S.E.C DUPLICATl WITHDRAWN PROM USRAinr • 7* r s^> '^^/^^^^ I,/ /v H, 13. Tbe Library St# Edirmmd- s College WARE. Avita pro fide. f-^ S.E.C. DUPLICATE WITI-;Df?AWN FROM UBRART THE CATHOLIC STANDARD LIBRARY. Demy 8vo., cloth, price 12s. each vol. ; to subscribers 25s. for 3 vols- Henry VIII. and the Eng-lish Monasteries. An attempt to illus- trate the History of their Suppression. By Francis Aidan Gasquet, O.S.B. 2 Vols. Fol. ],, Third Edition, noiv ready. Fol. II. Second Edition, The Great Commentary upon the Gospels of Cornelius 1 Lapide. Translated and Edited by T. W. Mobsman, D.D, Complete in 6 vols. A Commentary on the Holy Gospels. In 4 vols. By John Mal- DONATUS, S.J. Translated and Edited from the original Latin by George J. Davie, M.A., Exeter College, Oxford, one of the Translators of the Library of the Fathers. Fols. I. and II. fSt. Matthews Gospel) vow ready. Vol. III. in the Press. Piconio (Bernardine a). Exposition on St. Paul's Epistles. Trans- lated and Edited by A. H. 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Edited by Frederick Antrobus, of the London Oratory. A Christian Apology. By Paul Schanz, D.D., D.Ph., Professor of Theology in the University of Tubingen. Translated from the German by Michael F. Clancey, of St. Mary's College, Oscott. 2 Vols. JOHN HODGES, 25, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, W.C. Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS UPON THE FIRST VOLUME OF THIS WORK. (Third Edition Now Ready.) " The old scandals, universally discredited at the time, and believed in by a later generation only through prejudice and ignorance, are now dispelled for ever." — Academy. Signed, James Gairdner. " His book promises to be a most valuable contribution to ecclesiastical history." — Saturday Review. " A learned, careful and successful vindication of the personal character of the Monks. ... In Mr. Gasquet's skilful hands the dissolution of the Monasteries assumes the proportions of a Greek tragedy.'" — Guardian. " The work is solid, authentic and trustworthy in its matter. . . . The history speaks for itself in clear, simple and good English." — Dullin Review. Signed, Henry Ldward, Cardinal Archbishop. " A book of great value. . . . VVe are impatient for the second volume." — Reliquary. Signed, J. C. Cox, LL.D. " Mr. Gasquet is always calm and moderate. . . . He has produced a work of much research, which has the merit of being most conscientiously fair."' — Notes and Queiies. " Every source of information seems to have been drawn on. The result is a picture of monastic life more truthful than any hitherto nainted." — The Standard. " We look anxiously for the second volume of this work, which will always hold its own on the shelves of our libraries, for it is the result of the labours of a learned scholar and divine." — Tablet. " Gasquet is a trenchant writer and formidable historical scholar, and his book will be welcomed as an admirable contribution to the study of the epoch." — Star. '' An excellent and most interesting volume." — Freeman^s Journal. " This is a noteworthy book. . . . The author writes in a calm and critical spirit and the style is lucid and refined." — Kensington Neics. "The book is so interesting, so temperately written, and in such excellent English . . . that we are glad to commend it most cordially to our readers." — Literary Churchman. " It is a book which students of history ought to possess." — Sussex Advertiser. " A most important work." — American Catholic Iforld. "As instructive as it is gravely important." — Nation. " A historian cf the right kind, and one who deserves the success, remarkable for a book of the kind, which he has already had." — Manchester Guardian. " A very interesting and valuable volume. . . . Every page teems with informa- tion."'—.4?TA(Eo/og-(ca/ Review. " The present work shows that the Benedictine Order can still produce writers not unworthy to hand on the reputation earned in the field of history by the brethren of the learned congregation of St. Maur."' — Church Times. "The author's statements are beyond dispute, while his main conclusions are formed with much fairness."^S<. James's Gazette. " Gasquet's ' Henry VIII.' will be a very valuable work for historical reference." — Punch, " The book will be thankfully received by all historical scholars who work with unbiassed minds." — Pul'lishers' Circular. " His second volume will he looked forward to with expectation and interest." — Daily Telegj-aph. "The real merit of the work is that it is one of great and useful historical research." — English Churchman. " We think he has executed his task with praiseworthy candour, and all who desire that truth should prevail will thank him for giving the results of his laborious researches to a generation which is willing to rectify the judgments of a less critical age." — Church Review. " This volume is a splendid addition to our history'." — Universe. " Great diligence, great care, great accuracy, and the gift of skilful grouping and ordering of facts, are all evident on the face of this excellent volume." — The Month, " Fr. Gasquet's statement of facts leave nothing to be desired in point of accuracy." — Westminster Review, JOHN HODGES, 25, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, W.C. i HH V H l\ CATHOLIC STANDARD LIBRARY. HENRY VIII. THE ENGLISH MONASTERIES. HENRY VIII. AND THE ENGLISH MONASTEMES. AN ATTEMPT TO ILLUSTRATE TEE HISTORY OF THEIR SUPPRESSION. FRANCIS AIDAN GASQUET, MONK OF THE ORDER OF ST. BENEDICT, SOMETIME PRIOR OF ST. GREGORY'S MONASTERY, DOWNSIDE, BATH. VOL. II. Second Edition. / JOHN HODGES, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON. 1889. ^/"^^ PRINTED BY H. WOLFF, CONTENTS. To THE Reader. CHAPTER I. The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. State of affairs in the spring of 1536 — Obstacles to Henry's return to obedience of Rome — Establishment of Court of Augmentation — Instructions for commencement of dissolu- tion— General method of procedure — Monasteries refounded by Henry — Fines paid for Hcence to continue — Number of religious expelled on dissolution of lesser monasteries — Petitions for preservation of monasteries — Re-establishment of Bisham by the king — Progress of the work of destruction — Resistance of the Hexham canons. . . . pp. 1-40 CHAPTER n. The Rising in Lincolnshire. Outbreak of the rising — Causes of popular discontent — The resistance at Louth — People rose in defence of the faith — Feeling against Crumwell and some of the bishops — Statute of uses — Story of the rising — Destruction of the registrar's books in Louth — Murder of the bishop of Lincoln's chancellor — The " articles " of popular discontent — Henry's answer to the demands — Royal anxiety as to the result and the effect of the news in foreign countries — Collapse of the movement — Part taken by the monks. ....... pp. 41-83 2227526 iv Contents. CHAPTER III. The Pilgrimage of Grace. Popular sympathy with the insurgents — Severe measures taken by Henr}- — Causes of the Yorkshire discontent — Aske's declara- tion and examinations — Story of the rising — ReHgious re- placed in their houses — Henry's instructions to Norfolk — His '■' politic device " — Insurgent envoys to the king — Assembly at Pomfret — The settlement at Doncaster. . pp. 84-120 CHAPTER IV. The Second Northern Rising. Dispersion of the insurgents — Henry's attitude with regard to the promises made to them — Proclamation of the royal pardon — Instructions to the officials as to the reinstated religious — Aske's endeavour to restrain the people — His belief in the king's honour — The new rising and its failure — Part taken by the religious in the popular movement and especially those of Watton, Jervaulx, Whalley and Bridlington — The quonda?n abbot of Fountains — Trials and executions. . pp. 1 21-158 CHAPTER V. Dissolution by Attainder. The royal vengeance — Attainder of a religious superior advan- tageous to the king — Fate of Whalley, Barlings, etc. — Abbot and monks of Furness forced to surrender — Holm Cultram — Lenton priory — Story of the fall of Woburn — Abbot Hobbes — His examinations in the Tower — His views as to papal supremacy — His anguish of mind — His death, pp. 159-202 CHAPTER VI. The Suppression of Convents. Hard case of disbanded nuns — Number of convents — Good repute of the English nuns — Some convents purchased a temporary respite from destruction — Many reduced to a state of destitu- tion— Injunctions for Synningthwaite convent in 1534 — Con- Contents. v ventual life — The good done by religious ladies — Testimony of royal commissioners — Importance to the king of surrenders and royal instructions on the point — Failure as regards convents — Final suppressions — Number of nuns. . . pp. 203-237 CHAPTER VII. Fall of the Friars. Fundamental principle of the mendicant orders — Numbers in Eng- land on suppression — Their troubles — Bishop Ingworth's work in dissolving the friaries — The Dominican prior of Newcastle-on-Tyne — Opposition to the royal policy — Friar Anthony Brown — Progress of the dissolution — Friar Stone — Doctor London and the friars — The surrenders — Small value of the spoils — Sites of the friaries much sought after — Special hardships to which the disbanded friars were exposed. pp. 238-276 CHAPTER VIII. Progress of the General Suppression. Value of surrenders — Policy of Henry in hiding the scheme of total suppression — Religious anticipate the work of spoliation in some instances — Second suppression of Bisham — Destruc- tion of Lewes — Suppression of Abingdon — Example of Vale Royal — Royal pressure to secure surrender at Hinton Charter- house and Athelney — Abbots appointed for the purpose of sur- rendering their houses — Deprivation of the abbot of St. Albans — And forced resignation of abbot of Evesham — Romsey abbey — Dr. Hillyard and the monks — Account of the dissolution of Roche- -Total number of ejected religious. . pp. 277-324 CHAPTER IX. The Three Benedictine Abbots. Pre-eminence of Glastonbury — High position of abbot Whiting — The oath of supremacy — Royal visitation of Glastonbury — Last glimpse of abbot Whiting at Glastonbury — Greater vi Contents. monasteries not legally dissolved — Whiting removed to London — The abbey dismantled in his absence — Examinations in the Tower — Crumwell's notes — Whiting removed into Somerset *' to be executed " — The final scene — Abbot Cook of Read- ing— His friendship with the king — His attitude to the men of "the new learning" — His adherence to papal supre- macy— First troubles — Examinations in the Tower — Abbot Cook's execution at Reading — Abbot Marshall of Colchester — Early troubles — Views of the abbot as to the deaths of More and Fisher — Examination of witnesses against abbot Marshall — His execution. ...... pp. 325-386 CHAPTER X. The IMonastic Spoils. Estimate of total value — Amount received by the Crown smaller than usually stated — The general scramble for monastic lands — Work of gathering in the spoils — Private purses made by his agents — IMonastic plate — Irreverence shown to relics — Demo- lition of shrines — Winchester, Canterbury, Durham — Feeling of the people at the work — Total value of the plate — Ecclesi- astical vestments taken for the king or sold--Destruction of books and manuscripts — " Defacing " of churches — Lead and bells — Destruction of the buildings, etc. . . pp. 387-439 CHAPTER XL The Spending of the Spoils — The Ejected Monks and THEIR Pensions. Royal promises not fulfilled — Act of Parliament in 1539 dealing with the great monasteries — How Henry spent the property — Proportion spent on national purposes — Pensions of the ejected monks— Only a portion of the monks pensioned — Voluntary surrender a condition for receiving anything — Amount of pensions — Reasons for granting large sums in a few cases — Deductions from the sum allowed — Many patents for pensions sold— What became of the disbanded religious — Contents. vii Wills of some Winchester nuns — Restoration of some monas- teries in Mary's reign — Last records of disbanded religious. pp. 440-489 CHAPTER XII. Some Results of the Suppression. Popular prejudice against monastic bodies — A subsequent growth — The effect of the dissolution on the poor — Associated labour and prayer the fundamental idea of conventual existence — Caricature drawn by novelists — Various kinds of regulars — ■ What the great monastic houses did for the poor — How the poor were robbed in their dissolution — Consumption of the sources of charity — Thrift of the old monastic owners — Rack- renting by new lay-owners — Contemporary account of the state of the country — Vagrant laws — Effect of the dissolution on education — Possibility of monasteries taking part in revival of letters — Conclusion. . . . pp. 490-526 APPENDIX. I. Monasteries which purchased a temporary existence. II. Example of a corrody at Bridlington. III. Accounts of tlie Augmentation Office, etc. IV. The Holy Blood of Hayles. V. List of English monasteries in the time of Henry VIII. pp. 529-564 Maps. I. The Black Monks (Benedictines, Cluniacs). II. The White Monks (Cistercian). III. The Regular Canons, Black (Augustinian), and White (Premonstratensian) . IV. The Nunneries. General Index. TO THE READER. Although this second volume is larger than the first, it must not he supposed that the limits of " an attempt to illustrate," fixed by the title, have been in any 'u.'ay overpassed. J have steadily re- sisted the temptation to make use of many incidents which would have added interest to viy pages, and which bore more or less upon iny subject, but which were Jiot necessary to its illustration. The mass of records ready to hand is all instructive and would firnish material for special monographs on many subjects of deep and present interest not merely to the historian, but to the political inquirer. My sincere thanks are due for constant and in- valuable aid to many friends, amongst whom I trust I may reckon the officials of the Museum and Public Record Office, to whom I had such good reason to express my indebtedness in my first volume. The kindness of one friend has relieved me of the irksome task of making the "Index ;" another, Mr. Mar sham Adams, has helped me in the concluding chapter ; while to Mr. Edmund Bishop, who, from first to last, has aided me by counsel and suggestion as well as by his careful examination of every proof sheet, I owe a debt of gratitude which I gratefully here record. The Maps both in this and Vol. I. are the work of Dom. Conrad Baiickaert, of Downside. St. Gregory' s Monastery, Downside, 8th December, 1888. HENRY VIII. AND THE ENGLISH MONASTEEIES. CHAPTER I. THE DISSOLUTION OF THE LESSER MONASTERIES. By the spring of the year 1536 Henry had partially succeeded in his designs against the monasteries. The parliament, acting according to his royal will and pleasure, had in March granted him power to deal with the possessions of every religious house, the income of which did not exceed ^200 a year. The time was marked by events of importance both to the church and the nation at large. Death had ended the troubles of the unfortunate queen Kathe- rine in January. And the sudden fall and execution of Anne Boleyn four months later seemed to offer a favourable occasion for the reconciliation of Henry with the pope. The king of France had shown the English ambassadors, immediately upon the news of Anne's degradation, that there could not be " a better opportunity of wiping out the stains on VOL. II. B 2 Hen7'y YIII. and the English Monasteries. Henry's character, and making himself the most glorious king in the world . . that everyone should do his dutv, and that they would find in the pope that true piety and goodness which ought now to be known to all the world." The ambassador and the bishop of Winchester had with tears in their eyes assured the French monarch " that this was their only desire, and that they would do their part."* The English people, on their side, manifested a general joy at the disgrace and execution of the king's mistress, which was occasioned as well by the possibility of the breach with Rome being now healed, as by their belief that, as Cranmer had declared the marriage of Anne null and void and the consequent illegitimacy of her daughter Elizabeth, the cruel injustice hitherto done to the princess Mary would be redressed. f The entire freedom of the king at this moment from matrimonial difficulties was looked upon abroad as a ground for hoping that he would now return to the communion of the church from which he had only withdrawn by his determination to maintain at all costs his unlawful union with Anne.j Even the pope, if Sir Gregory Casale is to be believed, was only too anxious to smooth the way for Henry's return to obedience, and was merely waiting for * "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic." arranged and catalogued by James Gairdner, Vol. x., No. 956. This collection will be quoted here as in Vol. i. under the head of " Calendar." t Calendar, x., pp. 377-429. ;J: Calendar, x., 838, 956, etc. The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. 3 some slight sign of the king's desire for reconcilia- tion to welcome him back to the bosom of the church. He had spoken, so wrote Sir Gregory to the king himself, in the highest terms of his excellent natural qualities and ability, and of his former love for the faith. He was praying that at this favour- able opportunity divine providence might effect this return, and reminded Casale how as cardinal he had used his influence with his predecessor, Clement VII., to further Henry's desires as far as possible. He declared, continued the king's informant, " that in nothing that he had done had he wished to offend your majesty, even though he understood that in England something or other was daily attempted to be done against the Holy See." Indeed, so anxious did the pope appear to effect this reconciliation that Sir Gregory asserts, he gave him many reasons in excuse for having created the venerable bishop Fisher cardinal, " taking God to witness that he hoped to win favour, not animosity" by the eleva- tion of so learned a bishop to the sacred purple.* Allowing for all possible exaggeration on the part of Casale, it is clear that at this time not only was the reconciliation of Henry and Paul III. expected by foreign powers, but that the pontiff himself would have gone as far as he possibly could to meet him. Unfortunately, however, for the accomplishment of this happy return of England to the unity of the * Calendar, x., 977. 4 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. faith, other matters besides the divorce of Katharine were now destined to keep the king and pope apart. Henry's title to royal supremacy might have been abandoned without much loss of dignity, for although all the terrors of the block and scaffold had enforced the royal pretension to spiritual jurisdiction, over the consciences of his subjects, they were still at heart against it, and any alteration of the royal policy in this regard would have been welcomed by all but a small minority of very ardent innovators. A more real obstacle, however, was to be found in the fact, that the king had already seized upon a considerable amount of church property and was at the moment occupied with schemes for further wholesale alie- nation of the goods of monk, priest and poor. However much, therefore, the past might have been obliterated by a sincere though tardy return to duty and former spoliation condoned by a profession of repentance, such a retrograde step in the royal policy must have infallibly stayed Henry's hand just in the hour when it was prepared to close upon the spoils of monastery and convent, which a subservient parliament had placed within his reach. Reconcilia- tion would obliterate the visions of untold wealth conjured up in the royal imagination by previous plunderings: — dreams which could only be realized by perseverance in the course of destruction upon which he had now embarked. The French monarch, so wrote the bishop of Faenza to Mons. Ambrogio immediately on the The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. 5 news of Anne Boleyn's fall, " thinks it would be easy to brinor the king back were it not for his avarice, which is increased by the profit he draws from church goods." '■' And a year before, the imperial ambassador, Chapuys, had formed the same estimate of Henry's weakness in this respect. " I am in- formed," he writes, " that letters have come from Gregory de Casale, who says the pope told him that if the king would replace matters of the church as they were, other things could be arranged ; but all that is lost labour. So great is the obstinacy and avarice of the king, that he would sooner take back the queen than restore what is due to the church, from which he has taken within the last month 50,000 ducats from ' first fruits.' " f But even here Henry appears to have hesitated for a time and to have checked his course of spoliation. He wrote to the French king, the " kindest and most loving letters," just before he sent Anne to the Tower, saying how willing he was to share the fortune of France. That monarch, on his part, as the bishop of Faenza declared, " was very anxious to have the honour of bringing him back to obedience to the pope, and is trying to do it." In this he was en- couraged by certain indications of Henry's desire for a reconciliation, " since the king," writes the bishop, " allows certain doctrines in favour of the church to be preached which he had formerly pro- * Calendar, x., 956. t Calendar, viii., 263. 6 Henry VIII. and the English Monastej'ies. hibited,* desists from suppressing those abbeys which he had ordered to be suppressed, and has sent to seek the archbishop of Canterbury and another who had fled, being friends of the woman (Anne) and the Lutherans ; it is thought here that he may be persuaded to the truth. "f These tokens of Henry's inclination to return to a better state of mind soon, however, proved fallacious. It is of course impossible now to say what finally determined him to maintain his attitude of hostility to the Holy See and to pursue his course of reckless spoliation. One event, however, at this time must have had its influence in checking the growth of the better feelings in Henry's heart. From the best of intentions, when not coupled with discretion and when zeal gives full play to angry feelings, the worst consequences often spring. Such must have been the result of the book " de Unitate Ecclesiastica," which Pole published at this time and addressed to the king. Henry was the last man to be driven along the right path by whips or coerced into doing his duty by denunciations or strong language. And * Mr. Gairdner (Calendar x., preface xxi.) says that Henry had not " been quite sure for some years past what doctrines he should order to be upheld or denounced from various pulpits, except that the preachers were of course to denounce the authority of the see of Rome. Purgatory had been put in suspense ever since Whitsuntide, 1534, and in February of the present year (1536) the king gave contrary orders against and in favour of certain doctrines within the brief space of four days." t Calendar, x., 922. The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. 7 Pole's book, however true its facts and cogent its arguments, was couched in language sufficiently vehement, for the time at least, to turn the king from his purpose. Too often, unfortunately, in the world's history has solid good been sacrificed to the vain- glory of style and to the power of penning a caustic sentence and turning with a bitter remark an elegant or striking period, and the work " de Unitate Ecclesiastica " is overflowing with a rhetoric, which would have stung many a milder man than Henry Tudor into rebellion, or turned him from purposes of amendment. " I heard you say once," wrote bishop Latimer to Crumwell, "after you had seen that furious invention of cardinal Pole, that you would make him eat his own heart, which you have now I trow brought to pass, for he must needs now eat his own heart and be as heartless as he is graceless."* To be told that he, the English king, was worse than the Turk, and to be reminded that, whilst Charles V. was engaged in his glorious expedition to Africa, he, " bearing most untruly the name of defender of the faith, did not merely kill, but tore to pieces all the true defenders of the old religion in a more inhuman fashion than the Turk," was hardly the kind of argument to con- vince him of the errors of his ways. The unmistak- able hints, moreover, which the author throws out as to a probable rebellion of his subjects, were quite * Mon. iii., 451. The bishop doubtless refers to the recent executions of Pole's relatives. 8 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. sufficient to determine the imperious will of Henry to follow in its old course.* Nor was the language of the " instructions " forwarded by the author to England, explaining the purport of the work, calculated to soften the bitter feelings likely to be awakened in the king's heart by the attack. Indeed, in many ways, the letter must undoubtedly have added poison to the wound already inflicted. That it really had this effect on Henry's disposition, though the author's good intentions are undoubted, may be understood by the king's complaint to Pole's mother, the venerable countess of Salisbury, and from the strong disapproval, which she and his rela- tives in England expressed, at his unguarded and impolitic language. " Item." The record of his mother's examination in the Tower runs : — " She said when she spoke with the king's grace, he showed her how her son had written against him. Alas ! (said she) what grief is this to me to see him whom (I bore) set up to be so ungracious and unhappy. And upon this, when her son Montacute came home to her, . . . she said to him : ' What hath the king showed me of my son ? Alas ! son,' said she, ' what a child have I in him.' And then my lord Monta- cute counselled her to declare him a traitor to their servants, that they might so report him when they came into their countries. And so she called her servants and declared unto them accordingly to * Calendar, x., 975. The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. g take her said son for a traitor for now and ever ; and that she would never take him other." * Whatever the cause, the hopes reasonably enter- tained of reconciliation between England and Rome, or more truly between Henry and Paul, were dis- appointed. The king's good dispositions vanished and he embarked seriously upon the work of realiz- ing the goods of the lesser monasteries, which parliament by its act had dissolved. Provision had already been made for carrying out the business arrangements necessitated by the transfer of so vast an amount of real property, from the corporations to which it had hitherto belonged, to the crown. Almost the last measure passed through parliament at this time, previous to its dissolution, was the crea- tion of a " Court of Augmentations." This body was established to deal with all lands and moveables coming into the king's possession through the sup- pression or surrender of the religious houses. It con- sisted of a chancellor, a treasurer, two legal officers — attorney and solicitor — ten auditors, seventeen par- ticular receivers, a clerk of the court, with an usher and messenger.f The careful organization of this office has been regarded by historians as an indica- tion that, at the time of the dissolution of the lesser monasteries, the king contemplated further and more * R. O. State Papers, Dom., 1538, Box ^|^. " Interrogatories ministered to her by my lord Admiral and the bishop of Ely." 13 November, a° 30 Hen. VIII. (1538). t Rot. Pari. .27 Hen. VIII., 61. lo Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, extensive measures in regard to ecclesiastical pro- perty than the first act of suppression intended. The officers of the " Court of Augmentations " were to receive and account to the king for all rents, tithes or proceeds of sales ; to examine all leases, to take all surrenders and issue all grants, gifts or releases at their discretion, provided that in all grants " there should be always reserved to the king's highness, his heirs and successors a tenure by knight's service in capite, and a yearly rent of the tenth part." One singular reservation is made in the act, by which it is made clear that already Henry had in contemplation the refoundation or preservation of such monasteries as he willed to keep. " Except always are reserved," runs the act, " such and as many of the same monasteries, priories, and houses, with all their hereditaments and possessions, goods and catties, which the king's majesty by his letters patent and under his great seal shall declare and limit to continue and be in their essential estate and to persevere in the body and corporation as thev were before the making of the said act."* The court forthwith commenced its functions. Its officers were appointed on the 24th of April, 1536, Sir Thomas Pope being made treasurer. From the rolls of his accounts and those of his successors in that office we are enabled to form a very fair estimate of the progress of the spoliation, to gather the totals of the sums of money * R. O. Au?. Office Misc. Bk. 2. The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. 1 1 received, and to understand the mysterious manner in which these vast sums appear to have melted away. The chancellor of the court, Richard Rich, received a salary of ;^75o a year, some ^^7,500 or ;^8,ooo of our money, and the treasurer, for whose accounts posterity should be grateful, half that sum. If minute receipts are not recorded, almost scrupu- lous exactness is manifested in the disbursements. The first payments are for the necessary equipment of the office, such as " green cloth called counter- board cloths," scales and weights, large and small iron safes and bags to hold the looked for money, jewels, and plate. The oflficial character of the court is manifested by the purchase of " a book called a ' jury-book ' with a silver crucifix fastened upon it," to be used in the court sessions, and of the seals of olBce, great and small, for which a long price is paid, and to which the sum of i2d. is added for wax bought to show the king the first impressions of these new seals.* Preparations for extensive dissolutions having been made by the creation of this court, Henry proceeded to carry out his intentions with regard to the lesser monasteries. As the parliament had granted him only such houses as possessed an income of less than ;^200 a year, it became neces- * R. O. Exch. Augt. Office, Treas. Roll, i ; m. lod. For a knowledge of the existence of these " Rolls," as well as for much other information, I am indebted to W. D. Selby, Esq., of the Record Oflfice. 12 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. sary to determine which monasteries were unfortunate enough to fall within this pecuniary limit. For this purpose the royal commission was issued to some of the leading men in each county to make a new survey of the houses within the limits of their appointed districts. As early as April 24th, the very day upon which the court of Augmentations was finally organized by the appointment of its of^cers, instructions were issued for the guidance of these surveyors. They were to form a body of six visitors, comprising an auditor, the particular re- ceiver appointed for the county and a clerk, who were the royal officials and .who were to be accom- panied by " three other discreet persons to be named by the king in every county." On their arrival at each monastery, they were ordered to summon the superior and show him the " act of dissolution " and their special commission. Next they were to make the officials of the house swear to answer truly the questions they put them. Having done this, they had to proceed on their examination into the state of the establishment and in their report to give the result of their inquiry. They were specially directed to state the number of the religious " and the con- versation of their lives ; " how many were priests and how many were willing to go to other houses or would take " capacities," and what servants or other dependents were attached to the establish- ment. Having obtained this information, the royal commissioners were to call for the convent seal and The Dissolution of the Lessei" Monasteries. 1 3 all muniments of the house, and to make an inven- tory " by indenture " with the superior, of all plate, jewels and other goods and property, which be- longed to the establishment on the ist March of this year, 1536. They were then to issue their com- mands to the superior not to receive any rents nor spend any money except for the necessary expenses of the place until the king's final pleasure was known, at the same time enjoining him to continue to watch over the lands, and " sow and till " as before, till such time as the king's farmer should relieve him of this duty. As for the community, the officer was " to send those that will remain in the religion to other houses, with letters to the governors, and those that wish to go- to the world to my lord of Canterbury and the lord chancellor for capacities." To the latter *' some reasonable reward," according to the distance of the place appointed, was to be given. The superior alone was to have any pension assigned to him, and he was to go to the chancellor of the Augmentations for it.* These instructions will afford the reader an idea of the methods employed by the king's officers to gather into the treasury of the court of Augmenta- tions the revenues, proceeds of sales and precious plate and jewels from the houses and churches of the lesser monasteries. The system was the same in all cases, and the history of one dissolution is that of all. What the arrival of the six royal commis- * Calendar, x., 721. 14 Henry YIII. and tlie English Monasteries. sioners with their retinue of servants at monastery and convent must have been to the inmates can be well imagined. The act of dissolution, it is true, had saved them from the necessity, to which many of their more powerful brethren were constrained, of surrender. Their homes, which pious benefactors had built generations before, and in which for cen- turies men and women of their order had served God and aided their neighbours, were passing away from them for ever, and the demand for and defacing of their convent seal was the ending of their corporate life. Henceforth they were to pass the remainder of their days as strangers in a larger house or as wanderers in a world, which many had left years before and to which they could never belong. The desecration of their churches, in which they and their forefathers in religion before them had gathered by night and day for the service of God ; the seizure for the king's use of their altar plate, in itself often so poor, to them always precious by the association of the past ; the rude appraising of their bells and the lead which covered the roofs over their heads ; the hurried sales of the mean furniture of their cells, and of the contents of church, cloister and frater, were all so many heartrending evidences of the pass- ing away of all that for which most of the monks and nuns really cared. The work was of course a process of time, but throughout England it was begun very shortly after the commissions were issued, and by Michaelmas of The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. 1 5 the year 1536, or in six months from the passing of the act of dissolution, large sums had been paid into the treasury of the court of Augmentations, and a considerable number of monasteries had been desolated. In many instances the actual process of suppression occupied many weeks. Thus, at Clementhorpe convent, in the city of York, the com- missioners first arrived on June 13th, and it was not till August 31st that the final steps were taken, and the nuns turned out of their house. During that period Isabel Ward, the prioress, had been obliged to provide for her household, consisting of nine nuns, an equal number of servants and a lady, Alice Tocotts, who, with her servant, had a corrody in the house. Besides this, here, no doubt, as else- where, provision had to be found for the servants of the commissioners who were left to carry out the work. To meet these expenses the prioress was forced to sell a silver chalice and cup, together with some reliquaries.* In the same way Isabel Savage, the prioress of St. Michael's convent, Stamford, was obliged to sell various pieces of plate to keep up the hospitality of the convent and to support the nuns from May 31, when the dissolution commenced, to July 18, when the work was completed.! And, from numerous examples, which might be cited from the " Ministers' * R. O. Exch Augt. Off. Mins. Acct. 27-28 Hen. VIII., No. 178, m. I4d. t Ibid.^ No. 173, m. 5. 1 6 Henry Till, and the English Monasteries. Accounts,'' it is probable that from six weeks to ten weeks were usually occupied in the work of dissolving these relio-ious houses. To many of the relicrious thus rendered homeless the hardship must have been more than would readily be believed. Many were of great age, or suffering from disease. Thus, to Elizabeth Johnson, a nun of Arden, a small pittance is allowed for her support, " because she is helpless and deaf and is said to be over 80 years of age." * In the same way to William Coventry, a religious of Wombridge priory, the sum of -£6 8s. 4d. is given, upon his being turned out of his home, " because he is sick and decrepid,'' f but such con- sideration was apparently onh' on rare occasions extended to the inmates of the dissolved houses. Of Esholt, a convent in Yorkshire marked out for disso- lution at this time, it is said that two nuns, disabled by infirmities, were passed on to their friends. '' Dame Elizabeth Pudsey prioress,"' the entry runs, " aged 70 years, infirm and unable to ride or walk — gone to her friends." Also, " Dame Johanna Hallynrakes, aged 54 years, decrepid ; she is not able to be carried for she is lame ; (to) continue in her habit and be with her friends." % The returns made by the mixed royal commissions at this time are of great interest and importance. The difterent estimate these gentlemen formed of * Ibid., 178, m. i4d. t Ibid., 165, m. 3. X R. O. Exch. Q.R. Suppress. Papers, Yr- The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. 1 7 the state of the reHgious houses in England, to that pictured in the comperta of Layton, Legh and their fellow inquisitors, has already been pointed out,* and it is unfortunate that comparatively few of these documents are known to exist. f As an example of the interesting particulars given in these returns, the first in the report of the commissioners for Warwick- shire may be here given. The abbey of Pollesworth is stated to be a convent of " Black nuns of St. Benedict's Order." The valuation made at the last visitation of their clear annual income was £%*] i6s. 3d., and the visitors now assess it at ^iio6s. 2d.j The nuns are stated to have been fourteen in number, " with an abbess and one * ancress,' of a very religious sort, one close upon a hundred years old ; all desire to ' keep out ' their religion there or be transferred to other houses. The number of servants and others attached to the abbey was thirty-eight, namely, three priests, eight yeomen, seventeen hinds, nine women servants, and of " persons having living by promise one very old and impotent creature sometime cook of the house." The lead, bells and buildings were esti- mated to produce f^^i when sold, and the house was declared to be " in good repair." The value of all moveable goods, stocks, stores, and debts owing * Vol. i., p. 356. t See Calendar, x., pp. 495-500. X It is curious to find that in almost every instance the new valuation was higher than that returned by the commissioners for the Valor Ecdesiasticus the year before. VOL. II. C 1 8 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. to the house was calculated at ;f 127 13s. 8d., besides which there were 108 acres planted with trees, " whereof great woods about the age of 100 years " were priced at £^^\ los., and a great common with 60 acres of wood.* In dealing with the lesser religious houses, those which claimed to be cells or dependencies of the greater monasteries, proved a difhculty. This had been foreseen, and the commissioners were instructed in the case of a cell " to deliver a privy seal to the governor, to appear before the chancellor and council of the Augmentations and not meddle with the same cell till the king's pleasure be known. "f Accord- ingly, in Warwickshire, the royal visitors gave privy seals to the prior of Avecourte, Warwick, who alleged his house to be a cell of Great Malvern, and to Charles Bradewaye, prior of Alcester, who claimed exemption from the act of dissolution, as a dependent of the abbey of Evesham,, ordering them to appear before the court in London within 15 days. Into these cases strict inquiry was made. In the case of Malpas, for example, which claimed to be a cell of Montacute, in Somerset, a commission was ordered to sit at that priory, on November 27, 1536, and to require all deeds and evidences of the claim, and to examine the prior and John Montague, prior of Malpas.:}: As might be expected, these claims * Calendar, x., 1191 (2). f Calendar, x., 721. X " Monasticon " v., p. 173. The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. 19 for exemption from the operation of the act of dis- solution appear to have failed. In the three cases given above the priors of the cells seem to have returned to their monasteries, where two years later they are found in the list of those pensioned on the final dissolution of the mother houses.* One curious fact about the dissolution of these smaller monasteries deserves special notice. No sooner had the king obtained possession of them than he commenced to refound some in perpetuity under a new charter. In this way no fewer than fifty-twof religious houses in various parts of England gained a temporary respite from extinction. The cost, * R. O. Aug. Oflf. Misc. Bk. 245, ff. 72, 102, 187. t Canon Dixon says (Vol. i., p. 365): "Three hundred and :seventy-six of the smaller monasteries came under the new act, and were dissolved. Out of which thirty-one were refounded for ever in August of this year, and continued a year or two longer." In this he follows Burnet so far as the number is concerned, who states that they were " in all thirty-one houses " thus restored. The names of the fifty-two will be found in the Appendix to this volume. The treasurer of the court of Augmentations acknowledges •sums of money received as " fines'' from 33 houses, and 19 more, ■not including Bisham, are enrolled on the Patent Rolls. The dates of the grants will show that they were not all refounded in August. Stevens has, moreover (''Monasticon"ii., Appendix 17-19), published .an original document containing the names of the lesser monas- teries which escaped immediate destruction, specifying the indi- •viduals to whom the king had previously granted, and distinguisii- Jng those houses which had been actually refounded when the paper was drawn up. From this it appears that the whole number respited was 123. Forty-six had already been refounded, five were :still doubtful ; and of these 51 no less than 33 had been previously jjromised to different private persons. 20 Henry Till, and the English Monasteries. however, was considerable to themselves, and like- wise to their friends, as they were finally suppressed before they were able to repay the sums borrowed to purchase this favour of their royal founder. In hard cash the treasurer of the court of Augmenta- tions acknowledges having received " in part pay- ment of the various sums of money due to the king for fines or compositions, for the toleration and con- tinuance " of thirty-three of these monasteries some ■;^5,948 6s. 8d., or about ;2f6o,ooo of our money. The same Sir Thomas Pope ingenuously adds, that he has not counted the arrears due to the office under this head, "since all and each of the said monasteries before the close of the account have by surrender come into the king's hands, or by the authority of parliament have been added to the augmentation of the royal revenue. For this reason therefore the king has remitted all sums of money still due to him as the residue of their fines for his. royal toleration."* The sums paid by the re-established houses vary from ;^400, given by the two houses of Pol- leshoe, in Devon, and Albaland, in the diocese of St. David's, to the ^20 furnished by the Car- thusians of St. Anne's, Coventry, the two first paying nearly three times their annual revenue as a fine to the king for a grant under the great seal, enrolled on the Patent roll, of establish- * R. O. Augt. Off. Treasur. Rolls I., mm. 4d. 5. The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. 21 ment " in perpetuity."* Besides these pecuniary payments, Henry had in some cases helped himself well to the monastic manors, and having lessened the income of houses already suffering from poverty, allowed them to be re-established for a perpetuity commensurate with his royal whims. Thus the convent of St. Mary's, Winchester, which according to the Valor possessed a clear income of j^ijg 7s. 2d., not only paid a fine of ;!f333 6s. 8d., but was re-established with the loss of some of its richest possessions. It is well to note that several of the monasteries and convents thus re-established were among the number of those gravely defamed by Layton and Legh in their coviperta, and in more than one case a superior incriminated by them was reappointed in the new foundation. Besides the sums paid to the king by the religious for the privilege of continuance, there is hardly any doubt that in days when influence was to be purchased, other bribes were exacted from the houses so refounded by Henry's hungry officials. f One example of the straits to which these exactions reduced many of the religious houses may be given. The convent of nuns at Stixwold, in Lincolnshire, * See " Rot. Pat.," 28 Hen. VIII., pars i., ii., iv., v., and 29 lien. VIII., i., ii., iv., v. t Burnet says, "It is not unlikely that some presents to the commissioners, or to Crumwell, made these houses outlive this ruin : for I find great trading in bribes at this time, which is not to be wondered at, when there was so much to be shared." 2 2 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. wrote to Heneage, the king's visitor, to beg his good offices in their regard. " Right worshipful sir," they say, " as your poor and daily beads-women, we humbly commend us unto you, advertising you that by the goodness of my lord privy seal and by his only means and suit to the king's majesty, our house doth stand, paying to his highness nine hundred marks fine* besides our first-fruits, which is £\^Oy and also a pension of £'^\ by the year for ever. Good Mr. Heneage, we most humbly pray and desire you, in the way of charity and for God's sake, to be mean to my lord privy seal that he will of his good- ness be suitor to the king's majesty for to remit and forgive the said pension of £'^\ ^ year, or else we shall never be able to live and pay the king the aforesaid money. " We be eighteen nuns and a sister in our house besides officers and servants to the number of 50 persons In all, and our stock and cattle being delivered up this year past ; which was our chief hope and living. And if by my lord privy seal's goodness and yours we may obtain redemption of the said yearly pension we shall take pains to live poorly and serve God and pray daily for the king's majesty, my lord privy seal, and you during our lives. And if at your contemplation we cannot obtain grace of the said pension we shall upon necessity, for that we shall not be able to pay and perform all such * The treasurer of the augmentation office only acknowledged having received ^^21 13s. 4d. The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. 23 payments as we be bound, give up the house into the king's highness' hand : which were great pity, if it pleased God and the king otherwise. " From Stixwold the 8th day of January " By your poor bedes-women " The whole convent of Stixwold."* It is diflficult to estimate correctly the number of houses which passed into the king's power by the operation of this act of dissolution. Various num- bers have been stated, but the authority of Stowe is usually relied upon, that " the number of these houses then suppressed were 376, the value of their lands then ;f32,ooo and more by year." As these sup- pressions were not all carried out at the same time, but occupied the royal commissioners many months, the number can only refer to all the houses of religion with an income of £"2.00 or under. This number is fairly correct. In the contemporary " list of monas- teries in England of a less yearly value than ;^2oo " the number stated is 362,! but in this are included " cells " belonging to the greater houses and several of the places are entered twice over in diFerent counties.! Of the various counties affected, York- * Strype, " Ecc. Mems.," ed. 1822, p. 395. The patent for the continuance of Stixwold is dated 9th July, a° 29 Hen. VIII. (1537). "Rot. Pat.," 29 Hen. VIII., Part i., m. 29. The letter is evidence that much more was required by the royal founder than the sum acknowledged as received in the roll of the treasurer of the augmentation office. t Calendar, x., 1238. J The actual number of monasteries accounted for by the receivers from Michaelmas, 1535, to Michaelmas, 1537, is 243 24 Henry VI 1 1, and the English Monasteries. shire, including Richmond, had the most, numbering in all 20 convents of women, 25 houses of men and eight cells dependent on the greater abbeys. Lin- colnshire contained within its borders 37 houses which came within the operation of this act of dis- solution. In respect to the annual value of the property passed to the king by these suppressions, the estimate given by Stowe and others is probably correct. The total given in the contemporary list above referred to is ;;^28,858 19s. lofd,* and the difference is perhaps accounted for by the values of other monasteries which before the passing of the act, or subsequently by surrender or otherwise, had about this time passed into the king's possession. Indeed, lord Herbert puts the value at " about ^f 30,000 or ;^32,ooo,"t the former figure not differing materially from the estimate given above. Of this sum, a very large proportion came from the lands of the York- shire monasteries, being no less than ;^3,46o IIS. id., and the almost equal amount of ;^3,o62 8s. ojd. from those in Lincolnshire. It will be seen subse- (Exch. Augt. Office Mins. Accts., ann. 27-28 Hen. VIII., and ann. 28-29 Hen. VIII.). The first accounts of some are missing, but in this number are included others which had fallen into the king's hands by surrender, like Abingdon, or by attainder, like Whalley and Barlings. This number, 243, together with the 123 staled in the original document published by Stevens (Monast. ii., Append., pp. 17-19) to have been res])ited, comes sufficiently near to the number above stated. * It is added up in a later hand incorrectly £2c^,o\\ os. 3^d. t Ed., 1683, p. 441. The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. 25 quently how these promises of large annual receipts from the confiscated estates proved illusory, and in spite of the rack-renting of the crown farmers, the monastic acres furnished less money for the royal purse than they did under the thrifty management and personal supervision of their former owners. As for the spoils of the religious houses, consist- ing of money, plate and jewels, which were sent in kind into the king's treasury, and the proceeds of the sales of lead, bells, stock, furniture and even build- ings, it is clear that lord Herbert, following Stowe's estimate of these " Robin Hood's pennyworth's," has placed the amount received at too high a figure. It is, of course, undeniable that these goods were worth much more than the ;^ 100,000 at which they were estimated ; but, as will be seen later, nothing like that sum was received by the royal treasury, or, at least acknowledged by Sir Thomas Pope as having been obtained from the sales of the lesser monasteries. Corruption, without doubt, existed everywhere, from the lowest attendant of the visiting commissioner to the highest official in the court of Augmentation, whose high salary might be supposed to have raised him above a suspicion of dishonesty ; but allowing for the numberless ways in which the royal revenue could be robbed, it seems, judging by the paltry sums realized by the sales of monastic effects, that an average of £260 or ^270 for each house would be altogether too high. Previous to the passing of the act which authorized 26 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. this wholesale suppression, some few houses had already come into the king's hands. Few though they were, it was yet clearly thought necessary to cover the illegality of these suppressions by a retro- spective clause in the act. There were some seven which appear to have thus been dissolved before the meeting of parliament. Three houses, those of Langdon, Folkestone and Dover, had been appro- priated as early as the November of the previous year, 1535, and the cause of the surrenders as stated on the Close roll is, that they were burdened with debt,* and were thus unable to continue any longer. Whilst on their northern visitation in February, Layton and Legh procured the surrender of two of the Yorkshire houses. On the 7th of that month Dr. Lavton wrote to Crumwell from York: "This, yth Feb., I have been with the archbishop, to whom I have delivered your letters, and have received another from him for you to nominate your clerk for the monk's prebend. This day I had been at Fountains to make the election, but that I tarry in York to induce a lewd canon and his flock, if possible, to surrender his house of ;^i40 good lands and only 40 marks of it in spiritual tithes. I had contrived," he adds, " this matter long before now, if a little false knave in York had not been a ' dog- garell ' of the law and a ' pursevant ' of Westminster Hall." t This house which Layton was anxious to * *• Rot. Claus.," 27 Hen. VIII., Pars, i., 27, 28, 29. t Calendar, x., 271. The Dissohition of the Lesser Monasteries. 27 obtain, and in which design he was almost check- mated by the '' little false knave," was Marton, a priory of Austin canons near York. Two days later his wish was gratified, and he received the surrender ; a few days later still, he and Dr. Legh took the resignation of the priory of Hornby, in Lancashire. This was a poor place, and had even to borrow a seal from a neighbouring abbey with which to seal their doom.* Two other monasteries in the south of England, Bilsington in Kent, and Tiltey in Essex, both much in debt, complete the list of houses which had fallen into Henry's hands before the dissolution was made legal by the parlia- ment. In the case of the latter, Tiltey, it was agreed by Richard Crumwell, who conducted the dissolu- tion, that the abbot, John Palmer, and his five brethren should remain in their house for the time. That the servants were to be retained, and the abbot continue "to support Alice, his mother, Agnes Lucas, widow, and Thomas Ewen, impotent persons," for which purpose Crumwell left him sixty shillings. The plate, consisting of "a cross and a senser of silver and gilt, a ship with a spoon, a salt with cover, 3 maser bonds, and 10 spoons," the commissioner took away with him, except half a dozen spoons which he left for the use of the abbot. The furniture of the house is described as poor enough, that of the best parlour consisting only of " 2 tables, 4 trestles, i turned chair, 2 painted * " Rot. Claus.," 27 Hen. VIII., Pars, i., 38. 23 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. cloths, 2 pieces of old save, and 2 forms of planks." The vestments, however, for their church appear to have been more costly than the poverty of the house would suggest. It is impossible to form any proper estimate of the number of persons afiected by the dissolution of the lesser monasteries. Besides the monks and nuns that were turned out of their houses and lost their support, and the number of servants, farm labourers and others, to whom these houses gave emplovment and means of subsistence, there must have been a vast number of men and women whose means of livelihood were more or less dependent upon the religious houses. Putting the latter class altogether on one side, it is possible that the calcu- lation given by Stowe, that " 10,000 people, masters and servants, had lost their livings by the putting down of these houses at that time,'" is not too high an estimate. From the particulars given in the returns of the royal commissioners it is known, that in the twenty-one religious houses for which their certificates exist, there was an average number of at least eight members in each monastery and convent, and that each house had some twenty-seven people besides, directly dependent upon it. Taking the number of the lesser monasteries at only 350, and the average number of religious inmates at only six, it will be seen that over two thousand monks and nuns were at this time dispossessed. By the same method of calculation, it will appear that between The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. 29 nine and ten thousand people were direct dependents of the monasteries dissolved. Of course the work was not accomplished without some earnest protests and some endeavours to deter the king from continuing his work of destruction and desolation. Thus no sooner was the passing of the act made known than CrumAvell received letters from persons begging his good offices with Henry, for the preservation of houses in which the writers were specially interested. Sir Piers Edgecombe, for example, writes that " here is much communication and bruits that all abbeys, priories, and nunneries under the clear value of ;f 200 shall be suppressed, notwithstanding it is not as yet in these parts openly known the occasion of suppression, nor who shall take most benefit thereby, nor to what use it shall rest at length." He then goes on to say, that he is the founder of the priory of Totnes and the convent of Comworthy, in Devonshire, both under ;^200 a year, and as the prior of Totnes is a man of "virtuous conversation and a good viander " he thinks it right to tell the king's secretary.* In the same way lord de la Ware begs for Boxgrave, and trusts it may be spared, as many of his ancestors and his wife's mother lie there. The parish church is under the roof of the church of the monastery, and there, he adds, I have made " a poor chapel to be buried in."t * Wright, '•■ Supp. of Monast.,'" Camden Soc, p. 117. t Ibid., I iQ. 30 Henry Till, and the English Monasteries. Nor did the monasteries themselves quietly wait for the royal commissioners to dispossess them of their effects. There are many indications of goods and even plate being turned into money, often no doubt with a view of obtaining the means of subsistence. Thus as early as March 27th, shortly after the passing of the act, it is reported to Crum- well that the house of Marham nunnery, in Nor- folk, had been stripped of all the lead and left un- covered and bare. Richard Southwell, the writer? also says that the convents of " Blackborough, Shouldham and Crabhouse make away with all they can, and make such pennyworths as they are not able to pay any part of their debts, so that all the goods will be dispersed." The writer concludes by a petition for Pentney : " We beseech your favour," he writes, " for the prior of Pentney,* assuring you that he relieves those quarters wondrously where he dwells, and it would be a pity not to spare a house that feeds so many indigent poor, which is in a good state, maintains good service, and does so many charitable deeds. We hear that great labour will be made unto the king for the same and large offers, the rather because the house is new made throughout and no house in the shire stands so commodiously. If you will prevent it, your labour will not be without remembrance. "t * He was one of the monks defamed by Layton and Legh in the 4omperla. t Calendar, x., 563. The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. 3 r One other document addressed to the king giving reasons for the continuance of Carmarthen priory may be here given as possessing considerable interest. It is urged that " at the first survey for the tenth " the yearly value was returned as £'2.o(^, and it was by the fault of the commissioners that it was " presented as being under f^'^oo. 2. Beside the twelve canons, whereof four died but lately, there are daily and commonly found by the said priory about 80 persons. 3. The house is well built and in good repair. 