3, 4. Ominous Burning of Abbeys, often by Lightning. Bells no effectual Charm against Lightning.

We will conclude with their observation, as an ominous presage of abbeys' ruin, that there was scarce a great abbey in England, which (once at the least) was not burned down with lightning from heaven. 1. The monastery of Canterbury [was] burned anno 1145; and afterward again burned anno 1174.* 2. The abbey of Croyland twice burned. 3. The abbey of Peterborough twice set on fire.‡ 4. The abbey of St. Mary's in York burned. 5. The abbey of Norwich burned. 6. The abbey of St. Edmond's-Bury burned, and destroyed.§ 7. The abbey of Worcester burned. 8. The abbey of Gloucester was also burned. 9. The abbey of Chichester burned. 10. The abbey of Glastonbury burned. 11. The abbey of St. Mary in Southwark burned. 12. The church of the abbey of Beverley burned. 13. The steeple of the abbey of Evesham burned.

I will not, with Master Fox, infer from such casualties, that God was more offended with abbeys than other buildings; a natural cause presenting itself of such accidents; namely, because the highest structures (whatever they are) are the fairest marks for lightning and thunder; as if those active meteors took the usurpation of such aspiring buildings in distaste, for entering their territory, and for offering, without leave, to invade the marches of the middle region of the air. And, if mountains of God's own advancing thither, and placing there, pay dear for their honour, and frequently feel the weight of thunder-bolts falling upon them, feriunt summos fulmina montes; no wonder if artificial buildings of men's making (whatsoever they be,-palaces, or castles, or churches, or convents) have their ambition often humbled with thunder and lightning, which casually melt and consume them.

Only we will add, that such frequent firing of abbey-churches by lightning confuteth the proud motto, commonly, written on the bells in their steeples, wherein each bell entitled itself to a sixfold efficacy:

WALTERI WEEKs, Hovedeni, GUALTERI, COVENTR. FABIANI.

St. Edmond. GUIL. MALMESBUR.

† Ex Hist. INGULPHI.

1 Ex Chron. Peterb.

Ex Chronico

Vel, Fulgura.

Whereas, it plainly appears, that these abbey-steeples, though quilted with bells almost cap-à-pie, were not of proof against the sword of God's lightning. Yea, generally, when the heavens in tempests did strike fire, the steeples of abbeys proved often their tinder, whose frequent burning portended their final destruction; which now, God willing, we come to relate.

VII. OF THE ESSAYS AND OFFERS TO OVERTHROW ABBEYS BEFORE THEY TOOK EFFECT.

1-3. Orders of Friars alterable according to the Pleasures of their Founders. Particular Convents, on Misdemeanour, dissolvable. Whole Orders routed out by the Pope for their Faults.

GREAT buildings commonly crack before they fall, to give the dwellers therein warning to depart; so was it here in abbeys. But may we here, first, premise, as an introduction, that it was placed in the power and pleasure of princes and great persons, their founders, to displace and exchange particular Orders, as sometimes monks for nuns, and reciprocally nuns for monks; white for gray friars, and gray for white, as their fancy directed them: whereof we have plenty of instances. But all this made nothing to the loss of monkery in general; though sexes or colours of friars were altered, the same bells did hang still in the steeple, though rung in changes to content several people.

Secondly. Particular convents might be wholly dissolved upon their misdemeanour, as in Berkeley nunnery. Here a young man, left out of design by earl Godwin, dissembled himself to be sick, who, in short space, so acquitted himself amongst the votaries there, that all of them, with their abbess, (whose age might have been presumed a protection for her honesty,) were got with child :* upon complaint and proof whereof unto king Edward the Confessor, they were all driven out; and their nunnery, with large revenues, bestowed upon. earl Godwin, by the aforesaid king, who was then accounted patron of all abbeys, which, now fallen into his hands by this foul lapse, he bestowed as a lay-fee, upon this new owner, wholly altering the property thereof.

• De honestis onustas, de agnis lupus.-CAMDEN'S Brit, in Gloucestershire, out of Walterus Mapaus.

Thirdly. Whole religious Orders might by order from the pope be totally and finally extirpated. Here I pass by the fratres flagelliferi, or "scourging friars," religious bedlams, who used publicly to whip themselves in the market-place, making vellum of their own skins, thereon to write their follies in legible characters. I say, I omit them; afterwards put down by the pope himself: the rather, because I find them not in England, or elsewhere, endowed with considerable revenues. I will insist on the Templars, whose numerous and wealthy fraternity was, for their viciousness, by the pope, in the council of Vienne, dissolved all over Europe, and in England all or most of their land was given to the Knights Hospitallers.* This was a great shaking of all religious Orders, the plucking out of these chief threads, made a in the whole cloth; men

conceiving that in process of time the whole sheaf may be broken as well as the single arrows, seeing, perchance, other societies led lives not more religious, but less examined.

4,5. The first Stroke at the Root of Abbeys. The Objection of Covetousness against Abbeys (though not answered) evaded by Archbishop Chicheley.

