Out of time

After Cromwell had become Protector and the first Protectorate Parliament had come and gone, the final documents - January 1655/6 - concerning Katherine's appeal show her petition was dismissed. This information was gleaned from the Public Record Office - PRO S.P. 25/92, State Papers, Petitions, p.79, no.303.  Despite the apparent worth of Katherine's case against the undoubted steely resolve of Margaret to hold on to her money by hook or by crook, the political wind had changed.  With new procedures and the Court of Chancery itself under reforming pressure, it seems nothing came of Katherine's years of struggle.  Indeed, since the papers which show much of the workings of the argument remained in the hands of the Bancroft/Sadleir family, it would suggest that Margaret prevailed. We can feel the frustration and desperation of Katherine when we read a part of the petition she presented to the court in December 1653:

 
  ' THAT your petitioner through this suit is above £2,000 in debt and some of her creditors are undone for want of their moneys, is brought to sue in forma pauperis, hath sold and pawned all the goods and means shee had any ways for her subsistence, hath been forced to take up money at brokage after 20, 40, and 60 in the hundred and hath nothing left to live upon, but is supported upon alms and charity; her whole estate, for herself, her fatherless children and creditors being in and upon this suit.'
 

A plea to no avail. An extensive summary of Katherine's case, and an attached 'demurrer', can be found in the Public Record Office. PRO C5/537/131. The main document is large, about 60 by 63 centimetres, and the 'demurrer' 53 by 39 centimetres, dated 8th July 1652: Headed, To the right Honorable the Lords Commissioners of The Great Seal of England.  Transcripting the documents is a challenge which adds much detail to the story without expanding our real knowledge of what went on outside the court.  There must be many hundreds of pages of script in the Pettus/Bancroft related files representing thousands of hours of discussion, in and out of court, over the twenty plus years of effort, but justice was hardly served.
 

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