miserable Fugitives saith the Story pa. 79 80. Dom. Touching their Issue I find that Fitz-Vrs fled into Ireland and I heard there that the Wild-Irish and Rebellious Family of Mac-Mahunde in the North Parts is of that Lineage The Family of another of them is at this Day prosecuted with a Fable if it be so that continueth the Memory of this Impiety for in Gloucestershire it is yet reported that wheresoever any of them Travelleth the Wind is commonly in their Faces The Quadripartite History call'd Quadrilogus printed at Paris An. 1495. saith The Murderers after this Horrible Fact rode that Night to a Manour of the Archbishops named there corruptly Sumantingues forty Miles Leucas distant from Canterbury lib. 3. c. 20. and that being Men of great Possessions active Soldiers and in the strength of their Age yet now they became like Men beside themselves stupid amaz'd and distracted repenting entirely of what they had done and for Penance took their way to the Holy-Land But Sir Will. Tracy being come to the City of Cossantia in Sicily and lingring there fell into an horrible Disease so that the parts of his Body rotted whilst he lived and his Flesh being dissolved by the Putrefaction himself did by piece-meal pull it off and cast it away leaving the Sinews and Bones apparent In this misery this wretched Murderer as it was testified by the Bishop of that City who was then his Confessor ended his Days but very penitently His other Complices lived not long after for all the four Murderers were taken away within three Years after the Fact committed Dicti Libri lib. 4. c. 71. RICHARD I. IT appeareth by a MS. Copy of Mat. Paris which I have wanting much of that which is Published and having much which the Published wanteth that King Richard I. had spoiled some Church of the Chalice and Treasure and that it was thereupon conceived that the revengeful Hand of God pursued him to his Death First by tickling his covetous Mind with the report of hidden Treasure found by one Vidomer a Viscount of Britain in France which he the King claim'd to belong to him by his Prerogative And then in stirring him to raise War against the Viscount for it and to besiege him in the Castle and Town of Chalus in the Countrey of Limosin whither the Viscount was fled and had carried the Treasure as it were to train the King to that fatal place importing the name of a Chalice But here it so fell out that the King being repelled in his Assault and surveying the Ground for undermining the Town-Walls one Peter Basil struck him in the left Arm or about the Shoulder with a Quarrel from a Cross-Bow out of the Castle The King little regarding his Wound pursued the Siege so as within twelve Days he took the Town and found little Treasure in it But his Wound in the mean time â—estering deprived him of his Life April 9. in the tenth Year of his Reign being about 44 Years old Hereupon a Satyrist of that time wrote this tart Dystichon related in the MS. Mat. Par. Christe tui Chalicis praedo fit praeda Chalucis Aere brevi rejicis qui tulit aera Crucis i. e. He that did prey upon thy Chalices Is now a prey unto the Chaluces And thou O Christ rejectest him as Dross That robb'd thee of the Treasure of thy Cross. King Edward I. Anno Regni 23. took all the Priories Aliens and their Goods into his Hands allowing every Monk 18 d. a Week reserving the overplus to his Treasury and Wars And in Anno 1295. Regni ejusdem caused all the Monasteries in England to be search'd and the Money in them to be brought up to London He also seiz'd into his Hands all the Lay-Fees because they refused to pay to him such a Tax as he demanded Stow in dicto An. p. 317. Mat. Westm. in An. 1296. saith it was a fifth part of their Revenues And for that being prohibited by the Council of Lions upon pain of ... they refused he seiz'd all their Lands and Goods as well of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Robert Winchelsea as other and put them out of his Protection c. Godwin p. 148. Presently after this the King's Forces were overthrown in Gascony Mat. Westm. p. 408. And tho' he prosper'd in his Wars against Scotland and wholly subdued it yet shortly after Rob. le Bruce recovered it from him and overthrew his Son Edward II. with a mighty Army at Burnocksbourne from whence escaping by flight he after suffer'd great Afflictions and Calamities by means of his own Wife and Barons and was at last Deposed Imprisoned and Murther'd Giraldus Cambrensis a good Author reporteth that one Hur Chaplain to William de Bruce a great Lord in Wales in the time of King John of his Chapel of St. Nicholas in the Castle of Aberhodni did Dream in a Night that one bid him tell his Lord that had taken away the Land given in Alms to that Chapel and presumed to detain it that Hoc aufert fiscus quod non accipit Christus Dabis impio Militi quod non vis dare Sacerdoti The King's Exchequer shall take