The Outlaw Forgiven By A King | Adam de Gurdon

Описание: In medieval England, the law did not always kill its enemies.

Sometimes, it absorbed them.

Adam de Gurdon was a knight who fought against the crown during the Barons’ Wars, was declared an outlaw, hunted through the forests of southern England — and then, unexpectedly, forgiven.

This documentary tells the true story of how a man marked for erasure was brought back inside the very system that condemned him — and what that decision reveals about power, loyalty, and medieval law.

Adam de Gurdon was not a bandit by birth. He was trained for war, shaped by rebellion, and made illegal when authority reasserted itself. His survival was not the result of justice or mercy, but calculation.

In this episode of Forgotten Outlaws, we examine:

How outlawry functioned as legal erasure in medieval England

Why rebellion became criminal only after defeat

The politics behind royal pardons

How kings neutralised threats without executions

Why some outlaws were absorbed while others were destroyed

This is not a story about redemption.

It is a story about control.

Adam de Gurdon did not defeat the crown.
The crown did not destroy him.

Instead, it forgave him — and in doing so, revealed how power truly survives.

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