4. As to the behaviour of the brethren, they refer to the report of the country and the commissioners, 5. The priory stands in Camarthen, a notable market-town and common thoroughfare, and a great number of people have their meat and drink in the said house. 6. As there is but little good lodging for noblemen resorting to these parts on the king's or other business, the house is an open lodging for all such. 7. Hospitality is daily kept for poor and rich, which is a great relief to the country, being poor and bare. 8. Weekly alms are given to 80 poor people, which, if the house were suppressed, they would want. These charges are maintained more by good husbandry and pro- vision of the house than by its revenues, which stand mostly in spiritualities. 9. When Henry VII. came to this country the prior made a new lodging for him, which is meet for the king or the prince if they happen to come to those parts. 10. Strangers and merchantmen resorting to those parts are honestly 32 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. received and entertained, whereby they are the gladder to bring their commodities to that country. The king of Portugal thanked the house under his great seal for entertaining his merchants."* In the middle of the year 1537 the king refounded one or two monasteries which had been suppressed. This was a different and more solemn act than the permission which had been accorded to some to continue undissolved and to which reference has been made. On the 9th July, for example, he granted a charter of foundation to a convent of Premonstratensian nuns, to which he had given the site of the convent of Stixwold. It was ordered to be called " the new monastery of king Henry VIII.," and a grant in mortmain was made to Mary Missenden, who was appointed prioress " of the ground and site of the church, bell tower, church- yard, bells, ornaments, etc.," of the monastery of Stixwold, to be held at a rent to the crown of ;^I5 5s., "which is the true tenth." f In the same way, on December i8th of this same year, Henry united several monasteries in one founda- tion at Bisham. William Barlow, bishop of St. David's and commendatory prior of Bisham, had surrendered that house to the king in July, 1536. A year later the abbey of Chertsey passed into the royal power by the act of the abbot and monks, and six months after, the abbot, " In consideration that * Calendar, x., 1246. t " Rot. Pat.," 29 Hen. VIII., Pars, i., 29. The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. 33 the said John Cordrey, late abbot and convent of Chertsey, had granted their possessions and monas- tery to the king," received a charter incorporating that house with a monastery the king desired to found at Bisham. It was to consist of an abbot and thirteen Benedictine monks, who were to pray for the king and queen Jane, and was to be called " King Henry VIII. new monastery of Holy Trinity, Bisham." The king also granted to Cordrey his royal permission " to wear a mitre like any other abbot of that order with large possessions in England."* It is touching to see how some of the monks plead for permission to continue their religious life. To take but one example. On the 9th of June, 1536, the abbot of Waverley writes to Crumwell : " Pleaseth your mastership I received your letters of the 7th day of this present month, and have endeavoured myself to accomplish the contents of them, and have sent your mastership the true extent, value and account of our said monastery. Beseeching your good mastership, for the love of Christ's passion, to help me in the preservation of this poor monastery, that we your beadsmen may remain in the service of God with the meanest living that any poor men may live with in this world. So to continue in the service of Almighty Jesus, and to pray for the estate of our prince and your mastership. In no vain hope I write this to your mastership, forasmuch you put me * "Rot. Pat." 29 Hen. VIII., Pars, iv., m. 12. VOL. II. D 34 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. in such boldness full gently, when I was in suit to you last year at Winchester, saying, ' Repair to me for such business as ye shall have from time to time.' Therefore, instantly praying you, and my poor brethren with weeping, yes ! — desire you to help them ; in this world no creatures in more trouble, and so we remain depending upon the comfort that shall come to us from you — serving God daily at Waverley."* Meantime the progress of the dissolution went on apace. From the 12th May, 1536, when Calwich, in Staffordshire, a cell of the Augustinian monastery of Kenilworth, was taken by the commissioners as the first-fruits of the coming harvest, the work of destruction did not cease. On June ist John Free- man wrote to Crumwell that he hoped to " bring a profitable inventory to the king worth ;^iooo in one shire, not reckoning Gilbertines nor cells which are ten houses. Of these,'' he continues, " I reckon a great part in lead and bells, not including woods. For other moveables they have left their houses meetly bare, nor can we make them bring all things to light."! So quickly was the work accomplished that by July 8th Chapuys was able to write : — " It is a lamentable thing to see a legion of monks and nuns, who have been chased from their monasteries, wan- dering miserably hither and thither seeking means to live ; and several honest men have told me that, * Calendar, .X., 1097. t Calendar, x., 1026. The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. 35 what with monks, nuns and persons dependent on the monasteries suppressed, there were over, 20,000 who knew not how to Hve."* Everywhere throughout the country the same scenes were being enacted. The thoroughness of Henry's poHcy was brought home to the people by the same sickening story of destruction, wanton waste, pilfering, pillage and mock auctions worse than plain pilfering, going on up and down the land. As for the ejected monks and nuns themselves, to use Mr. Gairdner's words, "The full degree of hardship arising out of the king's proceedings was perhaps difficult even in that day to estimate — impossible in ours."t Some of the religious, however, did not take the spoliation of their houses as quietly as the abbot of Waverley. Even before the general rising in Lincoln- shire the canons of Hexham absolutely refused to be suppressed by the king's officers. They had ap- parently a good cause, for archbishop Lee had begged that their house might be spared, and it seems his request was granted, since, as will appear, they received a grant under the great seal to con- tinue. Their bold Northumbrian spirit could not submit calmly to what they must have regarded as * Calendar, xi., No. 42. Mr. Gairdner upon this (Preface xii.), says : — " The estimate may possibly have referred to the ultimate effects of the act, though the previous statement shows that the results were painful enough already. For as yet not half the work •could have been done." t Calendar, xi., Pref. xiv. 36 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. most unjust resolutions of a parliament composed of Henry's creatures. The story of their successful resistance is of great interest.* It is found in a report upon " the misdemeanours of the religious persons of Hexham in the County of Northumber- land. First," runs this valuable record, "whereas Lionel Gray, Robert Collingwood, William Green, and James Rokeby, commissioners for the dissolu- tion of the monasteries within the county aforesaid, the 28th day of the month of September, in the 28th year of the reign of our sovereign lord king Henry VHI. (1536) associated with their ordinary company, were riding towards the said monastery of Hexham, there to execute the king's most dread commandment of dissolution. Being in their journey at Delston, 3 miles from the same monastery (they) were credibly informed that the said religious persons had prepared them with guns and artillery meet for war, with people in the same house and to defend and keep the same with force." (Upon this report they) " assented that the said Lionel Gray and Robert Collingwood should with a few persons repair to the same monastery, as well to view and see the number of persons keeping the same house as to desire the subprior and convent of the same thank- fully and obediently to receive the king's commis- * Calendar, xi., 504. Printed in canon Raine's " Priory of Hexham," Surtees' Society, Appendix p. cxxvii., etc., from the MS» collections of the late Rev. John Hodgson. The story is well told in the excellent preface to that volume. The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. 37 sioners, coming near at hand to enter into their house, with due entertainment, there to execute and use the effect of their duties of dissolution, accord- ing to the king's most dread commandment. The said Lionel and Robert accordingly did enter into the said town of Hexham. Riding towards the said monastery (they) did see many persons assembled with bills, halberts, and other defenceable weapons, ready standing in the street, like men ready to defend a town of war. And in their passing by the street, the common bell of the town was rung, and straight after the sound of it the great bell in the monastery was likewise rung, whereby the people forceably assembled towards the monastery where the said Lionel and Robert found the gates and doors fast shut. And a canon, called the master of Ovingham, belonging to the same house, being in harness, with a bow bent with arrows, accompanied with divers other persons, all standing upon the leads and walls of the house and steeple. This master of Ovingham answered these words here- under written : ' We be 20 brethren in this house and we shall die all, or that ye shall have the house.' " " The said Lionel and Robert answered with a request, and said: — 'Advise you well and speak with your brethren, and show unto them this our request and declaration of the king's gracious writ- ings, and then give us answer finally.' And so the master departed into the house. After his depar- 38 Henry VIII. and the English Monaste^'ies. ture did come into the same place five or six of the* canons of the house with divers other persons, Hke men of war in harness with swords girt about them, having bows and arrows and other weapons, and stood upon the steeple head and leads in the defence of their house, the said Lionel and Robert being without. About whom did come and congregate many people, both men with weapons and many women, and stood there a great space, assured by the said master of Ovingham that they should remain peaceably there until their answer were made and so to depart without bodily hurt. " The said master of Ovingham being in harness with the subprior, being in his canon's apparel, not long after did repair again to the said Lionel and Robert, bringing with them a writing under the king's broad seal, and said these words hereafter written, by the mouth of the subprior : — ' We do not doubt but ye bring with you the king's seal of authority for this house, albeit ye shall see here the king's confirmation of our house under the great seal of king Henry V'lII. God save his grace ! We think it not the kind's honour to orive forth one seal contrary to another, and before any either of our lands, goods or house be taken from us we shall all die; and that is our full answer.' And so the said Lionel and Robert returned and met the rest of the commissioners approaching near the town. And so all together recoiled back to Corbridge, where they lay all that night." The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. 39 Next day they learnt " that immediately after the commissioners departed the town, the canons being all in harness, associated with a great company of tenants and servants belonging to the said monastery to the number of 60 persons and more, did issue forth of the monastery in defenceable array, by two together, all in harness, and so did walk from the monastery to a place called the green, towards where the commissioners did meet, and there stood in array with their weapons in their hands until the commissioners were past out of sight of the monastery. And so returned into the monastery again." It would seem that from the 28th of September, when the royal commissioners were driven away, till the 15th of October, the canons held the monastery by force of arms. After that they wavered in their determination, and said, " that the abbey should be delivered to the king's commis- sioners to be ordered at their pleasure, so that they might there serve God and remain, though they begged for their livings." Their message of sub- mission, however, was not taken to the king, and Hexham remained untouched till on the final sup- pression of the Pilgrimage of Grace they could be dealt with. Probably many of the canons suffered for their temerity in resisting the royal will, for Hexham is mentioned by name in Henry's letter to the duke of Norfolk, as one of the places where the monks " are to be tied up without further delay or 40 Henry VII I. and the English Monasteries. ceremony." * Prior Jay, who is not mentioned in the account of the resistance offered to the suppres- sion, was possibly, Hke so many superiors at this time, a crown nominee. He alone received the grant of a pension when Hexham finally fell into the hands of Henry in March, 1537.! * Lemon's St. Papers, i., 537. t Exch. Augt. Off. I\Iins. Accts., 28-29 ^s"- VIII., 200 m. 4d. The grant is dated 10 March, anno 28. Canon Raine says that tradition has it he was hanged at the gate of his monastery. This possibly was the subprior. It could not have been prior Jay. CHAPTER II. THE RISING IN LINCOLNSHIRE. The resistance offered to the royal commissioners at Hexham was an indication of the popular disap- proval of Henry's measures. Before punishment could be dealt out to the hardy northerners, and even within a few days of the affair at Hexham, the smouldering flame of discontent had burst into the full blaze of open defiance in Lincolnshire. No part of England had a worse reputation for disorder, and the crown records for a long period previously afford ample proof of the bold and turbulent spirit of the inhabitants of the fen lands and its adjacent districts. They were the last people in England to see changes which they could not approve taking place in their midst without making an endeavour to stay the course of events by an appeal to arms. Only one other county had been so greatly affected by the late act of parliament which had dissolved the lesser monasteries. By this measure some seven-and- thirty religious houses in Lincolnshire passed into the king's possession, and a rental of more than ^^3,000 a year, which had hitherto been spent in the county 42 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. and, in a great measure at least, for the good of the people, was transferred to the royal purse for the vague purpose of augmenting the crown revenues. The full meaning of this change must have come home in a very practical wav to almost every class in the county. Not only were a large number of monks and nuns rendered homeless, and a still greater number of their dependents, deprived of their means of livelihood, become outcasts and beggars, but the clergy, who were vicars of livings appropriated to the dissolved monasteries, must have been uncertain whether they could count upon their stipends, now that the greater tithes had passed into the hands of the royal officials. The poor, also, long dependent on the charity and assistance of the religious, must have regarded the movement with feelings akin to despair, whilst even those, who had been accustomed to relief left them by dead benefactors, and of which the monks had been the careful guardians, would have known that their trusts had likewise been swept away into the capacious purse of Henry. Thus, for example, the nine parishioners of Billesley could no longer expect to receive the wheat, beans and oats, nor those of Stikeford the annual payments, which a charitable man had left to the Augustinians of Markby priory in trust for them. Nor could the poor gathered round the dismantled walls of Hum- berstone hope any longer to receive the corn which, from the foundation of their house centuries before, the Benedictine monks had distributed on the feast The Rising in Lincolnshire. 43 of St. Thomas the apostle. Nor again could those at Vaudrey expect to get the bread and beer given away each Lent time, nor those at Newsted be asked to pray for the souls of the kings Henry II. and John, who, as founders of that house, had left an annual alms to the neighbouring poor for that special purpose, although the entire income of the house was but ^a^i a year.* In no part of England, moreover, was the ugly business of gathering in the spoils pushed on with greater vigour than in Lincolnshire. By the feast of St. Michael, 1536, or in six months from the pass- ing of the act of dissolution, John Freeman, the royal receiver for the district, was able to account for a large sum to the treasurer of the court of augmentation. His receipts from the sales of the religious houses, including buildings, furniture, lead, bells, with stocks and moveables of all kinds, had reached the high total of ;;f 7,484 os. 4fd., or, in round figures, some ;^75,ooo of our present money, to which a further sum of nearly ;^2oo was to be added for " pictures, clocks," and other precious articles sold subsequently. Altogether, with rents and other items of receipt, John Freeman admitted having obtained for the king in the first six months no less a sum than ;^8,756 i is. 9fd., of which about one fourth part had been paid away in the process of dissolution. t * " Valor Eccl.," iv., pp. 51, 68, 72-99. t Exch. Augt. Office Mins. Accts, 27-28 Hen. VIII., No. i66- 44 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. It is, of course, impossible that the people could have witnessed the desecration of the monastic churches, the sales of the sacred vestments, the carrying away of the altar plate to the royal treasure house, and the expulsion of the religious from monastery and convent without deep and angry feelings. They argued, rightly, as the event proved, that a power which could proceed to such extremi- ties against ecclesiastical rights would not stop here, and that gradually the treasuries of parish churches would be searched and emptied to satisfy a greed which would only be whetted by the spoils already carried away from the monastic houses. Other causes of discontent were at work on the popular mind. The religious changes, and in par- ticular the renunciation of papal authority at the royal pleasure, were eminently distasteful to the nation at large. The ecclesiastical appointments made by Henrv, especially those of bishops re- garded by the Catholic instincts of the people as heretics and false pastors, had stirred up a feeling of resentment ready to burst out on the slightest provocation ; and the late enactments of Henry's parliament about property appeared to attack a long- established right as to the free disposal of acquired estates and to destroy the possibility of making provision by will for the support of the younger members of a family. Just at this time three commissions were issued by the crown which singly might have tried the The Rising in Lincolnshire. 45 temper of a nation, but which combined were irri- tating beyond the Hmits of popular self-control. In the autumn of 1534 a subsidy or tax of two and a half per cent, on all incomes of more than £20 a year had been voted by the parliament. The first part had been paid, and the second now being due, the royal officials were endeavouring to enforce the payment and to push their inquisitorial demands for the correct returns of income. At the same time other commissioners were busy conducting the work of suppressing the lesser monasteries. With bands of retainers and workmen imported from distant places, they were carrying on the forced sales, dismantling the conventual churches and other buildings, and dispatching convoys with plate and muniments to London, or with the lead of church roofs and gutters melted into fodders and pigs, or the metal of broken bells to some place, where they were to be stored for use or sale. Simultaneously a third set of royal agents were busy carrying round certain injunctions, which Crumwell, as vicar-general in spirituals, had made for the clergy at large. Their powers were extensive, and were intensely disliked by those whom they most concerned. They were directed, to call before them every individual parish priest, to inquire into his character, habits and reputation, to examine into his qualifications and learning, and to dismiss from their cures those they considered unfit. As might be expected, rumours were busily circu- 46 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. lated which served to inflame the popular mind. According to the declaration of the abbot of Bar- linofs, for about a month or six weeks before Michaelmas day, 1536, reports were going about the country " that two or three parish churches should be put in one." Also " that about the same time, it was likewise bruited that all chalices, crosses and other jewels of the church should be taken away from the same churches and chalices of tin should be given to the said churches in lieu of them ; " also ^* that all manner of gold coined and uncoined should be brought to the Tower of London to be touched."* According to another witness, it was commonly said at this time that the churches were to be destroyed, *' that all the abbeys of England should be suppressed save only the monastery of Westminster. And further , . . that all the jewels of the church, that is to say crosses, chalices, censers should be taken away from the churches and chalices crosses and censers of tin put in their places."! The first outbreak of the storm took place at Louth. I By the close of September the monastery of Louth-park had been dissolved, and the people * Chapt. House Bk., A. /y, p. 12. \ Ibid., p. 25. In this declaration, as to the popular belief that Henry coveted the treasures of the parish churches, all the numerous witnesses examined as to the rising agree. \ Only a slight sketch of both the Lincolnshire rising and the I'ilgrimage of Grace is here attempted, in so far as they bear upon the question of the dissolution of monasteries. Unfortunately it was finished before the publication of the eleventh volume of INIr. Gairdner'b " Calendar." The Rising in Lincolnshire. 47 had witnessed the sales of the ornaments and vest- ments of the church, which, together with the other effects of the place, realized close upon the large sum of a thousand pounds.* At the feast of St. Michael the process of dissolution was going on at the convent of Legbourne, just outside the town, and two of Crumwell's servants, Millicent and John Bellow, had been left by the commissioners to com- plete the work. On Saturday, the last day of September, Dr. Raynes, chancellor of the bishop of Lincoln, held a court of examination at Bolingbroke, and the priests of the district had been much exercised by his inquiries. According to the declaration of a former monk of Louth-park it was the chancellor's scribe, Peter, who fanned the spark into fiame by " recom- mending the priests to study up their books, for they should have straight examination taken of them shortly. "t One was heard to say : — " They will deprive us of our benefices because they would have the first-fruits."! Another declared that " they would not be ordered nor yet examined of their ability in learning or otherwise in keeping of cure of souls." § And the parson of Farforthe, Simon Maltby, " re- turned home to his parish and reported amongst his neighbours that the church goods should be * Exch. Augt. Off. Mins. Accts., 27-28 Hen. VIIL, 81, m. 43- t Chapt. H. Bk., A. ^\, p. 143- + Ibid. § /^/^., A. ^%,p. 8. 48 Heiwy VIII. and the English Monastei'ies. taken from them." He also said that " there were divers chalices made of tin which should be delivered to them In exchange for their silver chalices, and the said silver chalices to be had to the king's use. And further the said Sir Simon said, that he with other priests were determined that if the said chan- cellor did sit any more they would strike him down, trusting that their neighbours would take their parts in that behalf."* The report that the king was going to take posses- sion of all church plate was fully believed on all sides. " One William Man that singeth bass in the choir at Louth and parson Sotbye going to board with Thomas Manby at Louth," just before the rising, said, that " the common fame was that the inhabi- tants of the town of Hull had sold the church stuff to prevent the king's commissioners. "f And whilst dining at Grimsby a sailor, "a very tall man having a tall woman for his wife," was heard to say : — " We hear at Hull that ye should have a visitation here shortly and therefore we have taken all our church plate and jewels and sold them and paved our town withal. And so, if ye be wise, will ye do too and mend your town, which is foul withal." j There were, however, other matters which moved the people more deeply than any question about their church plate. Kendal, the vicar of Louth, declared that there was much grumbling about the supremacy question, although he could not give the * Ibid., p. 7. t Ibid.., A. -3%, p. 3. % Jbid., p. 144. The Rising in Lincolnshire. 49 names of those who " murmured that the king's highness should be head of the church." And also that " all men with whom he had any communica- tion did grudge and murmur at the new opinions touching our Lady and Purgatory, and himself also did grudge at the same. Item," runs the record of the vicar's examination in the Tower, " he saith it was reported, that the sacrament was irreverently taken down at Hagneby by the king's officers at the time of the suppression and dissolution of the same house."* It is impossible to inspect the depositions of witnesses and examinations of prisoners on this matter, without a conviction that the men of Lincoln- shire rose in arms in defence of what they held to be matters of both Christian faith and practice. The vicar of Louth advised them most strongly " in no wise to meddle with the king's highness, but only for the repression of heresies and maintenance of the faith of Christ. "t They regarded Crumwell and some of the bishops as banded together to destroy the Catholic faith, and they were loud in their demands for their punishment. " Item," said one witness, " they intended if they might have pros- pered in their journey to have slain the lord Crum- well, four or five of the bishops, the master of the Rolls, and the chancellor of the Augmentations." Also — and to this part of the examination an ominous hand with a finger pointing is placed in the * Ibid^ p. 3. t Ibid., p. 6. VOL. II. E 50 Henry VIII. and the English Mo7iaster{es. margin with the remark, " note this specially " — the gentlemen " demanded of the commons whether they would have the lord Crumwell and others before named, saying to them : * The lord Crumwell was a false traitor, and that he and the same bishops and master of the Rolls and the chancellor of Augmen- tations— calling them two false pen clerks — were the very imaginers and devisers of all the false laws.' "* Another declared, that the articles devised at Horn- castle " much concerned Crumwell, the chancellor of the Augmentations, the bishop of Rochester, the bishop of Dublin, the bishop of Canterbury and the bishop of Lincoln and other more, who were the devisers of taking away the church goods and pull- ing down of churches."! And a letter to chancellor Audeley, written during the commotion, tells him that most of the people of Lincolnshire " are persuaded that they cannot die in a better quarrel." As to their demands, the writer concludes, " one is, as far as I can know or learn, they will that the Church of England shall have all such privileges as they have had by old custom, without any exaction : another is, that all the houses of religion that are suppressed be restored, except such houses as the king hath suppressed for his pleasure only : the third is, to have the bishop of Canterbury, the bishop of Rochester, bishop Latimer, the bishop of Lincoln, the bishop of Ely and divers other, and also my lord Privy seal, the master of the Rolls, Mr. chancellor of * Ibid., p. 28. t Ibid., p. 33. The Rising in Lincolnshire. 5 1 the Augmentations delivered unto them, or else banished the realm for ever."* Against Crumwell in particular the feeling of the priests and people was extremely bitter. One priest is accused of saying, that " the king's most noble counsel were false harlots in devising of false laws for spoiling the goods of the spirituality, and named the procurement thereof to be the lord Crumwell, "f and many threats of personal violence are recorded as being uttered against him. Altogether there can be no doubt, that the people, as one witness has it, ^* called my lord privy seal most vilipendiously at their pleasure."! Besides the religious questions there were also social matters which irritated the people at this time. Parliament, in the last session but one, had passed the celebrated " Statute of Uses."^ Up to this time, land had not been subject to disposition by will, but this bar to the free disposal of real property had been practically removed by a system of " uses " or " trusts," under cover of which it had been the practice to make provision for younger children, for the payment of debts and for other charges, which were often tantamount to a transfer of such property. The king's anxiety in the passing of the " Statute of Uses " was to prevent the failure of his feudal dues. Some three years before the measure passed into law, he had endeavoured to effect what he wanted by * Ibid., B. I- , f. 1 16 d. t Ibid., A. ^\, p. 5. X Ibid., A. ^j, p. 169. § 27 Hen. VIII., Cap. 10. 52 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. a measure relating to " wardships." The chronicler Hall relates an interview which Henry had with the speaker and the commons as to this bill. " I have sent you," he said, "a ' bill' concerning wardships and primer seisin, in which things I am greatly wronged. In this I have offered you reason, as I think, and as the lords do too ; for they have passed the bill and set their hands to it. Therefore, I do as- sure you, that if you will not take a reasonable thing when it is offered, I will search out the extremity of the law, and then I will not offer so much again." The royal offer made was, in exchange for the better security of the crown wardships, to allow a testamentary power over half any real estate. But, as the nation had, through the practice of " uses," long assumed the right of disposing of all such property, the bargain, practically so far from grant- ing anything, took away the accustomed power of disposal. Henry, finding great reluctance to pass his bill, determined to " search out the extremity of the law," and by the " Statute of Uses " to abolish wills entirely.* * Lord St. Leonards, in his preface to Gilbert, observes that " in comparing what the Statute of Uses was intended to perform, with what it actually has performed, one can hardly doubt that any other legislative measure which opposed the confirmed habits of the people in disposing of their property, would have led to the same results. This should operate as a lesson to the legislature, not vainly to oppose the current of 'general opinion ; for, although diverted for a time, it will ultimately regain its old channel, in spite of accumulated acts of parliament." — Vide Amos, "Statutes of Henry VIIL," p. 122. The Rising in Lincolnshire. 53 The preamble of the act directed against " uses " was divided into a discussion of causes and effects. As regards wills, it may be observed that a few years later, in the 32nd year of Henry's reign, all the objections urged in this preamble were withdrawn and the statute of wills pronounced them to be beneficial, not hurtful, to the common interest of the state. " In this, the most important of Henry's acts concerning real property," writes Amos, " he seems to have been actuated chiefly, if not entirely, by his appetency for the fruits of feudal tenure. He did not ' call to his blessed remembrance,' the impolicy and hardship of such exactions ; but in order to appropriate them with greater security, he studied to cast back his people in the progress of civilization by divesting property of several of its principal attractions, in abolishing all kinds of trusts, and the power of making a will of lands. He was willing to sacrifice the interests of creditors, widows, daughters, younger sons, throughout the land, in order that he might revel in the plunder of his tenants in capite, their heirs and heiresses."* The statute was unpopular with all classes. It was said that the duke of Norfolk openly expressed disapproval of the measure. "One Thomas Pope informed the council," writes lord Herbert, " that John Freeman told him, that the duke (at Notting- ham in the time of the commotion of the north) * Ibid. 54 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. should say in the presence of an hundred persons, that the Act of Uses was the worst act that ever was made."* Lord De la Ware told a priest, at the time of the passing of the statute, " it was a very sore act, and that he grudged much at it,"t and it was three gentlemen who suggested to the people at Horncastle the necessity of demanding some change in this law. Mr. Sheriff Dymmoke said to them : — " Masters, men cannot now make their wills, for if they make a will now and happen to die twenty or thirty years after the making thereof the same will shall stand and the testator shall not at any time after the making of the same will change anything contained therein." "And also they said," declared the witness, " that the eldest son should have all the lands and the father should not be at liberty to give his youngest son any of his lands although they were purchased."! Another of the persons present at the gathering said that the sheriff told them, that " the eldest son must have all his father's lands and no person to the payment of his debt, neither to the advancement of his daughter's marriages can do anything with their lands." He adds that before this neither he, nor, as he believes, any of the people " knew what that Act of Uses meant." § The populace were thus at this time thoroughly roused by the temporal and spiritual innovations * Hen. VIII., ed. 1683, p. 626. f St. Papers Dom , Bo.x U., 338. X Chapt. House Bk., A. ifg, p. 26. § Ibid., p. 31. The Rising in Lincolnshire. cc which they were compelled to witness. In Lincoln- shire also extensive suppressions of religious houses coming at this time, in conjunction with the constant reports of yet further destruction and desecration of churches, and of the greater seizure of ecclesiastical property meditated by Henry, determined the people to have recourse to arms for the preservation of the rights of church and nation. The story of the rising may be best told in the words of those who were present, and which are preserved in the depositions of witnesses and the examination of prisoners after the close of the rebellion. " Sir William Moreland, priest, late monk of Louth Park," deposed* that he was a monk in the abbey up to the 8th of September, 1536, and that on " Holy Rood day (14th September) next following" he had received his capacity, "and ever since then hath gone in secular habit, saving at such time as he was at Pomfret with sir Robert Constable, when he did wear their white jacket and a scapulary." After leaving his monastery, he had lodged at the house "of one Thomas Wrigrhtson of Kedingfton," a little village about a quarter of a mile from his old religious home, and had only been away twice, when he went to a house in Louth " to meet two or three of his late brethren." "About three weeks before Michaelmas," this exiled monk declares, "a great rumour was busily spoken (specially after the commissary's visitation * Chapter House Bk., A. -^^^ pp. 91 to 129. 56 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. kept at Louth church, in Saint Peter's choir, by one Master Peter, then scribe to the commissary of Lincoln) that the chahces of parish churches should be taken away, and that there should be but one parish church within six or seven miles compass. Also, that every parson and vicar should be examined and tried by their learning whether they were able and sufficient of their learning to have and take upon themselves the cure of souls or not. Where- with this deponent was right glad, and thought to himself that it might perchance be his fortune to succeed some of such unlettered parsons or vicars in some of their rooms. "And the Monday (2nd October) next after Michaelmas day, as this deponent remembereth, the said inquiry and visitation should have been kept at Louth aforesaid. And the same Sunday (1st October) when the insurrection first began at Louth, he rode forth by four o'clock in the morning on a bay gelding, which he borrowed of one Dane Thomas Lilborne, late subprior of Louth-park, and so rode on to Markby and Hagneby to deliver there certain ' capacities ' to the number ten, into divers of the brethren of the monasteries there also late suppressed. And the same afternoon about three o'clock he came home again to Kedington. And then he heard say that the vicar of Louth, called Kendall, had made a certain collation* that same Sunday unto his parishioners, in which, amongst * i.e., sermon or address. The Rising in Lincolnshire. 57 other things he advised them to go together and to look well on such things as should be inquired of on the next morrow at the visitation. And the same Sunday at evensong (as this deponent heard say, for he was not thereat), the parishioners ' commoning ' amongst themselves of the premises, the head men of the parish and the poor men all together, or the most part of them, at last fell at such diversity of sundry opinions amongst themselves that in conclu- sion, the poor men took the keys of the church from the rich men and churchwardens there, and said they would keep the keys themselves. And that night, he heard say, that the parishioners did put into the church to keep the same 10 or 1 2 of their neighbours." On the Monday morning, Moreland, after having "said matins," hearing of the disturbance of the night before, went into Louth to make inquiries. "And then," he continues, "this deponent would have gone into the church to hear mass, but such of the parishioners as kept the church would not suffer him nor none other to enter into the same, but only such as they liked." Not being able to hear his mass, he retired " from the church unto the house of one William Hert, a butcher," where, amongst others, he met one of his old brethren of Louth- park, " Robert Hert." They, of course, discussed the events of the previous evening, " and as they sat together there at breakfast with puddings, suddenly the common bell was rung by such as were within the said church." 58 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. At the sound of the alarm the people rushed towards the church, where its meaning was soon discovered, by the appearance of John Heneage, " the proctor," who had ridden into the town and been seized by the excited populace, who would have killed him. Some of the better disposed, how- ever, hurried him to the church, where they managed to get him into the choir, ** and to lock the door between him and the commons." He was, how- ever, forced to take the oath to be true to God and the people. Nicholas Melton, " whom afterwards they named captain Cobler," was the chief leader of the people at this time. Hardly had this excitement somewhat subsided than, as the people were turning home, *' suddenly, at the coming into the town of one master John Franke, the registrar of the bishop of Lincoln, the common bell was rung again, and then all the commons in like manner with weapons, as they did before, ran again unto the house of one William Goldsmith, where the said registrar was alighted, and there they took all his books from him. And one John Taylor, of Louth, ' webstar,' brought out of the said house a great brand of fire, and by the commoners the said books were conveyed to the market-place." The witness declares that he did his best to prevent this, but could not. " And then they by force carried this deponent under the high cross there, and said that he, with others to the number of six, being The Rising in Lincolnshire. 59 there of the same opinion should look in the books to know what was in them." He commenced to read the king's commission in order to declare its meaning to the people, when the others, frightened by the noises of the mob, " * flang ' all the books down unto them beneath the cross, and then every man that was beneath got a piece of them and hurled them into the fire." Whilst this scene was being enacted at the market cross, some of the crowd went and brought the registrar to the square, " and caused him, by a ladder, to climb up to the altitude of a half-part of the cross. And when he came up, he said unto this deponent, ' for the passion of Christ, priest, if canst, save my life. And as for the books that be already burnt, I pass not of them ' ; so as a little book of his reckoning of such money as he had laid out might be saved, and also the king's commission, which to be saved this deponent promised as much as in him was." Meantime the mob clamoured for the regis- trar to come down from the cross and burn his own books, which he was forced to do. The monk of Louth-park tried to save the small book of accounts, but as he was carrying it off *' they all drew about him," he declares, " and demanded of him what book was that which he had in his hands." He told them that it was a book of reckonings. But they would not believe him, "and carried him with strength the breadth of the market-stead, unto a shop window of one Thomas Grantham, tailor, and then he read 6o Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. unto them some parts of the contents of the book." At length they permitted him to keep the volume, but as he was carrying it to the registrar he was surrounded by three or four hundred people, who " took it out of his sleeve." He informed the king's officer of the loss, who, however, for his good service " paid for his dinner," and promised him " his letters of orders." In the afternoon the registrar was con- veyed out of danger. " Whilst this deponent," he continues, " was thus at dinner with the said registrar, the commons of the said town went unto the monastery of Legbourn, a mile and a half from Louth, and from thence they fetched and brought to Louth with them one Milli- cent and John Bellow, servants unto my lord privy seal, and put them in great fear and jeopardy of their lives." In the evening they put these two and one George Parker into prison. Thus passed the first day of the rising. Early on the morning of the following day, Tuesday, the com- mon bell at Louth was again set ringing. The king's commissioners were reported to be at Caistor, and Melton harangued the mob and gave order, that at the " next ringing of the bell " all should set out for that neighbouring town. Four priests and four laymen were appointed to speak with the commis- sioners, and of .these " Dane William Borowby alias Moreland," the chief informant, was one. They were on foot till at Irford, a convent of Premon- stratensian nuns, they " borrowed for this deponent, of the prioress there, a white trotting gelding, ready The Rising in Lincolnshire. 6i bridled and saddled." On their way they were met by contingents from the neighbouring villages, and at Caistor hill they found about a thousand men, un- armed, waiting for them. Seeing the commissioners, Borowby, with some eighteen or twenty others, rode on to speak with them, '' and with his cap in his hand desired them, in the name of the said company of commoners, to return and speak with them." This, most of them consented to do, and they were forced to take the oath to aid the commons. Lord Borough however, who was with the gentry when they were overtaken by the people, set spurs to his horse and escaped. The rioters thought that his servant Nicholas had aided him in his flight, and angry at not having secured him, they turned upon the ser- vant. " And," continues the witness, " so great a number of them striking at him, as I never saw man escape such danger as he was in, having so many strokes and wounds as he had. And at last when he had fled evermore backward from them almost a quarter of a mile, saving himself always amongst the horsemen, he was stricken down by the footmen of Louth and Louth-Esk. And then, when he was stricken down they cried for a priest for him. And at last with much pain this deponent came unto him, and so at length he caused him to be conveyed unto the town and then confessed him, and sent two surgeons unto him from Louth."* * The whole of the above narrative is taken from the depositions of Moreland, alias Borowby, the Louth-park monk. A. 5-^, pp. 91-129. 62 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. On the same day, Tuesday, October 3rd, the country round about Horncastle rose with even greater unanimity than at Louth. Some of the townsmen discovered that Dr. Raynes, the chancellor of the bishop of Lincoln, was still at Killingbroke, and unable to move from sickness. Upon this information they came thither " with a great com- pany to take the chancellor, and did ring the com- mon bell. And then the commons did cry, ' Kill him ! ' and would have drawn him out of his bed " had not they been dissuaded by others from violence.* The people of Killingbroke promised, however, to come to a great muster on Ancaster heath near to Horn- castle, and thither they brought with them Dr. Raynes, the chancellor of Lincoln, " being very sick." The following day the gentry of the county were present, with the sheriff, Mr. Dymmoke, at their head, who " gave divers of the rebels, being poor men, money for their costs." As the chancellor rode into the field with his captors the passions of the mob were stirred, and there occurred one of the two acts of violence, which alone in this or the subsequent Yorkshire rising, dis- graced the movement.! " At his coming into the * Ibid., A. /s, p. 3. t Canon Dixon (Vol. i., p. 457 note) rightly says, "It (the ' Great Insurrection ') was throughout more of a demonstration than a civil war, and with the exception of the murder of the chan- cellor and of a serving man, the behaviour of the so-called rebels was wonderfully temperate and orderly. On the other hand, the bloody perfidy of the strangely chosen hero of Mr. Froude comes out more conspicuously in his excited narrative than in any of the histories." The Rising in Lincolnshire. 63 field," declares Brian Staines, " the rebels, whereof were many parsons and vicars, cried out with a loud voice, ' Kill him, kill him.' And upon that one WiUiam Hutchinson, of Horncastle, and William Balderstone, by the procurement of the said parsons and vicars, pulled him violently off his horse, kneel- ing upon his knees, and with their staves they slew him. And being dead, this deponent saith the priests continually crying, ' Kill him, kill him,' he also struck the said chancellor upon the arm with a staff."* As the body of the murdered chancellor lay upon the ground in the midst of the mob, " his apparel * Chapter House Bk., A. -^^^ pp. 24-25. The deposition of this witness, Brian Staines, is the authority for supposing that the priests were the chief instigators of this crime. Mr. Froude accepts the statement without question, and exclaims : " These, we presume, were Pole's seven thousand children of light who had not bowed the knee to Baal — the noble army of saints who were to flock to Charles' banners." Canon Dixon (Vol. i., p. 457) has followed his guidance, and stated that the chancellor " was killed at the instiga- tion of the clergy." The authority of the witness is, however, not altogether beyond suspicion. To judge from the depositions in this matter those implicated were generally ready to excuse themselves by casting the blame on others. In fact, Staines himself was accused of perpetrating the deed ; and this seems to have been considered the true version. For in the notes which were intended to sum up the evidence, the following is entered : " Brian Staines was he which killed the chancellor" {^Ibid., A. /^, p. 3). There is no reason to suppose, as would be natural from Mr. Froude's and Canon Dixon's narratives, that Dr. Mackarel, the abbot of Barlings, and " all his fraternity " were present at the murder of the chan- cellor; in fact, it appears that he was not with them till some days afterwards {^Ibid., A. ^^, p. 13), and knew nothing of the insurrec- tion till the day after the murder. 64 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. was divided amongst them, and his purse brought to the sheriff, who afterwards distributed the money, that was in the same, to the poor men that were amongst the rebels." And the priests and vicars then advised them strongly to proceed on their journey, saying " they should lack neither gold nor silver." Banners were made and carried at the head of the detachments. A tenant of the abbot of Bar- lings "tied a white towel on the top of a banner and pinned a picture of the Trinity painted in parchment on the same towel, and caused his son to bear it."* And another, called Dymmoke's banner, was thus described by the man who carried it. " Item, the said Trotter saith the meaning of the plough borne in the banner was to encourage the husbandmen. The meaning of the chalice and the host was borne in remembrance that chalices, cross and jewels of the church would be taken away. The meaning of the five wounds was to ' couraging ' of the people to fight in Christ's cause. The meaning^ of the horn was borne in taking of horn cattle." f Before, however, the assembly broke up at Horn- castle they devised certain articles of grievance which were to be forwarded to the king. They were drawn up by the gentry, including the sheriff Dymmoke and his brother, who held their discussion a mile or so from the body of the people, and were written out by * Ibid., A. ^V. P- 7- t Ibid., p. 37. It was reported that the king was going to levy a tax on all cattle. The Rising in Lincolnshire. 65 one of their number "on the field upon his saddle- bow." When finished Dymmoke and the rest rode up to the mob, and in a loud voice proclaimed the articles, saying : " Masters, ye see that in all the time we have been absent from you we have not been idle. How like you these articles ? If they please you, say yea. If not, ye shall have them mended." And then the commons held up their hands, with a loud voice, saying : " We like them very well."* The demands thus made to the king were six in number. They complained, (i) of the dissolution of the religious houses and of the consequent destitu- tion of " the poorealty of the realm ; " (2) of the restraints imposed on the distribution of property by the " statute of uses ; " (3) of the grant to the king of the tenths and first-fruits of spiritual benefices ; (4) of the payment of the subsidy demanded of them ; (5) of the introduction into the king's council of Crumwell, Rich, and other " such personages as be of low birth and small reputation ; " and (6) of the promotion of the archbishops of Canterbury and Dublin, and the bishops of Rochester, St. David's, and others, who, in their opinion, had clearly " sub- verted the faith of Christ."! These articles were \ Canon Dixon, Vol. i., p. 457, on the authority of Speed's account of the Lincolnshire articles, says that the insurgents acknowledged the king " to be by inheritance the supreme head of the Church of England." There is no indication of this as far as can be known. In the original depositions rather the opposite VOL. IL F 66 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. dispatched at once to the king at Windsor, and Heneage, the royal commissioner, was allowed to accompany* the messenger. Meantime the rest of the county was getting more disturbed. Ax. Louth, where the insurrection first commenced, the people were still in arms. The monk of Louth-park deposes that on Wednesday morning (October 4th) he went " to hear mass at Louth church, and when mass was done there arose a common crv amongst the commons that the lord Borough (who had escaped from the insurgents the previous day) was coming with 1,500 men" against them. The people clamoured for the ringing of the alarm bell, " but this deponent got the bell rope three times to be cast up into the window, that it should not be rung," and it was only when the mob threatened to hang anyone that would prevent the ringing with the rope that he desisted. The report, however, proved groundless, and Moreland went to Horncastle for the " articles," which were drawn up the same day, and which he brought back with him. With five hundred others he went to try and fetch lord Hussev, and " lay at night at the bishop of Lincoln's castle of Sleford." Lord Hussey had fled, but his lady sent them out provisions, " beer, bread, and saltfish." On the way Moreland admits would appear, both in their case and that of the " Pilgrims of Grace," who subsequently adopted the same articles. * " Perhaps to save him from being murdered by the priests!!" is ]\Ir. Froude's remark on this permission accorded to Heneage. The Rising in Lincolnshire. 67 that he for a short time wore " a sword and buckler," and for about five miles " did bare his javelin," and that some one lent him a " breastplate and sleeves of mail with a gorget," but declares that except for this he "never was armed."* At Lincoln itself there had been a rising: of the people also. The town was occupied by armed insurgents, and bishop Longland's palace had been broken into and sacked, the people doing there " as much hurt as they could." For the first week the course of the insurgents was unchecked. They armed themselves as best they might, and did not hesitate to seize upon weapons and armour wherever they could be found. f They set beacons blazing and alarm bells ringing throughout the county, but the movement lacked a leader of ability, and it collapsed almost as suddenly as it had come into existence. The messengers from the meeting at Horncastle were detained by the king for a short time, while preparations were hurried on to collect forces and forward munitions of war to the north. In a week from the first commencement of the movement Sir John Russell, with the advance guard, was at Stam- ford, and the duke of Suffolk, to whom the supreme * Chapt. House Bk., A. -^^^ pp. 115-119. t An interesting example of this may be given. " Philip Trotter, ■of Horncastle, is accused by Edward Dymmoke, saying he took the -coat armour of Sir Lyon Dymmoke out of Horncastle church, where he was buried, and wore it upon his back." — Ibid.., A. j-g-, V- 13- 68 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. command had been given, was coming up in his rear. On Wednesday, October iith, just ten days after the outbreak, the king's herald arrived in Lincoln with the royal answer to the articles. It was couched in angry and vigorous language. " Concerning choosing of counsellors," the king wrote, " I never have read, heard nor known, that princes' counsellors and prelates should be appointed by rude and ignorant common people ; nor that they were persons meet or of ability to discern and choose meet and sufficient counsellors for a prince. How presumptuous then are ye, the rude commons of one shire, and that one of the most brute and beastly of the whole realm and of least experience, to find fault with your prince for the electing of his counsellors and prelates, and to take upon you, contrary to God's law and man's law, to rule your prince whom ye are bound ta obey and serve with both your lives, lands, and goods, and for no worldly cause to withstand. "As to the suppression of houses and monas- teries," they were granted to us by the parliament,. " and not set forth by any counsellor or counsellors upon their mere will and fantasy, as you, full falsely, would persuade our realm to believe. And where ye alledge that the service of God is much thereby diminished, the truth thereof is contrary ; for there are no houses suppressed where God was well served,. but where most vice, mischief, and abomination of living was used : and that doth well appear by their The Rising in Lincolnshire. 6q own confessions, subscribed with their own hands, in the time of our visitations.* And yet were suffered a great many of them, more than we by the act needed, to stand ; wherein if they amend not their living, we fear we have more to answer for than for the suppression of all the rest. And as for their hospitahty, for the rehef of poor people, we wonder ye be not ashamed to afifirm, that they have been a great relief to our people, when a great many, or the most part, hath not past 4 or 5 religious persons in them and divers but one, which spent the sub- stance of the goods of their house in nourishing vice and abominable Hving. Now, what unkindness and unnaturality may we impute to you and all our subjects that be of that mind that had rather such an unthrifty sort of vicious persons should enjoy such possessions, profits and emoluments as grow of the said houses to the maintenance of their unthrifty life than we, your natural prince, sovereign lord and king, who doth and hath spent more in your defences of his own than six times they be worth." The king's proclamation dismisses the " act of uses " as a subject which they cannot compre- hend, and coming to speak of their demand to be relieved of the subsidy imposed upon them, he upbraids them for " so unkindly and untruly " deal- ing with him, who has done so much for them " without any cause or occasion." * There is absolutely no record of any such confession. — Vide Vol. i., p. 348. 70 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. Lastly, as to the ''First-fruits^' Henry declared that the people ought to be glad for him to have them, to enable him to bear " the great and ex- cessive charges for the maintenance " of the commonwealth. " \\'herefore,'' he concludes, "we charge you, eftsoon, upon the foresaid bonds and pains, that ye withdraw yourselves to your own houses, every man ; and no more to assemble, contrary to the laws and your allegiances ; and to cause the provokers of you to this mischief to be delivered to our lieutenant's hands or ours, and you yourselves to submit to such condign punishment as we and our nobles shall think you worthy."* On Thursday, October 12, the people were ordered to be at the Castle-garth, in Lincoln, to hear the king's answer to their petition. Difficulties had bv this time arisen between the gentlemen and the common people. They mutually distrusted each other, and at the reading of the royal letter the dissensions became apparent. " \\ e the gentlemen,'' says one of them, when the letters came, thought " to read them secretly among ourselves, but as we were reading them the commons present cried that they would hear them read or else pull them from us. And, therefore, I read the letters openly ; and because there was a little clause there, which we feared would stir the commons, I did leave that clause unread, which was perceived by a canon there, * State Papers, i., p. 463. The Rising in Lincolnshire. ji and he said openly the letter was falsely read, by reason whereof I was like to be slain."* From that hour agreement was impossible, and on the following morning, Friday, October 13, the Lincolnshire resistance to Henry's measures was at an end. The gentry went forward to Stamford to meet the duke of Suffolk, and in their com- pany he, with Russell and Richard Crumwell, rode through Lincoln, the streets of which were crowded with a sullen and disheartened populace. The sixty thousand insurgents disbanded without a single blow. On that same day, Friday, October 13, the royal proclamation was read at the cross in the market place at Louth, and by Sunday, Henry had received at Windsor the news of the complete collapse, of what threatened to be a formidable popular protest against his policy and government. On the same Sunday, Wriothesley wrote to Crum- well : — "There arrived, also, letters from my lord of Suffolk, declaring all to be well there, and that the town of Louth is come in to the number of 200, and are not only sworn, but have also presented to my lord lieutenant (the earl of Shrewsbury) 15 persons, the names hereof I send unto your lordship herewith, which were the great doers of this matter amongst them, who are in ward ; holy doctor Mackarel, cap- tain Cobler, Manby, and the rest of all the said number." He concludes by saying that the king, to meet the expenses of suppressing the rising, * " Confession of Thomas Mayne," quoted by Froude, iii., p. 117. 