that from thee that thou wilt not suffer Christ to enjoy and the impious Soldier that which thou wilt not permit unto the Priest The Words are St. Austin's in Serm. de Temp. spoken against them that invade Tithes and Church Rights and that which is there threatned against them saith Giraldus hapned most certainly in a very short time to this With-holder Vidimus quippe nostris diebus c. For we have seen saith he in our own Days and found certainly by undoubted verity that Princes and great Men Usurpers of Ecclesiastical Possessions and chiefly by name King H. II. Reigning in our time and tainted above others with this Vice a little Leven corrupting the whole Lump and new Evils falling thereby daily upon them to have consum'd all their whole Treasure giving that unto the hired Soldiers which they ought to have given unto the Priest He mentioneth not what it was particularly that hapned to Bruce but commiserating him as a singular good Man runneth out into a long Commendation both of him and his Wife The rest therefore of this Tragedy I must supply out of Mat. Par. who in An. 1209. reporteth thus That King John doubting the Fidelity of his Nobles sent a Troop of Soldiers to require of them their Sons or Nephews or near Kinsmen for Hostages Coming to Will Bruce's and demanding his Sons the Lady Maud his Wife in the humor of a Woman preventing her Husband said I will deliver no Sons of mine to your King John for that he beastly Murdered his Nephew Arthur whom he ought to have preserved Honourably Her Husband reproved her and offer'd to submit himself to the Tryal of his Peers if he had offended the King but that would not serve The King understanding it sent his Soldiers in all haste a privily as he could to
which we omit The said Monasteries were given to the King by authority of divers Acts of Parliament but no provision was herein made for the said Project or any part thereof Only ad favendum populum these Possessions were given to the King his Heirs and Successors to do and use therewith his and their own Wills To the Pleasure of Almighty God and the Honour and Profit of the Realm Now observe the Catastrophe In the same Parliament of 32. Henry VIII when the great and opulent Priory of St. Johns of Jerusalem was given to the King he demanded and had a Subsidy both of the Clergy and Laity and the like he had in 34. Henry VIII and in 37. Henry VIII he had another Subsidy And since the dissolution of the said Monasteries he exacted divers Loans and against Law receiv'd the same Thus the great Judge the Lord Coke doth severely censure the ill-doings under Henry VIII and sheweth that notwithstanding the infinite Wealth in Money Lands and other Riches which came to the King by the dissolutions yet the People were burthen'd with more Taxes Subsidies and Loans than ever in former Times That it fully appeareth that as the goodly pretences to free the People from Subsidies and several Payments were but empty and vain pretences only ad favendum populum to deceive and abuse the People So in our late long Parliament many publick Projects and Pretences were propos'd and the Presbyterian party were zealous to advance the Throne of Christ and the Tribunal of Christ with all his holy Ordinances in full force as their Language did propose it But it was quickly discover'd that no such Matters were truly intended but only the Land of the Church must be taken to maintain Armies to bring in the Scots-Highlanders Red-shanks Goths and Vandals to subvert the King his Crown and Dignity and in the end to take all the Crown-lands and to divide them amongst the Soldiers and others at their pleasures But the dismal Events and tragical Mischiefs that have happen'd might have been foreseen and prevented but that most Men are ignorant of our own Histories and Chronicles as well as of foreign Histories and Examples wherein they might easily have observ'd the fearfull ends that have follow'd upon the like doings both in our own Kingdoms and other neighbouring Nations as France Germany and Bohemia especially within these last forty Years For as Solomon saith There is no new thing under the Sun For the like hath happen'd often both at home and abroad but that Men will take no warning by any Examples but persist in their wicked and sacrilegious Attempts tho' in the end they bring confusion and destruction upon themselves Whereas it is said that when Henry V. suppress'd the Priories Aliens a good part of their Lands was given to other Religious Houses both by that King and his Son Henry VI. who bestow'd a great part of those Lands upon Colleges in the Universities it is true but in our Reformation there is no such care taken to convert any part of the church-Church-lands to pious and publick Uses but the Cormorants devour all They spake also of maintaining many Hospitals for relieving of maim'd Soldiers in our present time there is an infinite