in
Northamptonshire, together with the withdrawing of her true goods
which her husband gave her on his deathbed to the value of 100
pounds and more, under record of notary, sued against Harry Alcote
and Elizabeth of the foresaid Gildenburton within the same county
of Northampton. And by collusion and fickle counsel of the
foresaid Harry and Elizabeth his mother there was led and shown
for him within the Common Pleas a false release, sealed, to void
and exclude all her true suit by record of true clerks and
attorneys of the aforesaid Common Pleas.
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