72 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, " willed me to require you to tax the fat priests thereabouts ; naming doctor Wolman (dean of Wells) ; doctor Bell (bishop of Worcester) ; doctor Knight (afterwards bishop of Bath and Wells), and others about ' Poules ' or elsewhere." He also adds that the dean of St. Stephen's, doctor John Chambers, had already given 200 marks, and doctor Lupton, the provost of Eton, ;^ioo, "which his highness also requireth you to lay to them for a precedent."* The king saw at once how prejudicial to his posi- tion abroad was this overt expression of popular dis- satisfaction with his domestic policy. He did not even wait for the news of the suppression of the rising, but on October 13th, even before Suffolk had entered Lincoln, he had written to his ambassadors at the court of France, bishop Gardiner and Sir John Wallop, to counteract any evil which might arise from the news of the rebellion. " You shall understand," he says, " that, by the blowing abroad of certain false tales — that is to say, that we should intend to take all the ornaments, plate, and jewels of all the parish churches within our realm into our hands and convert the same totally to our own use ; and that we should also therewith intend to tax all our commons, as the like thereof was never heard of, in any Christian * State Papers, i., p. 471. Chapter House Book, A. aV> PP* 319-326, contains a list of tlie sums of money contributed by various prelates and others for this purpose. Amongst others may be noted: ** The abbot of Reading, ;^joo," and " the abbot of Glaston- bury, ;^IOO." The Rising in Lincolnshire. 73 religion, when we assure you there was never word spoken, or thing thought, by us or any of our council touching such matters ; which certain traitors (whereof two be already executed, and we have more of the authors ready to suffer like punishment) devised and invented, being they otherwise in the danger of our laws, and thinking, in this tombeling to fly and escape — certain of our subjects, with a number of boys and beggars, assembled themselves together in our county of Lincoln. And for as much as the matter of this insurrection may be there noted a greater thing than it is and so spoken to our dishonour, we thought meet to advertise you, as of the cause and the state of the thing we have done already." He concludes by saying that Suffolk, " who is now there, with a great force," will, without doubt, " give the traitors the reward of their traitorous attempt very shortly." And he adds that in six days he has " levied and conveyed " to Ampthill " an army of 80,000 tried men, which he hopes his ambassadors " may declare it " to the king of France, " and to all others whatsoever shall be bruited of the same, and that we can at all times return every man home again to his house or dwel- ling place, in as short space, without tumult or any manner of inconvenience."* * Tierney's " Dodd," Vol. i., App. xlii., " from the original, in my possession." No such army as the king speaks of was in existence. Eleven days later the privy council ask the duke of Norfolk's advice whether it was " expedient that his grace shouUl Jevy an army." (Hardwicke State Papers, i., p. 26.) 74 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. Upon the submission of the men of Lincolnshire, Henry issued another proclamation giving them his pardon and extolling his own generosity in so doing. They were ordered to " leave all their harness and all other weapons in the market place of our city of Lincoln/' and to depart peacefully to their homes. "Andif," the document concludes, "you will not take this most gracious and merciful clemency, at this present time, but continue one whole day longer after the receipt hereof, we shall execute all extremity against vou, your wives and children without mercy ; to the most terrible and fearful example of all others, whilst the world shall endure hereafter."* It is well to enter more in detail into the part taken by the monks in the insurrection. It is evident that they must have given a movement which was initiated in their defence their best wishes, but beyond this and the fact that they had given food, and perhaps money, to the mob, and that some few were violently compelled to go with it, there is nothing that can be construed into a proof of complicity. The first with whose name the Lincolnshire rising is especially associated is Dr. Mackarel, abbot of Barlings. f He and his brethren, who were of the Premonstratensian order, are accused not only of taking an active part in * State Papers, i., p. 468. f He was titular bishop of Chalcedon and suffragan of Lincoln. As chosen agent of so prudent and experienced a prelate as Long- land in the administration of his diocese, it is to be presumed he was not naturally of the temper of a brawler, or disposed to rush, to the head of a rabble. The Rising in Lincolnshire. 75 fomenting the disturbance ; but the abbot is made the head of the rising, and as Mr. Froude's account (which has found a place in most histories) has it : — " Dr. Mackarel, the abbot of Badings, was pre- sent in full armour." The depositions of witnesses after the insurrection give a different picture. One of the prisoners, asked " of whom the said traitors had relief in money, victuals, or harness," replied that " he heard say that the said traitors had money of the abbots of Barling and Bardney."* Another, speaking of the Yorkshire rising, declared that letters were received from Lincolnshire speak- ing " of the great present of the abbot of Bar- lings with his comfortable words, that any man counted themselves half ashamed to be so far behind them."t In the official notes as to the evidence it is said : — " The abbot of Barlings with divers of his canons or monks be accused by Edward Dymmoke, Thomas Dymmoke, Esquires, Robert Dighton, and George Staines, gentlemen, saying : that the said abbot and his monks or canons were among the commons in harness and brought them victuals and said unto them they should lack none such as they had, and, further, they say that the said abbot did divers times move them to go forward." To this is appended the note : — " Mem. The abbot moved them divers times to go forward." | In his own examination, taken in the Tower of * Chapter House Book, A. o^i P- i'^. t Ibid., p. 154. X Ibid., p. i. 6 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. London on January 12th, 1537, abbot Mackarel declares that : — " By command of Mr. Dymmocke, the sheriff, he brought a cart load of victuals to the rebels. And at his coming amongst them for fear of his life and for safeguard of his house, and to the intent they should not spoil his said household he said to the sheriff these words, or like in effect, following: — ' Mr. Sheriff, I beseech you to be good master unto me and save my house from spoiling and I will help you with such victual and goods as I have.' " Further, after declaring that he knew nothing about the insurrection till the Wednesday (October 4th), and explaining what he considered to be the causes which led to the rising, he asserts that the sheriff Willoughby, " with great bragging and menacing words commanded him to bring victuals," and denies utterly that " he did at any time persuade the people by sermon or oration or any kind of persuasion." " Item," the record runs, " he saith that upon Friday after the commencement of the insurrection (October 6th) when he had sure knowledge that the rebels would come into his monasterv — and at that time there were in his house a hundred of the same rebels — he then weeping declared to his brethren and some of his servants these words, or like in effect following : ' Brethren and servants, I perceive that these rebels will have both you and me with them and what shall become of us God knoweth, but this ye shall understand that their cause is nought The Rising in Lincolnshire. 77 and surely God and man must of justice take venge- ance on them.' " Item he saith, that he would have fled at the beginning of the insurrection, saving he feared the burning of his house and the utter destruction of the same and spoiling of all his goods." " Be it remembered," continues the document, *' that a canon of the abbot of Barlings, now prisoner in the Tower of London, being examined what words the said abbot had to his canons, servants and the rebels, at their being in his house as is aforesaid, declared that the abbot being by them required to send his canons to the rest of their company, answered, it was against the laws of God and man that any religious person should go to battle and specially against their prince. And said further, that the said abbot was so sorrowful that he could not, in a great while after their departure from his house, say any part of his divine service for weeping."* In a subsequent examination on March 23rd, 1537, before, Legh, Layton and Ap Rice, abbot Mackarel made certain admissions about the way in which he viewed the work of suppression. He says that when they were prisoners in Lincoln gaol the cellarer was admitted to bail by Sir William Parr in order that he might collect the rents due to the abbey, and of these Sir William got £10. He also confessed that ** he was in much fear of deprivation (at the) time of the king's late visitation. And the * Chapt. House Bk., A. -^-^, pp. 11- 13. 7 8 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. visitor Mr. Bedyll came so suddenly on him that he had no leisure or deliberation to tell the money, which he delivered in a purse to ' one Thomas Osegarby.' Also he says," continues the record, " that when Freeman and Wiseman, the king's sur- veyors, were suppressing the lesser abbeys in Lin- colnshire, the report was common, that they should return to resolve the greater, and he then gathered his brethren together and said to them thus : — ' Brethren, ve hear how other religrious men be treated and how they have but forty shillings given to each of them and so let go ; but they that have played the wise men among them have provided beforehand for themselves and sold away divers things, where- with they may help themselves hereafter. And ye hear also this rumour that goeth abroad as well as I, namelv, how that the greater abbeys should go down also. Wherefore by your advice, this shall be mv counsel, that we do take such plate as we have and certain of the best vestments and set them aside and sell them if need be, and divide the money coming thereof among us, when the house is first suppressed. And I promise you, on my faith and conscience, ye shall have your part thereof and of every penny that I have during my life. And there- upon the said brethren agreed thereto.' Upon this, concludes the abbot, I sent plate worth ;2{, loo and some of the best vestments to one ' Thomas Bruer.' "* * B. !Mus. Cleop., E. iv., f. 245. The Rising in Lincolnshire. 79 The only other witness against the abbot of Bar- lings was one Bernard Fletcher. He deposed " that the rebels being within a flight shot of the said abbot's pastures the same abbot brought them 80 wethers, 6 oxen, and a wain laden with bread and drink." Further on in his examination he declared that when the abbot " brought his said victual to the rebels, he there openly declared unto them these words, or like in effect following: ' Masters I have brought you here certain victuals. Go forward and stick to this matter. I have a lordship at Sweton and I will prepare for you as much more victual and bring the same to you to Ancaster heath.' " But " be it remembered," runs the record, " that after the examination of this deponent named Bernard Fletcher, the same deponent and the abbot of Bar- lings were brought face to face. And there the abbot denied utterly that he brought any sheep to the rebels, and further said that there came no sheep in his company. Whereupon this deponent being asked the question whether he did or no, saith that he cannot perfectly tell whether the 80 sheep ex- pressed in his examination were the same abbot's or no, or to whom they did belong or appertain." " The same abbot also denieth that he said to the said rebels at his repair to them : * Go forward and stick to this matter, etc' . . . But saith that, being amazed and fearing lest they would have killed him forasmuch as a great many of them were his mortal enemies said unto them : * Masters I have according 8o Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. to your commandment brought you victuals beseech- ing you to be good unto me and preserve my house from spoil. And if ye will let me have a passport, I will go to a lordship of mine called Sweton, where against your coming to Ancaster heath I will prepare for you as much more victual.' And the same abbot being asked why he spake these words, said he intended if he might have had his passport to have stolen from them clean and gone his way, for with- out he should use such policy it was not possible."* In a previous " confession," made at Lincoln shortly after the rising, abbot Mackarel had said that "a great number of persons had forcibly entered the house and slept in the chambers and on the ' hay-mowes.' When commanded to come with the insurgents, he had said that he and ' his brethren would come and sino- the litanv, leaving them to do as they pleased.' He told them that ' it was con- trary to their vow to wear harness,' but the two chieftains swore they should, whereupon he turned to the altar to hear mass, trembling so that he could ' hardly say his service.' Reports, he says, came that a bodv of the insurgents were cominor ' to fire the monastery,' and being commanded ' in the name of the great captain ' to come with his brethren, he brought them ' beer, bread, cheese and six bullocks.' He then asked to return home, which was permitted, but ' six of his brethren ' were forced to remain with the host ' seeing they were tall men.' "f * Ibid.,^^. 19-22. t Calendar, xi., No. 805. The Rising in Lincolnshire. 8i The depositions of Thomas Bradley, sub-prior of Barlings, and other canons of the house agree with their abbot's in the main facts. Compelled by the insurgents, six of the brethren appear to have borne arms for some days and gone along with the host. From the evidence, it certainly does not appear that the abbot and all his canons " rode at the head of the host in full armour," or that he and one of his brethren were justly executed for having " been concerned in the murder of the chancellor." * As to Bardney and Kirksted, the evidence is more meagre. Seven monks of the first monastery were examined in November and confessed that four or five of their number went for a short time with the rebels, " by command of William Wright."! Some other witnesses confessed having seen them in the ranks, and one " heard say that the said traitors " had help from the abbey, j The Kirksted monks acknowledged their part in the rising when questioned. Under threats, that " if they came not forth to the host (they) should be (burnt in) their own house "... about four o'clock in the evening, the abbot, cellarer, bursar and all the monks able to go, 17 in all, went to the outer gate, where they met a servant of the abbey, who told them they could wait till the next day. At eleven o'clock the following morning all except the abbot departed, " the cellarer and bursar horsed and * Froude, iii., p. 212. f Calendar, xi , S28. X Chapt. House Bk., A. -\, p. 116. VOL. II. G 82 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. with battle axes, the rest unhorsed." Two days before, a band of 60 of the nisurgents had carried away all the servants of the abbey to the muster. The abbot "as being sick'' was excused, but he gave the bursar 20s. and a horse laden with victual. The day upon which the monks arrived at the head- quarters of the insurgents two of them returned home sick, four went the following day (Friday), and four more on Saturday ; the rest remained '' till Tuesday morning." As for the abbot, he '' was glad of their return, and thanked God there was no business."* The punishment meted out to the insurgents was terrible. About a hundred are said to have been carried away to London, and lodged in the Tower. In the spring of the following year they were tried, on Tuesday, in the third week of Lent, March 6th, by Sir William Parr and a special commission sitting at Lincoln. The jury was apparently in their favour. Thomas Moigne, a gentleman of the county and one of the accused, spoke skil- fully for a long time in their behalf, and " but for the diligence of the king's Serjeant" they would have been acquitted. As it was they were condemned, although sixty-three were immediately respited. The other three and thirty, including the abbot of Kirksted and three of his monks, six monks of Bardney, four canons of Barlings, and seven secular priests, were ordered for immediate execution. * Calendar, xi., 828. The Rising in Lincolnshire. 83 Towards the end of March the abbot of Barlings, William Moreland, monk of Louth-park, Thomas Kendal, vicar of Louth, with two other priests and twelve laymen, were tried in London before chan- cellor Audeley, found guilty, and condemned to ., title deeds) and money left to the use of infants in abbevs' hands — alwavs sure there.* And such abbeys as were near the danger of sea banks, were * As examples see the wills in " Testamenta Eboracensia," Vol. iii., pp. 203-205; Vol. v., pp. 189-191, 222; in "Archaeo- logical Journal," Vol. xxv., p. 72, see the provision of Sir John Stanley, on his becoming a monk of Westminster, whereby his young son and heir is to be brought up until twelve years old by the abbess of Barking, and from that age until manhood under the care and guardianship of the abbot of Westminster. The Pilgrimage of Grace. 97 great maintainers of sea walls and dykes, maintainers and builders of bridges and highways (and) such other things for the commonwealth."* Aske then goes on to state his reasons for object- ing to the statute by which the princess Mary was declared illegitimate. " Also it was thought," he concludes, " that the divorce made by the bishop of Canterbury, hearing that appeal, was not lawful. Yea ! and then men doubted the authority of his consecration, having not his pall as his predecessor had." Passing on to speak of the statute of " first- fruits," Aske calls attention to the way in which houses still standing were hampered by the new legislation ; " it was thought good that the statute should be annulled because it would be the destruc- tion of the state of religion, which was and is profitable for the commonwealth both in soul and body, as before rehearsed. For it may chance so that in some year by death, deprivation or resigna- tion the king's highness may be entitled thereunto two or three times, or more. And for the pain of the same, worshipful men and friends must be bound, and so they to be in danger and the house not able to pay the same. For now, in manner, what with the king's money granted by them and the tenths yearly by them paid, all or most part of their plate is gone and cattle also and their houses in debt. So that, either they must minish their household and hospi- * Ibid., pp. 209, 210. VOL. II. H 98 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. tallty and, enforced, keep fewer monks than their foundation ; or else surrender their abbeys into the king's hands as forced (to do) for need, and the money thereof ahvays coming out of that country to the great detriment of the commonwealth there. Whereby all the riches and treasures of religion was and is esteemed the king's treasure, as ready at his commandment. Also because they had plenty of riches they adorned the temple of God and always succoured their neighbour in their need with part of the same — their money for the most part current amongst their people. Also it was then thought firmly that, by the law of God, the king's highness ought not to have the iirst-fruits of religion, for never king of England had it before, nor now none other. On what could the brethren live when the first year's rents are gone during that year ? Also it was said it was not granted at York, by convocation, nor agreed unto. Wherefore it was then thought good this statute to be annulled, or otherwise qualified for these reasons and many more."* When questioned about the statutes of the "royal supremacy"' and "that words should be treason," Aske replied, " that then all men much murmured at the same and said it could not stand with God's law. And divers reasons thereof (were) made, whereof he delivered one to the archbishop of York in Latin, containing a whole sheet of paper or more .... But the great bruit in all men's mouths then was, that * Ibid., p. 211. The Pilgrimage of Grace. 99 never king of England since the faith came within the same realm claimed any such authority. And it would be found to be an increase of a division from the unity of the Catholic Church, if men might with- out fear, and by the king's favour declare their learning without his grace's displeasure." With regard to the " statute of words that be treason," he declared that except in relation to the supremacy question " he heard few men grudge thereat." But on that matter " every man is fear- ful to show his learning or to labour for the same intent to show their learning, because there is a temporal law whereby they should incur the danger, or else the displeasure of their prince. And if the •cause touch the health of man's soul, then it were a gracious deed that the king's highness would annul that statute and that learned men in divinity might show their learning either in convocation or preach- ing."* Examined as to the popular opinion about the bishops and the griefs of the commons on that score, Aske said that they declared them to be heretics, " because they were so noted in the petitions of Lincolnshire and because they were reputed to be of the new learning and (holding) many tenets of Luther and Tyndal. And to the bishop of Wor- cester (Latimer), because it was said, either he was before abjured or else should have borne a faggot for his preaching. And that the archbishop of * Ibid., p. 215. loo Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. Canterbury was the first that ever was archbishop of that see that had not his pall from a spiritual man or from the see of Rome. And because he took upon him to make the divorce betwixt the king's highness and the lady Catherine dowager, where it was appealed to the Church, and for other his opinions, which the said Aske much noted, not because they were so openly bruited with all men. And as to the other two bishops,* surely they be mar- vellously evil spoken of, to be maintainers of the new learning and preachers of the same ; and that because of their information religion was not favoured and the statute of suppression taken place, for they preached as it was said against the benefit of habits in religion and such like, and against the common orders and rules before used in the universal Church. This was the common voice of all men." . . . And also " because they varied from the old usages and! sermons of the Church and because they preached' contrary to the same, therefore they were bruited so to be schismatics." t As Aske the leader thought, so thought the rest who followed him. Lord Darcy, speaking to him of the supremacy question, assured him " he had in the parliament chamber declared before the lords his. whole mind touching any matter there to be argued touching their faith." | At another time the same * Rochester and Dublin, t Ibid., pp. 227-228. % Ibid., p. 233. Lord Darcy's account of the method followed in parliament is of interest. *' Before this last parliament," he said^ The Pilgrimage of Grace. loi lord in regard to the preaching of the new bishops said " that he would be no heretic."* Others deposed that they demanded the deprivation of the bishops " because they were supposed to be occa- sion of the breach of the unity of the Church." Thus in the " Pilgrimage of Grace" the causes of the armed resistance to the royal policy appear to have been chiefly ecclesiastical. The suppression of the abbeys was felt to be a blow to religion in those parts no less than a hardship to the poor, and a detriment to the country at large. The royal supremacy was looked upon as founded only on Henry's whim and as a pretension without precedent in history, while the renunciation of papal authority was held to be subversive of the principle of unity in the Christian Church, and the first step towards diversity of doctrine and practice. The northern "" it was accustomed amongst tlie lords, the first matter they always discussed after the mass of the Holy Ghost, ... to affirm and allow the first clause of Magna Charta touching the rights and liberties of the Church, and it was not now so.'' Also, "that in any matter which touched the prerogative of the king's crown or any matter that touched the prejudice of the same, tlie custom of the lords' house was they should have upon their request a copy of the bill of the same," to examine it and get counsel about it. But *' that tiiey could now have no such copy upon their suit, or at the least so readily as they were wont to have in parliament before. And to his remembrance he thought default in those of the chancery, in their use of their office amongst the lords, and in the hasty reading of the bills and request of the speed of the same." The statute which gave the king generally all monasteries under j^200 both Aske and lord Darcy considered " little better than void," as the particular houses were not stated. * Ibid., 241. I02 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. counties were undoubtedly mostly influenced by these considerations in their rebellion against Henry's government, and their objection against the exces- sive taxation, under which the nation groaned at this time, and to the new " statute of uses," was founded principally upon the ground that these had formed part of the demands of the Lincolnshire people. The story of the actual rising is well known. The sketch that it is needful to give here may be best taken chiefly from the account given of it by Robert Aske himself. At the beginning of October of this year, 1536, Eobert with his two brothers, John and Christopher, met at the house of his brother-in-law^ William Ellerkar, for a hunting party. On the father's side the Askes were Yorkshire gentry of good descent. Their mother was a Clifford,, daughter of John lord Clifford the stout Lancastrian who was killed on Towton field ; and aunt of the first Clifford, Earl of Cumberland. John, the eldest of the three brothers, had the family estate of Aughton ; Christopher possessed a property at Marshland, and Robert himself with a manor in Yorkshire, was a barrister in good practice at West- minster. The latter was on his way back to Lon- don, and when crossing over the Humber in the Barton ferry boat, he learnt from the ferryman for the first time " that the commons on the Lincoln- shire side were up, had taken the king's com- missioners and also the bishop's ordinary, and how The Pilgrimage of Grace. 103 the voice was that their churches and ornaments of the same should be taken from them." On landing at Barton, on the Lincolnshire side of the river, it was his intention to proceed to the house of a brother-in-law at Sawcliffe, but when two miles on his road he was met by a band of mounted insurgents, who forced him to take the oath to be true to the commons, and then conducted him to his destination. A few nights after, he and his three nephews were taken out of their beds by the people, but the three youths were allowed to go over to Yorkshire, " because two of them were heirs ap- parent." Robert Aske himself was forced to become the leader of the insurgents in this part, who were in number some 4,000. He appears to have accepted the position, and for some days endeavoured to organize the movement. Leaving the southern side of the Humber after a short time, he crossed back into Yorkshire, where the rumour that he had been a leader in Lincolnshire, had already been spread. Almost immediately he prepared to return, but learnt the complete failure of the popular movement, and was obliged to fly- That night (October 13th), as he crossed the Trent, he saw the beacons blaze out over the waters and heard the clash of the alarm bells calling upon the northern counties to rise in defence of their rights^ The people had adopted the demands of the com- mons of Lincolnshire, and as the spark was stamped out there, the flame burst forth again in all the I04 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. country, from the Humber to the Scotch marshes and from the Irish sea to the German ocean. Aske passed once more over the Ouse into Howdenshire, where he found all the country astir. In places the " cross of the church '' was with the villagers as their standard, and everywhere they " enforced gentlemen and heirs apparent to come unto them."* The people had been deeply stirred by the religious changes. They would not tolerate the late order for the abolition of holidays of the church, and on Sunday, October 15 — the first of the northern rising — public protests were made against the clergy carrying out this order. One vicar in the " bidding of beads " on this Sunday did not give out St. Luke's day (iSth) as a holiday, "and after mass they thought to have murdered him. Wherefore for fear of his life he took the sacring bell in his hands, when they caused him to bid the beads again," and finally swore him "to be true to Almighty God, the faith of the Church to our sovereign lord the king and to the commonwealth. "f On the previous Sunday the same difficulty had occurred elsewhere about St. Wilfrid's day (October 12). A witness declared " that upon the same Sunday being in his parish church, when he heard the parish priest at the bidding of beads leave out St. Wilfrid's day for a holy day, he asked the same priest openly then * Chapter House Book, A. 9-^, pp. 47-51. t Ibid., A. 3-5, P- 155- The Pilgrimage of Grace. 105 why he did leave it out, for it was wont always to be a holiday here. And the priest answered that the same feast and divers others were put down for divers causes by the king's authority and the consent of the whole clergy in convocation. And as soon as mass was done all the whole parish was in a rumour for the matter, and said they would have their holi- days bid and kept as they had before, and so they had ever since."* These matters, small as they may seem at this present time, must have conduced in every village throughout England to impress upon the minds of the people in those days the royal determination to interfere with the ancient traditional customs of the Church of England. They were scandalized at the unwonted exercise of authority by the temporal prince in things so purely ecclesiastical, and their fears must have conjured up visions of yet further * Ibid., p. 53. The articles published at Richmond were : — " That all the commons in every township should rise in pain of death and take all lords and gentlemen and make them swear on the mass book to these articles following : " (i) To maintain the profit of holy church, which was the householding of the Christian faith. " (2) That no lord or gentleman shall take anything of their tenants ; whole their rents to put down the lord Crumwell, that heretic, and all his set who made the king put down praying and fasting." " (3) That no lord or gentleman shall go to London. " (4) If any lord or gentleman do deny to take this oath, then to put them to death and put the next of his blood in his place. And if he deny, put him to death in like sort, so one after another until one of the blood will take the oath." io6 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. legfislatlon In reo;ard to matters more vital to the Christian faith, even if rumour had not by this time made such changes more than probable. Thus to most the "Pilgrimage of Grace " was undoubtedly a rising in defence of religion and Catholic practice, and the actors bound themselves by an oath to fight " for the preservation of Christ's church, of the realm, and of the king." With 9,000 men or more Aske marched on York. In a letter to the mayor he urged him to give free access to the host, and as the city was fortified "neither with artillery nor gunpowder" this was conceded. The leader published an address in which the causes of the " assembly or pilgrimage " are stated, and an invitation is given to all to join in the work.* In the two days that the insurgents then remained at York, Aske " took order for religious houses suppressed, because the commons would need put them in again. Which order was set on the minster door at York to the intent all the houses suppressed should resort there and know how they should use themselves. Which order ran thus : — " First that the prior and convent should enter in their monasteries suppressed, and by bill indented view how much goods were there remaining which before were theirs ; and to keep the one part (of the indenture) and deliver the other part to the king's farmer : and to have necessary victmn et * State Papers, i., p. 466. The Pilgrimage of Grace. 107 vestitum of the delivery of the said farmer, during the time of the petition to the king's highness : and to do divers service of God there as the kind's bedemen and women. And in case the farmer refuse thus to do, then the convent to take of the same goods, by the deHvery of two indifferent neighbours, by bill indented, the necessaries for their living during the said time."* Acting on this many of the monks and nuns who had been ejected from their houses returned. " Work is done rapidly by willing hands, in the midst of a willing people. In the week which followed, by a common impulse, the king's tenants were universally expelled. The vacant dormitories were again peopled ; the refectories were again filled with exulting faces. "f " Though it were never so late when they returned," the monks " sang matins the same night."! The abbey of Sawley, which had been vacant since the 14th of May, and which had been, with all its moveables, sold to lord Darcy for close upon £Apo, was again occupied by the abbot and his twenty-one brethren, § and "being the charitable relief of those parts, and standing in a mountain country and among three forests," the men of Craven, Kendal, Furness, and the districts, bound * Chapter House Book, A. ^^, p. 52. t Earl of Oxford to Crumwell, quoted by Froude, iii., 133. X Calendar, xi., 13 19. § Exch. Aug. Ofi; Mins. Accts., 27-28 Hen. VIIL, No. 178, m. 5. io8 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. themselves together to resist any attempt to seize it from the monks a second time.* So, also, to take but one more example, the house of Ferriby, from which the prior, with his six canons, had been driven in August, already w^as partially re-established. The goods had been sold, the plate packed off to the royal treasury, and even the lead from the church roof and the two small bells w^ere ready for sale.f The prior had been pensioned in July, so the insurgents took " 20 nobles " from him " w^hich were distributed among the soldiers for suffering him to be at home, and," says the informant, " it w^as done openly, he being noted to have deceived the king at the suppression of his house great goods. "| The lands were in the keeping of Sir William Fairfax, the king's farmer, w'ho "was disposed to make away the goods of the same house ; " and hence at the petition of the neigh- bouring people " to make some stay or restraint of the same, seeing other houses w'ere stayed," the leaders " bade them put two brothers of the same house within it, to see nothing wasted and to make stay till such time as some way were taken with all houses. For," concludes the witness, " many of the commons thought the houses ill-bestowed on such as he (Sir William) that neither keep house nor men about him. Which oversight of the king's * Chapter House Book, A. /g, p. 57. t Exch. Aug. Off. Mins. Acct., 27-28 Hen. VHL, No. 178, m. 4d. X Chapter House Book, A. ^, p. 169. The Pilgrimage of Grace. 109 farmers thereof hath done much hurt in those parts ; and especially of him, being a man of fair possessions, keeping a very small part, and no men about him."* On Sunday, October 15, Aske and his followers entered York. Richmondshire and Durham had also risen, and the commons had seized the per- sons of lord Lumley, the earl of Westmoreland, and lord Latimer, and on Tuesday, the 17th, Aske had information that they were coming to join him. Pomfret castle, held by lord Darcy, was surrounded by the people, and the garrison was known to incline to the popular movement. On Thursday Aske summoned lord Darcy to surrender, and the following morning, October 19th, after a long parley, Aske was allowed to take possession of the stronghold, and Darcy, Sir Robert Constable, the archbishop of York and the others within its walls, took the oath of the " Pilgrimage of Grace." Of all the Yorkshire strongholds Skipton and Scarborough alone held out for the king. The people daily flocked to the banner, and the host increased to an alarming size. *' Lords Nevill, Latimer, and Lumley and 10,000 men, with the banner and arms of St. Cuthbert," and the men of Pickering and Blackmore, " with knights and gentlemen about 5,000," came to the support of Aske, so that when he moved forward on Doncaster he was followed by between thirty and forty thousand men " well tried on horseback." They marched under the banner of * Ibid. I lo Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. the pilgrims, which was practically that which the Lincoln men had adopted, and each wore on his arm a badge either with the "five wounds" worked upon it, or with a cross and I.H.S., which was used by those who came under " Saint Cuthbert's banner." The earl of Shrewsbur}^ was now at Doncaster with his armed tenantry, together with the duke of Norfolk and some 5,000 men. The river Don separated the opposing forces, and had battle been given there is little doubt that victory would have been on the side of the people. The duke of Norfolk, on his side, had received the king's special commandment " above all things, never to give stroke . . . unless you shall think yourself to have great and notable advantage for the same." And particularly if he found the rebels too strong for him, or if he thought "any of the company" with the earl of Shrewsbury " evil willing," he was to retire, and not hazard a fight. How he was to do this he left to the judgment of Norfolk himself, only recom- mending him his own " politic device," and warning him as to his " promises, to be made to the rebels for the stay of them, till your forces shall be come and joined with the others. Albeit we certainly know," the royal letter concludes, " that you will pretermit no occasion wherein, by policy or other- wise, you may damage our enemies ; yet we doubt not again, but in all your proceedings you will have such temperance, as our honour, specially shall remain untouched and yours rather increased than, The Pilgj'tmage of Grace. 1 1 i by the certain promise of that which you cannot certainly promise, appear anything defaced."* On their side the insurgents appear to have been by no means anxious to shed the blood of their countrymen. Some, indeed, of the younger lords and gentry were eager to proceed to extremities at once ; but their leader, Aske, reminded them that " it was no dishonour," and that " their whole duty was to declare their griefs to their sovereign lord to the intent that evil counsellors about his grace might be known and have punished."! Actuated by such motives — the one side by what Henry called a " politic device . . . wherein you may damage our enemies," and the other apparently by a sincere desire to obtain their demands without bloodshed — the two forces agreed to a conference. The desires of the "pilgrims" were, at the request of the duke, drawn up in a set of articles, and at a second meeting on Doncaster bridge it was agreed that Norfolk should accompany two of the northern leaders to the king to present their demands ; that the king's forces should retire from Doncaster, and the " pilgrim " army return to Pomfret. A fortnight passed in suspense. Many of Aske's followers returned to their homes, weary of waiting, and he himself was fully occupied in his endeavours to keep the remainder from active aggression pend- * State Papers, i., p. 494. t Chapter H. Bk., A. ^2^, p. 55. (Note lord Darcy ''playing the foory I 12 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. ing the royal reply. From Craven came the news one morning that the earl of Derby was marching with a force to expel the reinstated monks of Sawley abbey, and that the people of the district were gathering to resist. Through the earl of Shrews- bury, Aske managed to stop the movement of lord Derby, and sent messages to the commons, " who had already attained Whalley abbey," to "withdraw them to the mountains " again. The next day the leader had to be in York to quiet the people there ; and then again the following morning he was off 14 miles away, at Watton priory of the order of Sempringham, on the same errand — " to stay the commons there who would have chosen a new prior because the said prior was fied to the lord Crumwell, being one of his promotion, and had left behind him brethren and sisters of the same house, nigh sixty or eighty and not forty shillings to succour them." Aske managed to pacify the people, and " deputed the sub-prior for the time to order the same house," as the prior was yet absent. Again, the day following, the popular leader was at Hull, to see Sir Robert Constable, who held the town for the commons, and to examine the fortifica- tions made against the duke of Suffolk, who was " directly against the town." That town had fallen into the possession of William Stapleton, one of the insurgent leaders, about the middle of October. During the few days in which it stood out against him there occurred an incident which shows how The Pilgrhnage of Grace. 113 i determined the leaders of the movement were to prevent any acts of violence by their followers. Com- plaints had been made to Stapleton of the spoiling and thieving which was going on. He set a watch, and captured two in the act, and " made them believe they should die. And thereupon he assigned a friar to them, being in his company, advising them to make them clean to God, which the said William," who relates the story, " thinketh they did and looked for nothing but death. After the which, so done, the said William called for Spalding a waterman, and in the presence of all men caused them to be called out, and one, a sanctuary man, was tied by the middle with a rope to the end of the boat and so hauled over the water and at several times put down with the oar over the head."* Meantime, whilst Aske was fully occupied in his endeavour to keep the people quiet, and hopeful that their petitions to Henry would be accepted, the royal agents were busy over two futile plots to secure his removal by assassination or betrayal. " Alas, my lord ! " wrote lord Darcy to Norfolk, " that you, being a man of so great honour, should advise or choose me to betray any living man. Frenchman, Scot, yea, or even Turk. To win for me or for mine heirs the best duke's lands that be in France, I would not do it to no living person." f In the middle of November the two insurgent * Chapter H. Bk., A. ,\, p. 161. t Quoted by Froude, iii., p. 169. VOL. II. I 114 Henry VIII. and tlie English Monasteries. envoys, Ellerkar and Bowes, were sent back to the north " with general instructions of comfort," and with the information that the duke of Norfolk, with other commissioners, would follow after them with the royal reply. Henry had essayed several answers to the Yorkshire articles, but in each draft, annexed to the general pardon, was a reservation of certain persons to be excluded from it, and it was only finally in deference with the advice of the duke of Norfolk, that he could be induced to undertake to forego his royal vengeance entirely. On November the 21st the insurgent leaders met at York to consider their future action. They had been invited to meet the king's commissioners at Doncaster, but they " debated long whether they should do so or not, because of a letter sent by lord Crumwell to Sir Ralph Evers. Wherein were these threats or such like : ' Except the commons of those parts soon would be pacified, there should be such vengeance taken upon them that the whole world should speak thereof and take example by them.' "* It was agreed finally, however, to meet the duke at Doncaster with 300 persons, and " letters were sent to the clergy to stand for the articles profitable for the faith of the Church and liberties of the same." " But," writes Aske to Henry, " by reason of the same letters, and also for the extreme punishment of the great jury of Yorkshire, for Wickliff's cause and for the extreme assessment of their fines, the lord * Chapter H. Bk., A. ^^, p. 59. The Pilgrimage of Grace. 115 Crumwell was and yet (at the close of the first rising) is in such horror and hatred with the people in those parts that in a manner they would eat him, and esteem their griefs only to arise by him and his counsel, as the said commons there declared their minds to the herald Lancaster nigh Hampall in Yorkshire who can recount their words to your high- ness."* Before the meeting at York broke up it was agreed that two days previous to the meeting at Doncaster the lords should assemble at Pomfret. As the royal commissioners approached the borders of Yorkshire, towards the close of the month of November, the beacons were lighted, and " bells rung backward," again recalling the scattered forces of the insurgents to the banner of their'' pilgrimage." Norfolk sent back to the king letters "in such extreme and desperate sort, as though the world should be in a manner turned upside down, unless we," as Henry writes, " would in certain points condescend to the petition of the rebels."! The forces which the king had been able to get together during the delay were con- sidered by his lieutenant altogether inadequate to face the 20,000 insurgents ready to meet them and hear the king's answer to their complaints. Henry again enjoined Norfolk " not indeed to meet with them but in such sort as shall be for your perfect surety." Still, he was to try and get them peace- fully to accept the pardon he was instructed to offer. * Ibid., p. 60. f State Papers, i., p. 512. ii6 Henry VIII. and the EnglisJi Monastei'ies. If, however, thev refused to entertain such an offer, unless the pardon was "general and without excep- tion," or demanded a pariiament or proposed any other article, Norfolk was to say that his commission did not contemplate " the granting of any of those things," but that such was his love for them, and his fear lest they should act against the king foolishly, that he would himself go to the king, and writes Henry, " join with them as humble suitors and petitioners unto us." Further, if the duke found that the people only demanded a free and general pardon and a parlia- ment, then the king instructed him to pretend to go away for six or seven days as if for the purpose of going to him, " and when that time shall be expired, at the day to be prefixed, declare unto them that, with great dint, you had obtained their petitions, and so present unto them the general pardon." In fact, so far did this diplomacy of Henry go that Sir John Russell already had in his possession the general pardon, with instructions not to let anyone know of it.* It is obvious that for the purpose of obtaining delay, Henry, as he himself puts it, " therein waded, as far as possible, with our honour." As for Norfolk himself, he wrote to the king " all desperately," but^ as the latter reminds him, " in the end you said you would esteem no promise that you should make to the rebels, nor think your honour touched in the breach and violation of the same."t * State Papers, i., p. 511. f IbU.^ p. 519. The Pilgrimage of Grace. 1 1 7 On Monday, November 27, the leaders of the insurgents met at Pomfret. The assembly com- prised five peers, more than thirty knights, and, as Aske afterwards declared, " all or most part of the esquires of the said shire and gentlemen also."* They agreed to certain articles and conditions upon which they would lay down their arms. Simul- taneously the clergy who were in the town, with archbishop Lee at their head, met in the church to consider their answer to a set of ten articles pro- posed to them, or, as one witness described it, the archbishop took " certain clerks to discuss their griefs." And " as it was amongst them that were in his company, the archbishop of York held the same opinion " (that the movement was " good and gracious") "at the beginning, but now at the last meeting he preached to the contrary."! Still, as Aske afterwards declares, the people " would have the clergy's opinions touching the articles concern- ing our faith to the intent they should make their articles to the lords at Doncaster certain." And, he added, " if the clergy did declare their minds con- trary to the laws of God it was a double iniquity." \ The assembly of clergy, in spite of the sermon of archbishop Lee, drew up a brief set of articles which rejected as unlawful all that Henry had done in his ecclesiastical legislation. Convocation, they declared, should condemn preaching against pur- * Chapter House Bk., A. -5^, p. 60. t Ibid., p. 232. X Ibid., A. ./j, pp. 91-93. ii8 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. gatory, pilgrimages, saints, and images, and also all books against the same teaching should be con- demned ; the pains and punishment of heretics decreed by Henry W . ought to be executed. Holi- days, bidding of bedes, and preaching should be observed according to the ancient custom of the Church. " No temporal man might be supreme head of the Church, or exercise any jurisdiction or power spiritual therein ; no temporal man had authority by the laws of God 'to claim the tenths or first-fruits of any spiritual promotion." Lands given to God, to the Church, or religion might not be taken away and put to profane uses. The pope of Rome ought to be taken for the head of the Church. Clerks now in prison or fled the country for withstanding the king's superiority in the Church should be set at liberty and restored ; apostates from religion, not dispensed by the pope, should be obliged to return to their houses.* The articles, of which the above are the most important, were presented to the leaders of the movement, who sent forward to Doncaster for a safe conduct from the duke. And on Wednesday Aske and 300 followers crossed the bridge over the Don into the town. They were lodged at the Grey Friars, and on Thursday, the last day of November, they made choice of " 20 knights, squires and commons," with Aske as their spokesman, to proceed to " the White Friars to the duke and earls." Entering into Norfolk's presence, " and all making their low * Dixon, i., p. 473. The Pilgrimage of Grace. 1 19 obeisance and kneeling on their knees," they asked for the king's pardon, and Norfolk appears to have satisfied the leader of the king's intention in respect to their demands, and chiefly as regards the general pardon and the parliament to be held in some place appointed by the king within the year. Aske retired first to the Grey Friars, where he told his followers, and then on to Pomfret to the main body of the host. Early the following morning he sent the " bellman " round the town ordering the commons to come to the " market cross " to receive the king's pardon, telling them they were to receive It under the great seal. The people " gave a great shout of joy " at the news, and the whole body of the insurgents moved onward with their leader. "And incontinent," continues Aske's narrative, " came there a letter from the lord Lumley how the said commons would not be satisfied except they saw the king's most merciful pardon under seal, and that the abbots new put in of houses suppressed should not void their possessions to the parliament time," adding that " the parliament should be at York or else they would burn beacons and raise the whole country." But Aske was satisfied with the assurances of Norfolk and trusted to the honour of Henry, and so returned at once to Pomfret, where he persuaded the people who were assembled there, to the number of some 3,000, to accept the pardon. His reasoning pre- vailed, and the royal herald arriving the same night I20 Henry VIII. and the Euglisli Monasteries. with the document ; early the following morning they all assembled on " St. Thomas' Hill," outside Pomfret, and receiving the pardon at once departed to their homes. Once more Aske returned to Doncaster and, in the presence of the duke of Norfolk and the earls, he and his followers tore off the " badges and crosses with five wounds" as a token that their "pilgrimage" Avas at an end, exclaiming : " We will wear no badge nor figure but the badge of our sovereign lord."* Thus ended the first act of the " Pilgrimage of Grace." The sequel of the story, the part borne in the movement by the monks and the punishment meted out to the vanquished, will be briefly related in the next chapter. * Chap. H. Bk., A. i^, p. 63. CHAPTER IV. THE SECOND NORTHERN RISING. Influenced by Aske's advice, the northern bands quickly dispersed to their homes. The leader him- self trusted implicitly to the royal promises made through the duke of Norfolk, and unhesitatingly per- formed his part in the compact. That the king's government had been in the greatest danger of over- throw cannot be questioned, and the persistency and earnestness with which the fidelity of the few troops Henry had collected to oppose the forward move- ment of the insurgents, is asserted, leads to a suspicion of even their loyalty to his cause. As €arly as the beginning of November, the king had been anxious to discount the effect of the news of this fresh rising at the foreign courts. For this reason, as he had done in the case of the Lincoln- shire disturbances, Henry wrote to his ambassadors in France the account he wished circulated abroad. So that, as he tells them, "you may boldly aflfirm the same to be true to all men and in all presences where you shall have any occasion, cause or oppor- tunity to speak thereof." Judged by the documents, the king's account of the movement is far from being correct in any particular. The whole insurrection, he declares, was planned by those who wished to 122 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, obtain plunder during the tumult, an intention which is conspicuously absent during the entire affair. He says further that when the people learnt they had been deceived by their leaders they " much lamented their offences therein committed," and humbly " desired pardon for the same." " And as con- cerning the Yorkshire men," he continues, " they do already, being thus retired, lament their traitorous attempt and make great suit and labour for their pardon ; so that we have no doubt but we shall in time dispose of them as we will and bring them to like submission, as is already made by them of Lin- colnshire. . . . And yet do both shires remain wholly at our commandment, neither having our pardon, nor any certain promise of the same. And therefore you may be bold not only to declare the premises, as they be before specified, but also to affirm that, against every of the insurrections of those shires (being one attempted after another, and yet chiefly by one principal actor) we had in readiness, and that within six days for every of them, such two armies, as we think would first have devoured the said rebels and yet have remained right able, every of them, after to have given battle to the greatest prince christened. And surely we be as much bound to God, as ever was prince, both for that we found our subjects so forward, so willing, and so ready to have fought against the rebels that we were rather enforced to keep them back and to cause great numbers to retire home to their countries, than, by The Second Northern Rising. 123 any manner of allurements, to prick them forward. . . . We have them again in so good quiet, without effusion of blood or the striking of any stroke by either party, which is somew^hat strange, and, per- adventure, hath not been often seen — they (the in- surgents) being, as is said, such a multitude, as, doubt you not, had been able, well furnished with artillery, ordnance, and good captains, to have over- thrown the better of either the emperor's or French king's army,"* The manifest contradictions and falsehoods contained in this royal letter need not be pointed out ; but the document is of interest as showing the worth of the king's word, upon the faith of which the insurgents had laid down their arms. But notwithstanding the king's round assertions the truth had been understood. On the 24th of December Crumwell wrote to the same ambassa- dors, Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, and Sir John Wallop, with respect to rumours which had been circulated as to the methods employed in staying the insurrection, and the need in which the king stood which compelled him to come to terms. It was altogether false, he says, that the " commons assembled for the king's part, were so faint and unwilling, that they would not have done their duties if it had come to extremity." Still he admits that it was so reported in the country, but states " that the most part of the king's retinue in manner wept when they were commanded to return, considering * Tierney's " Dodd," i., p. 430. Quoted from " the original in my possession." 124 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. the rebels were not more extremely punished."* However this may be, it is certain that the duke of Norfolk had no confidence in the forces at his dis- posal. Both he and Henry were unwilling to " adven- ture the king's honour in battle," and the king left the matter to his discretion, although the council told the duke of their "regret to receive so many desperate letters, and, in the same, to hear no mention of the remedies."! With regard to the promises made to the rebels, the conclusion of Crumwell's letter, written a few weeks after the duke of Norfolk had made them in the king's name, shows how little Henry regarded them as obligatory on his part. "It is reported," the letter runs, " that the matter should be taken up with conditions and articles. It is true that, at the beginning, the rebels made petition to have obtained certain articles ; but, in the end they went from all, and remitted all to the king's highness pleasure, only in most humble and reverent sort, desiring their pardon, with the greatest repentance that could be devised ; insomuch as in their chief article, which, next their pardon, was for a parliament, for that they might have their pardon therein confirmed, they remitted the appointment of the same wholly to the king's majesty, without the naming of time, place, or any other thing touching that matter : and this dis- course may you declare to all men for truth ; for no man with truth can impugn the same."i * Ibid., p. 432. t Hardwicke Pap., i , 28. % Tierney's " Dodd," i., p. 433. The Second Northern Rising. 125 If the people were deceived, they had at the time no notion of any such deception, neither did they in any way abandon their demands, as Crumwell in the foregoing letter implies. Aske, in his narrative to the king, speaks of " the articles now concluded at Doncaster, which were drawn, read, argued and agreed among the lords and esquires " at Pomfret, and whether Norfolk exceeded his power or not in treating with Aske and his followers, a distinct agree- ment was made and signed. " The pardon and the parliament," writes Mr. Froude, " were distinctly promised. It appears, certainly, that further engage- ments were virtually entered upon, or that words were used, perhaps intentionally vague, which were interpreted by the insurgents through their hopes and wishes. They believed, perhaps they were led to believe, that their entire petition had been granted ; they had accomplished the object of their pilgrim- age and they were satisfied."* From the meeting at Doncaster Aske went to the abbeys of Haltemprice and Ferriby, into which the expelled religious had been again brought by the " pilgrims," and pending the decision of the expected northern parliament arranged that the king's farmers should be reinstated in their charges. f The resump- tion by the religious of their old houses and lands during the few weeks of the insurrection and the consequent expulsion of the royal officials had been a bold step. It is probable that, however willing the * I., p. 176. t Chapter House Bk., A. fj, p. 63. 