Number of maim'd Soldiers but no Hospitals provided for them whereas they should have provided some good Number and withall an hundred Bedlams to entertain pious zealous and outragious Puritans who have lost their Wits and Senses and are become extremely mad with distemper'd Zeal as the Anabaptists and Fifth-Monarchy-men Quakers and the rest of the Rabble Humfrey Duke of Glocester coming to the Parliament at St. Edmundsbury and lodging there in a place as Leland saith sacred to our Saviour he was by the Lord John Beaumont then High-Constable of England the Duke of Buckingham the Duke of Somerset and others arrested of High-Treason suggested and being kept in Ward in the same place was the Night following viz. 24. Febr. cruelly murther'd by De la Pole Duke of Suffolk Some judg'd him to have been strangled some to have a hot Spit thrust up his Fundament some to be smother'd between two Feather-beds But all indifferent Persons saith Hall might well understand that he died some violent Death Being found dead in his Bed his Body was shewed to the Lords and Commons as though he had died of a Palsie or Imposthume which others do publish But it falleth out that this Lord John Vicount Beaumont and the Duke of Buckingham were both slain in the Battle of Northampton 38. Henry VI. The Duke of Somerset taken Prisoner at the Battle of Exham An. 1462. and there beheaded The Duke of Suffolk being banisht the Land was in passing the Seas surpriz'd by a Ship of the Duke of Exeter's and brought back to Dover-Road where in a Cock-boat at the Commandment of the Captain his Head was stricken off and both Head and Body left on the Shore CHAP. VII Of the great Sacrilege and Spoil of Church-lands committed by Henry VIII His promise to employ the Lands to the advancement of Learning Religion and Relief of the Poor The preamble of the Statute 27. Henry VIII to that purpose which is omitted in the printed Statutes The neglect of that Promise The great increase of Lands and Wealth that came to the King by the Dissolution Quadruple to the Crown-lands The Accidents which happen'd to the King and his Posterity to the Agents under him as the Lord Cromwell and others to the Crown and the whole Kingdom and to the new Owners of the Lands A View of the Parliaments that passed the Acts of the 27 and 31 of Henry VIII and of the Lords that voted in them and what happened to them and their Families The Names of the Lords in the 27 of Henry VIII omitted in the Record but those of the 31 Henry VIII are remaining being most the same Men. The Names of the Lords Spiritual in those Parliaments and the great Spoil of Libraries and Books The Names of the Lords Temporal in those Parliaments with the Misfortunes in their Families and Dignity abated What hath happened to the Crown it self by the loss of Crown-lands What hath happened to the Kingdom in general and the great Injury done to the Poor The Mischief of the Tenure of Knights-service in Capite which by Act is to be reserved upon all Church-lands that pass from the Crown The ancient Original of Wardship from the Goths and Lombards the abuse of it amongst us The prediction of Egebred an old Hermite The unfortunate Calamities of the Palsgrave and other Princes of Germany by invading the Patrimony of the Church How carefull the Heathens were not to misuse the things consecrated to their Gods King James's Letter to the University of Oxon about Impropriations I Am now come off the Rivers into the Ocean of Iniquity and Sacrilege where whole thousands of Churches and Chappels dedicated to the Service of God in the same manner that
THE History and Fate OF SACRILEGE Discover'd by EXAMPLES OF SCRIPTURE OF HEATHENS AND OF CHRISTIANS From the beginning of the World continually to this Day By Sir HENRY SPELMAN Kt. Wrote in the Year 1632. A Treatise omitted in the late Edition of his Posthumous Works and now Published for the TERROR OF EVIL DOERS LONDON Printed for John Hartley over against Gray's Inn in Holborn 1698. DEO ECCLESIAE ET RELIGIONI The Priests are appointed to discern between Holy and Vnholy Clean and Vnclean In Sacrilegos Est Homini laqueus sacra vorare Dei Prov. 20. 25. ANgustam ingreditur phialam macilentior anguis Furtivóque oleum devorat ore sacrum Intumuit venter Saturi prohibétque recessus Reddiderat praedam quam tulit usque suam Evomit at factus jam furto pinguior ipsa Pinguedo miserum prosiliisse negat Ingemit carnem jejunans conterit alto Singultu donec fiat ut ante macer Sic tandem egreditur Gens ô male conscia rerum Sacrarum exemplum sumite ab angue pium H. Sp. THE PREFACE THERE needs no more to recommend this Tract to every good English Christian than the Nature of the Subject and the Name of the Author A Subject of the greatest Importance to the Honour of God and the decent Exercise of Religion An Author of profound Learning and true Integrity who devoted his Studies to the more