VI A. D. his Chronicle, "that these were as thorns, but the CHAP great abbots were putrified old oaks, and they must needs follow. And so will other do in Christendom,' quoth Doctor Stokesley, Bishop of London, 'or many years be passed."" 1535-6 ance in Cromwell seems not to have hesitated for a Steady moment in the career of spoliation on which he had persever entered; for a letter has come down to us which is plan of spoliation a reply to one he had written on the 8th of March 1535-6 (about the very time when the act was receiving the royal assent), in which he demanded the resignation of one of these "putrified old oaks," John Shepey or Castleoak, the Abbot of Faversham in Kent. This letter gives us some light respecting the transactions which were then going on between the crown and the monasteries, and is well worth perusal. sham's "Right worshipful Sir, after humble recommendations accord- The Abbot ing to my most bounden duty, with like thanks for your bene- of Favervolent mind always shewed towards me and my poor house to defence your goodness had and used; it may please you to be advertised, that I lately received your loving letters dated the viiith day of this present month concerning a resignation to be had of the poor house which I under God and the King's highness my sovereign lord of long time (though unworthy such a cure) have had ministration and rule of, and that by cause of the age and debility which are reported to be in me. So it is right worshipfull sir, I trust I am not yet now so far enfeebled or decayed, neither in body nor in remembrance, either by any extremity of age whom debility lightly for the most part always accompanies either by any immoderate pas- Old as he sion of any great continual infirmity, but that I may as well (high thanks be unto God thereof!) accommodate myself to the his house good order, rule, and governance of my poor house and monastery as ever I might since iny first promotion to the same, is can still rule VI A. D. duties of CHAP though I may not so well percase ride and journey abroad as I might have done in time past. But admit the peculiar office of an abbot to consist, as I must needs refell for we profess a rule much diverse thereunto, in journeying forth and surveying of the possessions of his house, in which case agility and patience of labour in journeying were much required indeed, though I myself be not so well able to take pains therein as I have been in my young years, at which time I trust I took such pains that I need less surveying of the same at this present time, yet have I such faithful approved servants whom I have brought up in my poor house from their tender years, and those of such wit and good discretion joined with the long experience of the trade of such worldly things, that they are able to furnish and supply those parts, I know right well, in According all points much better, than ever I myself could or than it had to the true been expedient or decent for me to have done. Again, on an abbot that other side, if the chief office and profession of an abbot be (as I have ever taken it) to live chaste and solitarily, to be separate from the intermeddling of worldly things, to serve God quietly, to distribute his faculties in refreshing of poor indigent persons, to have a vigilant eye to the good order and rule of his house and the flock to him commited in God, I trust your favour and benevolence obtained (whereof I right humbly require you), I myself may and am as well able yet now to supply and continue those parts as ever I was in all my life, as concerning the sufficiency of my own person. Yet doubtless much more ease and quiet might it be unto me as ye in your said letters right friendly and vehemently have persuaded, for to make resignation of my said office upon the provision of such a reasonable pension as your good mastership should think meet and convenient, wherein surely I would nothing doubt your worship and conscience, but in the same gladly be have much affiance, not only for the great goodness and good as personal indifference which I hear everywhere commonly reported by you, but also for the great favour and benevolence which I have always found in you. And percase in my own mind 1 could right well be contented and fully persuaded for as much as concerneth my own part so to do, for the satisfaction and contentation of your loving motion, for I am nothing less than Would free as far ease goes VI A. D. ambitious; but I do more esteem in this thing the miserable CHAP state and condition that our poor house should stand in, if such thing should come to pass, than I do my own private office and dignity, the administration whereof though it be 1535-6 somewhat more painful unto me than it hath been accustomed heretofore, yet God forbid that it should seem unto me hirkefull or tedious. Moreover I (pray) your good mastership, to whom I would all these things were as openly and manifest- But the ly known as to myself, our said poor house and monastery by Abbey im poverished meane and occasion of diverse and many importable costs and by taxes charges which we have sustained as well towards the King's highness as otherwise; partly by reason of divers great sums of money which it was left indebted in, in the time of my last predecessor there (which as it is well known in the country was but a right slender husband to the house): partly by means of divers and many great reparations, as well of the edifices of our church as of other houssing, which were suffered to fall in great ruin and decay, insomuch