On 20 November 1399 John Dare of Swansea, of whom nothing is otherwise known, was issued with a royal pardon which covered ‘all treasons and felonies’ committed by him before 19 November 1399, the day Henry IV’s first parliament was dissolved. The only exceptions were murders and rapes. Moreover, the pardon was valid only if John Dare had not been indicted as a common thief before 19 November, had not turned approver, had not been appealed for a killing (de morte hominis), had not been taken with stolen goods (mainour) and had not broken out of a royal prison prior to 19 November. Finally, the pardon was to be honoured provided John Dare had not been present at the murder (exstiterit ad murdrum) of Thomas, duke of Gloucester, the king’s uncle, who had been killed under mysterious circumstances in September 1397.

Yet, for all these exceptions, the pardon was a ‘general’ one, that is to say an act of clemency by which the king stayed prosecution and thereby remitted temporal punishment at his own suit for a wide range of serious crimes committed before a certain day. Such pardons were granted at irregular intervals to commemorate special royal events – like a jubilee in 1377, a marriage in 1403, a recovery from an illness in 1409, an accession in 1413, and a coming of age in 1437– or to facilitate reconciliation after an uprising (such as the one in January 1400); or else were issued in parliament, normally but not always in return for a subsidy (for instance in 1399, 1404, 1411, 1414, 1437, 1446 and 1455).

Because they were available (at least in theory) to all the king’s subjects, general pardons were general not just in terms of their scope but also of their potential recipients. However in almost all cases they could be used only by those who purchased a copy from chancery for a standard fee, the sole exception being the general pardon issued in 1404, which was available automatically and free of charge. If a purchase was needed, it had to be made within a specific period.