126 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. monks had been to regain possession of their monas- teries, they had no part in the actual work of dispos- sessing the king's receivers. From Aske's narrative it is clear that the people had determined not only to put a stop to future suppressions, but to demand the restoration of those houses which had already passed into the hands of Henry. Thus, as has been pointed out in the last chapter, the people round about Ferriby priory had insisted upon two of the old religious possessors being placed there again, as Sir William Fairfax, the king's farmer, " was dis- posed to make away the goods of the same house." In the same way the people were moved with indignation at the suppression of the neighbouring priory of Haltemprice. The sales of the goods of the monastery bringing into the hands of the receiver nearly £2^0, and the transport of chests popularly supposed to contain the plate and valuables of the priory from the neighbourhood, determined them to put a stop to any further depredation. William Stapleton, one of the leaders of the movement, declares that he was told " that great treasure of the king's lay at Beckwith's house at Southcave, which came from the abbeys of Ferriby and Haltemprice. Whereupon to please the people and to save the goods, if any were there, the said William took with him certain honest persons and kept the light persons from such things as much as he could, and he there found a woman keeping the house, and flighting from his horse he went in taking with him The Second Northern Rising. 127 not above six persons, and the rest stood at the door, and he asked where the priest was . . . who was there hid for fear of certain hght persons who had been there before the coming of the said Wilham, and threatened to spoil the goods and slay the priest. But when the priest knew who asked for him he came forth quivering and shaking for fear. And the said William asked him what treasure was in the two great iron chests : and he said nothing but evidences. The said William to satisfy the commons said it was like to be so, yet it was like to have been plate or other treasure." But the priest in the end " showed him a letter of Beckwith's hand for the conveyance of the said chests, wherein it appeared they were evidence."* After the meeting at Doncaster and the dispersal of the people to their homes the king's heralds were sent round about the northern countries to proclaim the royal pardon. In so doing the envoy was directed to note well the demeanour of the people and to find out whether they had settled down to their occupations or were still disturbed. If he thought it well to make the declaration he should declare the king's sorrow that, after twenty-eight years during which he had "ever tendered them in all things rather like his natural children than Hke his subjects," they should listen to false tales about him. What the king had done, he should tell them, had he ap- proval of the parliament and the clergy. Then * Ibid., p. 155. 1 28 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. "with gentle words" he should declare " how the king having a main army of 50,000 men besides that force which was addressed against them," still on account of his affection for them directly he heard they had retired, determined not to advance and punish them as they deserved. Having said this much the herald was to read the proclamation, and have it fixed to the Market Cross or other public place, which shall be strictly watched to see whether anyone tear it down. "And finally" the officer " shall in all his journey, diligently, secretly and sub- stantially ensearch, what monks, canons, nuns or other religious persons, of any religious houses, within the limitation of the act of suppression, having been discharged by his grace's commis- sioners, be again restored, by any of the rebels to the possessions of their said houses ; how they use themselves in the same ; and of what inclination the people is for their continuance."* An instance of the wav in which the directions issued by the king for the proclamation of his pardon were observed, is given in the examination of William Colvns, the bailiff of the town of Kendal. " And on the morrow after our Lady's day before Christmas," runs the record, "they received the king's gracious pardon at Pomfret, which they have to show in Kendal town under the king's broad seal at this examinat's house, brought by Clarencieux the herald about fourteen days before * State Papers, i., 473. The Second Northern Rising. 129 our said Lady's day. Which herald made pro- clamation in Kendal town the said fourteenth day of the king's said pardon. And because certain farmers of priories about sent to him showing him how divers brethren took away their corn from them, and therefore like to have been murder between them about the same, therefore the said herald gave commandment openly in the king's name, upon pain of high treason, that no man should disturb any man about the possession of lands and tithes ; but they should be in like manner as they were at the last meeting at Doncaster and so con- tinue till the duke of Norfolk came again to the country, which should be about the twentieth day after Christmas. Which done, as the herald was departing away, came two of the brethren of the late priory of Cartmell, and desired the herald to write unto them the same order that they might show it to their neighbours. And he said he could not tarry so to do, but desired this examinat to write them a word or two of the effect of the said order. And thereupon this examinat at his request and to the intent to have the said brethren to keep them out of danger of the king's statutes, wrote unto them the said order of this effect : ' Neighbours of Cartmell, so it is that the king's herald has made proclama- tion here that every man (under) pain of high treason should suffer everything, as farms, tithes and such other to be in like stay and order con- cerning possession, as they were in the time of the VOL. II. K 130 Henry VI I L and the English Monasteries. last meeting at Doncaster, except you will of your charity help the brethren there somewhat towards their board.' "* As he "showed me," says a witness, "that all the canons of Cartmell had entered the house except the foolish prior who would not go to them," I wrote to him. As far as I remember " it was to this effect : Forasmuch as all religious persons in the north parts had entered their houses by putting in of commons, and I am informed that you, meaning the prior of Cartmell, being required so to enter do withdraw yourself, I think you may safely enter and do as others do, keeping yourself quiet for the season and praying for the king. And at the next parliament then to do as shall be determined, and I have no doubt but so doing you may continue in the same with the grace of God who keep you." The letter was written from York on the ninth of December, and the writer declared that he sent it, because it was openly said at the time both at Pomfret and York that the abbeys should continue " in such manner as they were put in, unto the next parliament." For this same reason, and because he " understood that such was the promise made at Doncaster," he spoke in the same way to prior Coke of St. Agatha's. t The letter to Cartmell probably confirmed the brethren there in their determination to hold to their * Chapter House Bk., A. Tfy, p. 250. f Chapter House Bk., A. '-^^ p. 345. The Second Northern Rising. 131 old home. Their trust in thus relying on the herald's word was terribly expiated, for as Colyns, the bailiff of Kendal, declared in his examination : " After this, four of the brethren of the said house of Cartmell and eight yeomen were put to execution for withstanding the king's farmer Mr. Holcrofte and stirring up a new commotion about eight weeks after (the letters) without the knowledge of this examinat or any other man of Kendal to his witting."* It does not seem open to doubt that Aske endeavoured to restrain the people and prevent any further attempt at insurrection in the expectation that Henry would redeem his promises made at Doncaster, A fortnight after the people had dis- persed to their homes the king wrote to him pressing him to come and see him. " We have conceived," he says, " a great desire to speak with you and to hear of your mouth the whole circumstance and beginning of that matter," and he promises that he will "accomplish towards you and all others, our general and free pardon, already granted unto you."f In obedience to this summons Aske travelled to the south and remained some time with the kino-. At his wish he wrote out a full and complete history of his connection with the risingr and a straight- forward and honest declaration of the various causes which led to the disturbance. It is from this invalu- * Chapter House Bk., A. ;^, p. 250. t State Papers, i., p. 523. 132 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. able document that many of the details of the rising are known, and It has become evident how keenly the people of the North felt the destruction of the religious houses and the various ecclesiastical innovations introduced by Henry.* Aske remained for some short time with the king, and was then sent back to the North with fresh assurances of the king's intention of abiding by the pledges given by Norfolk. But meantime the people were becoming disheartened by the long delay and doubtful of the royal intention. The fact that Crumwell remained apparently as high as ever in Henry's favour in spite of all the objections they had urged against him, and that rumour had spoken of the massing of royal troops round about the disaffected counties, and of the strengthening of the defences of Hull and elsewhere, seemed to show that Henry had no intention of keeping faith with them. On his return to Yorkshire Aske saw the danger and immediately wrote to inform the king of the agitation. " I do perceive," he said, " a mar- vellous conjecture in the hearts of the people, which is, they do think they shall not have the parliament in convenient time ; secondly, that your grace hath by your letters written for the most part of the honourable and worshipful of the shires to * It is significant that whilst the filthy scribbles of Layton and his compeers have been printed and reprinted and their reports dinned into people's ears for the last two centuries, such a weighty document as Aske's " expostulatory narrative to the king," drawn up at Henry's, express request to Aske in person, has never yet seen the light. The S ec 071 d Northern Rising. 133 come to you, whereby they fear not only danger to them, but also to their ownselves ; thirdly, they be in doubt of your grace's pardon by reason of a late book answering their first articles, now in print, which is a great rumour amongst them ; fourthly, they fear the danger of fortifying holds, and especially because it is said that the duke of Suffolk would be at Hull and to remain there ; fifthly, they think your grace intendeth not to accomplish their reasonable petitions by reason now the tenths is in demand ; sixthly, they say the report is my lord privy seal (Crumwell) is in as great favour with your grace as ever he was, against whom they most specially do complain ; finally, I could not perceive in all the shires, as I came from your grace homewards, but your grace's subjects be wildly minded in their hearts towards commotions or assistance thereof, by whose abetment yet I know not ; wherefore, sir, I beseech your grace to pardon me in this my rude letter and plainness of the same, for I do utter my poor heart to your grace to the intent your highness may perceive the danger that may ensue ; for on my faith I do greatly fear the end to be only by battle."* It would appear that Aske was loyal to the king in his implicit belief that the promises made at Don- caster would be adhered to. The letter given above, together with his narrative of the events, hardly admit of a doubt that he was honest in his endeavour * Froude, iii., p. 182. 134 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. to restrain the people from any further aggressive measures. John Halom, one of those most deeply- compromised by the second rising, declared at his examination that Aske had done what he could to prevent it,* and in this opinion he was borne out by most of the witnesses. Lord Darcy also joined Aske in this attempt to preserve the peace. He, like the leader, had been invited to journey to Windsor to see the king, but although he had excused himself on the plea of such ill-health that " he was more like to die than to recover thereof,"! he wrote several letters advising the people to trust to the king's promises and to his looking to their grievances.! He also declared to the lord admiral in a letter written on the 20th of January, 1537, that Aske, Babthorp, Ellerker, Constable and he himself were doing their best to quiet the restless humour of the people. " And Sir Richard Tempest," he adds, ''is sent home . . . with good comfortable words of the parliament for spiritual and temporal men, and of the king's free and mere pardon of his own benign grace granted, and that true justice shall have place against all that was in the bill of article." And if the duke of Norfolk only come to promise this, he concludes, " he will accomplish more than 40,000 men could. ''§ On the eve of Sir Francis Bygod's rising letters were sent to him and the commons with him urging * Chapter House Bk., A. .f^, p. 48. f Ibid., B. /^, p. 40. + Ibid., pp. I, 3, 7. § /^/V/., p. 21. The Second Northern Rising. 135 them to pause. With these Sir Robert Constable, on January i8th, sent a paper saying that "the king's highness hath declared by his own mouth unto Robert Aske that we shall have our parliament at York frankly and freely for the ordering and reforming of all causes for the commonwealth of this realm ; and also his frank and free convocation for the good stay and ordering of the faith and other spiritual causes."* It was, however, this very confidence in the royal honesty which was afterwards construed into high treason, and for which lord Darcy, Aske and many others were executed. In the notes upon the evidence against them it is stated that a letter from Darcy to Aske, written on January 21st, declared that the duke of Norfolk was to come into the North " to proclaim a free parliament to be kept there, and also free liberty to the spirituality to utter their learning ; " also that in this parliament all grievances were to be considered. This shows, the author of the " note " rightly infers, that lord Darcy still looked for reform, " which," he continues, "is high treason." Moreover, in a letter to the duke of Suffolk, he asked that " the appointments made at Doncasteron the king's part should be observed," and this again, says the annotator, proves that he is a "traitor" still. The same deductions are made from the letters and actions of Robert Aske subse- quent to the pardon, whereby the very reliance he * Ibid., p. 131. 136 Henry VI I L and the English Monasteries. placed upon the plighted word of Henry is counted as proof of a traitorous disposition.* It is unnecessary to follow the history of the several risings, by which the people endeavoured to force attention to their disappointed hopes. Sir Francis Bygod and others endeavoured to seize Hull and Beverley in the beginning of January, and were captured in the attempt. The leaders of the first rising lost no time in repudiating the new move- ment, and Aske received a letter from the king, thanking him for his services in endeavouring to put an end to it.f Various commotions followed in the northern parts which culminated in an attack upon Carlisle by some eight thousand men of Westmore- land. They failed in their attempt, and only afforded the duke of Norfolk a pretext for advancing, with an army upon which he could rely, into the disturbed districts. Martial law was proclaimed and remorse- less executions finally broke the resistance of the people. These ill-judged and hopeless disturbances afforded the king an excuse for breaking off the convention of Doncaster. Even those who had in reliance upon the royal promises done their best to restrain the impatience of the people, found themselves involved in the consequences of their former acts although they had sued and obtained pardon for them. Aske, whose good offices in keeping the people quiet had been acknowledged by Henry, and lord Darcy who * Ibid., A. „V' PP- 241-247. t State Papers, i., 529. The Second Northern Rising. 137 had certainly taken no part in such risings, found themselves prisoners in the royal power. Before speaking of the final act in the drama of the Pilgrimage of Grace — -the trials and executions of those implicated in the movement — the special attention of the reader must be directed to the part taken in it by the religious. The king, in his letter just quoted, declared that " all these troubles have ensued by the solicitation and traitorous conspiracies of the monks and canons of those parts." It will be of interest to see how far such an assertion, borne out apparently by the numerous executions of abbots and monks, is confirmed by the depositions and examinations of witnesses and prisoners, on which alone, if justice had had its course, their condemna- tion or acquittal should have rested. Speaking of the beginning of the insurrection, William Stapleton accuses an Observant friar of being implicated in the movement. He was stay- ing, he says, at the Grey Friars, Beverley, with his elder brother Christopher, " a very weak, crazed and impotent man," who had been ill for some sixteen years and was at that time at the Friars " for change of air," as he '' had been the summer before from May till after midsummer." William, who was on his way to London, could not leave as he intended on October 4th, because he heard that the " com- mons of Lincolnshire " had risen, and so he remained on from day to day, till Sunday, the 8th, when the people about Beverley joined in the movement. 138 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. William Stapleton tried to keep his people indoors, but his brother's wife would not be controlled, and went to the hedge, crying out, " God's blessing have ye and speed ye well in your good purpose." The people asked where her people were, ' ' and she replied, They be in the Friars. Go pull them out by the heads.' " For this she was blamed by both brothers, but she replied " that it was certainly God's quarrel." With the people at this time, as Stapleton declared, was "one Sir Thomas Johnson, otherwise called Bonaventure, an Observant friar, who was sworn and had been much with the said Christopher both at his house at Wighill and at Beverley, and before that time was assigned to the said house of Beverley by Doctor Vavasour, warden of the Grey Friars at York. And the said Bonaventure supervised much the rising, and was very busy going betwixt the wife of Sir Christopher and the said wild people, oft laying scriptures to maintain their purpose."* It was apparently at the suggestion of the same friar that William Stapleton was forced to become the leader of the people, and subsequently as he says " the Observant offered himself to go into the quarrel in harness to the field and so did to the first stay." The same witness accuses " Sir Robert, a friar of St. Robert's of Knaresborough," of working hard to stir up the people to join the movement, and these two are about the only individual names men- tioned as connected with the rising and not belong- * Chapter House Bk., A. ^, p. 150. The Second Northemi Rising. 139 ing to abbeys well known in history as attainted for their supposed part in the Pilgrimage of Grace. In the second rising, the Gilbertine priory of Watton, on which a new prior had been imposed against the wish of the community by Crumwell, was said to be mixed up with the movement. The story is best told in the words of one William Horsekey when examined as to his knowledge of the matter. " Upon Monday, was a fortnight," he says, "which was ploughday after that (Christmas day) the said Hallam, Hugh Langdale and this examinat had a drinking together at one John Bell's in Watton with many other of the parishioners, being there together in great number as the manner is there of plough- days, and every man departed homeward. The said Hallam, Hugh Langdale and this examinat, with the vicar of Watton, as they passed by the church of Watton turned in the same to say a pater noster, and there being, the said Hallam called this examinat and the said Langdale to an altar, called our Lady's altar, and said unto them : " Sirs I tear me lest Hull do deceive us the commons, for there is ordnance daily received there by ships." He then went on to declare that the king was not going to keep his promises and that they must look to themselves. Aske, as the witness declared, did all he could to prevent the second rising, which was " for the pulling down abbeys," and the payment " of tenths." " Also he saith," continues the document, " that the subprior, the confessor of the nuns, and the vicar 140 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. of Watton . . . are great favourers and setters forth of this matter of sedition, for he heard them and every of them since Christmas last, at sundry times say that it would never be well as long as the king's grace should be the supreme head of the Church, and that the same would not be reformed without the people did set forward again with a new insur- rection. And upon his conscience he thinketh that there is never a good one of all the canons of the said house of Watton, but that every one of them is glad to set forward this business. And he saith that they all great (ly) grudge their prior and would fain have a new one."* Hugh Langdale who was named in this witness's evidence was servant to " the prior of Watton," and was away with his master in London during the late troubles. He was examined himself and declared that both Hallam and Sir Francis Bygod remained two days at the priory. " In the which time," he said, " as this examinat learned there at the table, being a servant of the house, the said Bygod and Hallam ' commoned ' of the prior that he was not lawfully put in. And Hallam advised and com- manded the brethren of the said house, upon pain of losing all they had, to choose them another prior. And for that intent the subprior sent this examinat to Beverley to fetch out Thorland a notary to come to the said house." Hallam in his examination admits taking Langdale * Chapter House Bk., A. —, pp. 41-45. The Second Northern Rising. 141 into the church to " swear him on a book" for fear he should send word " to his master the prior of Watton being then in London." He further states that Sir Francis Bygod at Watton priory declared the Doncaster articles bad because they did not run in the king's name, but began : " Albeit the king's highness," etc. He thought " it was but lord Crum- well's deed, and said further that the king's office was to have no cure of man's soul, and did read a book made as he said by himself (Bygod) wherein was showed what authority did belong to the pope, what to a bishop and what to the king. And said that the head of the Church of England might be a spiritual man, as the archbishop of Canterbury or such like, but in no wise the king, for he should, with the sword, defend all spiritual men in their right." Hallam also declares that Bygod "said before the subprior (of Watton) and most part of his brethren that the prior was not lawfully chosen, for he was lord Crumwell's chaplain and admitted by him. And (whereas) he should have been chosen by free election, he was chosen but by three or four of his rehgion. And in that, this examinat (Hallam) thought and said that he spake but the truth, for all the time he was there the prior was good to no man. And of this examinat he took twenty marks in money, where he should have been paid in corn when God should send it. And (he) gave many unkind words and rebukeful to his tenants, sitting in 142 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. his court more like a judge than a reHgious man." . . . For these reasons, then, Bygod advised the brethren at Watton to elect another prior saying "he would draw them a draft how they should proceed and counselled them to send for a notary therefor, for he thought that the commons would be up shortly again and then it were not meet that they should be without a head and governor." In this advice Hallam confesses he joined, because, as he says, "the subprior and brethren aforesaid would fain have had a new prior among them."* In the examination of the religious of Watton themselves much the same evidence was elicited. The subprior, " D. Harry Gill," says they were asked by the insurgents for money and horses. They gave only £\o and a gelding and "also Master Aske had one spice plate of silver, which was a pledge of the earl of Northumberland," and if it had not been sent the house would have been " spoiled." He declared that the archbishop of York sent a letter " to all curates and religious that they should go a procession every day and send their minds out of Holy Scripture and the four doctors touching the commons' petition." From their house two replies were sent, one from a " Dr. Swinburne " and another " from a young man of our habit called Thomas Asheton " . . . "and they were both one as touching the Supreme Head." With regard to the election of a prior in place of * Ibid., p. 59. The Second Northern Rising. 143 the one appointed over them by Crumwell, and who had fled, the subprior deposed that at the time of the first insurrection Hallam came " with a great number of his soldiers after him into the infirmary of Watton where the brethren were bound to dinner, and there in the presence of the prior of EUerton and the prior of St. Andrew's, York, charged the brethren to elect them a new prior. And they said it was against their order and statutes of their religion, their prior being alive, and not lawfully removed. Then he said if they did not, he would spoil their house, and he would nominate one him- self. And said : ' Methinks this man ' — pointing to the prior of EUerton — * is meet to be your prior.' Then for fear of spoiling of their goods, as they say, they met together and did nominate the said prior of EUerton to be their prior." He, however, would not take the office, "nor they received him for such indeed, but to have him to bear the name only through fear of the commons." * Lastly, examined as to the crucial question of the " Supreme Headship " of the king, the subprior declared that for himself " he had no learning to discuss the matter ; but as he saith it was in every man's mouth that if that were not laid downf it should not be well." * Ibid., pp. 77-80. It will be remembered that Aske declared he had gone at this time to Watton to prevent this new election from taking effect. t i.e., if the king did not put aside the title of Supreme Head which he had assumed. 144 Henry VIII. mid the English Monasteries. The answers of two other religious of Watton* do not add anything to the declaration of the sub- prior, although they confirm its accuracy in every particular. It mav, therefore, be supposed that in these various declarations and examinations there are stated the various ways in which the priory of Watton was implicated in the rising. None of the canons took any active part in the movement, their contributions were small and even these were extorted bv force. As for the matter of the election, however much they disliked the superior appointed by Crumwell, and whatever cause they had to endeavour to get rid of him, thev appear to have acted loyally to him, except in so far as they were compelled to give way to force. Bevond the foregoing isolated instances the numerous depositions and relations reveal no accusa- tion against monastery or monk of any active co- operation with the insurgents, with the exception of the abbeys of Jervaulx and Whalley, the priory of Bridlington and the connection of the quondam abbot of Fountains with the movement. These cases must now be considered. With respect to Jervaulx, the chief witness against the monks is Ninian Staveley, himself one of the leaders of the movement and a representative of the swashbuckler element among the insurgents. He * That of '* J. D. Thomas Lather, cellarer and granator," is pre_ - faced by the expressions, '■^ Jesus sit in adjutorioT '^ Jesu adjuva vie. and '' Dens in adjiitorium.'" The Seco7id Northern Rising. 145 engaged in the movement, as an adventure rather than as a pilgrimage, and having compromised him- self endeavoured to save his own neck by incriminat- ing others. By his deposition it would appear that the abbot during the second rising had promised to come to the insurgents "with all his brethren;" and that at the same time he had sent a messenger to Sir Thomas Percy " to have him come for- ward," and also a servant into Lincolnshire to find out the state of the country, and to let them know whether the duke of Norfolk was advancing: " with arms or no."* These form the chief points of the abbot's offending, and they may be considered best in the light of his own examination in the Tower on 27th of April, 1537. "Adam Sedbar, abbot of the monastery of Jervaulx, ' sworn and examined, ' said that during the first rising, about Michaelmas day, there ' came to the garth or court of the abbey of Jervaulx,' some two or three hundred men. He knew nothing about it at that time, but hearing that their captains, Middleton and Staveley, were asking for him, * he conveyed himself by a back door' to a place 'called Wilton Fell.' He only had a boy with him, and ' bade his other servants get them every man to his house and save their cattle and goods.' He remained thus concealed for four days, only coming home at night," and for all those days the said commons wandered about the said house in the country about. ..." At the last, * Chapter House Bk., A. ,\, pp. 117, 118. VOL. II. L 146 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. hearing say that this examinat had said that there should no servant of his ever after do him service, nor tenant dwell on no land of his that should go with them, they therefore turned back to Jervaulx and inquired for this examinat, and they were answered that this examinat was not at home. And then said they : ' We charge you brethren to go and choose you a new abbot.' Whereupon the brethren rang the chapter bell and went towards making of a new election. And certain among them would in no wise agree to make any new abbot. Then the commons gave them half an hour's respite to choose one ; and if they did choose none in that space they would burn their house over their heads. Then the brethren sent several ways about to seek this examinat, and at last one William Nelson came where this examinat was upon Wilton Fell in a great crag, and showed him that the commons would burn the house except he should come home, and all the brethren cried ' Woe be (us).' " Then for saving of the house this examinat came home (and) about the outer gate he was torn (from his horse) and almost killed, they crying 'Down with that traitor.' And at last by means of some of his friends he was carried in from them. And when he came to the hall entry one Leonard Burgh, one of the ringleaders, drew his dagger and would have killed him, but for them that stood by. Then he came further where one William Asleby, chief cap- tain of these parts, was, and he said to this examinat : The Second Northern Rising. \\y * Horeson traitor, where has thou been ? ' and said : * Get me a block to strike off his head upon,' and there this examinat was commanded to take the oath, which he took, the said Burgh ministering the same to him. And so took this examinat with them forthwith and gave him no respite, but caused him to ride with them upon a brown horse, which he rode upon his coming into them." He was forced to remain with them for some days, but at last, through the intercession of one of the leaders, was allowed to return home. To Jervaulx, during this time, were sent the letters from the " commons " of the district, to receive which and for- ward to their destination certain of the insurgents were quartered on the monks. This continued till the settlement at Doncaster, when the strangers left. In answer to the inquiry as to what aid he had given the insurgents, the abbot replied " that the commons took all his servants with them . . . but (that) he never gave one of them one penny of wages." Further, "he saith," continues the record, " he never sent victuals unto them. And that the commons took with them two of this examinat's brethren* among them, against this examinat's mind and will, who returned again with this examinat." " Examined whether and how he gave money to Staveley at the last commotion there, he saith ; that * From the notes on this examination (Chapter House Bk., ^ B., p. 140) it appears that the names of these two were Roger Hartlepool and John Stanton. 148 Henry VIII . a7id the English Monasteries. where this examlnat had lost some 30 wethers, on one James his * storer's ' advice he spake with Edward Middleton in the Christmas holidays, because he was a hunter, that he should inquire for his sheep and he should have of this examinat for his labour, and he said he would. Then about three weeks after, this examinat met the said Middleton by chance in the abbey church of Jervaulx and asked him whether he had any word of this examinat's sheep : and he said * no ' albeit he had made the best inquiry he could as he said. Then said this examinat : ' Seeing ye have taken pains although ye could do no good I shall give you some- what to drink for your labour.' And he forthwith com- manded the said James his ' storer ' who stood by to give him two shillings or three, and fourpence. And he said he had no single money. Then said this examinat ' Go to the cellarer or the quondam of Foun- tains and bid one of them give ' the money." Four or five days after this " there came to this examinat's chamber immediately after breakfast " Staveley and Middleton, " and his son and heir, and many more were in the hall." Staveley told the abbot that formerly he had deceived the people, " and therefore bade him come with them and half a dozen of his brethren forthwith. And this examinat desired them to forbear and said they were his neigh- bours and should be his friends and were his enemies. . . . And partly by his importunity and refusal and partly by the entreaty of one Beckwith that came The Second Northern Rising. 149 with them, they let this examinat and his brethren alone. But they took against this examinat's will certain of his friends with them." The following day the abbot fled to Bolton Castle to Lord Scrope, where he remained until the insur- gents were " broken at Richmond," when he returned home. "Since that time," he says, "he heard nothing of the matter. And other comfort aid or assistance he gave not them by word deed or writing by the virtue of his oath and upon his allegiance." Lastly, as to the special points upon which Staveley accused him, he denied " utterly that ever he sent or caused to be sent, nor that he was privy that any messenger should be sent to Sir Thomas Percy, or that he put his servants and tenants with Staveley or gave them any aid or comfort, or that he sent any man to lie in Lincolnshire to consider the state of the country there, but saith that the cellarer of the house sent one Jackson to Lincolnshire at the latter end of the Christmas holidays to gather their rents and for no other purpose to this examinat's know- ledge as he saith."* The quondam abbot of Fountains, William Thirsk, was implicated in the movement, t together with the abbot of Jervaulx. Thirsk had been deprived of his office at Fountains by Crumwell's visitors in the beginning of the year 1536. Lay ton and Legh had written to Crumwell about his having made away * Chapter House Bk., A. ^, pp. 259 to 263. t Ibid., B.;^, p. 1 01. 150 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. with the plate and jewels of the abbey, and of their success in getting him to " resign privately into their hands."* On the appointment of his successor, Marmaduke Bradley, who had offered Crumwell six hundred marks, and the king ^^f 1,000 as "first- fruits " if he could obtain the oflfice, he retired first to London and aftenvards to Jervaulx. How far he had any part in the insurrection for which he was executed must be judged from his examination as there is little else known about him. On April the 24th doctors Layton and Legh, his old enemies, had him before them in the Tower, and, being sworn, he said : " About the beginning of the last Lent (1537) as this examinat was in his chamber at Jervaulx abbey came to him one of the servants of the house, called James Thwaites, desiring this examinat in the abbot of Jervaulx's name to deliver to Middleton that came with him forty pence ; one Staveley being there also. And he said he would, and with that took out an angel noble and bade them change it. And Staveley took the same in his * See Vol. i., p. 336. Layton and Legh, the king's commissaries, accepted the resignation of WilHam Thirsk in " The Church Chamber," at the monastery of St. Mary's Fountains, 19 January, 1536. They granted him a pension of 100 marks a year (Calend. X., No. 131.) In a letter written by his successor on March 6th it appears that there were considerable difficulties about the money arrangements. The pension of jCa'^ '^^"^^ objected to as excessive, and Thirsk is said to want to keep all the house goods above the value of ;^i,ooo (No. 424), and according to archbishop Lee he had not resigned by the end of March, as he wished to be made secure as to his proper and promised pension (No. 521). The Second Northern Rising. 151 hands and said it was cracked. Then this examinat took out another angel and bade them change that. And the said Staveley took both and put them up, saying, ' Ye churle monks ye have too much and we have nothing. Neither of these thou gettest again.' Then this examinat said again, ' Ye shall not have my money so. If ye be true men ye will not take my money away. Ye should have but forty pence of me.' Middleton, however, promised to repay the money if Staveley did not, * and so they departed without any more words.' " About a week after this " the said Middleton and Staveley in harness came to the said abbot of Jervaulx as he and this examinat were in his chamber, and bade the said abbot and this examinat upon pain of death and all their brethren and servants go with them forthwith. And many other of the commons were in the hall and about the house. And he desired them instantly to suffer him and his brethren to be still, seeing it was not meet that religious men should go about any such business. And so this examinat desired them also to let him likewise alone for he was old and feeble and nothing meet for such business. Nevertheless as this exami- nat heard say they took with them the servants of the house but whether it were by the abbot's com- mand or not he cannot tell." Further he denied absolutely that he had ever desired Staveley or any other " if there should be any new insurrection . . . ' to help to put him in his 152 Henry YIII. and the English Monasteries. room again.' " And he declared he knew nothing of the first rising, '"' being in London all the time," and never heard of any message being sent to Sir Thomas Percy.* If the abbots of Jervaulx and Fountains do not appear to have afforded active assistance to the insurgents, the part played by the abbot of Whalley was of a still less compromising nature. William Rede, a baker of Oxford, said that he had carried letters from the abbot '' to his scholars being in Oxford," and also '' another to the abbot of Hayles." The abbot had told him to recomm.end him specially " to the abbot of Hayles and tell him that I am sore stopped and acrazed. And pray him to send me word when he purposeth to come over to this country, for I would be glad to see him once ere I depart out of this world, seeing I brought him up here from a child." The baker on his way received a packet of letters from a schoolmaster to give to " Philip, his son, at Oriel college." And when he came to Wotton, having told the constable there what he was carrving, he found himself carried off to Kenilworth castle. The letters were examined, and as far as can be judged from the document, only implicated the schoolmaster and not the abbot. t One witness, indeed, declared that the abbot of Whalley lent a horse to Nicholas Tempest, of Brace- well. But Tempest's account of the matter is very * Chapter House Bk., A. ^, pp. 257, 258. t Chapter House Bk., A. -^^, p. 134. The Second Northern Rising, 153 different. He says that he went to the abbey " with three or four hundred men," and "being kept out about two hours were at last let in for fear of burning their barns and houses. And there this examinat swore the abbot and about eight of his religion ac- cording to Aske's oath."* So that even the oath of the pilgrims was extorted from the monks by threats of violence. The only other matter which appears against Whalley is that lord Darcy had some com- munication with the abbey. " Memorandum," it is noted, " also that lord Darcy this Lent last past sent a copy of a letter which my lord of Norfolk wrote to him unto the prior of Whalley who is now attainted of high treason, whereby appeareth that the lord Darcy favoured the said prior, being a traitor."! Lastly, the only item of information about Bridling- ton is obtained in a note possibly in Crumwell's hand. " Item," it runs, " the prior of Bridlington and Dr. Pickering, the friar, had been great setters forth of both the first and last insurrections. And the said Dr. Pickering, a great writer of letters, to move and stir as well the first as the last. And also the prior of Bridlington had in readiness as well all his house- hold servants as also divers his tenants in harness, for to have given assistance to By god and Lumley in the last insurrection." % In a list of those im- plicated the names of " Nicholas Tempest, Ham- * R. O. State Papers, Dom., 1537, |,. t Chapter House Bk., A. ~^^ p. 247, i.e. the lord Darcy being the traitor. X Chapter House Bk., B. f^, p. 143. 154 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. merton and Pickering, friar," are associated with that of " the abbot of BridHngton." These four names have been subsequently erased. Against the names of Hammerton and Tempest is the note : "The petition made to Thomas Percy by the abbot of Sawley, wherein is no apparent matter against them but before the pardon."* And even as to this Nicholas Tempest denied upon oath that he knew anything about that " supplication," his connection with Sawley abbey being confined to advising the abbot's chaplain to lay their cause before the meet- ing at Pomfret, and " when the commons had put in the abbots and monks," giving "them a fat ox, one mutton, and two or three geese." f In like manner Sir Stephen Hammerton denied having had anything to do in the matter. His declaration is of interest, as it shows that the abbot of Sawley and doubtless some of his brethren expiated their crime of taking possession of their old home on the scaffold. "And he saith," runs the record of Hammerton's examina- tion, " that the abbot of Sawley, as he was con- demned to die, sent divers persons to this examinat to desire his forgiveness for that he had named this examinat in the said letters . . . and he took it upon his death that neither this examinat nor no other gent or other person of the county was counsel to the making or devising of the said supplication but only he himself and the said Estgate (his chaplain) * Ibid., p. loi. t R. O. State Papers, Dom., 1537, |,. The Second Northern Rising. 155 and two of his said brethren called Bradford and Parish."* The punishment meted out to the insurgents now that the last resistance was at an end was, as might be expected, not wanting in severity. Seventy-four of those who had been taken in the unsuccessful attack upon Carlisle were hanged by Norfolk from the walls of the city.f The chief prisoners were first tried by a commis- sion in York. In forcing friends and even relations of the prisoners to take part as jurors in this trial Norfolk perpetrated a cruelty which could hardly have been believed as intentional were it not for the testimony of his own letter to Crumwell. After tell- ing him that the king's commission had arrived " with two books of indictments and two schedules ; the one of such as should be indicted and the other of gentlemen to be impanelled," he goes on to say : " I doubt not to have the greatest appearance that was seen at York of many years, on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning (May 9th, 1537). I will sit upon those that be named in the schedule on Wednesday by nine o'clock, and also upon two * Chapter House Bk., A. ^, p. 30. The " Monasticon," v., p. 511, says that William Trafford, last abbot of Salley, was hanged at Lancaster for opposition to the crown in 1538. The declaration of Hammerton, made in 1537, states that he was condemned to death, and it would seem to imply that he had already been executed. Walcott says his execution was at Lancaster on March loth, 1537, and this is the year assigned by Stowe (ed. 16 15, p. 573), who says that "one Astlebe, a monk of Jervaulx," was executed with him. t Hall, p. 824. 156 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. monks of the Charterhouse for not knowing of the king to be supreme head of the Church, unless they do openly recant from their false opinion which I think they will not do."* The duke then goes on to say that he thinks it well, as he presumes Crumwell intends, to have " two divers inquests ; for they being so kept that one of them shall not know what another doth shall make them the more quick to find the matter. And I have so provided that we shall lack no number if I would have four inquests. And I am at this time of such acquaintance with the gentlemen that I dare well adventure to put divers on the quests (of whom) some hath married with the lord Darcy's daughters and some with Sir Robert Constable's.! And I will put John Aske thereupon, who is eldest brother to Robert Aske. Doubt ye not, my lord, but the matter shall be found according to the king's pleasure." Continuing, he says he hopes to have the evidence before Thursday, which " is no day to sit considering * The names of these two were "John Rochester and James Wahvercke," two of the heroic members of the London Charter- house. They were hanged in chains at York. Vide Vol. i., p. 240. t Raine, ''Hexham'' i., App. clxii., note, says, "These were Brian Stapleton, of Carlton; Henry Babington, of Dethick ; Sir William Fairfax, of Gilling ; Sir Thomas Dawney, of Cowick ; and Sir Thomas Metham. Sir Thomas Metham was a grand juror. Sir Robert Constable's daughters married into the houses of St. Quintin, Gower, Pudsey, Cholmeley, and Husee : Sir Roger Cholmeley and Sir Edward Gower were on the York grand jury. The Second Northern Rishig. i^y it shall be Ascension day," and if so " Crumwell shall have the result and be able to proceed with the London arraignments on Monday or Tuesday. My good lord," he goes on, " I will not spare to put the best friends these men have upon one of the inquests, to prove their affection whether they will rather serve his majesty truly and frankly in this matter, or else to favour their friends, and if they will not find, then they may have thanks according to their cankered hearts. And, as for the other inquest, I will appoint such that I shall no more doubt of than of myself."* The commission was held at York Castle on " Wednesday, the vigil of the Ascension May 9th," before the duke of Norfolk, Sir Thomas Tempest and others. The jury, amongst whom was John Aske, the brother of Robert, found the prisoners guilty of conspiring with lord Darcy on the loth of October " to deprive the king of his dignity, title, name, and royal state, namely, of being on earth the supreme head of the English Church." Also they found them guilty of endeavouring to compel the king " to summon and hold a parliament and convo- cation and other divers high treasons." Further, that having been pardoned they repeated these treasons in January. A week later they were brought up before chancellor Audeley at Westminster, and pleading not guilty, May 24th was appointed for the trial. * Raine's " Hexham Priory," i., App. clxi. 158 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, On that day all the prisoners except Ralph Bulmer* were condemned to death. f There can be no doubt that the abbots and monks now tried and put to death fell victims to Henry's cupidity and sanguinary vengeance, and that they did not suffer for their own misdeeds. Among the rest the following religious were ordered to be executed : Adam Sedbar, abbot of Jervaulx ; William Thirsk, quondam abbot of Foun- tains ; William Wood, prior of Bridlington ; James Cockerel, prior of Gisborough and rector of Lythe ; and John Pickering, late of Bridlington, and a friar of the Dominican Order. Lord Darcy was executed on Tower Hill. The abbots, with Percy, Bygod, John Bulmer, Hammerton, Lumley, and Tempest, were hanged and quartered at Tyburn, while Constable and Aske were hanged in chains at Hull and York. The fate of those who had withstood the royal will and appealed even to arms to save the ancient abbeys of England from spoliation and to pro- test against the changes in religious faith and practice imposed upon an unwilling nation, struck terror into the hearts of the English people. The collapse of the movement removed every restraint upon the auto- cratic power of the crown and opened the way for further and more extensive suppressions of religious houses and seizure of monastic and church property. * Coram Rege. Roll, 33 Hen. VIII., Easter, M. 9. Ralph, son of Sir John Bulmer, by a letter dated 29 Jan., A° 32 Hen. VIII. , was pardoned and discharged. t Ibid, and Baga de Secretis, in iii. Rept. Dept. Keeper, App. ii. CHAPTER V. DISSOLUTION BY ATTAINDER. The Northern disturbances, in the autumn of 1536 and the spring of the following year, acted as a check upon the suppression schemes of Henry. From Michaelmas of the former to the same feast in the latter year, according to the accounts of his ministers, very few religious houses passed into his possession. In Yorkshire and the adjoining counties the spring months of 1537 were used by the royal officers in once more ejecting the monks and nuns who had been reinstated by the insurgents in their old homes. The king's instructions to the duke of Norfolk on this point were precise. He was im- mediately after the execution of Constable and Aske to restore the keeping of the monasteries formerly suppressed to the royal farmers, " and aid such commissioners as his majesty shall appoint to dissolve the other monasteries within the limit of the said act not yet dissolved." Further, the instruc- tions run, " the said duke shall cause all the rehgious persons that were or be in any of the said houses either to take their livings in such other monasteries of their religion as they shall be assigned to, or else if they shall refuse so to do, he shall punish them as vagabonds and enemies of i6o Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. the commonwealth, so as no one of that sort remain at large in that country." Norfolk and the earl of Sussex had, indeed, in behalf of the king, made large promises at the meeting of Doncaster that the restored religious should be left undisturbed until the Northern parlia- ment had finally settled the question of the dissolu- tion. But the king evidently did not consider himself bound by the acts of his plenipotentiaries. "And, forasmuch," his instructions continue, "as the said duke of Norfolk and the lord admiral at their late being at Doncaster promised to be suitors to the king's majesty that the monks, canons, and nuns of such religious houses suppressed should have victum and vestitiun of the goods of the monasteries they were of, till further determina- tion should be taken touching that matter, by reason whereof some ringleaders may perchance make some argument for the continuance of the said monks, nuns and canons with such sustentation at their liberties, the said duke in such case shall make a discourse to all men appearing so much affec- tionate towards them, of their essential wilful poverty, chastity and obedience, and dilate how far they vary from good religious men, from them that will be wilfully poor ; yea, from true subjects that would direct their prince and sovereign lord ; that will not live but as they list themselves, and therewith declare how the king's majesty is by his laws right- fully entitled to those monasteries, and that those Dissolution by Attainder. i6i that will so direct his majesty therein be not esteemed for his great true subjects, but to be punished as his traitors and rebels."* In a previous letter, written by Henry at the time when the duke had proclaimed martial law, the com- mander had been praised for the way he had " dis- creetly, plainly and truly " painted and set forth to the people in their true colours " those persons that call themselves religious." "And we doubt not," continues the king, " but the further you shall wade in the investigation of their behaviours the more ye shall detect the great number of them and the less esteem the punishment of such, as you shall find, in will or deed, culpable in things that may touch us or the common quiet of our realm. . . " " Thirdly," the letter continues, " We do right well approve and allow your proceedings in the displaying of our banner. And forasmuch as the same is now spread and displayed, by reason whereof, till the same shall be closed again, the course of our laws must give place to the ordinances and estates martial, our pleasure is, that, before you shall close up our said banner again, you shall in any wise cause such dreadful execution to be done upon a good number of the inhabitants of every town, village and hamlet, that have offended in this rebellion, as well by the hanging of them up in trees, as by the quartering of them and the setting of their heads and quarters in every town, great and * Chapter House Bk., A. -^, pp. 367 et seq. VOL. II. M 1 62 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, small, and in all such other places, as they may be a fearful spectacle to all other hereafter that would practice any like matter : which we require you to do, without pity or respect, according to our former letters ; remembering that it shall be much better, that these traitors should perish in their wilful, un- kind and traitorous follies, than that so slender punishment should be done upon them, as the dread thereof should not be a warning to others." Further, Henry expressed his desire that after " such execu- tion " had been done by the summary processes of martial law, the ordinary legal forms of " ordinary justice " should, at the duke's discretion, complete the work of punishment. " Finally," the letter concludes, " forasmuch as all these troubles have ensued by the solicitation and traitorous conspiracies of the monks and canons of those parts ; we desire and pray you, at your re- pair to Sawley,^ Hexham, f Newminster,| Lener- cost,^ Saint Agathas;| and all such other places as have made any manner of resistance, or in any wise conspired or kept their houses with any force since the appointment at Doncaster, you shall without pity or circumstance, now that our banner is displayed, cause all the monks and canons that be in any wise faulty to be tied up without further delay or ceremony to the terrible example of others. "% * In Craven, West Riding. § In Cumberland. t In Northumberland. || At Richmond, Yorks. X In the same county. ^ State Papers, i., 537. Dissolution by Attainder. 163 The rigours of martial law are only by chance recorded, and it is impossible to calculate the numbers of religious, and of the people who rose to defend them, that perished during the months when legal trial was suspended in the north and Sussex and Norfolk acted upon the royal com- mand " to cause all the monks and canons that be in any wise faulty to be tied up without further delay or ceremony." And even when Sussex stayed his hand in compassion, Henry would hear of no pleading for those who had offended against his majesty. " Concerning the old man," he writes, "whom you wrote you had respited, upon the lamen- tation he made at the bar and the allegation of his service thrice heretofore against the Scots and otherwise done unto us ; albeit we cannot but take your stay of him in good part, yet, considering he hath so often received our wages and would never- theless at the last be thus corrupted against us, we think him for an example more worthy to suffer, than the rest that before had not experience of our princely puissance, nor had received any benefit of us ; and so remit him unto you to be executed according to his judgment."* In some instances, however, the feeling of the people, even in this reign of terror, was manifested against the cruelties perpetrated, by the secret removal of the bodies of those who suffered, from the gallows or trees on which they were left * State Papers, i., p. 541. 164 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, hanging. The duke of Norfolk was urged to make inquiries and vigorously punish those who had been bold enough to do even this act of Christian charity. In reply he denied all knowledge of the matter. " You wish to know," he writes to Crumwell, " whether such persons as were put to execution in Westmoreland and Cumberland were taken down and buried by my commandment or not. Undoubtedly, my good^lord, if I had consented thereunto I would I had hanged by them." In conclusion, he blames the earl of Cumberland for not having had the bodies hanged in chains as he had directed, and when they had been removed, not making more vigorous *' search, who hath so highly offended his majesty." He adds : "in this shire (York) and the bishoprick they all hang still in chains, notwithstanding that I have had no small intercession for many of them."* The king appears strangely anxious that the perpe- trators of the act should be discovered and brought to justice. " And," writes Crumwell, " as concerning the depositions of certain women, anent the cutting down and burial of the traitors . . . surely having regard and respect to the evil example and perverse minds of the offenders, which is thought can only (come) of women's heads (although) some men were the principal offenders," the king thinks they cer- tainly ought to be found and punished as they so well deserved. t * Raine's "Hexham Priory," i., App. clxi. t State Papers, Dom., 1537, /^. Dissolution by Attainder. 165 Under the terror of the royal vengeance and with the example of these remorseless punishments in- flicted on all who came within reach of the royal arm, the commissioners do not appear to have ex- perienced much difficulty in regaining possession of the confiscated monasteries. At the beginning of February Norfolk had anticipated a very different result, and declared that, although the nobles and gentry had promised " to put the king's farmers in possession of the religious houses," no one would dare to do so.* But a couple of months later, what with the executions actually carried out, and the dread each one had of being involved in the same fate, re- sistance was at end. A correspondent writing to reassure Dr. Legh, the royal visitor whose punish- ment had been demanded by the Pilgrims of Grace, says on April 24th : " Loving to God, the country is quiet enough, saving that every malefactor dreads him- self. . . . And as concerning any complaint against you or other for the visitation, there is nothing spoken of that matter. I dare well say there is no religious man that will avow any grief for that matter."f According to the directions given by the king to his generals, the monasteries of Sawley, Hexham, Newminster, Lanercost and St. Agatha's were quickly retaken from the monks. Of Sawley suffi- cient has already been said, and the resistance ex- perienced by the king's officers at Hexham has been described. On the 5th of March, 1537, the * State Papers, i., 534. f R. O. Slate Papers, Dom., 1537, \. 1 66 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. latter monastery passed into the duke of Norfolk's hands. Plate to the value of £6'^ 9s., and weighing 359 ounces, was taken for the king, but on the very- night of the suppression day a great deal of the monastic moveables was carried away by the people of the town.