particular Service of this Church and Nation But for the Character of this honour'd Writer and the full Account of his excellent Works I refer to the Life of Sir Henry Spelman lately prefix'd to the elegant Edition of his Posthumous Works by the well known and well deserving Mr. Gibson who has Candor enough to think it a pardonable Trespass if I transcribe from Him only so much as relates to this particular Treatise Another Work saith he in Vindication of the Rights of the Church is still in Manuscript with this Title The History and Fate of Sacrilege discover'd by Examples of Scripture of Heathens and of Christians from the beginning of the World continually to this Day by Sir Henry Spelman Kt. Anno Dom. 1632. The Account which the Oxford Antiquary gives of it is this In the Year 1663. Mr. Stephens began to print the History of Sacrilege designed and began by Sir Henry Spelman and left to Mr. Stephens to perfect and publish But that Work sticking long in the Press both the Copy and Sheets printed off perisht in the grand Conflagration of London 1666. I have been told by a learned Divine since a Prelate of our Church that Mr. Stephens was forbidden to proceed in an Edition of that Work lest the Publication of it should give Offence to the Nobility and Gentry But whatever was the occasion of its continuing in the Press till the Fire of London it has been taken for granted that the whole Book was irrecoverably lost and I was satisfied of the same upon Mr. Wood's Relation of the matter till examining some Manuscripts which were given to the Bodleian Library by the late Bishop of Lincoln I met with a Transcript of some part of it Vpon further inquiry I found other parts in other places so that now the Work seems to be pretty entire He begins with a general definition of Sacrilege then reckons up various kinds of it as to Places Persons and Things after which he enumerates at large the many signal Punishments of it among Heathens Jews and Christians describing more particularly the Instances of that kind which have formerly happen'd in our Nation Then he proceeds to give an Account of the attempt upon the Lands of the Clergy in Henry the IV's time and how it was disappointed afterwards he descends to the Suppression of Priories Alien in the Reign of Henry the Fifth and so on to the General Dissolution under Henry the Eighth Here he shews us the several steps of the Dissolution the King 's express Promise to employ the Lands to the Advancement of Learning Religion and Relief of the Poor with the remarkable Calamities that ensued upon the King his Posterity his principal Agents in that Affair the new Owners of the Lands and the Lords who promoted and Pass'd the Dissolution Act concluding with a Chapter which contains The particulars of divers Monasteries in Norfolk whereof the late Owners since the Dissolution are extinct or decay'd or overthrown by Misfortunes and grievous Accidents This continues he is a short account of a large Work wherein the judicious Author is far from affirming that their being concern'd in this Affair either as Promoters of the Alienation or Possessors of the Lands was directly the occasion of the Calamities that ensued On the contrary he declares more than once that he will not presume to judge of the secret methods of God's Providence but only relates plain Matters of Fact and leaves every Man to make his own Application tho' it must be granted that many of the Instances and those well asserted are so terrible in the Event and in the Circumstances so surprising that no considering Man can well pass them over without a serious Reflection This Discourse might have appear'd among his other Posthumous Works but that some Persons in the present Age would be apt to interpret the mention of their Predecessors in such a manner and upon such an occasion as an unpardonable Reflection upon their Families To this fair account of the late Editor I have nothing more to add but This that in him there might be prudential Reasons to exclude this Treatise from the Volume of Reliquiae Spelmannianae But it has happen'd that a true Copy of the Manuscript is now fall'n into the Hands of it seems a less discreet Person who will e'en let the World make what Vse of it they please But to prevent all suspicion of any indirect dealings in Mr. G I do him this Justice to averr That he is no way either by Advice or Consent or so much as Connivence privy to the Publication of it There is one other Office of Respect due to the Ashes of the Venerable Author which is to observe that his accuteness of Thought and propriety of Style and other unaffected Talents of his Mind and Pen are not to be measured only by this one Performance for indeed this History of Sacrilege seems the most Abortive of all his other Posthumous Works At least as we now find it we have but the rough Draught of some Noble Structure which he had wisely projected within himself to be improv'd and compleated at his own leisure and therefore the Abruptness here and the Prolixness there and the many little defaults of Language and Connexion wou'd derogate from so great a Hand but that the ruder Stroaks of some few Artists will be ever more admir'd than the finisht Pieces of several Others THE HISTORY OF SACRILEGE CHAP. I. SECT I. The Definition of Sacrilege with the several Kinds thereof manifested out of Scripture together with the Punishments following