But the first terrible blow in England given generally to all Orders, was in the lay parliament, as it is called, which did wholly Wickliffize, kept in the twelfth year of king Henry IV. wherein the nobles and commons assembled signified to the king,† that the temporal possessions of abbots, priors, &c. lewdly spent within the realm, would suffice to find and sustain one hundred and fifty earls, one thousand five hundred knights, six thousand two hundred esquires, one hundred hospitals, more than there were. But this motion was mauled with the king's own hand, who dashed it, personally interposing himself, contrary to that character which the jealous clergy had conceived of him, that, coming to the crown, he would be a great enemy to the church. But though Henry Plantagenet, duke of Lancaster, was no friend to the clergy, perchance to ingratiate himself with the people; yet the same Henry king of England, his interest being altered, to strengthen him with the considerable power of the clergy, proved a patron, yea, a champion, to defend them. However, we may say, that "now the axe is laid to the root of the tree" of abbeys; and this stroke for the present, though it was so far from hurting the body that it scarce pierced the bark thereof, yet bare attempts in such matters are important, as putting into people's heads a feasibility of the project, formerly conceived altogether impossible.

See Supplement of the "Holy War," chap. i.-iii.

THOMAS WALSINGHAM.

↑ Being heard to say, that princes had too little, and religious men too much.-HOLINSHED, page 514.

Few years after, namely, in the second year of king Henry V. another shrewd thrust was made at English abbeys, but it was finely and cleverly put aside by that skilful state-fencer Henry Chicheley, archbishop of Canterbury. For the former bill against abbeys in full parliament was revived when the archbishop minded king Henry of his undoubted title to the fair and flourishing kingdom of France. Hereat, that king, who was a spark in himself, was inflamed to that design by this prelate's persuasion and his native courage ran fiercely on the project, especially when clapped on with conscience and encouragement from a churchman in the lawfulness thereof: an undertaking of those vast dimensions, that the greatest covetousness might spread, and highest ambition reach itself, within the bounds thereof. If, to promote this project, the abbeys advanced, not only large and liberal, but vast and incredible sums of money, it is no wonder if they were contented to have their nails pared close to the quick, thereby to save their fingers. Over goes king Henry into France, with many martial spirits attending him; so that putting the king upon the seeking of a new crown kept the abbots' old mitres upon their heads; and monasteries, tottering at this time, were (thank a politic archbishop) refixed on the firm foundations; though this proved rather a reprieve than a pardon unto them, as will afterwards appear.

VIII. OF THE SUPPRESSION OF ALIEN PRIORIES.

1, 2. The Original of Priories Aliens.

NEXT followed the dissolving of alien priories, of whose first founding and several sorts something must be observed. When the kings of England by conquest or inheritance were possessed of many and great territories in France, (Normandy, Aquitaine, Picardy, &c.) many French monasteries were endowed with lands in England. For an English kitchen or larder doth excellently well with a French hall. And whilst foreigners' tongues slighted our island, (as barren in comparison of their own country,) at the same time they would lick their lips after the full fare which our kingdom afforded.

*

Very numerous were these cells in England relating to foreign abbeys, scattered all over the kingdom. One John Norbury erected two for his part, the one at Greenwich, the other at Lewisham in Kent. Yea, Roger de Poictiers, founded one in the remotest corner of the land, in the town of Lancaster. The richest of them all for annual income was that which Tuo Talbois built at Spalding in Lincolnshire,† giving it to the monks of Angiers in France,

CAMDEN'S Brit. in Lancashire.

↑ Idem, in Lincolnshire.

valued at no less than £878. 18s. 3d. of yearly revenue.* And it is remarkable, that as one of these priories was granted before the kings of England were invested with any dominion in France; (namely, Deerhurst in Gloucestershire,† assigned by the testament of Edward the Confessor to the monastery of St. Denys near Paris ;) so some were bestowed on those places in foreign parts, where our English kings never had finger of power, or foot of possession. Thus we read how Henry III. annexed a cell in Threadneedlestreet in London to St. Anthony in Vienne;‡ and near Charingcross there was another annexed to the lady Runciavall in Navarre. Belike, men's devotion, in that age, looked on the world as it lay in common, taking no notice how it was sub-divided into private principalities, but proceeded on that rule: "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof," 1 Cor. x. 28; and charity, though wandering in foreign parts, counted itself still at home, because dwelling on its proper pious uses.

3, 4. Alien Priories of two Natures.

These alien priories were of two natures: Some had monks with a prior resident in them, yet not conventual, but dative and removable ad nutum of the foreign abbey, to which they were subservient Others were absolute in themselves, who, though having an honorary dependence on, and bearing a subordination of respect unto, French abbeys, yet had a prior of their own, being an entire body of themselves to all purposes and intents:-the former not unlike stewards, managing profits for the behoof of their master, to whom they were responsible: the latter resembling the retainers at large, acknowledging a general reference, but not accountable unto them for the revenues they received. Now, both these kinds of priories peaceably enjoyed their possessions here, even after the revolt of those principalities from the crown of England; yet so that, during open hostility and actual war betwixt England and France, their revenues were seized and taken by the king, and restored again when amity was settled.

But king Richard II. and king Henry IV. not so fair as their predecessors herein, not only detained those revenues in time of peace, but also diverted them from their proper use, and bestowed them on some of their lay-servants. So that the crown was little enriched therewith; especially if it be true what Arundel archbishop of Canterbury averred in the House of Commons to the face of the Speaker, that these kings were not half a mark the wealthier for those rents thus assumed into their hands. And a synod of the clergy in the last of HARPSFIELD in Catal. Religiosarum Ædium, fol. 762. HARPSFIELD, ut prius, page 763.

Gloucestershire.

+ CAMDEN'S Brit. in Antiq. Brit. page 274.