* One only member of the monastery, prior Jay, who had apparently taken no part in the resistance, received a pension. The previous day, the 4th of March, Norfolk was at Lanercost, and, as the record has it, " expelled the prior, convent, and familiars from their possessions and took them into the king's hands." f Newminster, another monastery specially noted by the king, was finally suppressed on August 20th, after the commissioners had been there from July I St. The value of the moveables was counted at close upon a thousand pounds ; more than one-half of which was represented by the lead and the worth of 660 ounces of plate. Pensions were promised to the community, consisting of seventeen priests, three junior monks, as well as to four choir boys ; % but the following year only the abbot, Edward Tirry, and a former abbot, Edward Dunfield, received any- thing. § The suppression of St. Agatha's, Richmond, followed about the same time ; one only, Robert Brampton, receiving any pension. The goods and plate were valued at close upon -^1,000, and some rich vestments from St. Agatha's and Calder were * Exch. Aug. Off. Mins. Accts., 27-28 H. VIII., 200, m. 4. t Ibid.^ m.3d. % Ibid,n\. 4d. § Ibid., 2 c)- 7,0 H. VIII. , No. 204,111. id. Dissolution by Attainder. 167 handed to Sir Thomas Pope for the king's use. Much of the property was, however, seized by the insurgents during the northern rising, as it still re- mained in the possession of the receiver, and some was not recovered* for the royal purse. A similar devastation of goods occurred at Lamb- ley, a convent of Benedictine nuns on the Tyne in Northumberland. The royal receiver reported that there was absolutely nothing of value left when he arrived at the place to suppress it. All the move- ables and domestic utensils, as well as the plate and lead, had disappeared. Even the " nuns had fled, leaving neither goods nor cattle " behind them.f Several of the larger monasteries fell into the royal power at this time by the attainder of their abbots. In the statute for the settlement of the royal succession (25 Hen. VIII., c. 22), under the ambiguous terms " estate of inheritance " and " successors," were introduced two great changes into English law. By the first, estates tail were made forfeitable for treason, and the second — " other than such persons as shall have been so convict, their heirs and successors " — may have been intended, as is suggested by Sir Matthew Hale, to fasten upon lands held in the right of a corporation as by a bishop or abbot. The king had a personal concern in all property so confiscated, and it was to his interest to make the meaning of the act as wide as * Ibid., No. 169, m. 5. t Ibid., 28-29 Hen. VIII., No. 200, m. 2d. i68 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. possible. Hitherto the attainder of a bishop or abbot would not affect the property of the diocese or abbey- over which the attainted superior ruled. It was left to Henry to include the forfeiture of possessions of a corporation in the punishment awarded to the head for supposed or real treasonable practices. Burnet argues that such a proceeding was unjustifiable. " How justly soever these abbots were attainted," he writes, " the seizing on their abbey lands, pur- suant to those attainders, was thought a great stretch of law, since the offence of an ecclesiastical incum- bent is a personal thing, and cannot prejudice the church ; no more than a secular man, being in office, does by being attainted bring any diminution of the rights of the office on his successors."* However, upon this interpretation of the law of treason Henry now determined to act, and the sup- posed complicity of some of the abbots in the pil- grimage of grace gave him the opportunity of laying hands upon the possessions of their houses. The part taken by John Paslew, abbot of Whalley, has already been remarked upon. According to the evidence there was very little which could be con- strued into active co-operation with the insurgents. Still it appears that he was tried at Lancaster, probably by martial law, together with two of his monks, John Eastgate andWilliam Haydock, and the abbot of Sawley. William Trafford, the abbot of Sawley, was hanged at Lancaster on March loth, * "Hist, of Reformat.," ed. 1679, Ck. iii., p. 240. Dissolution by Attainder. 169 and the abbot of Whalley, with Eastgate, two days later at Whalley. The other monk of Whalley suffered the same punishment the following day, March 13th, in a field some miles from his monas- tery, where his body was left hanging for some time.* Writing to the earl of Sussex about this time, Henry conveys his thanks for the punishment inflicted upon those who had offended him. " And whereas," he continues, " upon the execution of the abbot of Whalley, you have taken order for the good direction of the house, and the safe keeping of the goods without embezzlement, till further know- ledge of our pleasure ; approving much your good foresight thereof, we have thought convenient to signify unto you, that forasmuch as it appeareth that the house of Whalley hath been so sore corrupt amongst others, that it should seem there remaineth very few therein that were meet to remain and continue in such a corporation, we think it shall be meet that some order be taken for the remotion of the monks now being in the same. And that (it is proper) we should take the whole house into our own hands ; as, by our laws, we be justly, by the attainder of the said late abbot entitled unto it ; and so devise for such a new establishment thereof, as * WliiUakei's "Hist, of Whalley," p. 123. I'he actual date seems unceitain. From the king's letter to Sussex it would seem that the abbot of Whalley was dead before Sussex wrote letters which Henry speaks of receiving on March nth. State Papers, i , p. 540. lyo Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. shall be thought meet for the honour of God, our surety and the benefit of the country. Wherefore our pleasure is, that you shall, with good dexterity, lay unto the charges of all the monks there, their grievous offences towards us and our commonwealth and therewith assay their minds, whether they will conform themselves gladly." They may either go to other houses or " receive secular habit," but Sussex is enjoined to endeavour to get them to go to some other monastery, as, says the king, " it cannot be wholesome for our commonwealth to permit them to wander abroad."* The directions of Henry were acted upon, and by Michaelmas, 1537, John Kechin, the receiver, had sold goods and got in rents to the value of ;^957 IIS. yd. from the abbey of Whalley, and had sent up to Brian Tuke, the king's treasurer, some ^500. t Thus in a few months the king had ap- parently given up all idea of " devising the new establishment " which was to be more "' meet for the honour of God and the benefit of the country " than the old monastery of Whalley. Perhaps, however, he considered that by filling the royal purse he was but carrying out his original idea of " honouring God " and benefiting the country. In the same way the abbeys of Barlings, Jervaulx and Kirksted, and the priory of Bridlington, came at this time under the law of attainder. Bishop * State Papers, i., p. 540. t Exch. A. O. Rec. Gen. Accts., 28-29 ^en. VIII., No. 211. Dtssolutioii by Attainder. 171 Mackarel, the abbot of Barlings, was executed in March. His supposed offences have already been spoken of, and his monastery shared the fate of Whalley. The minster church, which was 300 feet in length, was defaced, the lead on the buildings both here and at Kirksted being torn from the roofs and melted down at the special direction of Crumwell.* Bridlington, an important priory of Austin canons in Yorkshire, possessing an income of £S'M ^ year, likewise came to Henry by the attainder and execution of the prior. The previous year Crumwell had pressed the house to recognize the king as founder, a request which the community refused.! By Michaelmas, 1537, the sales of the monastic property had been conducted by Tristram Teshe, the royal receiver for the district, and had realized more than ;^8oo. The monks had been ejected some months before, and in May, Crumwell had written to the duke of Norfolk of the king's intention to look after the interest of the poor people round about Jervaulx and Bridlington. He thought of trying to get " some substantial person meet and necessary to stay the country and keep hospitality, to dwell in the principal part of the monastery," and thus in some measure to keep up the traditions of the place. I The Bridlington people had petitioned that the church, and particularly the shrine of St. John of Bridlington, might be kept and not defaced.^ * R. O. State Papers, Dom., 1537, 5^1. f Wright, 80. X R. O. State Papers, Dom., 1537, ^^. § Ibicf., JL^. 1 72 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. The early English choir of five bays had an east end like those of Whitby and Rievaulx. The altar possessed a magnificent reredos, and between it and a chapel aisle with five altars stood the shrine of the saint* from which the people begged the king would restrain his hand. But Henry had a scruple. "As for the shrine," Crumwell says in the letter to Nor- folk already quoted, " the king's highness, to the intent that his people should not be seduced in the offering of their money, his grace would have taken down, which and all other jewels and plate apper- taining to his highness, except such as you desire to have for your money " are to be sent to him. The vestments, he adds, and other goods not fit for the royal use are to be sold.f The actual demolition, however, did not take place till a few months later. Richard Bellasis, who had been engaged in this work for the king, wrote in November that he would delay the destruction till March " because the days now are so short." But, he added, " from such time as I begin I trust shortly to dispatch it, after such fashion, that when all is finished, I trust your lordship shall think that I have been no evil husband in all such things as your lordship hath appointed me to do." I The nave of ten bays with its aisles, which alone remain to this day, indicates the faithful way in which this agent of destruction kept his promise to Crumwell. * Walcott, '• Eng. Minsters," ii., p. ']']. t R. O. Stale Papers, Dom., 1537, 5^. % Wright, p. 165. Dissolution hy Attainder. 173 The people of the neighbourhood might well petition for the safety of the priory, for the poor of the district annually received in alms from the bene- factions left in trust to the religious more than ^1^0 of our money. The four priests and four deacons who served the parish church of Scar- borough received a yearly stipend from the funds of the monastery,* while more than one aged priest found an asylum within its walls. f The neighbouring abbey of Jervaulx, situated in the vale of the lire, fell likewise in consequence of the insurrection. Adam Sedbar, the abbot, was hanged, and his brethren were soon turned out of their monastery. " The house of Jervaulx," wrote the king with keen prevision to the earl of Sussex, shortly after the death of the abbot, " is in some danger of suppression by like offence as hath been committed at Whalley," j and the danger was not long delayed. At the beginning of June, Sir Arthur Darcy informed Crumwell that he had been " at the suppression. . . . The houses within the gate are covered wholly with lead, and there is one of the fairest churches that I have seen." In fact, he was so delighted with the place, that he suggested it would make a good stable for the royal " stud of mares," which were so costly to the king, "at Thornbury and other places. "§ * Valor Eccl., p. 120. f An example of a corrody at Bridlington will be found in the Appendix. X State Papers, i., 542. § Wright, p. 158. I 74 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. By the middle of November, what Darcy declared to be " one of the fairest churches I have ever seen " had been desecrated and demoHshed through the energetic action of Richard Bellasis. Crumwell had ordered the lead to be taken from the roof, and his officer wrote to say, that he had " taken all the lead of Jervaulx and made it in pieces of half fodders, which lead amounteth to the number of eighteen score and five fodders, with thirty-four fodders and a half that were there before. The said lead cannot be conveved nor carried until the next summer, for the ways in that country are so foul and deep that no carriage can pass in winter. And as concerning the razing and taking down the house, if it be your lordship's pleasure I am minded to let it stand to the spring of the year, because the days are now so short, it would be double charges to do it now." As to the bells, " I can," he says, " get only fifteen shillings a hundredweight " for them, and would gladly know whether I shall take the price " or send them up to London.'* By ^Michaelmas, 1537, the king's officer was able to account for receipts from the attainted monastery of Jervaulx exceeding ;^6oo, or more than ;;^6,ooo of our money. The following year the same property brought to the exchequer ^"i^^ 13s. 8d., but in the same year nearly ;^2,ooo was paid out of this and the proceeds of other attainted monastic property in Yorkshire, for the fees and payments of knights and * Wright, 164. Dissolution hy Attainder. 175 squires on the marches of Scotland,* and thus only indirectly benefited the king. The great abbey of Furness, in Lancashire, was also now induced to surrender to Henry. Roger Pyle, the abbot, and some of his monks, were thought to be incriminated with the northern insur- gents. The members of the community, " with the tenants and servants, were successfully examined in private."t The result was summed up in a bill of accusations against some members of the abbey. The abbot had been guilty of " falsehood at the time of the visitation in causing his monks to be foresworn." The monks of Sawley, on the suppres- sion of that monastery, had been sent to Furness, and the abbot had induced them to go back to their monastery during the rebellion. " The abbot con- cealed the treason of Henry Sawley, monk, who said, no secular knave should be head of the Church ; which abbot also made suit to his brethren to hold with him in all things that should be laid to his charge, promising to be for the same good unto them." These were the accusations of a friar named Robert Legat. A priest named Roger Pele, vicar of Dalton, said that the abbot did not keep the king's injunctions ; and one of his monks, John Broughton, added that he knew of the prophecies of the Holy Maid of Kent and others. One of the abbey bailiffs said that the abbot had told the * Exch. Augt. Offic. Mins. Accts., 29-30 Hen. VIII., 214, f. 18. t Lingard, vi., 339. 176 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. brethren to be of good heart, "for he was sure on both sides both for the king and the commons." And a tenant said that he had ordered the monks to do the best for the commons, " which," runs the document, "the abbot in his confession doth flat deny." As regards the monks, the prior, Brian Garner, and one of the seniors, John Groyn, were reported as assembling their tenants on " All Hallows " Eve, when the latter said that " the king should make no more abbots there, but thev would choose them them- selves." Another monk had spoken against the king as rightful possessor of the crown of England, while others had said that " the bishop of Rome was unjustly put down."* The result of the examination at Furness was communicated to Henry by the earl of Sussex. Sufficient matter had been reported against the abbot to have secured his sharing the fate of the abbots of Whalley and Sawley, and the passing of the monasterv to the king bv his attainder. Sussex, however, hit upon another plan. " By such exami- nations as you have sent us," wrote the king to him, " it appeareth that the abbot of Furness and divers of his monks have not been of that truth towards us, that to their duties appertained. We desire and pray you (therefore) with all the dexterity you can, to devise and excogitate to use all the means to you possible, to ensearch and try out the very truth of * West's " Antiq. of Furness," 165. Dissolution hy Attainder. 177 their proceedings, and with whom they, or any of them have had any intelligence. We think verily, that you shall find thereby such matter as shall show the light of many things yet unknown. And our pleasure is, that you shall, upon a further examina- tion, commit the said abbot and such of his monks as you shall suspect to have been offenders to ward ; there to remain till you shall, upon the signification unto us of such other things as by your wisdom you shall try out, know further our pleasure."* In reply to this communication Sussex wrote on the sixth of April that he had in his previous examination at Furness used " the said abbot and his brethren, in such wise, as ... it was impossible to get any more than was had before " out of them. He told the king that he " had committed to ward and sure custody, in your castle of Lancaster, two of the same monks, f which was all we could find faulty." Seeing, therefore, it was not likely that any "material thing" done " after the pardon," would be discovered against the abbot and his monks " that would serve for the purpose," the earl now ex- posed his plan for obtaining the rich possessions of the abbey for the king. " I, the said earl," he says, " devising with myself, if one way would not serve, how, and by what other means, the said monks might be rid from the said abbey, and consequently * State Papers, i., 541. t Henry Sawley was apparently one of these, as his name does not appear on the deed of surrender. VOL. II. N 178 Henvv VIII. and the English Monasteries. how the same might be at your gracious pleasure, caused the said abbot to be sent for to Whalley and thereupon, after we had examined him, and indeed could not perceive that it was possible for us to have any other matter, I, the same earl, as before by the advice of other of your council, determined to essay him as of mvself, whether he would be contented to surrender, give and grant, unto your heirs and assigns the said monastery."* With the fate of his brother abbots brought so clearly before his mind, and with the bodies of abbot Paslew and his companions still perhaps swinging before the gate of Whalley where this examination was conducted, it is scarcely a matter of surprise that Sussex carried his point. It was a choice be- tween death or surrender. In either case the royal hand would seize the coveted possessions, and as Sussex so clearly said, " the monks would be rid from the abbey, and the same at'' the king's gracious pleasure. The abbot chose the course most in accord with the weakness of human nature. He saved his life, but at the cost of his honour and his house. On the 5th of April, 1537, in the presence of Sussex and others, he signed a paper surrendering the monastery to the king on account of the " misorder and evil lives, both unto God and our prince, of the brethren of the said monastery, "f " not doubting," as the earl continues, " but that we and he together shall easily obtain the ratification * West's " Antiq. of Furness/' p. 166. f Wright, 153. Dissolution by Attainder. i 79 of the same gift of the convent, under their convent seal, as shall be requested." Immediately this document had been obtained from the abbot of Furness three knights were despatched from Whalley " to take into their hands, rule and governance the said house to the use of your highness and to see that the monks and servants of the same be kept in due order and nothing to be embezzled." Sussex was evidently pleased with what he had done, and as he informed Henry, Fitzherbert, to whom he unfolded his plan, " liked the same very well, saying, that he thought it was the most convenient way that could be, to conduct that monastery to your grace's hands and that now they may be ousted." Fitzherbert drew up the deed of surrender ready for the monks' signatures which the earl proposed to demand a few days later.* On the following Monday, therefore, which was April 9th, the commissioners arrived with the abbot, and the deed prepared by Anthony Fitzherbert having been read to the community in their Chapter House, they took the only possible course left for them and ratified the act of their abbot. Thirty monks out of the thirty-three named as the com- munity by Sussex signed away their rights ; two were in prison ; only one apparently did not affix his name to the instrument. f None of the monks, it seems, received any pension in return for their surrender of a monastery worth, * West, ut sup. t Eighth Rept. Dep. Keeper App., ii., 21. i8o Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. free of all charge, more than ^800 a year. All they had of their own on being turned out into the world was forty shillings each, except three of the thirty- one, "which being sick and impotent " were given sixty.* Abbot Roger, a year later, was provided for by the king granting him for life the profits of the rectory of Dalton, which were then valued at £n^n^ 6s. 8d. a year.f Apparently he lived in the parsonage, for he was directed by Crumw^ell to give it up to "John Bothe one of the king's ser- vants." In reply, which he dates from Furness, he pleads that he has " nothing else to live upon," and adds, " but for your displeasure I should be there now." To propitiate the all-powerful minister he sends him forty shillings in gold, and promises to send as much more at Easter.j " The vast and magnificent edifice of Furness was forsaken," writes canon Dixon, " the lamp of the altar of St. Mary went out for ever ; and in the deserted cloisters no sound was heard but the axe and hammer of those who came to cut away the lead, dash down the bells, hew away the rafters and break in pieces the arches and pillars. Thus dismantled, the ruin was left as a common quarry, for the convenience of every countryman who could cart aw'ay the sculptured stones for building a pig- sty or a byre."^ * Exch. Augt. Off. Mins. Accts., 29-30 Hen. VIII., No. 187,. mm. 13-14. t West, p. 190. X R. O. Crumwell Corresp., viii., f. 18. § I., 496. Dissolution hy Attainder. i8i The sales of the monastic goods realized the great sum of close upon £'^oq, and bands of im- ported workmen were employed in the work of destruction. " Also," says the account, " paid to divers and sundry labourers and artificers hired, as well for taking down of the lead of the said monas- tery, with costs of melting and casting the same, as for pulling down of the church, steeple and other * housing ' of the said monastery, with emption and provision of ropes and other engines occupied about the same £^o 4s. 9d,"* Here as elsewhere the suppression was felt most keenly by the poor. From " time immemorial " on Maunday Thursday alms had been liberally bestowed to the poor at the abbey gate, while a hundred poor boys in the cloister each received a sum equal to more than a shilling of our money. Yearly on the feast of St. Crispin, according to the will of the founder, five oxen were given to the poor of the neigh- bourhood with a request for prayers for his soul. " Each week eight widows " had their bread and beer at the monastic kitchen, while from the founda- tion of the abbey to the day of dissolution thirteen poor people had been entirely maintained within its walls. Thus the regular charities alone, for which the monks of Furness were the trustees, amounted to a yearly sum of nearly ;2f 500 of our money. f This loss to the poor of the neighbourhood, even if no account is taken of the numerous other services * Excl). Augt. Off., ut sup. t Valor Eccl., v., z'jo. i82 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. done to them under no strict obligation of justice^ may be well imagined. The money to furnish bread and alms, which pious benefactors had left to the needy of the district, passed away from them for ever into the king's purse or the pockets of his cour- tiers. The thirteen " poor alms men, who had their living " within the old monastic walls, were, through the generosity of the royal commissioners, enriched by the gift of one mark each on being turned out of their old shelter into the world to beg for their living.* What the commonwealth at large lost by the destruction may be gathered from the fact that four hundred horsemen and twice that number of foot are said to have formed the monastic contingent at Flodden field. t Another great Cistercian house, a near neighbour of Furness, passed into Henry's hands by surrender. The abbey of Holm Cultram was situated upon Morecambe bay, and looked over the waters of the Solway Frith to Scotland. At the time of the dissolution it possessed an income of ;^535 3s. yd. It was a royal foundation, and among its annual expenses were pensions for priests, who at the " Jesu altar " in the church offered the daily mass for the soul of Henry H. and the good estate of Henry VHI. Every year on Maunday Thursday alms were distributed equal in value to more than ^^30 of our money to the " boys brought up in the * Exch. Augt. Off., Ill Slip. f Walcott, "English Minsters,'' ii., p. 124. Dissolution by Attainder. 183 cloister," and " to the poor at the abbey gate," that they might remember to pray for the king, while five poor people received their support in the house for the same purpose. At the expense of the monks likewise were maintained the sea-dykes and walls, by which alone the waters of the Solvvay Firth were prevented from devastating the adjacent country.* At the time when Layton and Legh visited the northern monasteries, in the beginning of 1536, Thomas Carter held the office of abbot, and his community consisted of five-and-twenty monks. The abbot and several of the religious received a bad character from the royal commissioners, which may or may not have been deserved, f In the summer probably of the same year, 1536, the abbot, Thomas Carter, wrote to Crumwell to beg the exercise of his authority in the reformation of one of his brethren. " For the great love and favour we bore unto our brother, called Dane Thomas Graham (Grame) professed unto our monastery," he says, " we gave under our convent seal a temporal office of proctorship of a church called Wigton, trusting to have him in good conversation." How- ever, Graham turned out badly, and when the con- vent wished to recall the grant he refused to sur- render it. Moreover, he obtained from Rome a dispensation to hold a benefice {capax heneficiorum) without leave of his own chapter, and had by virtue of it accepted the office of chaplain to the earl of * Valor Eccl., v., p. 282. f Calendar, x., No. 364. 184 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. Northumberland. The abbot was powerless in the matter, and hence applied to Crumwell to " force the monk to be reformed."* But, whatever desire the king might have had for the reformation of monks, nothing was apparently done in this matter until, the northern insurrection breakincr out, Thomas Carter was involved in the suspicion of treason in aiding the rebels. Strange to say, his chief accuser was this same Thomas Graham, about whom he had complained. In the first instance he was apparently reported to Crumwell as not observing the injunctions given him by the royal visitors. Before the outbreak of the Lincolnshire rising he had been summoned to London, " to answer before the king and council such things as " should be objected against him, and on October ist he replied to the order asking to be allowed to appear by "a friend.'' t The insur- rection had already broken out, and Crumwell was obliged to delay his dealing with the refractory abbot until the rising had been quelled in the spring of 1537. A commission was appointed to consider the matter, and it sat in the abbey church. " The articles against the abbot of Holm Cultram for high treason " were presented and signed by the same Thomas Graham, and two other monks gave evi- dence. The gist of the accusation is, that at the first rising abbot Carter forced his tenants, " upon pain of hanging," to join the commons : that he had * R. O. Crum. Corr., xvii., 78. | Ibid., jy. Dissolution by Attainder. 185 contributed forty shillings to the expenses of the insurgents : that he was one of the commissioners from the people to Carlisle, and rode near to demand that the city should be delivered up to them : and finally that at the last rising when the people laid siege to Carlisle he had said " almighty God prosper them, for if they speed not this abbey is lost," and upon the saying, " he sent for his subprior and com- manded him to cause the brethren to go daily with procession to speed the commons' journey." Beyond the above, the abbot was accused of violating the injunctions of the king's visitors. It was said that he had admitted women to dine and sup within the precincts of the abbey : that he had sold the monastic plate to the value of ;^ioo or more, that he had given out leases and " convent seals " : and that he had given the abbot of Byland " for helping him to his promotion, a salt of gold and silver, worth twenty shillings."* The abbot, however, appears to have died on the loth of August and thus to have anticipated bis fate.f Writing from Carlisle on August 1 7th (1537), Sir Thomas Wharton, one of the com- missioners, states that he has attended the assizes at Carlisle. " It may further please your lord- ship," he writes to Crumwell, " to know that, since the death of the late abbot of Holm, there were labours made unto me to sue for one Graham, monk * Raine's " Hexham Priory," i., Append., cliv. t Calendar, xi., 276. i86 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. of that monastery, who would besides his first fruits to be paid to the king's highness bestow for his pre- ferment to be abbot there 400 marks." * Graham was unsuccessful, for Crumwell had another worthy to appoint. Gawin Borodale had been about five years before for some months in prison at Furness Abbey on the charge of having caused the death of his abbot, Thomas Carter's predecessor, " in poisonning him." In a letter to Crumwell he had declared his innocencv, and asked to be tried " according to the statutes of the holy " Cistercian religion. f Dr. Legh, at the request of the abbots of Furness and Byland, " the visitors and reformators of the Cistercians," had begged Crumwell's favour for him, as "he had well served the king in his house," and was " kept out of his monastery through the sinister information of some evil disposed persons." j It was this Gawin Boro- dale who received the office of abbot of Holm Cultram in the autumn of 1537, and who, in the March following, resigned the abbey into the king's hands. As in the cases of Jervaulx, Whalley, Kirk- sted and other monasteries, the superiors of which had been executed for treason, so Holm Cultram would no doubt have come into the royal power by attainder if other arrangements had not been made. On February i8th, 1538, the king issued a special commission to Thomas Legh, William Blithman^ * Ibid., 319. t R. O. Crumwell Corr., iv., f. 118. \ Ibid., xxii., No. 9 (Aug. 16, 25 Hen. VIII.). Dissolution hy Attainder, 187 and James Rokeby to repair to the abbey. The commission states that " whereas the abbot and convent of our monastery of Holm Cultram . . . freely and willingly be determined and concluded to surrender all the title and interest of the monastery and of the goods and possessions thereunto belong- ing into our hands and disposition " the king appoints the above to obtain from the abbot and convent " such sufficient writing under their convent seal as shall be expedient." Further, that at the dissolution they shall promise the abbot and monks " such things as shall be necessary for them and his living according to their discretion ; shall make an inventory and survey of the goods and lands, and conduct the sales of the monastic effects."* Acting upon these instructions the commissioners attended at the monastery upon March 6th, 1538, and at once dispatched James Rokeby to London " to declare the surrender." In their account at the following Michaelmas they acknowledge having sold 802 ounces of plate for ^147 iis. 4d., and 146 fodders of lead worth £\^6, while they have left the covering on the church roof for the further " pleasure of the king because it was the parish church." The monks on being dispatched had various sums given to them, varying from £6 to Robert Langton, the prior, to £2 to each of the three novices. f Gawin Borodale secured for himself a pension of ;^ioo * Exch. Aug. Oft'. Mins. Accts., 28-29 Hen. VIII., No. 165. t Ibid. 1 88 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. a-year, a house and stables, and all tithes as rector of Holm Cultram,* and most of the community were pensionedf at the same time. To Thomas Graham, the chief accuser of abbot Carter and the monk specially complained of by him. Dr. Legh made the special grant as royal commissioner of " a chapel called Saint Thomas chapel to make him a chamber of there." % The survey of the abbey lands taken at the time of the dissolution has one or two items of interest. It speaks of the fishing in the bay belonging to the monastery, and of "a great moss ground wherein the same monks had their pits, which is worth by year twenty-three shillings and fourpence." Like- wise " there is," says the document, "a warren of coneys upon the sea banks there, and is worth to be let to farm thirteen shillings." § The church was saved from destruction through the petition of the inhabitants, " being i8 hundred houseling people in number," as they wrote to Crumwell. " It is not only unto us our parish church, and little enough to receive all us," they said, " but also a great aid succour and defence for us against our neighbours the Scots." II * Aug. Off. Misc. Bk., 232, f. 43. f Ibid.^ 233, ff. 2, 170. \ Exch. Q.R., ^, No. 5. ^ Aug. Off. Misc. Bk., 399 p. 57. II "Ellis Orig. Letts.," i., Ser. iii., p. 89. The churcii was pillaged by the Scots in 1216; in 1322 Robert Bruce spoiled it, though it held his father's grave ; antl sixty years later the monks bought off the earl of Douglas with jC^oo. See Walcott's ** Eng. Minsters,' ii., p- 140. Dissolution by Attainder. 189 The dissolution of two other houses may be here noted, not that their fate had any apparent connec- tion with the northern rising, but that thev were brought by some means or other under the law of attainder. These were the Cluniac priory of Lenton, in Nottinghamshire, and the Cistercian abbey of Woburn, in Bedfordshire. The former house, like so many others, had been much disturbed by the action of Crumwell's visitors. One of the monks, Dan Hamlet Pencriche, had brought an accusation against the prior before the council, and finally fled from his monastery, as he had twice before done, carrying away goods belonging to the house.* He was, however, subsequently lodged In the Fleet prison by order of the chancellor,t and although Nicholas Hethe, the prior, had originally been pro- moted to his post by the good will of Crumwell himself, he soon discovered that his duty to his house forced him to break with his patron. As early as April, 1536, apparently shortly after coming to his office, Hethe wrote to say that his predecessor had left the house much in debt, and that although he had promised Crumwell, through his nephew Richard, ;^ioo, he was then only able to pay £60 ; he hoped that the rest might stand over to Martin- mas, or otherwise he would have to borrow money " in London of some merchant " to " keep up hospi- tality." He concludes by asking that the rule banishing all young men from the cloistered life may * Calendar, x., No. 655. t R. O. Crum. Corr,, xxxii., No. 38. 190 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, be relaxed for Lenton. " I beseech," he says, " I may have your favour concerning two young men in our reHgion at Lenton. All my brethren, except four or five, are very impotent and of great age, and request your favour that they may continue in their religion."* On the 29th of June, the same year, 1536, the prior is said to have committed some act of treason against the king, f What the treason was does not appear, unless it be the sale of some of the plate of the monastery, sold doubtless to relieve the needs of his community, of which he complained, and for which Godbery, a London goldsmith, who had purchased it, was subsequently forced by Crumwell to refund nearly ^^20 to his private purse. J What- ever his act may have been, the prior was seized and thrown into prison in February, 1538, where he remained till the middle of the following month, ^ when he, together with eight of his monks and four labourers of Lenton, were indicted for treason at Nottingham.il In Crumwell's "remembrances" at this time is entered the following note : — " The suppression of Lenton and the execution of the * Calendar, x., i 234. t R. O. Exch. Augt. Off. Misc. Bk., 3i3<^., f. 8, a curious list of the dates of the treasons of those attainted. X R. O. Chapter House Bk., B. |, f. 40. § R. O. Exch. Aug. Off. Mins. Accts., 29-30 Hen. VIII., 181. II R. O. Control. Roll, 30 Hen. VIII., AI. 39. The names of the monks were : — Ralph Swenson ; Richard Bower ; Richard Atkin- son ; Christopher Browne ; John Trewnam ; John Adelenton ; William Bery ; William Gylham. Dissolution by Attainder, 191 prior,"* and hence on the " Controlment Roll " is found the record of the conviction of " Nicholas Hethe, prior of Lenton, William Gylham, monk of Lenton," four labourers and a priest for high treason, after whose names are entered the ominous " T et S," " to be drawn and hanged," as the sentence passed upon them. What became of the rest of the monks is not known. None of them obtained any pension from the king, nor apparently did the five poor men, who from the foundation of the monastery in the reign of Henry I., had been maintained by the charity left by the foundersf receive any alms upon being deprived of their inheri- tance. A clear revenue of upwards of £'^'2g a year passed into Henry's hands by the attainder of the monastery, and more than £2^2 were obtained by the sales of the monastic goods. | The story of the destruction of Woburn and the fate of the abbot is rendered even more pathetic by the touching details which have been preserved. In it the veil is lifted and a glimpse is afforded of the fears, hopes and despair which filled the souls of the religious in the short time during which the sword of destruction hung over their heads. Their hearts appear chilled by the uncertain fate which awaited them, their actions paralyzed by the masterful policy of Crumwell and the very fountain of religious life dried up by injunctions conceived * B. Mus. Cott. MS., Titus B. i., f. 468^/. t Valor EccL, v., 149. X R. O. Exch. Augt. Off. Mins. Acct., 29-30 Hen. VIII., 181. 192 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. with a deliberate purpose of making the cloister unbearable and compelling rebellion or surrender. Richard Hobbes had been abbot of Woburn for many vears and, together with his monks, had given in to the royal demands and sworn to the king's "head- ship." It was clearly against his better judgment, and that of many at least of his monks, that the oath w-as taken, and they were troubled in conscience at their weakness in not standing out for what they believed to be the only truth. Dan Ralph, the sub- prior, subsequently acknowledged his scruples and begged Henry's pardon for this and the " erroneous estimation of Mr. More and the bishop of Rochester, whose death he a great while thought meritorious, wishing he had died with them."' In fact, he declared that it was the abbot himself who, " by counsel and menaces," persuaded him to take the required oath of supremacy. Another of the community, Dan Laurence, the sexton, declared that when he was first sworn he could not touch the book on account of the numbers, and so he considered his conscience was free, although he had signed " the carte of pro- fession."'* Even at the beginning of the year 1536 rumours were circulated about the probable fate of the abbey, and it was said that " it and other more should go down ere Twelfthtide,"t but it was not until the spring of the year 1538 that any steps were taken against it. The final catastrophe was hastened through the * Calendar x., 1239. t Ibid., 5. Dissolution by Attainder. 193 malicious informations of discontented monks, who, here as in many monasteries of England at this time, served Crumwell as spies upon the acts and words of their superiors and brethren. On the 1 2th of May, abbot Hobbes and certain of his monks were examined in the Tower. The sub- prior and some others declared that at the time when the Carthusians were put to death the abbot had called them together and said these words : — " Brethren this is a perilous time ; such a scourge was never heard since Christ's passion. Ye hear how good men do suffer death. Brethren this is undoubted for our offences. Ye read, so long as the children of Israel kept the commandments of God, so long their enemies had no power over them, but God took vengeance on their enemies; but when thev broke God's commandments, then they were subdued by their enemies, and so be we. Therefore, let us be sorry for our offences and undoubtedly he will take vengeance on our enemies; I mean these heretics that cause so many good men to suffer thus. Alas, it is a piteous case that so much Christian blood should be shed. Therefore, good Christian brethren, for the reverence of God, everyone of you devoutly pray and say this psalm : — Deus venerunt gentes through, and say this versicle : — Exurgat Dens et dissipentur inimici. This foresaid psalm to be said every Friday, immediately after the litany, prostrate, when ye lie before the high altar and undoubtedly God will cease this extreme storm." VOL. II. O 194 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. This injunction the monks faithfully carried out although some murmured at the command, and when at the beginning of 1536 parliament passed the act by which the lesser monasteries were sup- pressed, the abbot again spoke to his monks. " The abbot," says the deposition of four of the monks, " with such like exhortation in the said chapter house, with lamentable mournings for the dissolving of them, enjoined us to sing, '' Sahator mundi salva nos omnes ' every day after Lauds. And we mur- mured at it, and were not content to sing it for such cause. And so we did omit it divers times, for which the abbot came unto the chapter and did in manner rebuke us and said we were bound to obey his com- mands by our profession. And so he did command us to sing it again with versicles : ' Exurgat Deus etc.,' and enjoined us to say at every mass that every priest did sing, a collect : ' Deus qui contritoriim,^ etc. And he said if we did thus with good and pure devotion, God would handle the matter so that it should be to the comfort of all England, and so show us mercy as he showed unto the children of Israel. And surely brethren, he said, there will come over us a good man that will reedify these monasteries again that are now suppressed, * quia potens est Deus de lapidibus istis suscitare filios Abrahae.' " * Meantime during the time of waiting for the final doom there was excitement and contentions among * R. O. Stale Papers, Dom., 1538, -j?^. Dissolution by Attainder. inc the monks, and cross accusations of one party against the other. In the " shaving house " Dan John Croxton was openly accused by a brother, Laurence Blonham, of being one of the " new world.'' Dan John replied with bitter words, saying that such ideas would get them into trouble, but Blonham answered, " Neither thou nor yet any of us all shall do well as long as we forsake our head of the Church, the pope." Croxton retorted that if he really thought this, he was '* a false, perjured knave to his prince," and upon his saying that " he never was sworn to forsake the pope as head, and never would be," said : " Thou shalt be sworn spite of thy heart one day, or I will know why nay."* Another monk, called Crowe, complained of his abbot that, having spoken against the bread supplied to them, he was told "to go further and fare worse." These and such like tales duly carried to the ears of Crumwell brought the abbot under suspicion. He was arrested and conveyed together with other of his monks to the Tower. He had tried to anti- cipate the event by a joint letter with his monks handing over themselves and their monastery to the king's mercy. They indeed declared that they acknowledged Henry " to be supreme head " and their " comfort and joy," and were innocent of the charges brought against them, including " high treason."! But the submission, ample and humble as it was, either came too late, or the king had * Ibid. t Wright, 145. 196 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. determined to discourage disobedience in other monasteries, by another example of an abbot ending an honoured life on the scaffold. In his examination Robert Hobbes practically allowed all that had been advanced against him. With regard to the pope, he does not hesitate to admit that in " much preaching " he has not de- clared the king " supreme head ; " not out of malice, as he savs, " but only for a scrupulous con- science he then had touching the continuance of the bishop of Rome.'' He had got Dan William Hampton, his secretary, to transcribe a book written by John Mylward, priest of Todington, called " De potestate Petri." He will not allow that he spoke of England as an heretical country, for not joining in the general council ; nor that he neMected to gfive up all " papistical bulls " he could find to " Mr. doctor Petre " at the visitation ; nor that he neg- lected to have the pope's name erased out of the " calendars and other books, as mass books, grayles and other usual books of the choir.'' He commanded the cantor, Dan Robert Neve, and others to obey the king's order in this matter, and himself put the name out of " such books as he had to say his service." On the other hand, he confesses that, when the papal bulls were sent up to doctor Petre, he got Dan Robert Salford "to write the principal bulls in a fair hand,'' and the junior monks not priests to transcribe the others in a running hand, so that when Dissolution by Attainder. igj the quarrel between the king and pope was settled he might have evidence of his old privileges and exemptions. These copies, he said, " remained yet in my chamber at my coming away." He fully admitted his sermons to his brethren, and even himself says he likened Henry to Nebu- chadonasor taking away the sacred vessels of the temple. Also on several occasions he had spoken to young men " commensals " of the house, as " Mr. Morice, Mr. Carye and Mr. Hervy," whose schoolmaster was very earnest against the "new learning," in the same strain. "And I the said abbot," he says, " confess that in all audiences from time to time I have stood stiffly in my opinions of the old trade unto this present day, maintaining the part of the bishop of Rome, so far as I durst, thinking that it was the true way, and the contrary of the king's part but usurpation desiderated by flattery and adulation."* As abbot Hobbes had spoken to his brethren and those living in his house, so he had declared for the old faith to his friends outside. To lord Grey of Wilton, he had been explicit as to his opinions, and also to Dan Augustin, " the quondam" of Wardon, who was staying at Woburn. Most plainly of all had he opened his mind to Sir Francis Brian, and throughout his examinations he manifests a fear lest his friendship with Sir Francis should be con- sidered detrimental to that gentleman's interests. * B. Mus. Cott. MS. Cleop. E. iv., f. io8. 198 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. He had often been at Ampthlll with him, and ahvays took care to extol the teaching of the " old fathers Catholic," and specially condemned the preaching of Latimer " as touching: our Lady and the saints." On one occasion especially, after the Lent of 1538, he was with a large company at Sir Francis's house at Ampthill. He went, " after loving cheer and disports," together with Brian to his bedroom. Here he saw a "goodly book," which proved to be the new English translation of the Bible. He took advantage of the chance to speak about it. " It is a fair book," he said, " but in my opinion not well interpreted in many places, which hereafter may be the cause of much error." Sir Francis opened the volume and turned to the place in St. Luke which speaks of the " consecration of the blessed Body and Blood." Having read it, he asked the abbot what he thought about it. He confessed that it was good, but took occasion to say again that there were many false translations in the volume. * The abbot admitted that he had wished he had died with the Carthusians, More and Fisher. He was ill at the time, a few weeks before his imprison- ment, and, as the accuser says, " Dan Ralph Woburn, subprior, reported in his own chamber to one Dan William Hampton, in the presence of this examinat, that the abbot from whom he came a little before said to him (after he had asked him how he did) that he wished himself to have died * Ibid., f. 109. Dissolution by Attainder. 199 with the good men that died for holding with the pope, and said that his conscience doth grudge him daily for it. Whereunto this examinat," says the accuser, "answered, 'If he be disposed to die for that matter, he may die as soon as he will' "* " And finally," says abbot Hobbes in his con- fession, " as touching acts of the archbishop of Canterbury in ordaining and consecration of bishops, dispensations of matrimony, capacities given to religious men, I have thought he had no authority so to do, without power of the bishop of Rome, and in likewise all such things done by him, not lawfully exercised by those that have received such dignities and dispensations from him." Also when he heard of any new suppressions, he con- fesses having said something to the following effect : " Mercy to God, it is a wonderful thing the king's grace cannot be content with what his parliament has given him, but ever more and more bringeth down the holy monasteries, which his predecessors and other noble founders have ordained to thank God for their souls' healths, and endowed with possessions to the intent that religious persons should pray for them and maintain alms and hos- pitality for poor men. And his grace hath not as yet built any house of prayer, not so much as one chantry for himself." And this although a better prince " never was till now of late." For all the change he blamed the advice of Crumwell and the * State Papers, Dom., 1538, 7it sup. 200 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. unfortunate divorce question, from which he traced all other miseries. * This ample confession, which was evidently made by the advice of Crumwell, pitifully reveals mind and soul and heart in all their perplexities. But the abbot had also vividly before him the horrors of im- prisonment and the thought of a terrible death. Under stress of this fear, before his examination is concluded he, in accents more pitiful still, admits that he may have been mistaken after all, and prays for pardon. This is but a picture of the anguish of conscience and sinking of heart in dread of an uncertain end which must have been the experience of thousands in that terrible day. The storm burst first and most heavily, as usual, not on the practised theologian and skilled dialectician, but on men who most lived by authority and tradition. By instinct they knew what was right. Their conscience "was scrupulous touching the continuance of the bishop of Rome." They maintained his part " as far as they durst, thinking it was the true way," and regarding with equal distrust and fear the ecclesiastical policy of Henry and the acts of Cranmer, believing the arch- bishop " had no authority to do as he did without power of the bishop of Rome." The expectation was general that the " quarrel," as it was esteemed, between the king and the pope would be made up again. To men wise after the event, such an ex- pectation may seem to betoken a simplicity border- * B. Mus. Cleop.jE. iv., f, iii. Dissolution by Attainder. 201 ing on foolishness, but to men in those days it was a sheet-anchor of hope. To those in the position of the abbot of Woburn the immediate interests were pressing, involving both the welfare of brethren, servants, dependants, friends, and the fate of a home they loved. Such considerations must have added a moral weight to suggestions prompted first by personal fears, and helped them, it may be, even to deceive themselves. Like prior Houghton of the Carthusians, they might come to believe that they were making themselves anathema for the sake of their brethren, and even " the daily grudge of conscience" would appear to men of this stamp, but part of the sore burden to be borne in their Master's service. So subtle is the mind in finding the highest motives to avert an evil before which the flesh quails and the heart sinks. All that had to be done for the moment was to hold out and gain time. But such a surrender of convictions as that to which abbot Hobbes had brought himself was all in vain. His prayer for pardon was denied ; he was not allowed to live. Henry had passed beyond the stage of compassion for any human weakness, of pity for any living soul. The abbot was apparently tried at Lincoln, together with Laurence Blonham, or Peck, and Richard Woburn, or Barnes, two monks of the abbey, and all three being found guilty were ordered to be drawn, hanged and quartered.* Of the two monks thus condemned, one, Laurence Blonham, * R. O. Control. Roll, 30 Hen. VIIJ., m. 6d. 202 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. was he who in the " shaving house " had declared he never would " be sworn to forsake the pope." The other, Richard, or, as he is otherwise called, "Ralph," Woburn or Barnes, was the subprior of whom abbot Hobbes has left it on record, that he "always held the strongest views and expressed them " on the matter of the pope's authority.* The abbot, together with the vicar of Puddington and others, were hanged before the gate of Woburn abbey, and tradition, as late as the beginning of this century, pointed to an old oak tree in front of the monasterv as the gallows upon which the monks w^ere executed. t The possessions of the abbey, producing a clear income of nearly ;^400 a-year,l thus passed into the royal hands by the new interpretation of the law of attainder on the 20th of June, 1538. By the 29th of September the royal receiver for attainted lands acknowledged from sales of the monastic goods the sum of £266 12s. \ A few years later this property was granted, together with many other broad acres belonging to the Church and the poor to Sir John Russell. * Cleop., E. iv., f, io6d. I B. Mus. Add. MS. 27,402, p. 47, gives only ofie monk — " the prior " executed with the abbot. The parson of Puddington's name was y numbering no less than twenty-eight, never received the signatures of the nuns at all. Of the remaining five, one, the surrender of the great abbey of Shaftes- bury, a convent of fifty-six nuns, and at the dissolu- tion of which Crumwell himself assisted, is signed only by Elizabeth Zouche, the abbess. A second document, that of Tarent, although having twenty signatures, is worthless, as all are written in the same hand.* Of the whole number of convents,, therefore, only three signed surrenders exist. In the case of Nuneaton convent the document is dated the 1 2th of December, 1539, and has no names, but twenty-seven crosses, appended to it.f Nesham^ the surrender of which, without signatures, is dated. December 9th, was suppressed by four commis- sioners on the 2 1 St of the same month. | And the Benedictine nuns of Newcastle, the surrender of which to Dr. Layton, also unsigned, is said to have been made on January 3rd, 1540, was already sup- pressed by Dr. Legh and three others, on December 31st, i539.§ Other evidence exists besides the absence of surrender deeds to show that the nuns of England resisted, in a heroic manner, the tempting * Eighth Rep. of Dep. Keeper, App. ii., p. 4.3. t Ibid., p. 35. + R. O. Exch. Augt. Off. Misc. Bk., 246, f. 9. § Ibid., i. 7. Tke Suppression of Convents. 229 offers to resign their trusts and the religious Hfe itself at the bidding of the king. At the end of March, 1539, three royal commissioners, Tregonwell, Peter and Smyth, came to the Benedictine convent of Ambresbury, in Wiltshire. They had received the surrenders of both Shaftesbury and Wilton, and no doubt expected to work their will at Ambresbury. *'We yesterday came," they say, "and communed with the abbess* for the accomplishment of the king's highness' commission in like sort. And albeit we have used as many ways with her as our poor wits could attain, yet in the end we could not by any persuasions bring her to any conformity. At all times she rested and so remaineth in these terms: ' If the king's highness command me to go from this house I will gladly go, though I beg my bread ; and as for pension, I care for none.' In these terms she was in all her conversation, praying us many times to trouble her no further herein, for she had declared her full mind, in the which we might plainly gather of her words she was fully fixed before our coming." f Four months went by, during which it is more than probable that pressure of every kind was brought to bear upon Florence Bonnerman, the staunch and fearless prioress. At the end of that time she announced to Crumwell her resignation " at the king's bidding."! O^i the 23rd of the same * A mistake for " prioress." Ambresbury was not an abbey. t R. O. Crum. Corr., Vol. xliii., No. 69. % Ibid, i., 90. 230 Henry VIII . and fJie English Monasteries. month, one William Popley, whose sister, Dame Bridget, was a nun in the convent, wrote to ask for " a relaxation of certain injunctions," as his sister thought he " might preserve her ladies' suits."* The request had apparently little weight, for in December, 1539, Dr. London, John Ap Rice and others arrived at the convent and suppressed it. The successor of the intrepid Florence Bonnerman received a pension of ^100 a year, one of the largest granted to any nun, and ^^ of her sisters were also promised a pittance.! The name of the former prioress does not appear. No doubt she kept her word to go forth, " though I beg my bread." " As for pension," she had said, "I care for none," and none she received. | One other example of much the same pressure put upon a convent to fall in with the king's wishes, is furnished bv the abbev of Godstow. This convent, in Oxfordshire, is well known as the place where fair Rosamond Clifford, the mistress of Henrv II., passed her last years in penitence. The royal visitors had given it an excellent character ; " where there was great strictness of life, and to which were most of the young gentlewomen of the county sent to be bred ; so that the gentry of the country desired the king would spare the house." § * Ibid., xx.xiv., 23. t R. O. Exch. Aug. Off. Misc. Bk., 245, f. 98. X It may be of interest to note about Ainbresbury that upon its surrender "rewards" were given to 33 nuns, 4 priests and 33 servants. Pensions were granted to 35 nuns. Jbid.^Bls.. 494, f. 31. § Burnet (ist ed.), i., p. 238. The Suppression of Convents. 231 On Tuesday, November 4th, 1539, that valiant visitor, Dr. London, appeared at the abbey to dis- miss the nuns and take the possessions for the king. The following day Katherine Bulkeley, the abbess, wrote to Crumwell begging his protection. She had, as she says, " been appointed to her office through his influence, and up to that time had never been moved nor desired by any creature ... to surrender and give up the house." She will do as the king commands, but she says," I trust to God that I have never offended God's laws nor the king's, whereby this poor monastery ought to be suppressed. This notwithstanding, my lord, so it is that doctor London, which, as your lordship doth well know, was against my promotion, and hath ever since borne against me great malice and grudge, like my mortal enemy, is suddenly come unto me with a great rout with him, and here doth threaten me and my sisters, saying that he hath the king's commission to suppress the house, spite of my teeth. And when he saw that I was content that he should do all things according to his commission, and showed him plainly that I would never surrender to his hand, being my ancient enemy, now he begins to entreat me, and (o inveigle my sisters one by one otherwise than ever I heard tell that any of the king's subjects hath been handled. And he here tarrieth and continueth to my great cost and charge, and will not take my answer, that I will not surrender till I know the king's gracious commandment or your good lordship's." 232 Henry VIII. a7id the English Monasteries. She adds that she will do what the king wants, but that it is not true that she has wasted the property of her house, as Dr. London told Crumwell. * London's letter, written the following day, after saying that the abbess takes his coming " some- thing pensively," adds that, while waiting for an answer, he intends to "something ripe" himself " in knowledge of the state of the house." And if the king insist on dissolving the house " notwith- standing her desire (to have a statement of) such con- siderations as moveth his grace, for the reformation of such abuses, to take the house by surrender," he begs that the nuns may be allowed suitable pensions. The abbess has had to borrow the money for pay- ment of her " first-fruits," many of the nuns are old, and " few of the others have any friends." f Crumwell sent his orders to let the house alone for a while. Then on November 26th the abbess wrote her thanks " for the stay of doctor London, who was here ready to suppress this poor house against my will and all my sisters, and had done it indeed if you had not sent so speedily contrary com- mandments." She adds that according to further orders she has handed over the " domains and stock" to " master doctor Owen," and that she is ready to go any lengths if the house may be spared. In fact, she assures her master that " there is neither pope, nor purgatory, image nor pilgrimage nor pray- ing to dead saints used or regarded amongst" them, * Wright, 229. t Ibid.,22'j. The Suppression of Convents. 