apprehend Will. de Bruce and his whole Family but he having Intelligence of it fled with his Wife Children and Kinsmen into Ireland whither the King coming afterward besieged his Wife and his Son William with his Wife in a Munition in Methe and having taken them they privily escaped to the Island of May where being again recovered and brought unto him he now bound them surely and sent them to Windsor-Castlâ— and there by his Commandment they all died miserably famished William himself the Father escaping into France died also shortly after and was buried at Paris leaving all according to St. Austin's Words to the King's Extortioners pag. 218 221. What Reax King John kept among Churches is generally well known Yet I find not that either he destroyed or profaned any of them otherwise than by rifling of their Wealth and persecuting the Clergy as his Enemies To say truth they were not his Friends But the last Riot that he committed among them was in Suffolk and Norfolk as he brought his Army that way to waste the Lands of the Barons his Enemies and to pass by the Town of Lyn which stood faithful to him when the most of England had forsaken him into the North parts Having lodg'd there to his great Content and taking his Journey Spoliis onustus opimis over the Washes when he came upon the Sands of Wellstream a great part of his Sacrilegious Army with the Spoils he had taken and his Treasure Plate Jewels Horses and Carriages were all drowned So that it was judg'd saith the History to be a punishment by God that the Spoil which had been gotten and taken out of Churches should perish and be lost by such means together with the Spoilers Stow reporteth That the Earth opened in the midst of the Waves on the Marsties and the Whirlpit of the deep so swallowed up both Men and Horses that none escaped to bring King John Tidings For he with his Army going before escap'd more happily than Pharaoh but very narrowly with his Life especially if it were any Happiness to live in that miserable Condition he was now brought to having lost his Treasure and Fortunes at the very time wherein above all other he had most need of them as flying from his Enemy Lewis the Dauphin of France call'd in by his Subjects to take the Crown and possessing peaceably the City and Tower of London the Cities of Canterbury and Winchester with all the Castles of Kent except Dover which could not hold out and all the Barons in a manner with the Citizens of London and Winchester having sworn him Fealty and done him Homage as also the King of Scots for the Lands he held of the King of England who likewise had subdued all Northumberland except Barnard-Castle to him If after all this I say it were any Happiness to live yet enjoy'd he that miserable Happiness but a very short time for whether by Poyson given him at Swinsted-Abbey as the common report is or by a Surfeit taken with eating Peaches accompany'd with an intolerable Grief for his Losses as others deliver it he died about five or six Days after at Newark-Castle and wanting all civil Lamentation was presently so spoil'd by his Servants who fled every Man his way as they left nothing worth the Carriage to cover his dead Carcass Discite O Reges sacratae parcere turbae Robert Fitz-Walter so great a Baron in the time of King John that Mat. Paris saith of him Cui vix aliquis Comes in Anglia tum temporis potuit comparari was a grievous Enemy to the Monastery of St. Alban and prosecuting it with many Injuries did among others besiege the Priory of Binham in Norfolk a Cell of St. Albans as if it were a Castle and constrain'd the Monks there to extream Famine for that John the Abbot of St. Albans had removed Thomas the Prior of Binham and put another in his room without the assent of the said Robert who was Patron of the Priory and a singular Friend of Thomas The Complaint hereof being brought to the King he presently sent Forces to remove and apprehend the Besiegers but they having notice thereof departed Mat. Paris wondreth at the Revengeful wrath of which thereupon fell on Robert Fitz-Walter From that time saith he he never wanted manifest pursuit of Enemies or the afflictions of Infirmities All that he had is Confiscate and during the Life of King John he liv'd in Exile and Vagrant suffering great Adversities and Misfortunes And tho'King Hen. III. granted Peace to all yet did he never recover