unlicensed CHAP utter ruin was to be effected, even the starving monks VI and their secular neighbours assisted in the work of A.D. 1538 spoliation. In Scarborough the In Scarborough the Bishop of Dover General found the black, white, and grey friars "so poor that plunder they have sold the stalls and parcloses in the church, so that nothing is left but the stone and glass, yet there is meetly good lead in these three places." In Warwickshire, writes London— ensues Contem count of 66 The poor people thoroughly in every place be so greedy upon these houses when they be suppressed, that by night and day, not only of the towns, but also of the country, they do continually resort as long as any door, window, iron, or glass, or loose lead remaineth in any of them. And if it were so done only where I go, the more blame might be laid to me, but it is universally that the people be thus greedy for iron, windows, doors, and lead."s Which testimony of the visitors themselves is curiously corroborated in the case of Roche Abbey by a subsequent writer, who says: "I demanded of my father, thirty years after the Suppression, porary ac- which had bought part of the timber of the church, and all reasons for the timber in the steeple, with the bell-frame, with others his plundering partners therein (in the which steeple hung eight, yea, nine bells, whereof the least but one could not be bought at this day for twenty pounds; which bells I did see hang there myself more than a year after the Suppression), whether he thought well of the religious persons and of the religion then used. And he told me, Yea: for, he said, I did see no cause to the contrary. Well, said I, then, how came it to pass, you was so ready to destroy and spoil the thing that you thought well of? What should I do? said he. Might I not, as well as others, have some profit of the spoil of the abbey ? for I did see all would away, and therefore I did as others did. Thus you may see that as well they who thought well of the religion then used, as they which thought otherwise could agree well 8 Ibid., 139. 7 Ellis' Orig. Letters, III. iii. 188. CHAP enough, and too well, to spoil them. Such a devil is covetousness and mammon! and such is the providence of God to punish sinners in making themselves instruments to punish A.D. 1539 themselves and all their posterity from generation to generation. For no doubt there hath been millions that have repented the thing since; but all too late."" to the last County after county was thus desolated, yet some A few of the more powerful monasteries, and especially House those whose mitred abbots sat in Parliament, hold out still remained comparatively untouched. It became necessary, therefore, to break down the force of their active resistance and, scarcely less, of their "dead-weight" by some signal example. Two successive Abbots of Colchester1 were executed in the year 1539, and also the Abbot of Reading, all three being Lords of Parliament: and perhaps these were not all who suffered at that time in terrorem. the final act of the tragedy was ushered in by a deed of horrible atrocity, which has left its mark in Somersetshire hearts to the present day, and which may be classed with such detestable acts as the execution of the aged Countess of Salisbury, Bishop Fisher, and Sir Thomas More. But of the Ab. bury The last Abbot of Glastonbury was Richard Execution Whiting. Why he was singled out for an example bot of is not clear: but probably to show forcibly the over- Glastonpowering 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 34. Ellis' Orig. Letters, III. iii. 1 Thomas Marshall in January, and John Beach in December. CHAP fallen the others would be without hope, and an easy VI prey. He was an old man, about eighty years of A.D. 1539 age, and had been long known for his practical piety and his great-souled hospitality. Every Wednesday and Friday the poor of the neighbourhood came in crowds to his gate, and as many as five hundred of His high the county gentry sometimes sat down at his table; while he had the sons of the latter living in the monastery, to the number of three hundred, for the purpose of an education such as is now given at Eton or Winchester, besides many other youths of a lower rank whom he gratuitously supported with the same object as a preparation for Oxford and Cambridge. character and influ ence tors ex and search his house The visitors (or inquisitors, as Englishmen would call them elsewhere than in England) came suddenly to Glastonbury, at ten o'clock one morning at the end of September 1539, and found that the Abbot was at an outlying residence called Sharpham, about a mile distant from the abbey. Thither they hurried as quickly as they could, and finding the old The visi- abbot in his study, began to examine him on subamine him, jects of which he appears to have known nothing, and therefore could confess nothing: "and for that his answer was not then to our purpose, we advised him to call to his remembrance that which he had as then forgotten, and so declare the truth." They brought him back to the abbey; and when the old man had gone to bed at night, began "to search his study for letters and books: and found in his study secretly laid, as well a written book of arguments against the divorce of his King's Majesty and the lady-dowager, which we take to be a great matters" (though poor Catherine had been dead four years!), "as also divers pardons, copies of bulls, and the VI counterfeit life of Thomas Becket in print; but we CHAP could not find any letter that was material." Having thus found an old pamphlet among the litter of the A.D. 1539 abbot's study, and a life of Becket in his "Golden Legend," they considered themselves provided with What they ample materials for a charge of treason, but thought prove him proper to put him through another examination, his a traitor answers, they write to Cromwell, clearly making appear his cankered and traiterous heart and mind against the King's Majesty and his succession." Then they sent him up to London to the Tower, apologizing to Cromwell for their leniency, by explaining that the abbot is "a very weak man and sickly." This apology is succeeded by a significant statement, which shows what the real object of the commissioners was: found to business at "As yet we have neither discharged servant nor monk; but Their true now the abbot being gone, we will, with as much celerity as we Glastonmay, proceed to the dispatching of them. We have in money bury £300 and above; but the certainty of plate and other stuff there as yet we know not, for we have not had opportunity for the same, but shortly we intend (God willing) to proceed to the same; whereof we shall ascertain your Lordship so shortly as we may. This is also to advertise your Lordship that we have found a fair chalice of gold, and divers 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."s A week later they write "We have daily found and tried out both money and plate • In Stevens' History of Monasteries, i. 452, it is asserted that the searchers themselves brought in this little book against the di vorce without Whiting's know- 3 Supp. of Mon., Camd. Soc., p. VI CHAP hid and mured up in walls, vaults, and other secret places, as well by the abbot as other of the convent, and also conveyed A.D. 1539 to divers places in the country. . . . At our first entry into the treasure house and vestry also we neither found jewels, They rifle plate, nor ornaments sufficient to serve a poor parish church, the abbey whereof we could not a little marvel: and thereupon immediately made so diligent enquiry and search, that with vigilant labour we much improved the same, and have recovered again into our hands both money, plate, and ornaments of the church. How much plate we know not, for we had no leisure yet to weigh the same; but we think it of a great value, and we increase it more every day, and shall do as we suppose, for our time here being. We assure your Lordship that the abbot and the monks aforesaid had embezzled and stolen as much plate and adornments as would have sufficed to have begun a new abbey: what they meant thereby, we leave it to your judgment. Whether the King's pleasure shall be to execute his laws upon the said four persons, and to minister justice, according to their desert, or to extend his mercy toward them, and what his majesty's pleasure is, it may please your Lordship to advertise us thereof."* The ab bot's real crime in their eyes On the 2nd of October the same commissioners, Pollard, Moyle, and Layton, write that they have discovered divers and sundry treasons committed by the abbot, which they have noted in a book accompanying their letter. The real "treason" committed by the abbot and his brethren was that of endeavouring to save the treasures dedicated to God from the hands of the King and courtiers by concealing them. The same thing is said to have been done in other places; and at Durham there is a tradition (known also on the Continent), that the jewels and plate of the cathedral still remain in their place of concealment. This Supp. of Mon., Camd. Soc., p. made to discover this place of concealment in the year 1867. |