233 and that they do not too much cling to " this gar- ment and fashion of Hfe." * But even as Katherine Bulkeley penned this miserable surrender of her faith and principles, so she had some days before, on November 17th, 1539, surrendered her trust. Sir John Williams and others were sent down to effect the transfer of the convent property to the king, in place of her " old enemy " London, and they forwarded to Henry the deed of surrender which, however, was signed by none of the nuns. The abbess and fifteen nuns were pro- mised pensions ; three of them for the strange reason *' because they cannot marry." f Besides the trials incidental to the uncertainty of the fate which awaited them, the nuns, at this time deprived of the aid and direction of their spiritual superiors in the episcopate,! must have suffered extremely. This the prioress of Wilton writes in so many words to Crumwell. " We stand and have done long," she says, " for lack of a head in great unquletness and danger, as God knoweth not only in the decay lack and disturbance of the service of God according to our religion, but also of the destruction and desolation of our monastery. We are so threatened by our ordinary, master doctor Haylley, that we know not what to do. He cometh * R. O. Crum. Coir., xiv., 3. t R. O. Exch. Augt. Office Misc. Bk., 245, f. 157. X It will be remembered that the jurisdiction of the bishops over ihe monasteries had been suspended. See Vol. i., p. 253. 234 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, to us many times and among us as he says he does but order us after the law, but as God knoweth we are unlearned, and not wont to such law as he doth exercise amongst us. And because that we differ such matters as he would that we should consent to, the which as we suppose and think are not lawful, nor yet profitable to us or our house, he does sore and grievously threaten us. And he hath heretofore put us to great vexation and trouble and yet mindeth so to do and continue. He hath admitted to bear rule with us, in this our vacation * one Christopher Willoughby and another. This Christopher, for his subtle, crafty and false demeanour has been expelled first by dame Cecily Willoughby the abbess and then after, his service was utterly refused by Isabel Jordan our last abbess."! Over the community at Stratford a superioress, or, as they preferred to call her, a " supposed prioress," had been appointed, who was the cause of great trouble in the community. " As soon as we speak to have anything remedied," they say, " she bids us go to Crumwell and let him help us. And the old lady, who is prioress in right, is like to die for lack of sustenance and good keeping for she can get neither meat, drink, nor money to help herself." The chan- cellor of the bishop of London, they complain, told them that the intruder should continue " in spite of our deaths and of their deaths that say nay to it, * Vacancy of the office of abbess, t R. O. Crum. Con., Vol. li., No. 9. The Suppression of Convents. 235 He commanded her to look to us and to punish us, that all others may beware by us." ..." Sir," they continue in their appeal to Crumwell, " it is not possible for us to continue in the manner that we be in now. Sir, the chancellor rebuked us, and said that we had got a temporal man over us for our ordinary and that he spake by you. But, our learned counsel, who we had before we put our matter to the king's grace, told us it was not lawful for him to be a chancellor, for he is not a priest, and hath no power to hear confession, nor yet to give absolution as he doth."* Very few of the convents were rich enough to bring any great amount of spoil to the king. The plate, however, from Barking, the most ancient and venerable and almost the richest nunnery in England, the home of so many saints, which came into the royal hands in November, 1539, was a valuable prize. It consisted of over 3,000 ounces, the greater part being parcel gilt, besides what was found to be only copper gilt when broken. There was dis- covered here "a monstrance" weighing 65 ounces, enriched with a beryll and numbers of copes and other vestments of cloth of gold and tissue reserved for the king's use. Besides this, the goods of the abbey sold for nearly ;^2oo ;t so small a sum in so wealthy a house shews the poverty actually ob- served by the religious. * Ibid.^ Vol. xli., Nos. 2, 4. t R. O. Exch. Aug. Off. Mins. Accts., 31-32 Hen. VIII., 257, m. 5. 236 Henry VI I L and the English Monasteries. One circumstance with regard to the suppression of the Bridgettine house of Syon is worth recording. In one of Crumwell's interesting remembrances is the following item : " touching the monastery of Syon, the king may dissolve it by preniunire as he will."* This power possessed by Henry over the convent arose from a singular circumstance. On May 29th, 1538, the attorney-general, in behalf of the king, had presented a bill of complaint against John Stokesley, bishop of London, who was brought up from the Marshalsea, where he had been in prison. The charge was, that on February 5th, 1537, he had, in the ceremony of professing Thomas Knotton, a brother of Syon, and Godfrey, a lay brother, under the obedience of John Copinger, the father confessor, made use of the form of profession approved of by pope Paul II. In acting thus, he publicly proclaimed the jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome, and made use of " papistical rites, cultus and ceremonies;" and by anyone after 31st July, 1536, upholding the authority of the bishop of Rome, as well as all aiders and abettors, the penalties of preniunire had been incurred. Moreover, he had acted in the same way on two later occasions, and it was contended that both the bishop, Agnes Jordan, the abbess of Syon, and others had thus forfeited their property to the king. Stokesley confessed the bill, and was bound over to appear under a bail of 10,000 marks and the surety of several London * R. O. State Papers, Dom., 1539, ^j. The Suppression of Convents. 237 merchants. * And although Henry subsequently pardoned all concerned, his hand was upon the con- vent. In December, 1539, it passed, apparently without surrender, in his possession. One word must be said as to the number of nuns who were turned adrift into the world on the destruc- tion of their homes. Hooper, in a letter written in 1546 to Bullinger from Strasburg, says : — " He (the king) has caused all their (the monastic) posses- sions to be transferred into his exchequer ; and yet they are bound, even the frail female sex, by the king's command to perpetual chastity. England has at this time at least 10,000 nuns, not one of whom is allowed to marry. "f Such an estimate is obviously much exaggerated. The fact is, that allowing for the four or five convents about which some uncertainty exists, there do not appear to have been more than some 1,560 religious women in Eng- land at the time of the dissolution. Of these more than one-half, or some 850, belonged to the Benedic- tine Order. * Coram Rege, 30 Hen. VIII. Eister, Rex Roll m. 20. t Original Letters, Parker Society, No. 21. CHAPTER VII. FALL OF THE FRL\RS. The autumn of 1538 witnessed the destruction of the English friaries. From the thirteenth century the mendicant orders had taken an important part in the reHgious Hfe of the country. They were actuated by a different fundamental principle from that which was the mainspring of the monastic state. In the latter, whatever may have been the work the members of the great religious orders were at times called upon to undertake, the basis upon which they rested was conventual life and seclusion from the cares of even parochial matters, in order that their lives might be given up to the calmer service of the cloister. The principle that inspired the friars, on the other hand, was devotion to the external needs of the Church. In its primary conception, the ideal of a friar's life was to be found in the performance of active religious duties among the people. Untrammelled, on the one hand by the stricter traditions of the old monastic observance, and on the other by the petty exigencies of parochial management, they could devote their energies to the necessary duties of preaching and teaching. Their houses were built in or near great towns ; but to the friar the convent was a very different Fall of the Friars. 239 place to what it was to the monk. To the latter, from the day of his profession his monastery became his home, and the brethren gathered within its walls, his family ; to the former the convent cell afforded but a temporary shelter in which to recruit his powers, physical and mental, for new labours in the cause of religion. He had no home, properly so called, as the monk had in his monastery, and his services could be claimed by no special place. His profession bound him to the general body of his brethren, not to any particular family. The friar was the itinerant preacher living to a great extent among the people and endeavouring to influence their religious views and practices by every means at his command. In the early days of their mission the mendicant friars achieved great and striking successes. The whole history of the Church does not present a parallel to the enthusiastic reception given by the people to the reforms they preached, and their popularity in England, almost down to the day of their suppression, is evinced by numer- ous gifts and testimentary dispositions in their favour. In the sixteenth century the friaries throughout the country numbered some two hundred. Of these the followers of St. Francis had sixty, the Dominicans about fifty-three, the Austin friars forty-two, and the Carmelites six-and-thirty. The rest were held by the Trinitarians and other less important bodies of men. Of the four great orders of mendicant friars, 240 Henry VIII. and the English Mojiasteries. looking at them so far as England is concerned, the Dominicans, small though some of their churches may have been in country towns, ever preserved a certain dignity, and, so to speak, an aristocratic character. It would appear as though whilst re- taining the canon's dress first worn by St. Dominic in the cathedral of Osma, they bore with it some- thing of the pre-eminence which naturally attaches to the clergy. The Franciscans were the most popular, in the widest sense of the word, with high and low. The Carmelites were simple, homely, and spread through the country as if an order of native origin. The two or three greatest houses of Francis- cans, as London, or York, might vie whether in build- ings or quantity of plate and richness of vestments with a Benedictine abbey of all but the first rank. The Carmelite houses and churches form a striking contrast. The church of so important a convent as Cambridge was furnished with a poverty, among these friars not incongruous with their profession, but of which the smallest parish church would have been ashamed. It is remarkable how prolific the English Carmelites were in writers, although it is not impossible that the number of their writers was not really greater than those of the Franciscans / and Dominicans ; but these latter orders lacked a Bale. For even Bale has a redeeming point in his literary character. He gathered up, whilst it was yet time, with scrupulous care the memorials of his Fall of the Friars. 241 order in England, and thus showed, in spite of the violence and virulence of speech and pen, that there was somewhere in his heart a tenderness for the men of his old habit.* The total number of friars is somewhat difficult to estimate, and can only be stated in general terms. From the list of names given in the "surrenders" and other documents it would appear that the average number of inmates in each Dominican friary was about nine, in each Franciscan about eleven, in each Augustinian about eight and in each Carmelite about nine. Taking these averages as approximately correct, it would appear that the total number of friars in England at the time of their dispersion was about eighteen hundred. f Richard Ingworth, the suffragan bishop of Dover, writing to Crumwell on April ist, 1539, says that in the north of England he has received for the king twenty-six houses. In these there were " nine score friars ; " but he adds that these were "the poorest houses that ever" he went to, and that the best houses had been under- taken by other visitors. j The average of seven, therefore, for the smaller houses given up to the bishop would seem to show that the estimate of eighteen hundred is not excessive. * It is to be regretted that Bale's Carmelite collections in the Harleian MSS. at the British Museum (Nos. 3838, 7031, &c.) have not been printed. t In the few years that preceded their final suppression a number of the friars had left the country rather than conform to Henry's regulations. % R. O. Crum. Corr., viii., f. 115. VOL. II. R 242 Henry VIII. and the Eiiglish Monasteries. For some reason or other the various orders of friars had not been included in the dissolutions which had been carried out under the act for suppressing houses of less than ^loo a year.* It is probable that as in accordance with their constitution they were possessed of very little real property, it did not suit the king's purpose to risk the unpopularity of attacking them when so little was to be gained by so doing. When, however, the royal policy of plunder had been firmly established, and the complete over- throw of the northern rising had rendered resistance almost impossible, Henry could contemplate the seizure of the friaries and the absorption of their trifling possessions into the regal revenues without fear of the consequences. Small as their belongings really were, still some few manors, farms and houses were to be got out of their wholesale destruction. Each convent, however poor, had the site upon which it stood ; and even if the plate in the sacrist's keeping was generally worth but a trifling sum, the lead on the roof and gutters of the church would add a few pounds to the grand total of these eccle- siastical spoils. But although the friars had escaped for a time where others had fallen a prey, they had been harassed with many diificulties hardly less bearable than absolute extinction. They had been regarded, * It is curious to note the mistakes into which some authors have fallen upon this point. More than one could be cited who state that these " lesser monasteries " were chiefly the houses of friars. Fall of the Friars. 243 probably with a great amount of truth, as especially loyal to the pope. The troubles of the Observant friars, who had taken an active part in opposing the king's divorce, and the consequent breach with the Holy See, have been already dwelt upon. The other bodies of friars were, by the principle of their existence, less insular than the greater monastic orders. They formed part only of a vast army, which possessed battalions in every country, and which was governed by a supreme commander, dwelling in a foreign country, and generally beneath the very shadow of the papal throne. Their very poverty tended to make them independent of crown control. Possessed of no large estates, which in the case of the greater monasteries furnished the king with a title to interference in every election of abbot or prior, the friars were free to choose or accept an appointed superior without the king's consent or license. This freedom from control had, early in the quarrel of the king with church, been put an end to by the appointment of an Augustinian friar. Dr. George Brown, as general over all the mendicant orders.* This new superior was a creature of Crumwell. He preached, according to Chapuys, under his master's inspiration against the pope and the old Catholic doctrine, and had been appointed to his office " in reward for having married the lady Anne " to the king. Of the work done by this instrument of * Calendar, vii., 121. 244 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. Henry " in all things unlawful," and his assistant, the Dominican, John Hilsey, afterwards bishop of Rochester, in succession to the martyred Fisher, suflficient has already been said.* Under the terror of their visitation, the friars generally appear to have signed away their belief in papal supremacy, and accepted Henry as head of the Church in England. In the work of suppressing the friaries Crumwell found an energetic lieutenant in Richard Ingworth, formerly prior of the Dominican house of Langley Regis. This house was the richest possessed by the Black friars, having an income of ;if 125 a year, and on December 9th, 1537, Ingworth was con- secrated suffragan bishop of Dover.f Ver}^ much about the same time he received two commissions " to visit and vex " his brother friars. In the first, power was bestowed upon him to depose or suspend incriminated superiors, and to appoint others in their places. In the second he is directed to visit their convents, to take possession of their keys, to seques- trate goods, and make indentures and inventories.! No mention is made of suppression, and such a work was apparentlv entirely beyond the powers granted either to him or other visitors, § although their * Vol. i., pp. 172-3. t Stubbs' " Epis. Succession," p. 'j'^).^ X Wilkins, iii., 829, 835. § Canon Di.xon, " Hist, of Church of England," ii., p. 37, says : " This was well contrived. If the visitors suppressed a house quietly, they were not complained of, though they exceeded their commission: the king pocketed the money. But if (which never happened) there had been a disturbance, the king and Crumwell Fall of the Friars. 245 instructions quoted in the last chapter leave on the mind no doubt as to the royal intention. In the time that elapsed from 1534, when the troubles of the reformation began, to the autumn of 1538, when the active suppression of the friars com- menced, a considerable number of these religious evidently succeeded in leaving the country. Thus, rather than take the oath to hold Henry as head of the Church, the Franciscan Observants and others in the Island of Guernsey had given up their convent in September, 1537. " I have called unto me," writes a correspondent to Crumwell, " all the Friars Observant strangers which were left in the convent of the Friars Observant of saint Francis within the Isle of Guernsey " and ordered them immediately to take the required oath. They refused, and asked to be allowed to cross over " to Normandy their natural country," saying " they would rather forsake their convent and country than miake " such an oath. The writer adds that he sent them over in a boat and took possession of their goods, an inventory of which he encloses.* The way in which the number of friars was diminished before the final suppression of their convents may be illustrated by the house of Dominicans at Derby. Previous to 1534 the com- munity consisted of about thirty religious. When were safe : they would have said that the visitors had exceeded their commission, and would have punished them exemplarily if public feeling had required a victim." * Ellis, Orig. Letts., ii., Series ii., p. 91. 246 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. Dr. London visited it in the January of 1539 he only- obtained the signatures of some half-a-dozen. It is said on the highest authority that " a great part of the friar preachers of England in 1534- 1535 with- drew from the country into Ireland, Scotland and Flanders "* rather than conform, and in consequence of the poverty to which they were reduced. Some among the friars were bold enough ta denounce the royal policy and to condemn even from the public pulpit the tendency of the "new learning." The prior of the Dominican friars of Newcastle-on-Tyne, not only refused to acknow- ledge the royal supremacy, but publicly preached against it. In the spring of 1536 he was in danger of his freedom and probably of his life. Unknown to his brethren he sought safety in flight, sending to his convent the following letter: — To THE FATHERS AND BRETHREN OF THE CONVENT OF Black friars in Newcastle. — The cause of my writing to vou is this time to show you that for fear of my life I am fled. For because of my preaching in Advent and also in Lent, the first Sunday, I am noted to be none of the king's friends, though albeit I love the king as a true Christian man ought to do. But, because I have not, according to the king's commandment, in niv sernions both prayed for him as the supreme head of the Church, nor declared him in my sermons to be the supreme head of the Church, but rather contrary, T have declared St. Peter, the Apostle and his successors to be Christ's vicars upon earth of all the churches, some of one * Rev C. R. F. Palmer, O.P., in the " Reliquary,'' Vol. xviii., p.. 71. The volumes of this valuable periodical contain many com- munications from father Palmer's pen on the English Dominicaii Convents. Fa II of the Fr tars. 247 country and some of another. (This did I) the forenoon of the first Sunday. Of which words it followeth that the kin"" cannot he the supreme head of the Church of England, but rather the successors of Saint Peter. I was also admonished to preach shortly in Newcastle and both to pray for him as supreme head and also so to declare him unto the people. This thing I cannot do lawfully: First, because it is against the Scripture of God taken in its true sense. Secondlv, it is against the doctrine of the Church, Catholic and Apostolic, as it appeareth in the decrees, decretals, etc., which doctrine of Holy Church I was sworn openly in the University of Oxford to declare with all my power and ever to stick unto, and that I should never affirm anything, neither in the schools, nor in preaching, nor elsewhere that is contrary to the determination of -the same Church, Catholic and Apos- tolic. Thirdly, it is against many general Councils. Fourthly, it is against the interpretation of all the holy doctors as Irenaeus, Cyprian, Augustine, Jerome, etc. Fifthly, it is against all the Universities and general schools of all Christendom, except a few certain Universities lately corrupted and poisoned with Lutheran heresies Sixthly, it is against the consent of all the Christian people who have received Peter's successors as supreme head of the Church Catholic ever more unto this time. Seventhly, it is against my profession which I made to be obedient to the master of the whole Order and successors according to the institu- tions of P'riars Preachers, who in that evidently declared that " ordo iioster est 8. Pontifici Romano immediate subjectus." For these seven causes I cannot lawfully do as I am commanded by the king in his letters, neither as I was admonished by his servant and chaplain. Wherefore, I could not abide in England without falling under the king's indionation, which as the Scripture says is death — " Indig?iatio inquit principis mors est." Thus I have thought it better lor me to fly and give place to ire as Christ commanded me to 248 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. do, and as both He and His disciples, with many good men hath done and daily doth, than I would tarry and preach false doctrine against my conscience; or yet to tarry and suffer death as others have done, for Spiritus quidem promptus, caro autem bifinrm. I am in heart well willing to die in these my opinions, notwithstanding I feel my flesh " grudire " with death. Wherefore, fathers and dear brethren all for these premises, bv this present writing, I give up my office and request you to choose another prior. Secondly, I beseech you all to pray for me as vour poor brother in Christ and now in Christ's cause departed from you. So committing myself to the (God) who ever save you all, as I would be saved myself, Amen. Fester, Richard Marshall.* Friar Marshall's fears for his safety were amply justified by the \vay in which every opposition to the royal schemes was punished. Even private conver- sations were reported by Crumwell's ubiquitous spies, and the speakers called to account. More especially was this the case after the overthrow of the northern insurgents had delivered Henry from all further dread of popular resistance. Thus, the vicar of Bradford in Wiltshire, William Bird, was attainted by act of parliament for saying to a kinsman of his who was summoned to fight against the northern men : " I am sorry therefor. Seest thou not how the king plucketh down abbeys and images every day." And for declaring the king on another occasion to be * Calendar, x., 594. Printed in extenso by Fr. Palmer, in " Reliquary," Vol. xviii., p. 163. Richard Marshall escaped to Scotland. He was at St. Andrew's in 1551, when Fox says he publicly advocated " reasonable devotion by maintaining that the Pater JSoster ought to be directed to God alone." Fa II of the Fr ia rs. 2 49 a heretic. Even lord Hungerford was attainted of treason for helping this priest " in his examination and retaining him as his chaplain."* In the same way numerous charges were preferred against priests and others for their hostility to the royal supremacy and the general policy of Henry in ecclesiastical matters. In April, 1537, the popular discontent manifested itself in a serious way in Norfolk. Men met in the streets of Walsinsfham and " condemned the suppression of so many religious houses in which God was well served and many good deeds of charity done." One man said, " See how these abbeys go down and our living goeth away with them. For within a while Burnham shall be put down and also Walsingham and all other abbeys in this country. And further he said that the gentle- men there had all the farms and all the cattle in the country in their hands, so that poor men could have no living by them. And, therefore, quoth (he), when these men shall come to put down the abbeys some men must step to and resist them." " I hear say," said another, " that all the abbeys in the country shall go down." " More pity if it pleased God," cried a third. f * Rot. Pari., 32 Hen. VIII., 59. Lord Walter Hungerford was executed on Tower Hill on 28th July, 1540, the same day on which lord Crumwell was beheaded. By a letter from lord Walter Hungerford to Crumwell (R. O. Crum. Corr., xviii., 14) it is evident that William Bird was charged with high treason for speaking against the king's supremacy. t R. O. State Papers, Dom., 1537, 2;, 7^. 250 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. The late experience of the northern rebellion had taught the king the necessity of prompt action. Some thirty or forty men of the district were seized and tried. They were charged with saying " that if they could get any company they would make an insurrection as well for the staying of the abbeys putting down, as for reformation of gentlemen for taking of farms." Their object was to take Lynn and to seize and fortify Thetford and Brandon bridges. A special commission sitting at Norwich Castle on May 22, 1537, tried and found them guilty.* Amongst them were John Grigby, rector of the Church of Langham, two Augustinian canons of Walsingham, Nicholas Myleham and Richard Vowell^ a cleric of Walsingham, William Younger, and two Carmelite friars of Burnham Norton, William Gyb- son and John Pecock. Friar Gybson was condemned to perpetual imprisonment,! together with another cleric, John Punte, rector of the parish church of Waterlow. This latter was specially charged with having approved the action of the others by saying, " Peradventure what they did was for the common- wealth."! Of the rest, twelve were executed at different towns in Norfolk. Amongst these were George Gysborough, Ralph Rogerson and William Gysborough, whose avowed condemnation of the destruction of the * Coram Rege, 29 Hen. Vlll., Hilary, m. 2. t Controlment Roll, 29 Hen, VHI., m. 33d. X Coram Rege, ut sup. These two were afterwards pardoned (" Rot. Pat.," 29 Hen. VllL, Pars, i., m. 9.). Fall of the Friars. 251 religious houses has been quoted above, and two rehgious ; the Augustinian canon Mileham, executed at Walsingham on Wednesday, May 30th, and the CarmeHte friar Pecock, who suffered at Lynn on Friday, June 1st, 1537.* The terror inspired by the constant accusations, trials, convictions and cruel executions of those guilty only of verbal treason, or of expressing disapproval of the king and his actions, bore down all opposition. None was safe. As one man who was accused and examined expressed it, "If two or three good fellows be walking together, the constables come to them and will know what commimication they have or else they shall be stocked. "t The case of another friar, Anthony Brown, who was condemned to death in the summer of 1538 for his belief in the old doctrine of papal supremacy, may be here briefly referred to, before passing on to relate the circumstances of the general dissolution of the friaries. The duke of Norfolk, writing to Crumwell on August 4th, 1538, told him that the justices of assize lately sitting at Norwich had before them " one called Anthony Brown, some time a friar Observant of Greenwich and of late taking upon him as a hermit." He wrote out " his own confession with his hand which," says the duke, " you shall receive with this." The friar was found guilty, * R. O. Crunnvell Corresp., xxxix., 72. t R. O. State Papers, Dom., 1537,^. Confession of Richard Bishop, of Bungay. 252 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. " giving respite to the sheriff for his execution ten days following, which they showed me the said duke, they did for this consideration, which was they thought it convenient that a sermon should be made by the bishop of Norwich, as was by the bishop of Worcester at the execution of Forest." The views of the bishop of Norwich were apparently considered doubtful, and it was thought well that Nor- folk should thus make trial of both the friar and him. " And because," continues the duke, " Mr. Townsend is the only one of the king's council in these parts, I sent in likewise for him to be present at all the examinations. And this afternoon we so handled the said friar that we brought him to this point, that he would not stick upon the authority of the bishop of Rome to be supreme head of the Church, but in no wise could we bring him from the opinion that the king ought not to be supreme head of the Church, saying that no temporal prince was capax of that name and authority." Neither " Dr. Call, a Grey friar," who was present and took the king's part, nor the bishop of Norwich, who argued well on the point, could move the friar. And so " we have delivered him," continues Norfolk, " to the sheriff to be carried to the gaol and there to suffer accord- ing to his foolish doings upon Friday next. Before his death the said bishop shall make such a sermon as we trust shall be to the king's highness contenta- tion and apparent to the people (who, we think, will be there in great number) that this unhappy foolish Fall of the Friars. 253 friar is well worthy to suffer and that his opinions be false and untrue. My lord, the cause of the sending of this man in so great haste unto you is because that if the king's majesty and you shall think it convenient to have him to be brought to the Tower, there to be more straightly examined and to be put to torture, you may despatch this bearer or some other with command to the sheriff accordingly, so that the same may be with him at Norwich by Friday at ten o'clock." "After writing," the bishop of Norwich tried once more to induce the friar to change his opinions, but without success. As the duke expresses it, " yet finally he persisted in his errors,"* and though an actual record of the execution has not been found,^ there can be little doubt that the sentence of death was carried out on Friday, August 9th, 1538. The various dissolutions of religious houses and desecration of churches, which had been witnessed in all parts of England from the spring of 1536, had a disastrous but natural effect on the friaries. These religious were almost entirely dependent upon the alms of the faithful for their support, and one immediate result of the royal seizure of ecclesiastical property was to dry up the spring of charity given for religious purposes. It could hardly be supposed that donations would be given for objects marked out for destruc- tion and which would only go to swell the total amount of the royal plunder. * Ellis, Orig. Lett., i., Ser. ii., p. 86. 254 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. There were exceptions, of course, to the general rule, and there are instances of donations being given to the friars on the very eve of their disper- sion. Thus, on October 9th, 1537, just fifteen months before the surrender, Robert Davell, arch- deacon of Northumberland, made an interesting covenant with friar Roland Harding, the successor of Richard Marshall at the Black friars, Newcastle. The Dominican brethren promised that " between six and nine o'clock in the morning daily, before the picture of our Lord, called the crucifix, which was between the cloisters and the outer door of the choir within the church, the friars kneeling, would sing devoutly the anthem of the cross, beginning ' O crux,'' with the versicle Adoramus te Christ e Jesu Fili Dei vivi, etc., and the collect of the same, Domine Jesu, etc. And after then (they were) devoutly to say, for the souls of William Davell and John Brigham, late of Newcastle, merchant, their wives and children, with their benefactors and all Christian souls, the De profiindis with the preces belonging, ending with the oratio Absolve. In return of all which Robert Davell gave the friars -£6 8s. in their great need. And the friars agree that if the anthem and prayers were not sung for two days, they would sing a solemn dirge with mass of Requiem by note, sending the bellman round the town to notify the same in order that the people might come to the friars and make an offering for the souls. . And if none of the premises were Fall of the Friars. 255 observed, truly and without delay the £6 8s. should be refunded."* The very terms of this contract would show, were there not ample evidence of the fact, that by this time the friars had been reduced to a state of extreme poverty. In fact it is impossible to read the letters of bishop Ingworth and doctor London to Crumwell whilst they were engaged in the work of suppressing the friaries without seeing that their poverty left them no alternative but surrender. " Since that I last was with you," writes the former, *' I have received to the king's use twelve houses of friars : that is one in Huntingdon, four in Boston, four in Lincoln, one in Grantham, one in Newark and now one in Grimsby. They all were in poverty, and little left, scarce to pay the debts and in some places not so much as ;^3 or (so). In these houses the king's grace shall have but the lead, which I think in all twelve houses shall be, as I can judge it, about twelve score fodders or more and twenty-four bells, such as they be ; and of every house a chalice of six to ten ounces apiece, in some places more. These chalices I bear with me, and other silver if I find it."t So, too, according to the same authority the three houses of friars at Canterbury were all in debt. The Austin friars particularly owed £\o^ while all their belongings, exclusive of plate, which * Brand's " Newcastle," quoted by Fr. Palmer. " Reliquary,''' Vol. xviii., p. 164. t R. O. Crum, Corr., viii., f. 112. 256 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. the bishop estimated at eighty-five ounces, would not fetch ^6* In the twenty-six houses of friars in the north which he dissolved in the first months of 1539, he obtained little except the worth of the sacred vessels. f It is the same story wherever this episcopal commissioner goes. At Dunstable, Ware, Walslngham and innumerable other houses the goods are reported as " some sold, some stolen and some pledged," so that little was left either in plate, lead or other implements, J while at Scar- borough the three houses were so impoverished as to be obliged to sell the very stalls from their church and the screenwork, " so that nothing is left but stone and glass," and all that the king can expect to get is the lead off the roof and "very poor chalices." § The testimony of the redoubtable Dr. London, to whom much of the work of dispatching the friars was committed, is to the same effect. At North- ampton the Carmelites were so much in debt that all they had would not pay it off. The friars of Aylesbury were in the same plight. Dr. London thought their ornaments " very coarse " and sold them all with " the glass windows and their utensils."! Thus, with few exceptions, if any, the friars throughout Enorland had fallen into a state of * Ibid., 114. t Ibid., 115. :J: Ibid., 117. § Ibid., 120. The letters of the bishop, printed by Wright, pp. 191-200, tell the same tale as to the poverty of the friars at this time. II Ibid., xxiii., 8i. See also London's letters printed by Wright. Fa II of til e Fria rs. 257 poverty, which rendered their continuance almost an impossibiHty. The chief object of bishop Ingworth, London and other royal agents was to force the alternative of submission upon the unwilling friars. " Good my lord," writes the bishop to his master, " I beseech you think not that I am any feigner to you, for I assure you I am not, but am and will be as true and as secret to you as any servant that you have. . . . I would do all things with so much quiet and with- out any clamour so near as I know ; if I knew your pleasure, there shall be no part left undone so near as I may. My commission giveth me no authority to put any out, without they give up their houses, but if I knew your pleasure, I may find causes sufficient to put them out of many places for their misliving and for disobeying the instructions and the king's acts."* " Divers of the friars/' he writes again, " are very loath to forsake their houses, and yet they are not able to live," as their debts are so great all they have will not pay them.f At Gloucester, as the memorandum of the mayor records, Ingworth gave the friars their choice either to " continue in their houses and keep their religion and injunctions according to the same," which, be it remembered, were framed for the purpose of making religious life impossible, " or else to give their houses unto the king's hands." The mayor con- sidered the injunctions "reasonable," and even the * Wright, 200. t R. O. Crum. Corr., viii., f. 127. VOL. II. S 258 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. friars confessed " that they were accorduig to their rules, yet as the world is now they were not able to keep them and live in their houses, wherefore voluntarily they gave their houses into the visitor's hands to the king's use. The visitor said to them," continues the declaration, " Think not, nor hereafter report not that you are suppressed, for I have no such authority to suppress you, but only to reform you, wherefore if ye will be reformed according to good order ye may continue," as far as I am con- cerned. They, however, confessed that they could not remain on the terms offered them, and so ** the visitor took their houses and charitably delivered them and gave them letters to visit their friends and so to go to other houses with which they were content."* The fact is that the methods adopted were admir- ably conceived to force compliance to the royal will. When the chief source of their revenue, the charity of the faithful, had been cut off, the only means lelt to the friars to secure sufficient to live upon were sales of their effects or leases of the little property they possessed. For both the free use of their cor- porate seal was required, and the first design of the visitor was to secure possession of this, and thus cut them off from any possibility of raising money. " In every place," says the bishop of Dover, "is jewels selling and other shift by leases. But in all these places 1 have set stay by making indentures and * Wright, 202. Fall of the Friars. 259 sequestering the common seals, so that now they have no shift to make." By this means " I think before the year is out there shall be very few houses able to live, but (they) will be glad to give up their houses and provide for themselves otherwise, for there they shall have no living." He then goes on to speak of the same two houses in Gloucester, from which he wrote, and the surrender of which has been recorded above. Of these he says, " I think there be two houses that will give up, for they have no living."* In some of the houses, however, bishop Ingworth did not have it all his own way. He thus relates his experience at the house of Austin friars at Canter- bury: "Being there the 14th day of December (1538), one friar there very rudely and traitorously used him before all the company, as by a bill here enclosed ye shall perceive. I seeing his demeanour straight sequestered him so that none spake with him. I sent for the mayor, and before he came I examined him before master Spylman and also after- wards before the mayor and master Spylman, and at all times he still held and still desired to die for it, that the king may not be head of the Church of England, but that it must be a spiritual father appointed by God. Wherefore I required of master * Wright, 193. Inanother communication he says that in "all places" he has been to he has " sealed up the common seals, so that they shall sell or alienate no more of their jewels nor other stuff, wherefore I am sure that within a year the more part shall be fain to give up their houses for poverty." — Ibid., p. 202. 26o Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. mayor to have horses and men to send him to you, charging both the men that no man should speak with him.''* At the Austin friars at Droitwich also bishop Ing- worth found in the prior's coffer " eleven bulls of the bishops of Rome and above a hundred letters of pardons, and in all the books in the choir the bishop of Rome still standing as he did twenty years past." The prior had been only a year in the office when the bishop arrived, but he had already " felled and sold seven score good elms, a chalice of gilt of 90 ounces, a censer of twenty-six ounces, two great brass pots each able to seeth a whole ox, as men say, spits, pans and other things, so that in the house is not left a bed, a sheet, a platter or dish." For all this, the writer adds, " I have charged the bailiffs that he shall be forth coming."! * R. O. Crum. Corr., viii,, f. 114. This was probably friar Stone, who was executed at Canterbury about this time. The fol- lowing account of the expenses incurred by the city in carr>'ing out tlie sentence may be here quoted from the city records : — " A.D. 1538-9. — Paid for half a ton of timber to make a pair of gallaces (gallows) to hang Friar Stone. For a carpenter for making the same gallows and the dray. For a labourer who digged the holes. To four men that helped set up the gallows. For drink to them. For carriage of the timber from stable gate to the dungeon. For a hurdle. For a load of wood, and for a horse to draw him to the dungeon. For two men who set the kettle and parboiled him. To two men who carried his quarters to the gate and set them up. For a halter to hang him. For two halfpenny halters. For sand« wich cord. For straw. To the woman that scoured the kettle. To him that did execution, 4s. 4d." — (Hist. I\ISS. Comm., 9th Rept., Append, p. 153, " City of Canterbur}- Records.") t Wright, 195. Other friars at this time got into difficulties.. Fall of the Friars. 261 But with all his activity, bishop Ingworth was hardly the kind of man that the king's work required. Although he evidently from the first appreciated that the purpose of his commission was to drive the friars to surrender or abandon their houses, still he seems to 'have thought that some maight be spared. He hesitated to desecrate the church of the friars at Droitwich, and appointed a friar to continue to say mass there, even although sir John Russell wanted the place and two other magnates of the county were making suit to the king and Crumwell for it.* The latter wrote him a sharp rebuke, and in his humble reply Ingworth says he shall act now that he knows his master's mind. " And where it hath pleased your lordship," he says, " to write to me, as ye judge, that though I have changed my habit I have not changed my friar's heart, good my lord, judge me not so. For God shall be my judge, my friar's heart Sir Peter Egerton, for example, wrote to Crumwell that he had sent to Launceston gaol a " priest secular and two late friars priests." The secular *' Andrew Furlong priest and schoolmaster at Saltash, Co. Cornwall, was sent by me to gaol," he says ..." for this cause, there was a Bible of his found in his chamber. In the beginning thereof were three or four leaves cancelled and blotted out in such a manner that no man could read the same." Also " John Hunt and Robert Ellis, late Grey friars of Plymouth, by the confession and handwriting of the said Hunt, said to one that questioned them when they were put out of the Grey friars whether they would buy them new habits or not, and they both said that they would not for a year or two, and by that time perchance there would be another change." For this tliey were sent to gaol (R. O. Crum. Corr., x., f. 26). * Wright, 195. 262 Henry VIII. and the E^iglish Monasteries. was gone two years before my habit, saving only my living. But the favour I have shown has not been for my friar's heart, but to bring all things with the most quiet to pass. And also till now that your letter came to me I never could perceive anything of your pleasure, but ever feared that if I were too quick, that I should offend your lordship." He then goes on to edify Crumwell with some general accu- sations, which he thinks " would not a little have moved " his lordship,* and which are well-nigh the only suggestion of evil living the bishop makes against the friars in the whole of his many letters. He quickly amends his method of dealing with the religious, and although he had previously given leave to his brother of St. Dominic's order, the prior of the Black friars, Winchester, " to say mass " in his old church till further notice, on the receipt of Crumwell's letter he wrote " to avoid him thence." At the end of his career, in August, 1539, he wrote, however, to beg that a house of his own order in Shrewsbury might be allowed to continue. On August 27th, 1539, he sent to beg Crumwell not to grant such a thing, for although he " could find no great cause in them to cause them to give up,"t still he thought their " standing " would give him greater " business in divers places than (he) should have." He was specially thinking of the Franciscans and Austin friars of Bristol, who " are stiff and bear themselves sore by (the) great favour" in which they are.| The following day * Ibid., 199. "^ Jbid,, 204. % Ibid., 211. Fall of the Friars. 263 he returned to the subject. " I have left," he says, " but one convent standing, and that is (the) Black friars of Shrewsbury. For this there will be great suit made to you to have it stand still, and that specially by one of the bailiffs, master Adam Hamil- ton, who, as he saith, is much bound to your lordship. For your sake he made me great cheer. Yet for all that, I would that he had some pleasure, but not that pleasure."* Before Michaelmas the friars, who had been left in their house by the bishop, were dis- possessed. The suppression was, of course, not finally carried to a conclusion without some severe handling. Instances of such measures have been noticed. No record, doubtless, was kept of much of the suffering endured by the friars before they were finally dis- persed, but the glimpse that is afforded by the records of this period is sufficient to show that the most extreme measures were resorted to. Robert Buckenham, a member of the Dominican Order, was attainted of high treason and condemned to death for promulgating the "venomous serpent the bishop of Rome to be supreme head of the Church."! He, however, escaped out of Henry's power. Another friar, William Storme, was kept in the Fleet prison for " honouring images and main- taining the use of pilgrimages." | And Robert * R. O. Crum. Corr., viii., 130. t R. O. Rot. Pari., Hen. VIIL, 147, No. 15. X R. O. Crum. Corr., xl., 67. Dr. London writes about a "Black friar" who had been put in prison at Northampton at 264 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. Southwell, writing to Crumwell, informs him of the condemnation of a Franciscan for maintaining or remaininor staunch to the old Catholic doctrine of papal supremacy. " Pleaseth it your good lordship to understand that William Dickinson, clerk and priested in Rome, with William Petty, sometime a friar minor in Jersey, were yesterday attainted of high treason upon their several denying the king's supremacy. In this they stuck as arrogantly as any traitors that I have much seen in my life and more would have done if they might have been permitted thereto. Surely, sir," he continues, " they were and yet be two weeds not meet to grow in our garden, nor none of their seed that they have sown, whereof we can as yet learn nothing by their confession. Dickinson was apprehended by the seaside in Sussex in journey towards Rome if he had not been stayed. Petty is subtly witted as he is ingenious and hath as pleasant an instrument for the utterance of his cankered heart as I have heard." He concludes by desiring to know "the king's pleasure concerning the time of the execution of these two traitors that be attainted."* The character of Dr. London was more fitted than that of his fellow, bishop Ingworth, for the rough work he was called upon to do in the suppression of the friars' houses. He had, as his letters give ample " All-Hallowes" and was there still on January 2~ . His offence was " certain words." * Ellis, " Orig. Letters," iii., Ser. iii., 95. Fall of the Friars. 265 evidence, no scruple to perform any act of vandalism necessary to the complete wrecking of friaries which had been built up by the patient toil and the means furnished by the Christian self-sacrifice of genera- tions of pious benefactors, and for the desecration of churches for centuries dedicated to the service of God. At Reading he says, " I did only deface the church, all the windows being full of friars, and left the roof and walls whole for the king's use. I sold the ornaments and the cells in their dormitory." . . . At Aylesbury " I only did deface the church." So, too, at Bedford and Stamford. At Coventry he partly razed the house of the Franciscans, " because the poor people lay so sore upon it." At Warwick he only smashed in the windows of " the friars' church," and added in his account to Crumwell, " I never pulled down any house entirely, but so defaced them that they could not be used again." Of the friars themselves we hear but little from this valiant destroyer. That little, as may be ex- pected, is not complimentary in its character. The prior of the Austin friars at Northampton is untruthful, "like a very friar;" but when all is over he has to confess that the town of this same Northampton and the villages round about are falling into decay, a good deal of which is attributed to the destruction of the friaries.* The warden of the Grey friars at Reading was, as London says, " a friend of mine," which probably * R. O. Crum. Corr., xxiii., 69-96. 266 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. will not be accounted much to his credit. This friar "also desired me," the doctor writes, " to be a humble suitor for him and his brethren that they may, with your lordship's favour, also change their garments with their papistical manner of living. The most part of them are very aged men and not of strength to go much abroad for their livings, wherefore their desire is that it may please your lordship to be a mediator unto the king's grace for them that they might during their lives enjoy their chambers and orchard."* A fortnight later (September 13th, 1538) London says that he has got the surrender, " and this day they all shall change their grey coats. Of friars," he adds, " they be noted here honest men." And after a description of the house and grounds he says, " the inward part of the church, thoroughly decked with Grey friars as well as in the windows as otherwise I have defaced. "f Of the friars' houses at Oxford he sfives some special information. The commission to visit them consisted of the mayor, " master aldermen " and the doctor himself. They first went to the Carmelites. Here he found that the friars, in anticipation of their dissolution, had sold an annuity of -£'t^ their house had from the abbot of Evesham, for -2^40 and divided the money. They were on the point of disposing of a similar annuity paid from the abbey of West- minster.! Moreover, their little land was all let on a * Wright, 217. t R. O. Crum. Corr., xxiii., 94. X These instances are interesting as showing how the great abbeys helped the poorer friaries. Fall of the Friars. 267 thirty years' lease. Their ornaments, " as copes and vestments," Dr. London considered " pretty " and these he took. The rest of their belongings he thought not worth ;;^5 the lot. At the Augustinians all the trees had been felled. The Franciscans had good lands, woods and a "pretty garden." The house was large and ruinous, and they had been obliged to pawn most of their plate. Even the lead pipes of their conduit had been lately dug up " and cast into 68 sows," twelve of which had been " sold to pay the expenses of taking up," but the rest the inde- fatigable doctor secured and " put into safe custody." He adds that the wind had lately blown down many of the trees, and, worse than all, the " house is roofed with slate and not with lead." At the Dominicans they were more fortunate. " They have behind their house," he reports, " divers islands well-wooded " and, although their convent was only covered with slate, the choir, " which was lately built, was covered with lead." Their plate also was valuable, especially a great " chalice of gold set with jewels, worth more than a hundred marks."* After what has been so far said about the state to which the friaries had been reduced by the middle of 1538 there is little need to dwell upon the surrenders which were extracted from them. The chief object of a formal document was to secure to the crown the legal possession of the property belonging to the religious corporation, and for this purpose the deed 268 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. was, as a rule, carefully entered on the " close roll." As the friars possessed real property so slight in amount the "surrender" was of comparatively minor importance, and out of the two hundred convents of friars only some forty-five oflficial deeds are known to exist. Of these more than a fourth are not found enrolled, several have not been dated, and some not legalized by the convent seal. In the case of one, that of the Franciscans of Aylesbury, although the convent apparently consisted of fifteen members, the signatures of only seven are attached to the docu- ment. Besides these forty-five, a book of surrenders made to bishop Ingworth seems to contain the signed resignations of some five-and-twenty more, none of which are sealed documents or have been enrolled. The form of surrender employed in many cases is curious. After stating that the act was altogether voluntary, the document proceeds to say that the house is resigned into the king's hands under the conviction that the religious who sign it have been guilty of crimes and vices. The same form is made use of in a great many instances,* and chiefly where doctor London was engaged in the work. And although the document has often been pointed to as proof that the religious themselves confessed the iniquity of their lives, no reasonable man can doubt that, like other so-called " confessions," f this was a * e.g.^ Stamford, Franciscans and Carmelites ; Bedford and Ayles- bury, Coventry, etc. t As to tliese, see Vol. i., p. 34Q, et seq. Fall of the Friars. 269 ready-made document. The words of the surrender of Stamford, usually referred to in this matter, may be taken as a sample here. " Forasmuch," runs this document, " as we, the warden and friars of the house of St. Francis, Stamford, commonly called the Grey friars in Stamfords, etc., do profoundly con- sider that the perfection of Christian living doth not consist in dumb ceremonies, wearing the grey coat, disguising ourselves after strange fashions, ' decking and becking,' in girding ourselves with a girdle full of knots and other like papistical ceremonies wherein we have been most principally practised and misled in times past ; but the very true way to please God and to live a true Christian man without all hypocrisy and feigned dissimulation, is sincerely declared unto us by our Master, Christ, His Evangelists and apostles. Being minded therefore to follow the same ; conforming ourselves unto the will and pleasure of our supreme head under God in earth, the king's majesty, and not to follow henceforth the superstitious traditions of any 'forincycall' potentate or power, with mutual assent and consent, do submit ourselves unto the mercy of our said sovereign head," etc.* Were there any doubts as to the authorship of such documents left on the mind after examiningf their terms, they must be removed by the knowledge that there exists a draft of a surrender couched in a similar form, written in the hand of doctor London, and intended for the Carmelite friars of Oxford. f * Fuller (Ed. 1837), ii., 223. t R. O. State Papers, Dom., 1538, ■^^^. 270 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. How far this was to be a voluntary act may be understood from a letter written by the doctor on July 7th, 1538: "We find," he says, "the white friars (these Carmelites) and the Augustins to be most out of order and brought into such poverty, that if they do not forsake their houses, their houses will forsake them, wherefore we are well onward in such order with them as they shall put themselves and their houses in the king's hands." At the end of this communication he says : " If Mr. Fryer, now newly come from London, had not said in the Black- friars that he heard say in London that the four orders in Oxford and Cambridge should stand, the Black had made their submission yesterday. The Grey and Augustins have done it already under their writings and seals."* It was thus, according to London's own admission, only when the friars were given plainly to understand that they must go that their voluntary submission was executed. A rumour that they might be allowed to remain caused them to hesitate and draw back. Some, no doubt, were willing to acknowledge any- thing to secure some slight pittance on which to live after the fall of their houses. Thus the warden of the London Franciscans, Thomas Chapman, one of the very few friars who secured the grant of a pension,! declared that if people were offended at " the coat we wear and the fashion (of life) that * Ibid -5_ ■*"*'*•> T6T5* t R. O. Aug. Off. Misc. Bk., 249, f. 25, a grant of £\i 6s. 8d. Fall of the Friars. 2'~ii some of us use," then as it was not "a thing de necessitate salutis ceterncB" it should be given up. He further says he beheves that there was not one in the house of Grey friars in London that would not " gladly change his coat so that he had a living provided as he had now."* The spoils obtained for the royal treasury by the suppression of the friars were in the first instance very small. Beyond the plate seized for the king, which was seldom more than the sacred vessels, often only one chalice, a few shillings, or at most a few pounds, represented the amount credited to the king after the expenses of the commissioners had been paid. Thus at Pontefract the goods sold amounted, in the Dominican friary, to only i los. 4d., all the furniture of "the cells" fetching but eight shillings. Prior Day was given thirteen shillings and fourpence and each priest five shillings. Sixty- two shillings was the balance obtained by the king, besides a little amount of lead, two bells, "a conduit and a brass ' hallywalter fatt ' " left in the keeping of the mayor. t At Newcastle, to take but one instance more, bishop Ingworth sold the vestments and other moveables in the Black friars house and church for less than £^ ; the mayor bought the tiles of the roof and everything in the dormitory for ten shillings ; two chalices, weighing 38 ounces, were sent to the * B. Mus. Cott. MS. Cleop., E. iv., f. 38. t Fr. Palmer in " The Reliquary," xx., p. 73. 