To these,
however, Acour had not been ashamed to submit some shadowy claim, made
"in right of his lawful wife, Dame Eve Acour, Countess de Noyon," which
claim had been sent by him from France addressed to "all whom it might
concern." He learned of the King's wrath at the escape of this same
Acour, and of his Grace's seizure of that false knight's lands in
Suffolk, which, however, proved to be so heavily mortgaged that no one
would grow rich upon them.
Lastly he learned that King Edward, in a letter written by one of his
secretaries to Sir Andrew Arnold and received only that morning, said
that he held him, Hugh de Cressi, not to blame for Acour's escape. It
commanded also that if he recovered from his wound, for the giving of
which Sir John Clavering should have paid sharply if he had lived, he
and the archer, his servant, should join him either in England or in
France, whither he purposed shortly to proceed with all his host. But
the Mayor and men of Dunwich he did not hold free of blame.
The letter added, moreover, that the King was advised that Edmund Acour
on reaching Normandy had openly thrown off his allegiance to the crown
of England and there was engaged in raising forces to make war upon
him. Further, that this Acour alleged himself to be the lawfully married
husband of Eve Clavering, the heiress of Sir John Clavering, a point
upon which his Grace demanded information, since if this were true
he purposed to escheat the Clavering lands.
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