Evidently great interest was made for this naughty Sir Geoffrey, for we learn on Sept. 24th that "It was declared to the Lady Poole, the wife of Sir Geoffrey Poole, that the King's higness had pardoned her husband of his imprisonment," and the Lord Privy Seal was directed to release him. But he seems to have been a very cantankerous knight, for we find him in hot water again next year. April 8, 1541, "Whereas Sir Geoffrey Poole, Knight, had violently and contrary to the King's Highness' peace assaulted and hurt[101] Sir John Mychaill clerk, parson of Racton in the County of Sussex," and he had to put in sureties to keep the peace towards the said parson, and to answer the bill preferred against him. But it seems that he had some provocation, for a letter was written to him requiring him to remember, as far as he could, the "haynous and traytorous woords spoken by S^r John Michaell."
On Nov. 7, 1540, Browne, the son and heir of Sir Matthew Browne of Surrey, was committed to the Fleet, together with some of his servants, for burning a certain stack of wood in Surrey. On Jan. 8, 1541, John Gough of London, printer, was sent to the Fleet for printing and selling a seditious book. On March 18, 1541, there seems to have been a riot among some of the servants of the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, and three of them were committed to the Fleet. On April 24, 1541, a smuggler was put into ward here, one Giles Hasebarde of Southampton, a "berebruer," who had put on board "a ship of Holland, named the Mary of Dordroyt," five pockets of wool, without a licence, intending to send them to Flanders. For this he was sent to the Fleet, the wool confiscated to the King's use, and the Master of the ship was mulcted in half the value of his vessel; but Hasebarde was not long in durance, as he was liberated on April 30th. To thoroughly understand the reason of this man's imprisonment in the Fleet, we must remember that he was sent there as being a _Debtor_ to the King, and in the fifteenth century it was a very common practice for delinquents who were confined in other London prisons to confess themselves, by a legal fiction, debtors to the King, in order to get into the Fleet prison, which was more comfortable. But to show the variety of so-called crimes, or misdemeanours, which were punishable by imprisonment here, there is the case of John Barkley of Canterbury, innholder, who was committed to the Fleet for having molested the King's Highness with sundry troublous supplications, and it was found that he "appered manyfestly to be a c[=o]men barrater[102] and a malicious [=p]moter of false and injust mattiers to the gret vexa[=c]on of the Kings faithfull subjects."