272 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. royal treasure house; the lead was melted into 18 fodders, and the episcopal visitor went away with thirty shillings as the price obtained by all the desecration and ruthless destruction. As for the community, six shillings and eightpence was given to the prior, five shillings to two other priests, to two lay brothers three and fourpence each, and to another, Robert Burrall, who did not sign the surrender, as much as ten shillings. The bishop " gave them a few hours' grace to quit their convent," and turned them out in the depth of winter without any other provision.* From some of the other friars' houses Henry obtained, if possible, even less. Thus from the four convents of Norwich the receiver only acknowledged forty-nine shillings, from the same at Yarmouth only sixty-seven, and from the Black friars at Thetford little more than a pound. f A memorandum as to the Carmelites of Bristol states that four friars came before the mayor attended by the bishop of Dover and acknowledged that " they had voluntarily left their house," Their plate had been sold, and yet they were in debt, " and as the charity of the people is," they say, "very small, it is impossible for them to live." They stated that the royal commissioner " had given them all their own chambers and all the books of the choir and divers other small implements j and to each of them * Ibid., xviii., 165. t R. 0. Exch. Mins. Accts., 31-32 Hen. VIII., 255, m. 9. Fall of the Fi^iars. 273 a letter and twenty pence in their purses to bring to their convents and gave them certain times to visit their friends."* The reference here and else- where to " the convents " to which these friars were ultimately to go, seems to suggest that they were deluded as to the ultimate intentions of Henry in his wholesale suppressions. No wonder some were loath to go. " There was an ancres," writes Ingworth, of Worcester, " with whom I had not a little business to have her grant to come out : but out she is."t This in one short sentence is a fair representation of the spirit in which the expulsion of the friars was conducted. As to the sites and buildings, the crown, no doubt, made a great deal of profit by the sales of these. Situated in the heart of great towns, the space, and even the actual buildings, were much sought after. Thus, " in Lincoln," writes the bishop of Dover, " in the Grey friars is a goodly conduit, for which the mayor and the aldermen were with me to make suit to have the conduit into the city."| So, too, the mayor and aldermen of Grimsby wanted Ingworth to beg the friars' house " to make of it a common house for ordnance and other necessaries for the defence of the king's enemies if need be." It " stands very well," said his lordship, " for the purpose, near the water and open on the sea." And the thing asked he believes is " very necessary for the common- * R. O. Chapt. H. Bk., B. ^\, p. 19. t Ellis, "Orig. Letters," ii., Ser. viii., No. 127. % Wright, 192. VOL. IL T 2 74 Henry VIII. and the Englisli Monasteries. wealth."* In Reading also the town wished for the church of the Grey friars to make a town hall of it, and in several places the buildings were purchased by the cities in which they were situated. Thus in December, 1539, the king sold to the inhabitants of Worcester the sites, lands, churches, belfries and bells, churchyards and other belongings of the convents of the Black and Grey friars there for ;^54[ loSjf and this was after the superfluous buildings had been sold by men who took four days over the job at a cost of seventy-eight shillings and eightpence. It is necessary to say a few words about the sad lot of the disbanded friars. Only one or two indi- viduals were granted any pension for their support. As a rule a few shillings (on an average apparently about five shillings) was delivered to each one on being turned out into the world to find their own living as best they might. Even when they secured what is known as a " capacity" — that is, permission to act as one of the secular clergy — employment was by no means easy to be obtained. The bishops were no lovers of the wandering friars, and the destruction of so many churches diminished the possibility of obtaining any cure of souls, even had they been willing to present them to any. This is evident in many letters of the period. I beg your lordship, wrote Ingworth to Crumwell, " to be good * R. O. Crum. Corr., viii., f. 112. t Rot. Pat., 31 Hen. VIII., p. i, in. 28. Fall of the Friars. 275 lord for the poor friars' capacities. They are very poor and can have Httle service without their capacities. The bishops and curates are very hard to them, without they have their capacities."* In another letter he says, " I pray you be good lord to me, that the warrants for their habits may be had according to my promise, for they (the friars) may not be suffered to say mass abroad in churches till they have their exemptions. I have written to divers of the bishops and with divers I have spoken to license them till after Michaelmas, and at that time I have promised to send their license to certain places where they shall have them free, for the most part of them have no penny to pay for the charge of them."t Lastly, to give but one more instance of the hard- ship to which the expelled friars were exposed, another letter of the same bishop Ingworth, who was instru- mental in producing such misery, may be quoted. " Further my good lord," he writes, " in these parts within the diocese of York the poor men (the dis- banded friars) that surrender their houses are hardly ordered by the bishop's oflficers at the bishop's commandment. They cannot be suffered to sing nor say in any parish church without they show the letters of their orders, my letters or their capacities notwithstanding. And, the charge for these letters of their orders be so great, that the poor men be not able to bear it. Some must go a hundred miles to * Wright, 193. t Ibid., 210. 2/6 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. seek them. And when they come there, the charge of searching the register is so great that they are not able to pay it, and so thev come home again con- founded. I have been with my lord of York and showed him your lordship's letter, that your com- mandment is that they who have surrendered their houses should be suffered without interruption to sing and say in any church. The bishop made many objections and said that it must be known whether they were priests or not. And I certified him that we who received the houses made due search which were priests and which were not and so made certi- ficate to your lordship and your lordship to the king's grace. So that by that means (only) their capacities were granted. Wherefore I desired him to accept their capacities from the king's grace with as much favour as the bishop of Rome's capacities had been before received, for which there never was any search made." Still, Ingworth does not think archbishop Lee was satisfied, and he begs that Crumwell will write his directions that these men may " sing and say " mass without having to show " any proof of orders." * * R. O. Crum. Corr., viii., 120. CHAPTER VIIL PROGRESS OF THE GENERAL SUPPRESSION. The story of one dissolution is practically, as to the general circumstances attending the work, the history of all. The steps of the royal commissioners engaged in disbanding monks, in destroying what were accounted superfluous buildings, and in sweep- ing the spoils into the king's treasure-house, have been so closely followed by an eminent historian * that little need be said here as to the mere sequence of events which culminated in the total extinction of the monastic body in England. For a year after the " Pilgrimage of Grace" few dissolutions, except some of the lesser monasteries previously doomed by act of parliament, are recorded. The only exceptions were those houses seized by Henry on account of the attainder of their superiors for their supposed connection with the northern rising. From Michaelmas, 1537, to the same date in the following year, the work of destruction was pushed on very vigorously. Besides the houses of friars, the dissolutions of some of which are described in the last chapter, and the monasteries of Woburn and Lenton, which in this year fell under * Canon Dixon, in the second volume of his " History of the Church of England." 278 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. the law of attainder, many other of the larger monasteries either surrendered or in some other way came into the king's hands before the feast of St. Michael, 1538. The circumstances attending the destruction of one or two of these may be taken as a sample of the methods employed in the work. The need of voluntary surrenders for the legal possession of the monasteries not included by parlia- ment in the pecuniary limit assigned for suppression has already been pointed out. The instructions given to the royal agents were, by all methods known to them to get the religious " v.'illingly to consent and agree " to their own extinction. And it was only when they found " any of the said heads and con- vents so appointed to be dissolved so wilful and obstinate that they would in no wise " agree to sign and seal their own death warrant that the commis- sioners were authorized to " take the possession of the house " and property by force.* For many months, in fact, since the first wholesale dissolution of the lesser monasteries commenced, popular rumour had spoken of the total destruction of the abbeys of England, and the seizure of their lands and wealth, as the ultimate goal to which the royal intentions aimed. The religious themselves, whilst hoping against hope that a change of the regal whims might bring back union with Rome and dis- missal of the then all-powerful, and, as they regarded * R. O. Chapter House Bk,, A. ^^, f. \,et. seq. Quoted more in detail ante, pp. 226-227. Progress of the General Suppression. 279 them, evil counsellors, could have had little expecta- tion that, under existing circumstances, their lot would ultimately prove more fortunate than that of their poorer brethren. Against such a notion it was to the king's interest to protest. A belief that within a brief period, to be measured, probably, by weeks or months, their property would pass into the royal power would naturally tend to make the monks not alone careless in the supervision of buildings and lands, but anxious to save something, if possible, from the general spoliation for themselves. Hence the visitors frequently in their letters urge rapidity of action when once the resolution has been taken to deal with a particular abbey or convent. Hence, also, the care with which Henry and his agents endeavoured to dissemble any royal intention of suppressing the monastic body throughout the country. Thus the unscrupulous doctor Layton, in a letter written in the middle of January, 1538, describes his efforts to prevent the spread of reports detrimental to the king's interests. " On my coming to Barnwell priory on the 12th day in the evening," he says, " it was immediately bruited in Cambridge that the priory should be even then suppressed,* and that I would go from thence to Ely and to Bury and suppress wheresoever I came : and that the king's highness was fully determined to suppress all monas- * The house was surrendered on the 8th November following, to Dr. Legh (App. ii. to 8th Rept. Dep. Keeper, p. 9). 28o Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. teries : and that Mr. Southwell and I were sent into Norfolk only for that purpose. Which bruit to stop, and to satisfy the people, I went with expedition to the abbeys and priories, calling unto me all such gentlemen and honest men as were nigh inhabitants there. I (then) openly in the chapter house com- manded and charged the abbots and priors with their convents in the king's behalf that they should not in any wise for fear of any such bruit or vain babbling of the people waste, destroy or spoil their woods, nor sell their plate or jewels of their church nor mortgage or pledge any part or parcels of the same for any such intent ; nor let out their granges, pastures or glebe, ever retained in their hands for the maintenance of their house and hospitality, nor to make excessive fines for renewing any manor's lease for a hundred years . . . nor to sell or alienate their lands and revenues nor diminish their rents ; nor sell any manor portion, pension, quit rent or any such like appertaining to their monastery. And finally (I ordered them) to keep everything in the same state as they have done always heretofore, and as they of right are bound and not to give any credit to the vain babbling of the people. And what- soever they were that persuaded them to make any such alienation or sale, alleging that the king would suppress them and all other religious houses, and that it would be better for them to make their hands betimes than too late, no matter of what condition the people who said this were," the doctor continues, Progress of the General Suppression. 281 " in this they utterly slandered the king their natural sovereign lord." He told them not to believe such reports, and "commanded the abbots and priors to set'* those who related such things " in the stocks," unless they were gentlemen, when they were to acquaint Crumwell. " This digression," Layton concludes, " hath somewhat hindered us for Westacre, which if I should not have sped before the dissolution of the same, the rumour would have so greatly increased in the heads of the common people, that surely all abbots and priors would have made foul shifts before we could have made full expedition and all finished at Westacre. Your {i.e.^ Crumwell's) command- ment therefore given me in your gallery in that behalf was much more weighty than I at that time judged or supposed or would have believed if I had not seen the very experience thereof."* That the far-seeing minister had been fully alive to the danger is evident from the draft of a letter sent to various monasteries to assure them that no inten- tion of suppressing existed. "Albeit," this letter of Crumwell runs, " I doubt not but, having not long since received the king's highness's letters wherein his majesty signified to you that using yourselves like his good and faithful subjects, his grace would not in any wise interrupt you in your state and kind of living ; and that his pleasure therefore was that in case any man should declare anything to the * R. O. Crum. Corr., xx., 16. 282 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. contrary you should cause him to be apprehended and kept in sure custody till further knowledge of his grace's pleasure, — you would so firmly repose yourself in the tenour of the said letters as no man's words nor any voluntary surrender made by any governor or company of any religious house since that time shall put you in any doubt or fear of sup- pression or change of your kind of life and policy." The king, however, feels that there are people who " upon any voluntary and frank surrender would persuade and blow abroad a general and violent suppression." And because some houses have lately been surrendered the king commands me to say " that unless there had been overtures made by the said houses that have resigned, his grace would never have received the same. And his majesty intendeth not in any wise to trouble you or to de- vise for the suppression of any house that standeth, except they shall either desire of themselves with one whole consent to resign and forsake the same or else misuse themselves contrary to their allegi- ance." In this last case, the document concludes, they shall lose " more than their houses and posses- sions, that is the loss also of their lives." Where- fore take care of your houses and beware of spoiling them like some have done " who imagined they were going to be dissolved."* The king's fears that his work of spoliation might be anticipated by the monks themselves if they were * B. Mus. Colt. MS. Cleop., E. iv., f. 86. Progress of the General Suppression. 283 allowed to suspect his designs were not altogether groundless. Numerous examinations held some years later as to sales and leases of lands, gifts of annuities and pledging of plate and jewels, prove that even a suspicion of the coming destruction was enough to make the monks anticipate it. Thus, to take one or two examples of the many that might be cited, a month before the dissolution of Wormes- ley, a priory of Austin canons in Herefordshire, Roger Scrotty, the prior, let a tithe, for which pre- viously the convent had got ^"j a year, for only thirty shillings, " because," as he said, " the person was his friend." One of the late canons, however, confessed under examination that 400 marks had been paid by the purchaser, and that the sale was made " with a condition to surrender the said lease to the same late prior and convent again, if the said late monastery should not be dissolved." Further the lease was deposited with a third party to await the event.* In the same way it was proved that the White friars of Doncaster a few days before the dissolution of their house had leased a house and forty acres, t and so was it the case with many leases made in view of the coming spoliation. The prior of Launde. of which Crumwell notes : " Item to remember Launde for my part thereof," affords an interesting instance of the way in which some of the coveted plate and other valuables dis- * R. O. Augt. Off. Misc. Bk. no, No. 73. t Ibid., Bk. Ill, No. 166. 284 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. appeared. A gentleman of the county of Leicester some years after the dissolution of this priory in- formed the chancellor of the court of Augmentation that shortly before the suppression when he was " riding from Sowerby to Sir John Yilliers he met with a cart laden at Old Thorpe. With this cart there rode a canon and three servants of the prior of Launde." He asked them what was in the cart, " because the cart horse swetted very fast." One of the servants replied, " It is some of the shortest stuff of Launde priory and so went his way smiling." Also the same informer had been told that a basket of plate had been carried from the priory to a house at Sowerby, and remained there for six weeks after the dissolution, when it was taken to the late prior at " Frisby parsonage." Other witnesses deposed that " three geldings and a mare " belonging to the priory were brought to a neighbour's stable shortly before the suppression whence they were taken to the parsonage of Frisby, that " three suits of vestments," formerly belonging to the monastery, were saved from the sale of the effects in the same way, and that in the same place were hidden in a chest several pieces of plate — goblets, spoons and other silver articles — for a year or more after the dissolution.* In the same way a curious story is told about some plate that belonged to the abbey of Croyland. The person examined had been one of the monks, * Ibid., Bk. 133, ft". 32-33. Prog ressofthe General Suppress ton. 285 and, when the exiled abbot, John Briggs, was dying shortly after, "' was his confessor and one of his executors." He had heard that the late abbot had some plate given him by the king's commissioners. And " the said deponent," continues the record of the examination, " saith that he required of the said abbot on his death bed to know where his plate was, and he said that after his death it should be found in his chamber ... in a spruce coffer by his bedside." Besides this box there was another chest " bound with iron," which contained several pieces of plate. And "this deponent saith that about eight weeks before the surrender he went by the command of the abbot to one John Mereshouse at Croyland and there opened a long chest," in which there was some of the silver plate found on the abbot's death, " and a standing piece which was after given to the earl of Essex that then was."* So, too, John Calans, a Coventry goldsmith, bought of some of the canons of Stoneleigh a " silver censer" and other things which had been pledged previously " for £i/i^ or thereabouts." And the prior of Sulby sold about ;/^20 worth of silver articles to the same man, as well as his "cross staff," which he disposed of "at Coventry fair on Corpus Christiday" to the wife of Laurence Warren, a London goldsmith. About this date also a pair of silver candlesticks, "parcel gilt," were offered for sale in the same city, which were be- lieved to come from the church at Garendon abbey.f * Ibid., f. 42. t ^btd., f. 47. 286 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. Instances such as these could be multiplied, but the above are sufficient to show that the monasteries were often not inclined to wait calmly for the coming of the spoiler. Examples of leases made condition- ally upon the suppression are very frequently met with, and more than one, in which for a similar purpose a lease, made on the eve of the dissolution, was antedated. Frequently the monks were no doubt moved by the desire or need to meet the liabilities of their convent, which were in all cases great, in some positively overwhelming. In most instances, however, their intention in thus anticipating the royal seizure was probably the outcome of a natural desire to save something from the general ruin. As to the " surrenders" themselves little need be said. About 150 monasteries of men appear to have signed away their property, and by the formal deed to have handed over all rights to the king. The act, however, can hardly with justice be called free and voluntarv. With Henry's hand upon their throats it was a question between life and posses- sions. Even staunch resistance to the royal will would not save the property, of which they were the guardians, from the covetous designs of king and minister. Refusal to resign at their bidding meant certain loss of the pittance generally allotted to those who acquiesced in the spoliation, and possible death for such temerity. It is not given to all to offer life for honour when no real advantage is purchased by the sacrifice. However much, there- Progress of the General Suppression. 287 fore, the compliance of the monks is to be regretted, it must be confessed that the heroism of refusal could hardly be looked for in many. Moreover, Henry had carefully prepared the way for his design by the removal of refractory abbots, the substitution of others more pliable, and by other methods calculated to insure success, to which reference will be made hereafter. It is well, also, to bear in mind that the idea of any general attack on monasticism was not only kept in the background, but actually repudiated by both king and agents. The monasteries stood alone. Singly they were attempted, and singly they fell. It was in the years 1538 and 1539 that most of the " surrenders " were made. Some three or four houses only came into the king's possession in this way during the latter half of 1537. The convent of the London Carthusians is the earliest recorded at this time, but the document has no signatures appended to it, and the surrender of the Benedictine abbey of Chertsey may be regarded as the first legal document of this kind. It was signed by John Cordrey, the abbot, and fourteen of his monks, who, however, were not disbanded, but transferred to Bisham, which had been " dissolved and granted to the king by William Barlow bishop of St. David's and late commendatory prior," on the 5th of July, 1536. Here, on December 18th, 1537, the old com- munity of Chertsey were established by royal charter, "in consideration that the said John Cordrey the 288 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. late abbot and convent granted their monastery and possessions to the king," as " king Henry's new monastery of Holy Trinity/'* with certain privileges and exemptions. The royal foundation, however, although endowed with lands to the value of nearly £~iOO a year, was very short lived, for on the 17th of June, 1538, or just six months after its establish- ment, it was again resigned into the king's hands. f Doctor Layton, who was engaged in this work of suppression, wrote on June 22nd to Crumwell : — " We have taken the assurance for the king. The abbot a very simple man, the monks of small learn- ing and much less discretion. Plate very little, household stuff none but the abbot's bed and one mattress for two of his servants. I caused a bed to be borrowed in the town and brought into the abbey for Dr. Carne and myself. In lieu of hangings bare walls throughout the house ; cattle none, but bought this day and to-morrow to the larder, saving a few milch kine not twelve in number. In the garners not one bushel of wheat, malt or other grains. Vestments small store and not one good, for the abbot hath made money of all the best and sold them in London and even so the church plate."' He then goes on to attribute this to the abbot's fondness for " white- wine, sugar and burage," and says he has been obliged to raise money out " of the rotten copes and bells " to " despatch " the monks. On the other * Rot. Pat., 29 Hen. VIII., Pars, iv., m. 12. t Eighth Rept. Dep. Keeper, App. ii., p. 13. Progress of the General Suppression. 289 hand, this visitor gives a good account of the state of the crops growing on the land, and concludes thus : — " This day we despatched the monks for they be much desirous to be gone for yesterday when we were making sale of the old vestments within the chapter house, then the monks made a new mart in the cloister every man bringing his cowl cast upon his neck to be sold and sold them indeed."* On the 1 6th November, 1537, William Petre visited and received the surrender of Lewes priory, f together with their rights over the cell of Castleacre, which resignation was confirmed at Castleacre itself before the same royal commissioner six days later, j The prior of the latter place had tried to propitiate Crumwell with " four marks as a token of my love " and a patent for the same amount each year, but he had been forced to send up the deeds of " founda- tion " and other things demanded of him, together with a fruitless prayer for "pity on me and mine."§ * Ellis, " Orig. Letters.," iii., Ser. iii., p. 265. The house was endowed with lands of the late dissolved abbey of Chertsey, and with the possessions of the priories of Cardigan, Bethkelert, Anker- wyke, Little Marlow, etc. On the present letter Ellis notes : — " From its contents we must conclude that the re-endowment by Henry VIIL could only have been promised . . . the poverty of the house is little reconcileable with the increased endowment." As the foundation only lasted from December 18, 1537, to July 19, 1538, it is more than probable no revenues were received. The goods of Bisham had already been sold on the first dissolution. t Rot. Claus., 29 Hen. VHL, Pars, i., m. 9. + Ibid., m. 10. § R. O. Crum. Corr., iv., 178. No pension was apparently granted to any monks of either place. VOL. IL W 290 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. At Lewes, by March 24, 1538, with the lengthening days, the work of destruction had commenced. " I advertised your lordship," writes Crumwell's agent to him, " of the length and greatness of this church and how we had begun to pull the whole down to the ground and what manner and fashion they used in pulling it down. I told your lordship of a vault on the right side of the high altar, that was borne up by four great pillars having about five chapels which are compassed in with walls "210 feet in length. " All this is down on Thursday and Friday last. Now we are plucking down a higher vault borne up by four thick pillars 14 feet from side to side (and) 45 feet in circumference. These shall down for our second work. As it goeth forward I will advise your lord- ship from time to time and that your lordship may know with how many men we have done this, we brought from London 1 7 persons, three carpenters, two smiths, two plumbers, and one that keepeth the furnace. Everyone of these attendeth to his own office. Ten of them hewed the walls about, among which there were three carpenters ; these made props to underset where the others cut away, the others broke and cut the walls. These are men exercised much better than the men we find here in the country." He then requests more men and con- cludes : " On Tuesday they began to cast the lead and it shall be done with such dilio-ence and savinuf as may be." At the close of the letter the dimen- sions of the church, which they were calmly engaged Progress of the General Suppression. 291 on destroying, are given. It was a hundred and fifty feet long and sixty-three high.* Its walls were five feet thick and the walls of the steeple, which was ninety feet high, were ten thick. There were two-and- thirty pillars which carried the groined roof, which over the high altar rose to the height of eighty- three feet from the ground. f Such was one of the magnificent creations of architectural skill which at this time the government were occupied in destroy- ing in almost every part of the country. It would be impossible within the ordinary limits of a chapter, or even a volume, to present any detailed account of the surrenders and suppressions of the greater monasteries, and the consequent destruction of buildings, which many generations had been engaged in erecting to the honour of God. All that can be here attempted, or indeed is neces- sary, is to make choice of one or two examples in order to present a slight sketch of the general character of the great work of spoliation. The first monastery to surrender in 1 538 was the abbey of Westacre. The history of this transaction has already been referred to % in speaking about the so-called " confession " of the monks of St. Andrew's, Northampton. The actual resignation of the monas- tery could hardly have been very freely made, since * The church, from other dimensions given in the letter, and from recent excavations, must have been 400 feet long. The 1 50 feet refers to the Eastern limb only. The letter says the circum- ference of the church was 1,558 feet. t Wright, 180. + Vol. i., p. 349. 292 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. a month before, on December 16 (1537), Sir Roger Townsend wrote to say that, " as directed " by Crumwell's letters, he and others had repaired to the priory, " sequestered all the property " and taken inventories * of their possessions. As to the surrender itself, two documents exist, one dated on the 14th January, 1538, and the other the following day. The first is a confession of maladministration and other general self-accusations in much the same form as the Northampton document. The second is the surrender proper, and neither apparently have been enrolled upon the close roll. Even had all been regular the surrender could hardly have meant much more than the '' confession," as the property of the priory was already in the hands of Crumwell's com- missioners. What makes it somewhat more strange is that Layton, on the i8th of January, wrote, in a letter already quoted, so as to imply that the suppres- sion was not an accomplished fact at that date. The work of putting a stop to the rumours of the coming suppressions had " hindered" him, he says, at " Westacre," and he adds : — " What untruth and dissimulation we find in the prior ! What falsehood in false knaves amongst the convent ! What bribery, spoil and ruin with crafty colours of bargains contrived by the inhabitants it were too long to write ; but for a conclusion all their wrenches, wiles and guiles shall nothing prevail them, and so God willing we shall serve the king truly. "f Still more * R. O. Crum Corr., xliii., 36. t R. O. Crum. Corr.,xx., 16. Progress of the General Suppression, 293 curious is it to find that the doctor and his fellow commissioner Southwell wrote from Westacre on the 28th of January to say that they came to Westacre on the i6th of that month, the day after the sur- render is supposed to have been signed, and that together with the voluntary recognition of the sup- posed offences signed by the religious they had obtained a lease of the lands for a year to Southwell "with remainder to the king for ever."* The surrender of Abingdon on the 9th of February of this same year, 1538, presents one or two remark- able features. Like many of the monasteries, the financial state of this great abbey does not appear to have been very flourishing. There had been diffi- culties with tenants, implying costly lawsuits and compromises. Internally the discipline of the cloister had suffered by the interference of the king and his vicar general, Shaxton, the bishop of Salisbury, had safe in prison a monk of the house, who, when by the royal orders two of his brethren " were scraping out the bishop of Rome's name," came and told them that they "who set knife and pen to the book were cursed." f On the other hand, exac- tions and demands of Crumwell hampered the abbot in the administration of his house. " Your letters" demand, writes the abbot to him, that I give the office of "chamberer" to one Richard Berall, "a monk of this my monastery, by convent seal for the rest of his life. It hath not been seen in time past * Ibid.,i(). t Ibid., \xxV\\\., 52. 294 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. that any monk hath ever had a convent seal of any office. For if he had it I think it were my duty to take it from him. Also it is against his religion and standeth not with his profession. Wherefore seeing that it standeth neither with the good custom of the house nor doth agree with the good order of religion I therefore beseech your good mastership with all my heart to be good master unto me that I may order a monk as he ought to be ordered according to the good rule of religion and that no such pre- cedent may be had."* The good order of the abbey, however, mattered little to Crumwell, who enters on his notes in the year 1537, together with other similar matters to be held in memory, "Item the suppression of Abingdon." f How this was accomplished may be judged from one circumstance. On the 7th of February, 1538, a sum of ;^6oo, more than ^6,000 of our money, was paid by royal warrant to doctors Tregonwell and Petre, " to be spent by them on bringing about the dissolution of the monastery of Abingdon." j The monastery surrendered two days later. Thomas Pentecost, alias Rowland, the abbot, obtained the grant of a pension of ;^200 a year and a house to live in, and * Ibid., i., 9. It is curious to note the peculiar form in which Richard Birrall signs the deed of surrender, " concedo et ego Richardus Birrall." t B. i\Ius. Cott. MS. Titus, B. i., f. 468d. + R. O. Exch. Aug. Otf. Mins. Accts,, 28 Hen. VIII., i Edw. VI., 155. This sum is also entered as paid on Treasurer's Roll, I., m. I2d. Progress of the General Suppression. 295 each of the monks a suitable sum for their Hves. On February the 22nd Richard Ryche wrote his report of the royal prize. The buildings he found in a great state of decay. The abbot's house was unfit for habitation, and would require a large amount of money to make it fit for the king. The ground is not fit to make a park, for if the fields on the south side of the Thames are taken for the pur- pose the writer believes that the town of Abingdon, which is very populous, "will decay." He concludes by asking " what part of the church, cloister, dorter, chapter house and frater shall be defaced. I think," he adds, " a great part thereof may be defaced and sufficient left to the king's contentation." * The spoils were gathered into the royal treasure- house. Two mitres were purchased by Sir Thomas Pope, the treasurer of the Court of Augmentations, and three pontifical rings with precious stones with a silver gilt cross were saved from the melting-pot for the royal use. In the latter set in a piece of gold was a portion of the holy cross called " an esse."t The dissolution of the abbey of Vale Royal affords an interesting insight into the methods employed to force compliance and a criterion by which to estimate the value of the surrenders. Here, as else- where, the demands upon the resources of the abbey had been met until it became impossible to keep up the house with any further exactions. " My lord," * R. O. Crum. Corr., xxxvi., 41. t Aug. Off. Treas. Roll, I., m. 3. 296 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. writes the abbot to Crumwell on a further demand, " I most humbly beseech your good lordship, for the love of God and our Blessed Lady and for the main- tenance of good service and poor hospitality to be kept in the house, to pardon our refusal." On the 22nd of August, 1538, one of the most energetic of the king's commissioners, Thomas Leigh, was at the abbey, and on the 7th of Septem- ber a surrender is said to have been made by the abbot and convent. As a valid document it was entered on the Close Roll, but it was repudiated by the abbot. At Lichfield, on his way to London, he wrote his protest against the surrender which Holcroft, the subsequent grantee,* was evidently the chief agent in extorting if not in forging. The commissioners, so said the abbot, John Harwood, had brought the royal demand that they should " clearly of our own consents surrender . . . our monastery." " My good lord," he writes to Crum- well, " the truth is, I nor my said brethren have never consented to surrender our monastery, nor yet do, nor never will do by our good wills unless it shall please the king's grace to give us command- ment so to do, which I cannot perceive in the com- mission of master Holcroft. And if any information be given unto his majesty or your lordship, that we should consent to surrender as is above said, I assure your good lordship upon my fidelity and * He paid ^450 los. 6d., with an annual fee of £1 5s. 8d., for the property. Progress of the General Suppression. 297 truth, there was never any such consent made by me or my brethren and no person or persons had authority so to do in our names." He adds a prayer that the king may spare the monastery, and forwards "a bill indented made by me and my brethren" which the commissioner had refused.* Harwood's journey failed in its purpose. The king could neither force the unwilling monks to surrender nor, at this date, was he apparently desirous of seizing the property without some pre- tence of justice. Mr. Ormerod remarks that the difficulty was overcome in this instance by bringing a capital indictment against the abbot. " The juris- diction of the abbey courts," he writes, afforded an easy opportunity of gratifying their wishes, and lord Crumwell, the seneschal of the abbey, presided in person at a court held at Vale Royal on the Monday after the feast of the Annunciation, 1539, in which fourteen jurors found a bill against the late abbot and others for the following offences : — " That John Harwood, late abbot of the monastery of O. B. Lady of Vale Royal consented to the slay- ing of Hugh Chaliner, his monk ; and that, the day before the said monk's throat was cut, the said monk said unto a child, being his brother's son of twelve years of age or thereabouts, that he the said monk would be with his brother at Chester before the Assumption, or else he should suffer death if he tarried any longer in the said monastery." * Wright, 244. 298 Henry VIII . and the English Monasteries. The jury further found that the abbot threatened a tenant of his that he would have nothing more to do with him if he fought against the northern men in the general rising. Also that the abbot's brother approved of the northern men, and one of his vicars refused to marry a couple upon a license obtained from the king as supreme head. * A true bill being found against the abbot on these charges his life was in grievous peril. In fact, the Cheshire tradition is said to be that he was exe- cuted.f This, however, was not the case, as in the year 1542 "John Harwood late abbot of Vale Royal" was in receipt of a pension, \ which he continued to receive till the first year of Edward VI. §. The effect of the condemnation was doubtless sufficient to place the abbot in the royal power, and thus to overcome the opposition to surrender of which John Harwood had given such unmistakable proofs. The pressure put upon the monks to resign their property may be illustrated by two letters re- lating to houses in the county of Somerset — the one from the prior of the Charterhouse of Hinton, the other from a priest employed to endeavour to bring about the surrender of Athelney Abbey. " In * Ormerod's "Cheshire," i., 503. Also see " Monasticon," v.. 701, note. The document is said to be a transcript of the Original Inquisition, and addressed " to Thomas Holcroft be these directed with speed." For the Inquisition, see R. O. State Papers, Dom., 1539' /t- t Ibid. X R. O. Aug. Off. Misc. Bk., 248, 41. § R. O. Aug. Off. Treasurer's Roll, III., m. 106. Progress of the General Suppression. 299 the Lord Jesus shall be your salutation," writes prior Horde to his brother Alan, a barrister of the Middle Temple. " And where ye marvel that I and my brethren do not freely and voluntarily give and surrender up our house at the motion of the king's commissioners, but stand stiffly, and as you think obstinately, in our opinion ; truly, brother, I marvel greatly that you think so, but rather that you would have thought us light and hasty in giving up that thing which is not ours to give, but dedicate to Almighty God for service to be done to His honour continually, with other many good deeds of charity which daily be done in this house to our Christian neighbours. And considering that there is no cause given by us why the house shall be put down, but that the service of God, religious conversation of the brethren, hospitality, alms-deeds, with all other our duties, be as well observed in this poor house as in any religious house in this realm or in France; which we have trusted that the king's grace would consider. But because that ye write of the king's high displeasure and my lord privy seal's, who ever hath been my especial good lord and I trust yet will be, I will endeavour myself, as much as I may, to persuade my brethren to a conformity in this matter ; so that the king's highness nor my said good lord shall have any cause to be displeased with us, trust- ing that my poor brethren who know not where to have their living, shall be charitably looked upon."* * Ellis, " Orig. Letters," ii., Ser. ii., p. 99. 300 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. After dissolving the abbey of Keynsham, John Tregonwell and WIlHam Petre, the two royal commissioners, arrived at Hinton on January 25th, 1539, for the same purpose. " Immediately after our coming," they write to Crumwell, "we entered conversation with the prior there about the cause of our coming and used such means and persuasions unto him for the purpose as we thought most meet and might best take place in him. His answer in effect was, that if the king's majesty would take his house, so (that) It proceeded not of his voluntary surrender he was contented to obey ; but otherwise he said his conscience w'ould not suffer him wil- lingly to give over the same. In the end after long conversation he desired delay to make us answer until this morning. At this time, we often using like diligence in persuading him as we did before, he declared himself to be of the same mind he was * yester-nlght,' or rather more stiff in the same. In conversation with the convent we perceived them to be of the same mind the prior was and had much like answer of them as we had from the prior (three only excepted w^ho were conformable). And amongst the rest one Nicholas Balland, monk there, being incidentally examined of the king's highness' title of supremacy, expressly denied the same, affirming the bishop of Rome to be the vicar of Christ and that he is and ought to be taken for supreme head of the Church."* * R. O. Crum. Corr., xliii., 74. In a letter written on the 24th June, Sir W Hungerford says he has " kept in his house till I know Progress of the General Suppression. 301 Crumwell had long had his eye upon this house. Lord Stourton had written to him about a vision the prior was said to have had which appeared to fore- cast the execution of one of Henry's queens,* and he had entered on his "remembrances" "of the Charterhouse at Hinton."t And so, by March 31st, 1539, the opposition to the king's demands was broken down, and the surrender signed by prior Horde and fourteen monks. Two others, one of whom was Nicholas Balland, did not apparently sign the docu- ment. J The house was sold by Tregonwell to Sir Walter Hungerford, but although he paid his money he complains three months later that Sir Thomas Arundel had on a royal grant sold and " despoiled and quite carried away a great part of the church and other superfluous buildings next.''§ In much the same way the surrender of the abbey of Athelney was evidently procured by pressure. On November 2nd, 1538, the parson of Holford writes an account of his visit to the abbot at the instigation of Crumwell and chancellor Audley. " I found," he says, " the said, abbot in the church coming from your pleasure " this Nicholas Balland, who publicly declared he would die for the belief that the pope was the only head of the Church (Ibid., xviii., 11). * Ibid., xL, 71. t Calendar, ix., No. 498. X Eighth Rapt. Dep. Keeper, App. ii., p. 23. § R. O. Crum. Corr., xviii., 11. On April 4th, 1540, grants of pensions were made to the prior and 22 monks, including Nicholas Balland (R. O. Augt- Off. Misc. Bk., 233, f. 242). For payment see A. O. Mins. Acct. 30-31 Hen. VIII., 224 m. 8d. 302 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. mass at the hour of ten o'clock before noon. And, as reverently as I could, I delivered the said my lord and master's letters and showed him that my lord Audeley recommended him to him. And the said abbot answered : ' I am glad to hear of my lord's welfare.' And so he read his letter and said : ' Go with me to my chamber and you shall know my mind.' And I followed the said abbot and suddenly he stopped and said : ' What, is my lord Audeley a man of the new set or after the old sort ? ' ' My lord,' said I, ' he is after the best sort and like a kind heart subject to the king's grace and a good English- man that loveth all the realm.' ' Well,' said the abbot, ' do you think he doth not judge there will be another world shortly ? ' ' My lord,' said I, ' there will be another world when we be out of this world, but in this I think there was never so gracious a prince as the king's grace is, for he loveth virtue and will punish vice.' Wherewith the said abbot shook his head and said : ' Hear you no new tidings of this great council beyond the sea?' ' No, my lord,' said I, ' there is no matter to be passed upon in their council, for the king will provide surely for all such matters.' And therewith I w^as in a study, for I wist not what that matter meant. And the abbot said again : ' Well, if I wist what would come of these matters I would soon be at a point with my lord.' With that the abbot went forth and said : ' I will write a letter to my lord and ye shall learn my mind.' And then he went to his chamber w^here he Progress of the General Suppression. 303 called me in secret to him and said : ' Is it not my lord's mind to have me resign my house to him ? ' ' No my lord,' said I, ' but it may fortune upon good considerations and causes, that he would have you resign your house into the king's hands.' And then said he : ' Our house would be destroyed and all the country undone by that means as it is about Muchel- ney.' ' No, my lord,' said I ; ' my lord master will come and dwell here and I think he will be a petitioner to the king's highness to have some part of the order here, as it is at Saint Mary's Altar ' (?). This I said, somewhat to satisfy the abbot's mind. ' Why,' said he, ' then what should I have ? ' ' My lord,' said I, ' I dare undertake if you will be advised by my lord, he will get you a hundred marks and he will get you some prebend of the bishop of Sarum, whereby ye shall wear a grey almuce, and all your brothers shall be provided for and shall have ser- vices and promotions as shall be meet for them.' * Well,' said the abbot and shook up his hand, ' if I would have taken a hundred marks I could have been stayed ere this time, but I will fast three days on bread and water than take so little.' ' My lord,' said I, ' I speak of the least. You will find my lord much better when you speak with him.' ' Well,' said he again, ' if I wist what should come of it, I would soon be at a point.' And therewith he sat himself down and eat bread and butter and made me eat with him." The writer then tells how the abbot wrote his letter to the chancellor, and how going to 304 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. see the steward, he spoke with the community, and found them wilHng to take Audley's advice, and resign their house at the king's bidding.* Athelney had long been burdened with debt. Under Crumwell's direction the house had bound itself to pay the king 200 marks. " By frequent changes of abbots," as Robert Hamlin, the last abbot, declared, " the king had had of the poor house many sums of money," and he had little hope to pay his debts in less than seven years, though he " eat bread and water two days a week."t The abbey was surrendered to the king on Feb- ruary 8th, 1539, by the abbot and six brethren, who all received pensions for their compliance with the royal will.j The effects of the monastery were sold for ;;^8o, of which sum Audley, who showed such anxiety to obtain the abbot's resignation, paid -£20 for the buildings. § The action of Audley was not confined to Athelney. He says himself that he sent for the abbot of Osyth's " before the dissolution and in- duced him to yield the house to the king's majesty's good will, and that he should exhort his convent to conform themselves to the same, who by my advice * B. Mus. Cott. IMS. Cleop., E. iv., f. 135. t R. O. Crum. Corr., ii., 3. In another letter he expresses his wish to find some one to lend him ^^500 without interest, and be content to get it back ^loo every year. His debts are, he says, ;^S89 I2S. 7d., and his yearly charges £i\ 2s. yd. (Harl. MS., 604, f. 69). + R. O. Aug. Off. Misc. Bk., 233, f. 105. § R. O. Aug. Off. Mins. Accts., 30-31 Hen. VIII. , 224, m. 6d. Progress of the General Suppresions. 305 and exhortation conformed themselves as humble subjects without murmur or grudge, wherein I trust that I have not for my part served the king's high- ness amiss." He then goes on to ask Crumwell to obtain him some return, for " I have no fee nor oflfice of his highness," he says, " but the chancellor- ship and although it be high and honourable yet it is cumberous and chargeable."* In the same way, even Burnet allows that the king prepared the way for the suppression by skilfully selecting men who were likely to resign their houses when called upon. Thus John Capon, or Salcot, abbot of Hyde, although made bishop of Bangor in 1534, was allowed to remain commendatory of his monastery, and upon surrendering it in 1539 into the king's hands was rewarded with the See of Salisbury. So, too, Robert Pursglove, the prior of Gisburne, who was bishop of Hull, as a suffragan of York, not only surrendered himself, but was active in persuading others to act in the same way. He obtained a pension of £100 a year.f Stephen * Wright, 239. t The royal visitors had compelled the predecessor of Pursglove to resign.his office in February, i 537, and had appointed " a friend" of Crumwell. Pursglove was sent to Whitby in October, 1538, to be present at an election of the abbot. He tried to force the com- munity to let him " nominate'' the one desired by Crumwell. This they refused. He then endeavoured to get them to allow his master to have the election ; they again refused, and claimed the right of free election. This the royal agents would not allow. The prior started for London to lodge a complaint (Wright, 249). The whole letter shows clearly how the elections were managed, in the VOL. U. X 3o6 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. Sagar, abbot of Hayles, having been sent for to Lon- don, made a " privy surrender,"* and was despatched to his convent to obtain the general consent. This he managed so well that he obtained high praise from the commissioners, who said he " did sur- render his house with such discreet and frank manner, as we have seen no other do better in all our journey." t " What could not be effected by arguments and fair promises," writes the learned Dugdale, " was by terror and severe dealing brought to pass. For under pretence of dilapidation in the buildings or negligent administration of their oflfices as also for breaking the king's injunctions they deprived some abbots and then put others that were more pliant in their room." Thus Richard Boreman, alias Steven- age, the abbot of St. Alban's, was placed in the room of abbot Catton in April, 1538. 1 On the last years of the existence of the monasteries, and many other instances could be given of the strenuous efforts made by the crown to secure superiors pliant to the royal will. Whitby was dissolved on December 14th, 1539 ; no legal surrender was apparently made, but the monks were pensioned, Henry Darell, the abbot, receiving 100 marks (R. O. Aug. Off. Misc. Bk., 246, f. 14). For some time efforts had been made to force the late abbot of WTiitby, John Hexham, to resign. He had refused, and although reports had been spread that he was willing, he wrote denying them. In the end he gave up his office to W. Petre in August, 1538 (Crum. Corr. xxxiii., 62). * R. O. Crum. Corr., XX., 15. t Wright, 237. 1 The conge on the " deprivation" of Catton is dated 23 Jan., 1538. Rot. Pat., 29 Hen. VIII., Pars, iii., m. 9. Progress of the General Suppression. 307 loth of December of the previous year two royal commissioners, Legh and Petre, had written about Saint Alban's that " by confession of the abbot him- self," there appears to be " just cause of deprivation, not only for breaking the king's injunctions, but also for manifest dilapidation, making of shifts, negligent administration and sundry other causes, yet, by what means we know not, in all communications or motions made concerning any surrender he showeth himself so stiff, that, as he saith, he will choose to beg his bread all the days of his life than consent to surrender." The visitors tried every means to change him, but, as they say, " he waxeth hourly more obstinate and less conformable." They ask for instructions. If they depose him the house is in such debt " that no man will take the office of abbot here upon him, except any do it for that purpose to surrender the same to the king's hands ; and by this means" they think " this may most easily and with least speech be brought to the king's highness' pur- pose." Another method they suggest is to leave the unfortunate abbot for a time in suspense " in utter despair of any favour," and perhaps he will then, expecting " to be deprived," " sue to have his surrender taken, because he would be assured of some living."* But abbot Catton kept his word. Neither pressure from without nor the burden of difficulties could move him to do the king's will by surrender or resignation. * Wright, 250, 3o8 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. Deprivation soon followed this letter. The last free abbot of St. Alban's had no pension. Richard Boreman, who succeeded, had his diffi- culties. He failed to pay his "first-fruits" to the king, and got locked up. " Mr. Gostwick," he writes to Crumwell, " hath detained me from my liberty and keepeth me within his gates so that I can have no friendly means of him for my liberty. Notwithstanding I have offered him to pay out of hand ;^300, which is as much as I have and can make friends for in this short time, he demandeth of me besides other great sums the first payment of the first-fruits, which is above all my power to do. . . . Now this evening, I am like to be imprisoned in the compter to my bitter shame and undoing."* On December 5th, 1539, abbot Richard, who, as the commissioners suggested, had doubtless taken the office for the purpose, surrendered the abbey into the king's hands. Not more than half a century before abbot William of Wallingford, had built the rich and sumptuous high altar at a cost of above ;^733, and had beautified the church with gifts worth, as Weaver calculated, more than ;^8,ooo. This noble minster was redeemed from destruc- tion and sacrilege by the townspeople, who pur- chased it from the king for ;^4oo. On the 1 7th December the sacred vessels and the treasures of St. Alban's shrine were brought into the royal jewel house, and formed a rich prize of no less * R. O. Crum, Corr., i., 50. Progress of the General Suppression. 309 than 122 ounces of gold, 2,990 ounces of gilt plate, and 1,144 ounces of parcel gilt and silver. Golden buckles, in which were set " great agates, cameos and coarse pearles," three pontifical mitres, and 400 ounces of copper, formed part of the plunder.* In the same way Clement Litchfield was com- pelled to resign the abbey of Evesham to one who would surrender it to the king. The royal inquisitors had reported this abbot to be " chaste in his living, and to right well overlook the reparations of his house." He it was who built the noble gateway, which still remains a memorial of him, and, although he had been obliged to pay £1^0 for his tempora- lities, with large sums as loans to the king and Wolsey, and for a whole year to keep four-and-twenty royal lacqueys and their horses, he still managed to- adorn the choir and to add two chantries to the churches of St. Lawrence and All Saints. f To Latimer, the bishop of Worcester, he was, in the vigorous language employed by that ecclesiastic, a * Monastic Treasures, Abbotsford Club, p. 29. Among these jewels was doubtless the '' lapide preciosum qui constat ex sardonice, calcedonio et onic," presented to the church by king Ethelred 11. Matthew Paris (Additamenta ed. Luard vi., p. 387) describes how the king "coming one day to Saint Albans entered the chapter house, brought with him the said stone and kindly and lovingly offered it to the church, praising it and pointing out its merits. He asked," says the historian, " that the abbot and convent should lay a sentence of excommunication against all who should at any time take away this his gift." (See too the facsimiles in that volume.) t May's "Evesham," p. 72. 3IO Henry VIII. and the English Mojiasteries. " bloody abbot," which probably means that he did not aeree with him in his reforming; tendencies. On the 17th of March, 1538, William Petre, the roval commissioner, wrote to Crumwell : — " Accord- intr to vour commandment I have been at Evesham and there received the resignation of the abbot, which he was contented to make immediately upon the sight of your lordship's letters, saving that he desired me very instantly that I would not open the same during the time of my being here, because (as he said) it would be noted that he was compelled to resign for fear of deprivation."'^ On the 4th of April Philip Harford succeeded, f whom Latimer had assured Crumwell he would find " a true friend, "| On January 27, 1540, the monastery was surrendered, the young abbot getting a pension of ;if 240 a year as his reward. § Another example of the personal pressure exerted bv the king's agents to induce the religious to sur- render mav be here given. The important convent of Romsey, in Hampshire, on the eve of its dissolution maintained a community of twenty-five nuns, ruled over by an abbess, Elizabeth Ryprose. They appear to have been unwilling to fall in with the royal views or to abandon the religious life in order that their property might pass into Henry's possession. Eight * Wright, 177. t Rot. Pat., 29 Hen. VIII., m. 14. X R. O. Crum. Corr., xlix., 42. § R. O. Augt. Office Misc. Bk., 245, f. 105. There is no deed of surrender and no enrohiient on the Close Roll. Progress of the General Suppression. 31 1 nuns, nearly a third of the entire community, had made their rehgious profession on July 28th, 1534, only a few years before their troubles commenced.