fully his Favour but died Dishonourable and Infamous Thus Mat. Paris in Vita Joh. Abbat S. Albani xxi MS. Falcasius de Brent a Valiant and Powerful Baron that on the part of King John grievously afflicted the Barons his Adversaries and all England beside pulled down the Church of St. Paul at Bedford to have the Stones and Materials thereof for the Building and Fortifying his Castle of Bedford He fell afterward in the ... Year of Hen. III. to be Fined before the Justices Itinerant at Dunstable a 100 l. a-piece for thirty forcible Entries and Disseissins made by him upon divers Men in all at 3000 l. Upon this he attempted by his Brethren and Followers to have taken the Justices sitting in Court and to imprison them in his Castle at Bedford But they all save Henry de Braybrock escaped him they Imprison'd and his Wife complaining thereon to the King and Parliament then sitting at Northampton they all set all other Business a-part and with all the Power they could make went and besieged the Castle which was to the utmost admirably defended against them and to the extream loss of the Assailants Yet by raising a Wooden-Tower close by it which they call Malvicine it was at length taken the Justice delivered 24 hang'd and his Brethren Himself being escap'd lost all his Possessions and whatsoever else he had But for the great Service he had done King John his Life upon his submission was pardon'd and he banished yet Vengeance still pursued him for he died by Poyson I must not forget a memorable Relation which Matthew Paris further maketh touching this matter The Abbess of Helnestene hearing that Falcasius had pull'd down St. Paul's Church to build his Castle caus'd the Sword which was in the Hand of the Image of St. Paul to be taken out of it and would not suffer it to be restor'd till now that he had so worthily reveng'd himself Whereupon one writ thus Perdidit in mense Falco tam fervidus ense Omne sub saevo quicquid quaesivit ab aevo The fierce Sir Falco ere one Month was run Lost all the Wealth that in his Life he won William Earl of Pembroke sirnam'd The great Earl Marshal Tutor of King Henry 3. took by force of War two Mannors belonging to the Church and Bishoprick of Fernes in Ireland The Bishop a Godly Man requir'd Restitution and failing of it
Clergy had so disproportionable a share by way of excess in the Lands of the Kingdom yet when in 17 Edw. II. it came to the point that the Order of the Templars for their wickedness was overthrown the Parliament then wherein many of those no doubt that made the Statute of Mortmain were present would not give the Lands and Possessions of the Templars to the King or the Lords of whom they were holden but ordain'd that they should go to the Order of the Hospital of St. John's of Jerusalem then lately erected for the defence of Christendom and the Christian Religion Edward le Bruce brother to Robert le Bruce King of Scots invadeth the North parts of Ireland with 6000 Men and accompanied with many great persons of the Nobility conquer'd the Earldom of Ulster gave the English many overthrows and prevail'd so victoriously that he caus'd himself to be crown'd King of Ireland His Soldiers in the mean time burn Churches and Abbies with the People whom they found in the same sparing neither Man Woman nor Child And most wickedly entring into other Churches spoil'd and defac'd the same of all such Tombs Monuments Plate Copies and other Ornaments as they found there He thus prevailing and the Irish much revolting to him the Archbishop of Armagh blesseth and encourageth the English Army against him Whereupon they joyn'd battle overthrew the whole Power of the Scots slew 2000 of their Men and amongst them this their King Edward le Bruce himself King Edw. III. to begin his Wars with France in An. 1337. taketh all the Treasure that was laid up in the Churches throughout England for the defence of the Holy Land Speed p. 190. And whereas there were anciently in England many Cells and Houses of Religion 110 they were counted and more belonging to greater Monasteries beyond the Seas fraught with Aliens and Strangers especially French-men and those of the Orders of Clunis and Cistertien King Edward III. at his entry into his French Wars An. 1337 Regni 12. partly fearing that they might hold intelligence with his Enemies but seeking chiefly to have their Wealth toward the payment of his Soldiers confiscated their Goods and Possessions letting their Priories and Lands to farm for Rent and selling some of them right out to others of his Subjects Yet like a Noble and Religious Prince touch'd with remorse when the Wars were ended viz. An. 1361 regni 35. he granted them all save those few that he had put away back again unto them by his Letters Patents as freely as they had formerly enjoy'd them And divers of those that were purchas'd by his Subjects were by them new-founded and given back to