that some of them were in manner likely to fall clean down to the ground, as in the repairs and innyng of divers marshes belonging to our said monastery reclaiming which the violent rages and surges of the implacable sea had won and occupied, being now since my time well and sufficiently repaired and fully amended, as the thing itself may sufficiently declare, to the inestimable cost and charges of our poor house partly again by the means of the great cost, charges, and expenses, which we have had and sustained by and through the occasion of divers and many sundry suits and actions which we have been compelled to use and pursue against divers of our tenants for the recovery of divers rights of our said monastery of long time unjustly detained and by the same tenants obstinately denied; and partly also by mean of divers and many great sums of money by £2000 which we have paid and lent unto the King's highness, as lent" to well in dysmes and subsidies as otherwise amounting in all to the sum of ii m. li. and above to our great impoverishing, and is yet now at this present time indebted to divers of our friends and creditors above the sum of cccc li. as ye shall be further instructed of the particulars thereof whensoever it shall please you to demand a further and more exact declar marshes the King A. D. CHAP ation therein. Which sums if it might please Almighty God VI that I might live and with your good favour continue in my said office by the space of six or seven years at the furthest, I 1535-6 doubt not but I should see them well repaid and contented again. But if I should now at this present time resign my said office (the case standing as it doth) undoubtedly our poor house, being now so far indebted already by means of the occasions before remembered (the important charges of the first would like fruits and tenth which would be due unto the King's highness out of its now immediately upon the same resignation had thereunto difficulties added and accumulate), should be clearly impoverished and And he to see it utterly decayed and undone for ever in my mind, which I am right well assured your goodness would ne coveteth not to bring to pass. And therefore Christ forbid that ever I should so heinously offend and commit against Almighty God and the King's highness and sovereign lord, that by my mean Claims of or consent, so godly and ancient a foundation built and dediAbbey on cated in the honour of Saint Saviour of so noble and victorious the King a prince and one of the King's most noble progenitors, whose very body, together with the bodies of his dear and well-beloved queen and also the prince his son there lieth buried in honourable sepulture, and are had all three in perpetual memory with continual suffrages and commendations of prayers, should be utterly and irrecuperably decayed and undone, as it must needs of very necessity follow if any such resignation should now be had. Wherefore the whole premysses tenderly considered and deliberately perpended, right worshipfull sir, I doubt not but ye will continue your accustomed favour and benevolence which ye have always borne towards our poor monastery, and so doing ye shall not only please and content Almighty God our Saviour, but also bynde us to be your continual bedemen and pray to God during our lives for the prosperous estate of your good mastership long to endure with much increase of honour. Dated at our poor monastery aforesaid the xvjth day of this present month of March anno Domini 1535. "By your bedeman and daily oratour, "John, Abbot of Faversham."" Supp of Monast., Camd. Soc., p. 103. VI A. D. 1535-6 Impoverished as their houses had been by the CHAP extortion of the King, and hardly as they were pressed by the persecuting course which had lately been taken, there were doubtless many like this steadfast old Abbot of Faversham, who were determined to stand firm to the end, and not to give way before anything less than compulsory legislation. When the crash Was at came at last this good old man was driven out of the monastery which he had ruled for forty years, and in which he had most likely spent the whole of his adult life. But Cromwell and the King had other methods of worrying the monks and nuns of the greater houses into resignation, and some of these have been obscurely recorded in the traditions even of a Puritan age. The vexatious Injunctions were strictly imposed on all monasteries without exception by the visitors, who indeed were so rapid in their movements that they could have had little time for more than packing up plate and jewels, and leaving these Injunctions behind them. But the visitors, says Fuller, last driven out to the teries "Were succeeded with a second sort of public agents, but Spies sent working in a more private way, encouraging the members larger in monasteries to impeach one another: for seeing there was monasseldom such general agreement in any great convent, but that factions were found, and parties did appear therein, these emissaries made an advantageous use thereof. No abbey could have been so soon destroyed, but by cunning setting it against itself, and secret fomenting of their own divisions. Whereupon, many, being accused, did recriminate their accusers; and hopeless to recover their own innocency, pleased themselves by plunging others in the like guiltiness. Others, Self-accu. being conscious to themselves, prevented accusing by con- provoked fessing their faults, and those very foul ones. Insomuch that some have so much charity as to conceive that they made sations |