* One of these was Catherine, youngest daughter of Sir Nicholas Wadham, governor of the Isle of Wight, whose sister Jane had been for some years a pro- fessed nun in the same abbey of Romsey. At this time the convent steward was a certain John Foster, who lived at Baddesley, near Romsey, and rented the greater tithes of that place from the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem.! Foster's position would have given him accurate information as to the extent and value of the property, and his intercourse would have afforded him the means of brinorinor influence to bear upon the nuns. He was apparently selected by the king's agents for this delicate service, and sounded the nuns as to their dispositions to satisfy Henry's desire for their property. In the report he forwarded to Sir Thomas Seymour, j "of the king's Privy Chamber," he says : — " According to your re- quest I herein signify and subscribe unto you the state of the house of Romsey. . . . First you shall understand that the house is out of debt ; also the plate and jewels are worth ;if 300 and more ; six bells are worth ;i/^ioo at least ; also the church is a great * For this and much other valuable information I am indebted to F. J. Baigent, Esq., ot" Winchester. His cordial co-operation and encouragement in my work I desire here gratefully to acknow- ledge. t Mr. Baigent's INISS. Collections. X Brother of Jane Seymour, one of Henry's wives. 312 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. sumptuous thing, all of free stone and covered with lead, which, as I esteem it, is worth £2,00 or ;^400 or rather much better."* Foster then goes on to give particulars of the rents coming from the abbey lands, on some at least of which Seymour had set his heart. t He then concludes: — "And where you wrote unto me by Mr. Fleming, that I should ascer- tain you whether I thought the abbess with the rest of the nuns would be content to surrender up their house : the truth is I do perceive throughout the motion that your kinswomen and other (of) your friends made for you, (that) they will be content at all times to do you any pleasure they may. But I perceive they would be loath to trust to the com- missioners' gentleness, for they hear say that other houses have been straightly handled." | Attached to this letter is a list of the nuns in the abbey. From this it appears that Catherine Wad- ham, who had only been four or five years in the convent, had mounted up to the office of subprioress, while her sister held the next rank. These, and another, Elizabeth Hill, were the kinswomen of Sir Thomas Seymour, through whose influence John Foster hoped to accomplish the voluntary destruction of the convent.*^ Apparently his design was unsuc- * This building was afterwards purchased of the king by the inhabitants for some ^^400. t loih Report Deputy Keeper, p. 268. " Particulars for Grants." + B. Mus. Royal MS., 7, C, xvi., f. 147. § Sir Nicholas Wadham, the father of the two nuns of that name, married twice. His first wife was daughter of Robert Hill, of Progress of the General Suppression. 3 1 3 cessful. There is no surrender deed of the abbey ; neither are the names of the abbess and her nuns found in the pension Hsts. If there were some who were urgent with the monks to do all that Henry wished and surrender their houses and goods into his hands, there were not wanting others who exhorted them to remain staunch to their religious vocation. Above others Dr. Richard Hillyard, the late secretary to bishop Tunstal, of Durham, endeavoured to instil the spirit of heroic resistance into the souls of the religious. He escaped from Henry's hands into Scotland, or he would certainly have paid for his boldness with his life. As it was he was attainted and condemned to death in his absence.* The doctor "says in Edin- burgh," writes an informer, " that he fled away because he had given counsel to sundry religious houses, yet unsuppressed, not to render their houses into the king's hands until they were violently put therefrom." Another informed Sir William Eure, as Antony, and his second Margaret, daughter of Sir John Seymour, of Wolfhall, Wilts, and sister to queen Jane Seymour and Sir Thomas Seymour. The high connection of the Wadhams seems to suggest a reason for the early promotion of Catherine to a high office in her convent. Of John Foster, of Baddesley, the writer of the above letter, one who lived at the end of the i6th century records a rhyme popular in the neighbourhood when he went to school as a boy : — " Mr. Foster of Baddesley was a good man Before the marriage of priests began, For he was the first that married a nun, For which he begat a very rude son." —(Mr. Baigeni's MSS. Collections). * Rot. Pari., Hen: VIIL, 147. 314 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. he writes, '' that the said Hillyard saith himself that he being in company with certain gentlemen would lament the suppression of the house of Mountgrace and spake large words in favour of the same house. Unto which, as the same Hillyard afhrmeth, a gentle- man answered : ' that for as small offences as the said Hillyard did commit by speaking these words at that time he had seen men taken as traitors to the king's majesty.' And so the same Hillyard fearing: to have been accused for the said words did so suddenly convey himself out of the realm."* The only religious mentioned by name as con- nected with Hillyard was the prior of Mountgrace. He was supposed to have helped him to escape, and Eure gave information to Crumwell, in order that " further search, as well touching the prior as his ' conversants and familiars,' might be made."t John Wilson, the prior of Mountgrace, was examined^ and confessed having talked to Dr. Hillyard about the suppressions. He had been convinced of the * B. I\Ius. Cott. MS. Calig., B. vii., f. 249. The story of the escape of Hillyard through the help of the prioress of Coldstream is full of interest, but foreign to the present subject. Henry demanded that Hillyard should be given up to him by the Scotch king as one ^vho " had laboured to sow in the realm much sedition." The envoy was to bring him back at once if possible, " having special watch for the sure conveyance of him, and specially noting in his return who shall be desirous to talk with him " (Sadler Papers, i., p. 12). As to Hillyard's history of his own times, see Vol. i., p. 295. The later editions of Sanders' " Schism " {e.g. 1590, p. 167) also give a quotation from his account of the destruction of the monasteries. t Ibid., f. 255. Progress of the General Suppression. 3 1 5 illegality of the papal supremacy by the arguments of the bishop of Durham and archbishop Lee, but had great difficulty to persuade his brethren of this. He acknowledged that he did not wish to surrender his house " if it might have stood with the king's pleasure that he might have kept it." And " finally there never was anyone that gave unto them con- trary counsel but doctor Hillyard, who said it was in a manner selling the house to surrender up their house for money or pensions."* Another witness, Nicholas Wilson, a " prisoner in the Tower," being examined as to his relations with the escaped doctor Hillyard, wrote : " First I had a conversation with him touching the putting down of monasteries, which, as I remember now, began by my asking him to give the prior of Mountgrace, in the north, one of my friends, advice to be obedient and conform himself to the king's highness in giving up his monastery when he should be required. . . . Upon this motion the said doctor began to doubt, touching the suppression of monasteries, how it might be done. Whereunto I answered him, that their deed, who were then in the houses and had government of them, by their common consent and seal, must needs be of value in the law. And that all such things must be under the disposition and government of the king's highness and his realm as should be thought most meet for the commonwealth. Which words of mine and such other, as far as I * R. O. State Papers, Box J^. 3i6 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. perceived, did not fully then satisfy him." In this matter, continues the declaration, I have certainly tried to satisfy my own conscience and also to take away other mens scruples in obeying the act of suppression. I have told them that the king and his council did this for the common good, " although I and other mean men did not perceive the whole considerations for it, and that it was matter for subjects to be under lowly obedience and think the best of their rulers in all things. And, further, that as monasteries were founded and endowed" by the license of princes, so they ought to be able to put them to other uses if they thought it good for the state.* * R. O. Crum. Corn, xlix., i. Mountgrace fell into the king's hands on Dec. i8, 1539. John Wilson was the prior who surren- dered it (Rot. Claus., 31 Hen. VIII., Pars, iv., m. 3). He obtained a pension of £ko and the house and chapel called " le Mounte." Sixteen priests, four novices and six lay brethren were also pensioned (R. O. Aug. Off. Misc. Bk., 246, f. 13). In a list of those executed in this reign (B. ]\Ius. Add. MS., 27,402, f. 47) occurs the name of" — Wilson, monk of the Charterhouse Mountgrace." This could not have been the prior, and it hardly appears likely that it could have been his namesake, Nicholas Wilson, who, although " a prisoner in the Tower," was not a monk of Mountgrace. Dr. Nicholas Wilson was a Yorkshire man, and educated at Cambridge. He refused to take the oath of succession, and was sent to the Tower with Sir Thomas More. He finally took the oath, and died June 8, 1548. Hall (838) says that he and bishop Sampson, with Richard Farmer, a London grocer, were implicated '* in relieving of certain traitorous persons which denied the king's supremacy." Richard Hilles (Ep. Tigurinae, p. 140; Orig. Letters, No. 105) says : " The treason they had committed, as I hear, was sending alms to that papist Abel, then brought down to the lowest misery Progress of the General Suppression. 3 1 y It has been possible in this chapter only to take notice of some few important points in the general dissolution. The methods employed by the agents of the king in suppressing the houses of religion may be best illustrated by the account given of the destruction of Roche abbey by one who was a boy living in the neighbourhood at the time. " In the plucking down of these houses," he writes, '* for the most part, this order was taken : that the visitors should come suddenly upon every house unawares (for they never looked to be visited out of doors, seeing they had pleased the king so well with their ready money bestowed upon him, in the good hope of the standing thereof) to the end to take them * napping,' as the proverb is, lest if they should have had so much as an inkling of their coming they would have made conveyance of some portion of their own goods to help themselves withal, when they were turned forth of their houses. And, both reason and nature might well have moved them so to have done, although it may be said all was given to the king before by act of parliament, and so they had neither goods nor houses nor possessions.* And, thus they had to give the king great thanks — yea pray for him upon their black beads — that was so through his long detention in a most filthy "prison, and, as the papists say, almost eaten up by worms, vermibus fere necatus." — Vide Lewis Sander's " Schism," pp. 145-6, notes. * It is not, of course, accurate to say that parliament had given all houses and goods to the king. It can hardly be expected, how- ever, that the writer should know the niceties of the changing law. 3i8 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. gracious a prince to them, to suffer them to stay so long after all was given from them. And therefore, if the visitors, being the king's officers and commis- sioners in that behalf, took their dinner with them and then turned ihem forth to seek their lodging, where they could get it (at night or at the furthest the next day in the morning) as was done indeed, they did no wrong nor truly no great right. " For so soon as the visitors were entered within the gates they called the abbot and other officers of the house and caused them to deliver all the kevs and took an inventory of all their goods, both within doors and without. For all such beasts, horses, sheep and such cattle as were abroad in pasture or grange places, the visitors caused to be brought into their ■' presence. And when they had done so, (they) turned the abbot and all his convent and household forth of the doors. " This thing was not a little grief to the convent and all the servants of the house, departing one from another and especially such as with their con- science could not break their profession. It would have made a heart of flint melt and weep to have seen the breaking up of the house, the sorrowful departing (of the brethren) and the sudden spoil that fell the same day of their departure from their home. And, everyone had everything good, cheap, eKcept the poor monks, friars and nuns who had no money to bestow on anything. This appeared at the suppression of an abbey, hard by me, called Roche Progress of the General Suppression. 319 abbey* — a house of White monks, a very fair built house, all of freestone and every house vaulted with freestone and covered with lead (as the abbeys were in England as the churches are (now)). At the breaking up of this an uncle of mine was present, being well acquainted with certain of the monks there. And, when they were put out of the house, one of the monks, his friend, told him that everyone of the convent had given to him his cell in which he lived, wherein was not anything of price, but his bed and apparel, which was but simple and of small price. This monk wished my uncle to buy some- thing of him, who said, ' I see nothing which is worth money for my use.' ' No,' said he, ' give me two shillings for my cell door, which was never made with five shillings.' ' No,' said my uncle, ' I know not what to do with it ' (for he was a young man unmarried, and then neither stood in need of houses or doors). But such persons as afterwards bought their corn or hay or such like, finding all the doors either open or the locks and ' shackles ' plucked down, or the door itself taken away, went in and took what they found and filched it away. " Some took the service books that lay in the * The Cistercian abbey of Roche was surrendered on June 23r(l, 1538, by the abbot and seventeen monks (Eighth Rept. Dap. Keeper, App. ii., p. 39). The deed has not been entered on the Close Roll. Henry Crundall, the abbot, was granted a pension of 50 marks, an I most of the monks ;^5.a year (Augt. Off. Misc. Bk., 232, f. 59). A short inventory of the goods found on the dissolution at the priory is given in the " Monasticon," v., p. 506. 320 Henry VIII. and the English Motiasteries. church and put them upon their wain ' coppes ' to piece them ; some took windows of the hay-loft and hid them in their hay, and Hkewise they did of many other things. Some pulled forth the iron hooks out of the walls that bought none, when the yeomen or gentlemen of the county had bought the timber of the church. The church was the first thing that was put to spoil and then the abbot's lodging, dorter and frater with the cloister and all the buildings thereabout within the abbey walls. Nothing was spared but the ox-houses and swine-cots and such other houses of office that stood without the walls, which had more favour shown them than the very church itself, which was done by the advice of Crumwell, as Fox reporteth in his book of Acts. It would have pitied any heart to see what tearing up of the lead there was, what plucking up of boards and throwing down of spires. And when the lead was torn off and cast down into the church and the tombs in the church all broken (for in most abbeys were divers noble men and women — yea, in some abbeys kings whose tombs were regarded no more than the tombs of inferior persons — for to what end should they stand when the church over them was not spared for their sakes) all things of price, either spoiled, carried away or defaced to the uttermost. "The persons who cast the lead into fodders plucked up all the seats in the choir, wherein the monks sat when they said service, which were like to the seats in minsters, and burned them and melted the lead Progress of the General Suppression. 321 therewith, although there was wood plenty within a flight shot of them, for the abbey stood among woods and rocks of stone. In these rocks were found pewter vessels that were conveyed away and there hidden, so that it seemeth that every person bent himself to filch and spoil what he could. Yea, even such persons were content to spoil them, that seemed not two days before to allow their religion and do great worship and reverence at their matins, masses and other services and all other of their doings. This is a strange thing to consider that they who could this day think it to be the house of God, the next (did hold it as) the house of the devil ; or else they would not have been so ready to have spoiled it. . . . " For a better proof of this, I demanded, thirty years after the suppression, of my father who had bought part of the timber of the church, and all the timber of the steeple with the bell frame, with others partners therein — (in the steeple hung eight — yea nine — bells, whereof the least but one could not be bought at this day for £'20, and which bells I myself did see hang there more than a year after the sup- pression)— whether he thought well of the religious persons and of the religion then used. And he told me ' Yea, for,' said he, ' I saw no cause to the con- trary.' ' Well,' said I, ' then how came it to pass you were so ready to destroy and spoil what you thought so well of ? ' ' Might I not as well as others have some profit from the spoil of the abbey ? ' said VOL. II. Y 322 Henry VI I L and the English Monasteries. he. ' For I saw all would away and therefore I did as others did.' . . . " No doubt there have been millions and millions that have repented the thing since, but all too late. And thus much, upon my knowledge, touching the fall of Roche abbey which had stood about 300 years, for the church was dedicated by one Ada, bishop of Coventry (a.D. 1244). By the fall of this it may be well known how all the rest were used."^ It is, of course, somewhat difficult to estimate the number of monasteries and religious that were affected by the final suppression. Judged by the lists of surrenders, the grants of pensions and other sources of information, the abbeys and priories, exclusive of convents of women and friaries, which have already been spoken of in previous chapters, which were swept away between the years 1538 and 1540, numbered some two hundred and two. From the same information, it would appear that there were living in these houses at the date of sup- pression about 3,221 monks and regular canons. If to these be added 1,560, the estimated number of nuns, 1,800 that of the friars, and of religious turned out of their homes under the first act dissolving the lesser houses, excluding the nuns, some 1,500, it * B. INIus. Add. MS., 5,813 (Cole xii.). It is said by Cole to be a copy of an old MS. written about the year 1591 which he had from Thomas Porter, of Nottinghamshire and Cambridge. Ellis, " Orig. Letters," iii., Series iii., pp. 31-36, has printed the more in- teresting portions. The editor remarks that the " extracts probably exhibit what was at that time the genuine as well as general feeling of the English public." The document will be again referred to in the concluding chapter of this volume. Progress of the Gen eral Suppression . 323 will be seen that as a rough estimate there were in the monasteries some 6,521 monks, regular canons and friars, and some 1,560 nuns of various orders at the date of the suppression. In round numbers eio-ht thousand religious persons were expelled from their homes at this time besides probably more than ten times that numberof people who were their dependents or otherwise obtained the livings in their service.* It would be easy to multiply the incidents, often so significant and touching, which occur in the cor- respondence of the time in regard to the suppression of this or that great house, the name of which still is held in honour by Englishmen ; to relate how prior Goldstone of Christchurch, Canterbury, pleaded to be left to die in his old rooms ; how the ruin of St. Edmundsbury broke the heart of abbot Melford ; how abbot Malvern, of St. Peter's, Gloucester', unable to avert the doom of his house, could never be brought to sign the fatal surrender. Who shall tell the sorrow that filled the hearts of thousands The numberof monasteries suppressed or surrendered between 1538 and 1540 is thus obtained : — Benedictine ... 54 houses and 1,300 monks. Cluniac ... 8 houses and ,08 monks. Cistercian ... 40 (including attainted houses) and 596 monks. Carthusian ... 9 houses and 134 monks. Austin Canons ... 59 houses and /;3 canons. Premonstratensian 12 houses and 159 canons. Gilbertine ... 20 houses and 151 religious. Houses 202 Monks and Canons 3,221 Friars according- to estimate 1800 Monks and canons in lesser monasteries looo Nuns according to estimate 1-60 Total ... 8,081 324 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. and thousands of lay people, when they saw the shrines they honoured, the houses of God, which had been to them a rest and a delight, profaned, despoiled and brought to destruction? This chapter in the tale of ruin may be fitly closed in the words of one who deeply felt its sad- ness and its meaning. What he says of the abbey of St. Peter's, Gloucester, holds good of many another home of piety and religion swept away by the tyrant who, if anv, deserves the name " the Ruthless." " Having existed for more than eight centuries under different forms, in poverty and in wealth, in meanness and in magnificence, in mis- fortune and in success, it finally succumbed to the royal will ; the dav came, and that a drear winter day, when its last mass was sung, its last censer waved, its last congregation bent in rapt and lowly adoration before the altar there, and doubtless as the last tones of that day's evensong died away in the vaulted roof, there were not wanting those who lingered in the solemn stillness of the old massive pile, and who, as the lights disappeared one by one, felt that for them there was now a void which could never be filled, because their old abbey, with its beautiful services, its frequent means of grace, its hospitality to strangers and its loving care for God's poor, had passed away like an early morning dream, and was gone for ever."* * "Hist, et Cart. ^lon. S. Petri Gloucestrias," (Chronicles and Mem.) edited by the late W. H. Hart, iii., Introduction, xlix. CHAPTER IX. THE THREE BENEDICTINE ABBOTS.* The circumstances attending the fall of Glastonbury, Reading and Colchester are deserving of special record. By the autumn of 1539 Henry's designs upon the monastic property had so far succeeded that comparatively few houses still remained in the possession of their religious owners. County after county was laid desolate by the royal commissioners, and the monks and nuns turned from their homes. Every expedient was resorted to in order to obtain the so-called voluntary surrenders f of houses and property into the king's hand, and few, indeed, were found bold enough to withstand the royal methods of persuasion. Where resistance was offered, the ready process of attainder, with its accompanying confiscation of the common goods of a monastic corporation, which, " against every principle of received law,"| was held to follow upon the treason, * Some portions of this chapter, especially with respect to abbot Whiting, have already appeared in an article published in the "Dublin Review," July, 1887. For valuable assistance in this por- tion of his subject the author is indebted to Dom J. G. Dolan, of Downside. t "A step of very questionable legality." — Hallam, "Const. Hist.," loth ed., i., p. 72. X Ibid. 326 Heiwy VIII. and the English Monasteries. supposed or real, of the superior came to effect what the threats or promises of the royal officials had been unable to accomplish. Some examples of the work- ing of the mysterious law of attainder in bringing about the desired end have been already given. The execution of the three mitred abbots of Glastonbury, Reading and Colchester and the seizure of the great possessions of these abbeys by virtue of their attainder for treason are instances of the working of Henry's laws which cannot be passed over. Few spots in England were counted more sacred than Glastonbury. To the people of pre-reformation days it was a " Roma secunda." The scene, accord- ing to mediaeval legend, of the burial of St. Joseph of Arimathea and the home of the earliest followers of Christ in this land of Britain, Avalon or Glaston- bury had become recognized as the principal sanc- tuary of the island. Almost alone among the churches of Britain it was spared by the destroying hands of the invaders, and when St. Augustine came from pope St. Gregory to plant the faith it was already associated with the names of St. Patrick and St. David. For a period St. Paulinus is said to have been at this renowned sanctuary before setting out for the scene of his apostolate in northern England. Rendered more famous in later times by the fame and virtues of St. Dunstan, the abbey of Glastonbury was the centre of the monastic revival which marked the reign of Edgar the Pacific. With varying fortune but with unbroken life the monastery The Three Benedictine Abbots. 327 continued to flourish till, at the close of the year 1539, the venerable Richard Whiting, the last of a long line of abbots, was hanged as a traitor to Henry VIII. , and its possessions thus passed into the royal power. It is, perhaps, difBcult to understand fully why abbot Whiting was singled out as an example of the royal severity. It was " probably," writes an his- torian, " to show forcibly the overpowering character of the royal will by destroying an ecclesiastic of immense moral weight and territorial influence. To adopt the language used ten years before respecting his friend Wolsey, the abbot of Glastonbury was probably considered to be the 'bell-wether' of the mitred abbots, and when he had fallen the others would be without hope and an easy prey."* Richard Whiting had been appointed to succeed abbot Bere in i525.t Cardinal Wolsey was at that * J. H. Blunt, "The Reformation," p. 345. t The family of Whiting was connected by blood with that of bishop Stapleton of Exeter, the well-known benefactor of Exeter College, Oxford. In its principal branch it was possessed of con- siderable estates in Somerset as well as Devon ; but Richard Whiting probably came from a younger and less important part of the family, which, amongst other property, held certain lands as tenants of Glastonbury abbey, in the valley of Wrington. About the time of Richard Whiting's birth, another Richard of the name held the ofifice of camerarius in the monastery of Bath (Reg. Beckington at Wells, p. 31 1). At the beginning of the troubles of the religious houses in Henry's reign Jane, daughter of John Whiting, " was shorn and had taken the habit as a nun in the monastery of Wilton" (R. O. Chancery Inq. P.M., 21 Hen. VIII., 154), and when the new foundations for English conventual life had been established in 328 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. time in the zenith of his power, and the community requested him to elect a superior. After a fort- night's delay the cardinal declared Whiting the object of his choice, describing him as "an upright and religious monk, besides a provident and discreet man ; a priest commendable for his life, virtues and learning." " He has already proved himself," so runs the document of his appointment, watchful and circumspect " in both spirituals and temporals, and has knowledge and determination to uphold the rights of his monastery."* The appointment was, after certain formalities had been complied with, followed on March 28th, 1525, by the benediction of the new abbot in the church at Glastonbury by Dr. William Gilbert, abbot of Bruton and bishop of Mayo in Ireland, at that time acting as suffragan to bishop John Clarke, of Bath and Wells. f foreign countries, three of abbot Wliiting's nieces became postu- lants in the English Franciscan house of Bruges (Oliver's Collec- tions, p. 135.) * Adam de Domerham, ed. Hearne, Xo. 7, Ap. xcvii. t The account of abbot Whiting's election is to be found at the end of the register of bp. Clarke (dioc. Bath and Wells). See also "Dublin Rev.,"' July, 1887, p. 83, etc. The date of Whiting's birth is uncertain. The earliest record is the date of taking his M.A. degree in 1483 (Cooper, " Aih. Cantab.," 1. p. 71). He received minor orders in Sept., 1498. In the two succeeding years he was made sub-deacon and deacon, and on 6th March, 1 501, was ordained priest by Dr. Cornish, titular bishop of Tinos, a suffragan of Dr. Oliver King, bishop of Bath and Wells {lide Reg. O. King). Whiting had in all probability been educated in the abbey school, where, as the learned antiquary, Hearne, says, " the monks of Glastonbury kept a free school, where poor men's sons were bred The Three Benedictine Abbots. 329 The position of abbot of Glastonbury was one of great dignity. The abbey was among the largest and richest monasteries in the kingdom, and the church was exceeded in length only by old St. Paul's among the fanes of England. The abbot was a great local magnate, a peer of parliament, and the master of vast estates. Four parks teem- ing with game, domains and manors of great extent and number, bringing to the monastery an income of more than ;^3,ooo a year in money, or ten times that amount in our money, gave him an influence of the highest importance in the west and even all England. What the monastic buildings themselves were can be well imagined. " The house is great, goodly and so princely as we have not seen the like,"* write those sent to seize the possessions for Henry. The library filled Leland with amazement. It was second to none in the land, and he had scarcely passed the threshold when the very sight of so many treasures of antiquity struck him with such awe that for a moment he hesitated to enter. He spent days making a list of the most valuable manuscripts. t up, as well as gentlemen's, and were fitted for the universities " (" Hist, of Glaston.," pref.). * State Pap., i., p. 620. t Cf. Walcoit's "Engl. Minsters," ii., 129. The antiquary- spoke of abbot Whiting as " homo sane candidissimus et amicus meus singularis," " and though," says Warner (" Hist, of Glaston- bury," p. 219), "the too cautious antiquary in after times passed his pen through this language of praise and kindness, lest it should be offensive to his contemporaries, yet happily for the abbot's fame 330 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. To the great gate of the abbey every Wednesday and Friday the poor flocked for relief in their neces- sities, and as many as five hundred persons are said to have been at times entertained at the abbot's table. " The dependent churches required a monastic archdeacon and a special armoury was necessary to equip the force at the disposal of the crown, for there were 1,274 able men being always in a readiness to serve the king when called upon, and 1,271 bondmen of blood, ready to serve the king with 500 pair of harness." The rule of abbot Whiting over the vast establish- ment at Glastonbury had to be exercised in very difficult times. Within a few months of his election Sir Thomas Boleyn was created by Henry viscount Rochfort, and this marked the first step in the king's illicit affection for the new peer's daughter, Anne, and the beginning of the troubles of Church and State. Four years of wavering counsels on the great matter of the desired divorce led in 1529 to the humiliation and fall of the hitherto all-powerful cardinal of York. The sequel is well known. The clergy, caught in the cunningly-contrived snare of premunire, were at the king's mercy. With his hands upon their throats Henry demanded, what in the quarrel with Rome was at the time a retaliation upon the pope for his the tribute is still legible and will remain for ages a sufficient evidence of the sacrifice of a guileless victim to the tyranny of a second Ahab." The Three Benedictine Abbots. 33 1 refusal to accede to the royal wishes, the acknow- ledgment of the king as supreme head of the Church in England. Few among the English churchmen were found bold enough to resist this direct demand, or who even, perhaps, recognized how they were rejecting papal supremacy in matters spiritual. As a rule, the required oath of royal supremacy was apparently taken wherever it was tendered, and the abbots and monks of Colchester, of Glastonbury, and probably also of Reading, were no exception, and on September 19, 1534, abbot Whiting and his community attached their names to the required declaration. It is easy, after this lapse of time, and in the light of subsequent events, to be loud in reprobation of such compliance ; to wonder how throughout Eng- land the blessed John Fisher and Thomas More, and the Observants, almost alone, should have been found from the beginning neither to hesitate nor waver. It is easy to make light of the shrinking of flesh and blood, easy to extol the palm of martyr- dom. But it is not difficult, too, to see how to abbot Whiting, no less than to blessed John Houghton and his other holy companions of the Charter House, reasons suggested themselves for temporizing. To most men at that date the possibility of a final separation from Rome must have seemed incredible. They remembered Henry in his earlier days, when he was never so immersed in business or in pleasure that he did not hear three or even five masses a 332 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. day ; they did not know him as Wolsey or Crumwell, or as More or Fisher knew him ; the project must have seemed a momentary aberration, under the influence of evil passion or evil counsellors. He had at bottom a zeal for the faith and would return by-and-bye to a better mind, a truer self, and would then come to terms with the pope. Meantime the oath was susceptible of lenient interpretation. The idea of the headship was not absolutely new : it had in a measure been conceded some years before, without, so far as appears, exciting remonstrance from Rome. Beyond this, to many the oath of royal supremacy of the Church of England was never understood as derogatory to the see of Rome. While even those who had taken this oath were in many instances surprised that it should be con- strued into any such hostility.* However strained this temper of mind may appear to us at this time, it undoubtedly existed. One example may be here cited. Among the State Papers in the Record Ofhce for the year 1539 is a long harangue on the execution of the three Bene- dictine abbots in which the writer refers to such a view : — I cannot tliink the contrary [he writes], but the old bishop of London [Stokesley], when he was on Hve, used * Calendar, viii., Nos. 277, 387, &c., are instances of the temper of nihid described above. No. 387 especially is very significant as showing the gloss men put on their supremacy oath, distinguish- ing tacitly between Church of England and Catholic Church, and " in temporalibus," and " in spiritualibus." The Three Benedictine Abbots. 333 the pretty medicine that his fellow, friar Forest, was wont to use, and to work with an inward man and an outward man ; that is to say, to speak one thing with their mouth and then another thing with their heart. Surely a very pretty medicine for popish hearts. But it worked madly for some of their parts. Gentle Hugh Cook by his own con- fession used not the self-same medicine that friar Forest used, but another much like unto it, which was this : what time as the spiritualty were sworn to take the king's grace for the supreme head, immediately next under God of this Church of England, Hugh Cook receiving the same oath added prettily in his own conscience these words following : " of the temporal church," saith he, " but not of the spiritual church."* Nor from another point of view is this want of appreciation as to the true foundation of the papal primacy a subject for unmixed astonishment. During the last half-century the popes had reigned in a court of unexampled splendour, but a splendour essentially mundane. It was a dazzling sight, but all this outward show made it difficult to recognize the divinely ordered spiritual prerogatives which are the enduring heritage of the successors of St. Peter. The dignified titles expressing those prerogatives might pass unquestioned in the schools and in com- mon speech in the world, but from this there is a wide step to the apprehension of the living truths they express, and a yet further step to that intense personal realization which makes those truths dearer to a man than life.f * R. O. State Papers., Dom., 1539, ^l^, p. 23. t The words of cardinal Manning on this point may be here quoted : — " It must not be forgotten that at this time the minds of 334 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. To some that realization came sooner, to some later; some men there are who seize at once the point at issue and its full import. They are ready with their answer without seeking or faltering. Others answer to the call at the third, maybe the eleventh hour ; the cause is the same, and so is the reward, though to the late comer the respite may perhaps have been only a prolongation of the agony. The royal visitation of Glastonbury was conducted by Layton. He came to the abbey on Saturday, August 2ist, 1535, and from St. Augustine's, men had been so distracted by the great western schism, by the frequent subtraction of obedience, by the doubtful election of popes, and the simultaneous existence of two or even three claim- ants to the holy see, that the supreme pontifical authority had .become a matter of academical discussion hiiic inde. Nothing but ■such preludes could have instigated even Gerson to write on the thesis de Aiiferahilitate Papa. This throws much light on the singular fact attested by Sir Thomas More in speaking to the jury and the judge by whom he was condemned, when the verdict of death was brought in against him : ' I have, by the grace of God, been always a Catholic, never out of communion with the Roman Pontiff; but I have heard it said at times that the authority of the Roman Pontift'was certainly lawful and to be respected, but still an authority derived from human law, and not standing upon a divine prescription. Then, when I observed that public affairs were so ordered that the sources of the power of the Roman Pontiff wouLl necessarily be examined, I gave myself up to a most diligent ex- amination of that question for the space of seven years, and found that the authority of the Roman Pontiff, which you rashly — I will not use stronger language — have set aside, is not only lawful, to be respected, and necessary, but also grounded on the divine law and prescription. That is my opinion ; that is the belief in which, by the grace of God, 1 shall die.' " (" Dublin Rev.," Jan., 1888, p. 245). The Three Benedictine Abbots. 335 Bristol, whither he departed on the following Mon- day, he wrote to Crumwell a letter showing that even he, chief among a crew who " could ask un- moved such questions as no other human being could have imagined or known how to put, who could extract guilt from a stammer, a tremble or a blush, or even from indignant silence as surely as from open confession"* — even Layton retired baffled from Glastonbury under the venerable abbot Whiting's rule, though he covered his defeat with impudence unabashed. " At Bruton and Glastonbury," he ex- plains, " there is nothing notable, the brethren be so straight kept that they cannot offend : but fain they would if they might, as they confess, and so the fault is not with them."t At this period it would seem that Richard Layton also spoke to the king in praise of abbot Whiting. For this error of judgment, when some time later Crumwell had assured himself of the abbot's temper, he was forced to sue for pardon from both king and minister. " I must therefore," he writes, " now in this my necessity most humbly beseech your lordship to pardon me for that my * Dixon, i., p. 357. t Wright, p. 59. Godwin, the Protestant bishop of Hereford, says that the monks, " following the example of the ancient fathers, lived apart from the world religiously and in peace, eschewing worldly employments, and wholly given to study and contempla- tion ; " and Sander, writing when the memory of the life led at Glas- tonbury was still fresh in men's minds, says that the religious were noted for their maintenance of common life, choral observance and enclosure. 33^ Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. folly then committed, as ye have done many times before, and of your goodness to instigate the king's highness majesty, in the premises."* Hardly had the royal inquisitor departed than it was found at Glastonbury, as elsewhere, that the injunctions were not merely impracticable, but sub- versive of the first principles of religious discipline. Whiting, like so many religious superiors at this time, begged for some mitigation. Nicholas Fitz- james, a neighbour, wrote an urgent letter to Crum- well in support of the abbot's petition, and a month later the abbot himself ventured to present a griev- ance of another kind, affecting others besides his community. The suspension of the jurisdiction which had been exercised by the abbey over the town of Glastonbury and its dependencies had caused the gravest inconvenience. There are many " poor people," the abbot writes, " who are waiting to have their causes tried," and he adds that he cannot believe Henry's pleasure has been rightly stated in Dr. Layton's orders. f The letters of abbot Whiting which still exist, for the most answers to applications for benefices or offices in his gift, are marked by a courteous readi- ness to comply in everything up to the limits of the possible. It is evident, moreover, that he had an intimate concern in all the details of the complex administration of a monastery of such extent and importance, no less than a determining personal in- * R. O. Crum. Corr., Vol. xx., No. 14. t Ihid., xiii., f. 58. The Three Benedictine Abbots. 337 fluence on the religious character of his community ; and that pubHc calls were never allowed to come be- tween him and the primary and immediate duties of the abbot. He is most at home in his own country, among his Somersetshire neighbours, and in the " straight " charge of his spiritual children. Con- fident too in the affection with which he was regarded by the population, he had no scruples, whatever may have been his mind in subscribing to the Supremacy declaration of 1534, in securing for his monks and his townsfolk in his own abbey church the preaching of a doctrine wholly opposed to the royal theories and wishes on the subject. Thus on a Sunday in the middle of February, 1536, a friar called John Brynstan, preaching in the abbatial church at Glastonbury to the people of the neigh- bourhood, said " he would be one of them that should convert the new fangles and new men, otherwise he would die in the quarrel."* Knowing doubtless what would be the nature of its business, abbot Whiting, excusing himself on the plea of age and ill-health, did not attend the parliament of 1539, which, so far as it could do, sealed the fate of the monasteries as yet unsup- pressed. He awaited the end on his own ground and in the midst of his own people. He was still as solicitous about the smallest details of his care as if the glorious abbey were to last in cevum. Thus an interesting account of abbot Whiting at * Calendar, x., 318. VOL. II. Z 338 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. Glastonbury is given in an examination about a debt, held some years after the abbot's execution. John Watts, " late monk and chaplain to the abbot," said that John Lyte, the supposed debtor, had paid the money " in manner and form following. That is to say, he paid -£\o of the said £j\o to the said abbot in the little parlour upon the right hand within the great hall, the Friday after New Year's Day before the said abbot was attainted. The said payment was made in gold " in presence of the witness and only one other : "for it was immediately after the said abbot had dined, so that the abbot's gentlemen and other servants were in the hall at dinner." . . . Also " upon St. Peter's day at mid- summer, being a Sunday, in the garden of the said abbot at Glastonbury, whilst high mass was sing- ing," the debtor " made payment " of the rest. " And at that time the abbot asked of the said master Lyte whether he would set up the said abbot's arms in his new buildings that he had made. And the said master Lyte answered the said abbot that he would ; and so at that time the said abbot gave unto the said Mr. Lyte eight angels nobles. . . . "And at the payment of the £';ip there was in the garden at that time the lord Stourton. ... I suppose," continues the witness, " that the said lord Stourton saw not the payment made to the abbot, for the abbot got him into an arbour of bay in the said garden and there received his money. And very glad he was at that time that it was paid The Three Benedictine Abbots. 339 in gold for the short telHng, as also he would not, by his will, have it seen at that time."* Thus too almost the last glimpse afforded of the last abbot of Glastonbury in his time-honoured home shows him in friendly converse with his near neigh- bour, lord Stourton : the head of an ancient race which popular tradition had justly linked for centuries with the Benedictine order, and which even in the darkest days of modern English Catholicity proved itself a firm and hereditary friend. f To understand the closing acts of the venerable abbot's life it is necessary to premise a few words on suppression in its legal aspect. There seems to be abroad an impression that the monasteries were dis- solved by Parliament, and accordingly that a refusal of surrender, such as is found at Glastonbury, was an act, however morally justifiable as a refusal to betray a trust, and even heroic when resistance entailed the last penalty, yet in defiance of the law of the land. And, for instance, in this particular case of Glaston- bury, that when insisting on its surrender the king was only requiring that to be given up into his hands which parliament had already conferred on him. However common the impression, it is not accurate. * R. O. Exch. Augt. Off. Misc. Bk., xxii., Nos. 13-18. In view of the circumstance of the time it seems likely that the witness was anxious to ward off any possibility of lord Stourton being mixed up in the affair. This anxiety to save friends from embarrassing examinations is a very common feature in documents of this date. t For the first may be seen Hoare's " Modern Wiltshire." The evidence of the second is written in the domestic annals of my own house of St. Gregory's. 340 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. What the act (27 Hen. VIII. , cap. 28) of February, 1536, did was to give to the king and his heirs only- such monasteries as were under the yearly value of j^20o, or such as should within a " year next after the making of " the act " be given or granted to his majesty by any abbot," etc. So far, therefore, from giving to the king the goods of all the monasteries, the act distinctly recognizes, at least in the case of all save the lesser ones, the rights of their present owners, and contemplates their passing to the king's hands by the cession of the actual possessors. How this surrender was to be brought about was left to the king and Crumwell, and the minions on whose devices there is no need to dwell. Before a recalci- trant superior, who would yield neither to blandish- ments, bribery nor threats, the king, so far as the act would help him, was powerless. For this case, however, provision was made, though but indirectly, in the act of April, 1539 (31 Hen. VIII., cap. 13). This act, which included a retrospective clause covering the illegal suppression of the greater monasteries, grants to him all monas- teries, etc., etc., which shall hereafter happen to be dissolved, suppressed, renounced, relinquished, for- feited, given up or come into the king's highness. These terms seem wide enough, but there is an ominous parenthesis referring to such others as " shall happen to come to the king's highness by attainder or attainders of treason." The clause did not find its way into the act unawares. We shall The Three Benedictine Abbots. 341 see it was Crumwell's care how and in whose case it was to become operative. And with just so much of countenance as is thus given him by the act, with the king to back him, the monasteries of Glaston- bury, Reading and Colchester, from which no sur- render could be obtained, "were, against every principle of received law, held to fall by the attain- der of their abbots for high treason."* The very existence of the clause is, moreover, €vidence that by this time Crumwell knew that among the superiors of the few monasteries yet standing there were men with whom, if the king was not to be baulked of his latent, the last conclusions would have to be tried. To him the necessity would have been paramount, by every means in his power, to sweep away what he rightly regarded as the strongholds of the papal power in the country, and to get rid of these " spies of the pope."t Such unnatural enemies of their prince and gracious lord would fittingly be singled out first, that their fate might serve as a warning to other intending evil- doers. Perhaps, too. Whiting's repute for blame- lessness of life, the discipline which he was known to maintain in his monastery and his great territorial influence may all have gone to point him out as an eminently proper subject to proceed against, as showing that where the crime of resistance to the king's will was concerned there could be no such * Hallam, " Constit. Hist.," i., 72. t R. O. Crum. Corr., xv., No. 7. 342 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. thing as an extenuating circumstance, no considera- tion which could mitigate the penalty. In the story of what follows we are continually hampered by the singularly defective nature of the various records relating to the closing years of Crumwell's administration. This holds good in particular with regard to the three Benedictine abbots who suffered in 1539. We are, therefore, frequently left to supply links by conjectures, but conjectures in which, from the broad facts of the case, and such documentary evidence as remains, there is sufficient assurance of being in the main correct. It was in the autumn that final steps began to be taken in regard to the monastery of Glastonbury and its venerable abbot. Among Crumwell's "remem- brances " of things to do, or to speak to the king about, still extant in his own hand-writing, about the beginning of September this year occurs the following: "Item. For proceeding against the abbots of Reading, Glaston and the other in their countries."* From this it is clear that some time between the passing of the act in April, and September, these abbots must have been sounded, and it had been found that compliance was not to be expected. f By the sixteenth of this * B. Mus. Coll. IMS. Titus, B. i., f. 446a. t At this time Glastonbury, in common with other churches in England, was relieved of what it pleased the king to consider " superfluous plate." Pollard, Tregonwell and Petre on May 2nd, 1539, handed to Sir John Williams, the keeper of the royal treasure- house, 493 ounces of gold, 16,000 ounces of gilt plate, and The Three Benedictine Abbots. 343 latter month Crumwell's design had been com- municated to his famiHar Layton, and had elicited from him a reply in which he abjectly asks pardon for having praised the abbot at the time of the visitation. " The abbot of Glastonbury," he adds, " appeareth neither then nor now to have known God, nor his prince nor any part of a good Christian man's religion."* Three days later, on Friday, September 19, the royal commissioners, Layton, Pollard and Moyle, suddenly arrived at Glastonbury about ten o'clock in the morning. The abbot had not been warned of their intended visit, and was then at his grange of Sharpham, about a mile from the monastery. Thither they hurried " without delay," and after telling him their purpose, at once examined him " upon certain articles, and for that his answer was not then to our purpose, we advised him to call to his remembrance that which he had forgotten, and so declare the truth. '""f Then they at 28,700 ounces of parcel gilL and silver plate taken from the monasteries in the west of England. In this amount was in- cluded the superfluous plate of Glastonbury. Besides this weight of gold and silver there was placed in the treasury " two collets of gold wherein standeth two coarse emeralds ; a cross of silver gilt, garnished with a great coarse emerald two ' balaces ' and two sapphires lacking a knob at one of the ends of the same cross ; a superaltar garnished with silver gilt and part gold called the great sapphire of Glastonbury ; a great piece of unicorn's horn, a piece of mother of pearl like a shell, eight branches of coral " (Monastic Treasures, Abbotsford Club, p. 2-4). * The whole of this account is from the letter of the commis- sioners to Crumwell, in Wright, p. 255. t Ellis, Orig. Letters, 3rd Series, iii. 344 Henry VI H. arid the English Monasteries. once took him back to the abbey, and when night came on proceeded to search the abbot's papers, and ransack his apartments " for letters and books, and found in his study, secretly laid, as well a written book of arguments against the divorce of the king's majesty and the lady dowager, which we take to be a great matter, as also divers pardons, copies of bulls, and the counterfeit life of Thomas Becket in print ; but we could not find any letter that was material." Furnished with these pieces of evidence as to the tendency of Whiting's opinions, the inquisitors pro- ceeded further to examine him concerning the " articles we received from your lordship " (Crum- well). In his answers appeared, they considered, " his cankered and traitorous mind against the king's majesty and his succession." To these replies he signed his name, "and so with as fair words as" they could, " being but a very weak man and sickly," they forthwith sent him up to London to the Tower, that Crumwell might examine him again. The rest of the letter is significant for the purpose they knew their master would regard as most impor- tant :— As yet we have neither discharged servant nor monk ; but now, the abbot being gone, we will, with as much celerity as we may, proceed to the dispatching of" them. We have in money .^300 and above ; but tbe certainty of plate and other stuff there as yet we know not, for we have not had oppor- tunity for the same; whereof we shall ascertain your lordship so shortly as we may. This is also to advertise your lord- ship that we have found a fair chalice of gold, and divers The Three Benedictine Abbots. 345 other parcels of plate, which the abbot had hid secretly from all such commissioners as have been there in times past; and as yet he knoweth not that we have found the same ; whereby we think that he thought to make his hand by his untruth to his king's majesty. A week later, on September 28,* they again write to Crumwell that they " have daily found and tried out both money and plate," hidden in secret places in the abbey, and conveyed for safety to the country. They could not tell him how much they had so far discovered, but it was sufficient, they thought, to have " begun a new abbey," and they conclude by asking what the king will have done in respect to the two monks who were the treasurers of the church, and the two lay clerks of the sacristy, who were chiefly to be held responsible in the matter. On the 2nd October the inquisitors write again to their master to say that they have come to the know- ledge of "divers and sundry treasons" committed by abbot Whiting, " the certainty whereof shall appear unto your lordship in a book herein enclosed, with the accusers' names put to the same, which we think to be very high and rank treasons." The original letter, preserved in the Record Office, clearly shows by the creases in the soiled yellow paper that some small book or folded papers have been enclosed. Whatever it was, it is no longer forthcoming, and, as far as can be ascertained, is lost or destroyed. Just at the critical moment we * Wright, p. 257. 34^ Henry VIII. aiid the English Monasteries. are deprived, therefore, of the most interesting sources of information. In view, however, of the common sufferings of these abbots, who were dealt with together, their common cause, the common fate which befell them, and the common cause assigned by contemporary writers for their death — viz., their attainder " of high treason for denying the king to be supreme head of the Church," as Hall, the con- temporary London lawyer, phrases it, there can be little doubt that these depositions were much of the same nature as those made against Thomas Mar- shall, abbot of Colchester, to which subsequent reference will be made. It is certain that with abbot Whiting in the Tower and C rum well's com- missioners engaged in "dispatching" the monks "with as much celerity" as possible, Glastonbury was already regarded as part of the royal posses- sions. Even before any condemnation the matter is taken as settled, and on October 24th, 1539, Pollard handed over to the royal treasurer the riches still left at the abbey as among the possessions of " attainted persons and places."* Whilst Layton and his fellows were rummaging at Glastonbury, abbot Whiting was safely lodged in the Tower of London. There he was subjected to searching examinations. A note in Crumwell's own hand, entered in his "' remembrances," says : * Monastic Treasures, Abbotsford Club, p. 38. These consisted of 71 ozs. of gold with stones, 7,214 ozs. of gilt plate, and 6,387 ozs. of silver. The Three Benedictine Abbots. 347 " Item. Certain persons to be sent to the Tower for the further examination of the abbot of Glaston."* At this time it was supposed that parliament, which ought to have met on November i of this year, would be called upon to consider the charges against the abbot. At least Marillac, the French ambassador, who shows that he was always well informed on public matters, writes to his master that this is to be done. Even when the assembly was delayed till the arrival of the king's new wife, Ann of Cleves, he repeats that the decision of Whiting's case will now be delayed. He adds that " they have found a manuscript in favour of queen Catherine, and against the marriage of queen Anne, who was afterwards beheaded," which is objected against the abbot. f Poor Catherine had been at rest in her grave for four years, and her rival in the affections of Henry had died on the scaffold nearly as many years before Layton and his fellow-in- quisitors found the written book of arguments in Whiting's study, and " took it to be a great matter" against him. It is hardly likely that, even if more loyal to Catherine's memory than there is any possible reason to suppose, he would stick at a point where More and Fisher could yield and would not give in to the succession. But as in their case, it was the thorny questions which surrounded the divorce, the subject all perilous of " treason," which * B. Mus. Coll. MS. Titus, B. i„ f. 441 a. t " Inventaire Analytique," /// sup., No. 161. 348 Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. brought him at last, as it brought them first, to the scaffold. It is more than strange that the ordinary pro- cedure was in this case never carried out. Accord- ing to all law, Whiting and the abbots of Reading and Colchester should have been arraigned for treason before parliament, as they were members of the House of Peers, but no such " bill of attainder" was ever presented, and in fact the execution had taken place before the parliament came together.* The truth is, that Whiting and the other abbots were condemned to death as the result of the secret inquisitions in the Tower. Crumwell, acting as " prosecutor, judge and jury,"t had arranged for their execution before they left their prison. What happened in the case of Whiting at Wells, and with Cook at Reading, was a ghastly mockery of justice, enacted merely to cover the illegal and iniquitous proceedings which had condemned them untried. This Crumwell has written down with his own hand. He notes in his " remembrances " : — % Item. Councillors to give evidence against the abbot of Glaston, Richard Pollard, Lewis Forstell and Thomas Moyle. Item. To see that the evidence be well sorted and the indict- ments well drawn against the said abbots and their accom- * According to Wriolhesley's " Chronicle" they were arraigned in the " Counter." " Also in this month [November] the abbates of Glastonburie, Keding and Colchester were arrayned in the Counter." t Froude, Hist., iii., p. 432. J Ut sup., ff. 441