Religious Uses This act of the King 's was a precedent of singular Piety yet was it but a lame Offering not an Holocaust He gave back the Possessions but he retain'd the Profits which he had taken for 23 Years Speed p. 211. King John whom they so much condemn did more than this if he had done it as willingly He restor'd the Lands with the Damages But let not this good King want the charitable Commendation due unto his Piety though having dipt his Hands in this We be driven by the course of our Argument to observe what after befell to him and his Off-spring There be some things saith ... are sweet in the Mouth but bitter in the Belly pleasant at the beginning but woful in the end If these Priories and their Churches were of that nature the sequel verifies the Proverb The middle part of the King's Life was most fortunate and victorious yea all the while that these things were in his Hands even as if God had bless'd him as he did Obed-Edom 1 Sam. 6. 10. whilst the Ark was in his House and had the King then dy'd he had been a most glorious pattern of earthly Felicity But the Wheel turn'd and his Oriental Fortunes became Occidental The Peace he had concluded with France for the solace of his Age brake out again into an unfortunate War Many of his Subjects there rebell Gascony in effect is lost Afflictions at home fall upon him in sequence his Son Lionel Duke of Clarence dieth without Issue-male and when he had greatest need of his renowned Son the Prince of Wales miracle of Chivalry and the Anchor of his Kingdom him even then did God take from him his Court and Nobles discontented and in Faction himself and all things much misgovern'd by his Son the Duke of Lancaster and others of that part who by the Parliament are therefore remov'd from him and by him recall'd notwithstanding to the grief of all the Kingdom Thus he dieth leaving his unweildy Scepters to the feeble Arms of a Child of Eleven Years old King Richard II. whose lamentable History for the honour of Kings is best unspoken of But so unfortunate he was among his other Calamities that he was not only deposed by his unnatural Subjects but imprison'd and murther'd dying without Issue and leaving an Usurper possessor of his Kingdoms which kindled such Fuel of Dissention as consum'd almost all the Royal Line and Ancient Nobility of the Kingdom by the Civil War between the Houses of York and Lancaster To return to the Restitution made by King Edw. III. of the Priories-Alien An Historian termeth it A rare Example of a just King it being seldom seen that Princes let go any thing whereon they have once fasten'd But this King having made a Door in this manner into the freedom and possession of the Church all the Power he had either ordinarily or by Prerogative could not now so shut it up but that this Precedent would for ever after be a Key to open it at the pleasure of Posterity which was well seen not long after For in the Parliament An. 9. of King Richard II. The Knights and Burgesses with some of the Nobility being in a great rage as John Stow saith against the Clergy for that William Courtney the Archbishop would not suffer them to be charged in Subsidy by the Laity exhibited a Petition to the King that the Temporalities might be taken from them saying That they were grown to such Pride that it was Charity and Alms to take them from them to compell them thereby to be more meek and humble And so near the Parliament-men thought themselves the point of their desire that one promised himself thus much of this Monastery another so much of another Monastery And I heard saith Tho. Walsingham one of the Knights deeply swear that of the Abbey of St. Albans he would have a thousand Marks by the Year of the Temporalities But the King hearing the inordinate crying out on the one side and the just defence on the other deny'd his consent and commanded the Bill to be cancell'd Stow p. 479. Two valiant Esquires John Shakel and Robert Hauley having taken the Earl of Dene Prisoner at the Battel of Nazers in Spain and receiv'd his Son Hostage for performing Conditions between
at Noon Then the storm being ended the Irish by Boats fetch'd them to their Houses and reliev'd them It is said That Sir John Arundel lost in this storm besides his Life 52 Suits of very rich Apparel much princely stuff with his great Horse and other Horses and things of price to the value of Ten thousand Marks and twenty five other ships which followed him with Men Horses and other Provision all perishing with him Touching the residue not guilty of this Out-rage and Sacrilege Sir Thomas Piercy Sir Hugh Calverley Sir William Elmham and the rest of the Army they were far and near dispers'd on the Seas with the same dangers but it pleased God to preserve them Yet as soon as the storm was ended a new Misfortune fell upon Sir Tho. Piercy for being weak and weather-beaten with all his Company a Spanish