CH. 10. fess the secret faults done amongst them, but only to a visitor of their own religion, and to October. that they were sworn, every one of them, on their first admission.'* A.D. 1535. Abbey of A little later the commissioners were at Fountains Abbey; and tourists, who in their daydreams among those fair ruins are inclined to complain of the sacrilege which wasted the houses of prayer, may study with advantage the following account of that house in the year which preceded its dissolution. The outward beautiful ruin was but the symbol and consequence of a moral ruin not so beautiful. The Abbot of Fountains,' we read in a joint letter of Legh and Leyton, had 'greatly dilapidated his house, [and] wasted the woods, notoriously keeping six women. [He is] defamed here,' they say, 'à toto populo, one day denying these articles, with many more, the next day confessing the same, thus manifestly incurring perjury.' Six days before the visitors' access to his Theft and monastery 'he committed theft and sacrilege, concommitted fessing the same. At midnight he caused his chaplain to seize the sexton's keys, and took out a jewel, a cross of gold with stones. One Warren, a goldsmith in the Chepe, was with him in his chamber at that hour, and there they stole out a great emerald, with a ruby. The said Warren made the abbot believe the ruby to be but a garnet, so that for this he paid nothing. For the emerald he paid but twenty pounds. He sold him also the plate without weight or ounces; how much sacrilege by the abbot. Leyton to Cromwell: Suppression of the Monasteries, p. 91. the abbot was deceived therein he cannot tell, for CH. 10. he is a very fool and miserable idiot.'* A.D. 1535. instructed inventories to bring superfluous Under an impression that frauds of this de- The visitors scription were becoming frequent, the government to make had instructed the commissioners to take inventories of the plate and jewels; and where they perty, and saw occasion for suspicion, to bring away what- away the ever seemed superfluous, after leaving a supply plate. sufficient for the services of the house and chapel. The misdemeanour of the Abbot of Fountains was not the only justification of these directions. Sometimes the plate was secreted. The Prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, was ac- False cused of having sent in a false return,† keeping made by back gold and precious stones valued at a thousand the abbots. pounds. Information was given by some of the brethren, who professed to fear that the prior would poison them in revenge. returns Norton Occasionally the monks ventured on rougher methods to defend themselves. Here is a small spark of English life while the investigation was in progress, lighted by a stray letter from an Scene at English gentleman of Cheshire. The lord chan- Abbey, in cellor was informed by Sir Piers Dutton, jus- Cheshire. tice of the peace, that the visitors had been at Norton Abbey. They had concluded their inspection, had packed up such jewels and plate as they purposed to remove, and were going away; when, the day being late and the weather foul, * Leyton and Legh to Cromwell: Suppression of the Monasteries, p. 100. Christopher Levyns to Crom well: Ibid. p. 90. But in this A.D. 1535. Cп. 10. they changed their minds, and resolved to spend the night where they were. In the evening, 'the abbot,' says Sir Piers, 'gathered together a great company, to the number of two or three hundred persons, so that the commissioners were in fear of their lives, and were fain to take a tower there; and therefrom sent a letter unto me, ascertaining me what danger they were in, and desiring me to come and assist them, or they were never likely to come thence. Which letter came to me about nine of the clock, and about two o'clock on the same night I came thither with such of my tenants as I had near about me, and found divers fires made, as well within the gates as without; and the said abbot had caused an ox to be killed, with other victuals, and prepared for such of his company as he had there. I used some policy, and came suddenly upon them. Some of them took to the pools and water, and it was so dark that I could not find them. Howbeit I took the abbot and three of his canons, and brought them to the king's castle of Hatton.'* If, however, the appropriation of the jewels led to occasional resistance, another duty which the commissioners were to discharge, secured them as often a warm and eager welcome. It was believed that the monastic institutions had furnished an opportunity, in many quarters, for the disposal of inconvenient members of families. Children of both sexes, it was thought, had been forced into abbeys and convents, at an age too *Sir Piers Dutton to the Lord Chancellor: ELLIS, third series, vol. iii. p. 42. young to have allowed them a free choice in the CH. 10. sacrifice of their lives. To all such, therefore, open. under 24, under 21, VOWS. the doors of their prison were to be thrown Monks On the day of visitation, when the brethren, and nuns or the sisterhood, were assembled, the visitors set free informed everywhere such monks as were under from their twenty-four, and such nuns as were under twentyone, that they might go where they pleased. To those among them who preferred to return to the world, a secular dress was given, and forty shillings in money, and they were restored to the full privileges of the laity. The opportunity so justly offered was passionately embraced. It was attended only. with this misfortune, that the line was arbitrarily drawn, and many poor wretches who found themselves condemned by the accident of a few more days or months of life to perpetual imprisonment, made piteous entreaties for an extension of the terms of freedom. At Fordham, in Cambridge- The monks shire, Dr. Legh wrote to Cromwell, 'the religious petition for persons kneeling on their knees, instantly with release. humble petition desire of God and the king and you, to be dismissed from their religion, saying they live in it contrary to God's law and their consciences; trusting that the king, of his gracious goodness, and you, will set them at liberty out of their bondage, which they are not able to endure, but should fall into desperation, or else run away.' 'It were a deed of charity,' he continued, fresh from the scene where he had witnessed the full misery of their condition, 'that they might live in that kind of living which might be most to the glory of God, the at Fordham Сн. A.D. 1535. CH. 10. quietness of their consciences, and most to the commonwealth, whosoever hath informed you to the contrary.'*, Similar expressions of sympathy are frequent in the visitors' letters. Sometimes the poor monks sued directly to the vicar-general, and Cromwell must have received many petitions as strange, as helpless, and as graphic, as this which follows. The writer was a certain Brother Beerley, a Benedictine monk of Pershore, in Worcestershire. It is amusing to find him addressing the vicar-general as his 'most reverend lord in God.' I preserve the spelling, which, however, will with some difficulty be found intelligible. Letter of a monk of เ 'We do nothing seyrch,' says this good Pershore to brother, 'for the doctryn of Chryst, but all fowCromwell. loys owr owne sensyaly and plesure. Also most Gracyus Lord, there is a secrett thynge in my conchons whych doth move mee to go owt of the relygyon, an yt were never so perfytt, whych no man may know but my gostly fader; the wych I supposs yf a man mothe guge [is] yn other yong persons as in me selfe. But Chryst saye nolite judicare et non judicabimini, therefore y wyll guge my nowne conschons fyrst-the wych fault ye shall know of me heyrafter more largyouslyand many other fowll vycys done amonckst relygyus men-not relygyus men, as y thynck they owt not to be cald, but dyssemblars wyth God. * Legh to Cromwell: Sup- have urged upon the king the dissolution of the abbeys and the marriage of the clergy, at this time inclined the other way. |