Man of War now setteth upon him singled from the rest of the Navy and drives him to bestir himself as he could which he did so happily as at last he took the Spaniard and bringing him home brought also the occasion of double Joy one for his safety the other for his victory And then pawning that ship for 100 l. he presently furnish'd himself forth again and with as great Joy arriv'd safely at Brest whereof he was one of the Captains with Sir Hugh Calverly and thus supply'd that charge also very fortunately Sir Hugh Calverley also and Sir William Elmham with the rest of those Ships return'd safely into other parts and by the great Mercy of God lost not either Man Horse or any other thing in all this so furious a Tempest All this is much largerly related by Tho. Walsingham in An. 1379 p. 231. seq Though the Attempts of Rebels and Traitors be usually suppress'd by the Power of the Prince yet that notorious Rebel Wat Tyler and his Confederates prevail'd so against King Richard II. that neither his the King's Authority nor the Power of the Kingdom could resist them insomuch as they became Lords of the City and Tower of London and had the King himself so far in their disposition as they got him to come and go to do and forbear when and what they requir'd But after they had spoil'd and burnt the Monastery of St. John's of Jerusalem beheaded the Archbishop of Canterbury and done some other acts of Sacrilege their Fortune quickly chang'd and their Captain Wat Tyler being in the greatest height of his Glory with his Army behind him to do what he commanded and the King fearfully before him not able to resist was upon the sudden wounded and surpriz'd by the Mayor of London his prosperous Success over-turn'd and both he and they whom an Army could not earst subdue are now by the Act of a single Man utterly broken and discomfited and justly brought to their deserved Execution Holinshed and Stow in 4 Rich. II. CHAP. VI. The Attempt and Project upon the Lands of the Clergy in the Time of Henry IV. disappointed BY that Time King Henry IV. was come to the Crown the Clergy of England had passed the Meridian of their greatness and were onward in their declination For the People now left to admire them as before they had done and by little and little to fall off from them in every Place being most distracted though not wholly led away by the prime Lectures Sermons and Pamphlets of them that laboured for an alteration in Religion The Commons also of Parliament which usually do breath the Spirit of the People not only envied their greatness but thought it against reason that those whom the Laity had raised fed and fatted by their Alms and Liberality should use such rigorous Jurisdiction so they accounted it over their Patrons and Founders and against Religion also that they who had devoted themselves to Spiritual contemplation should be so much intangled with the Secular affairs But above all that they who laboured not in the Common-wealth nor were the hundredth part of the People should possess as great a Portion almost of the Kingdom as the whole Body of the Laity For an Estimate hereof had been taken anciently by the Knight's Fees of the Kingdom which in Edward I. Time were found to be 67000 and that 28000 of them were in the Clergy's hands So that they had gotten well towards one half of the Knight's Fees of the Kingdom and had not the Statutes of Mortmain come in their way they were like enough in a short time to have had the better part Yet did not the Statutes otherwise hinder them but that with the King's Licence they daily obtained great accessions and might by the Time of King Henry IV. be thought probably enough to have half the Kingdom amongst them if not more considering that out of that part which remained to the Laity they had after a manner a tenth part by way of Tithe and besides that an inestimable Revenue by way of Altarage Offerings Oblations Obventions Mortuaries Church-Duties Gifts Legacies c. The Parliament therefore 6 Henry IV. called the Laymen's Parliament that all Lawyers were shut out of it casting a malevolent Eye hereon did not seek by a Moderate course a Reformation but as may be observed in other cases to cure a great excess by an extreme defect and at one blow to take from the Clergy all their Temporalities This was propounded to the King by Sir John Cheiney their Speaker who in former time had been himself a Deacon and lapping then some of the Milk of the Church found it so sweet as he now would eat of the Breasts that gave it He inforced this proposition with all the Rhetorick and Power he had and tickled so the Ears of the King that if the Archbishop of Canterbury had not that day stood like Moses in the gap the evils that succeeded might even then have fallen upon the Clergy But the Archbishop declaring that the Commons sought thereby their own enriching knowing well that they should be sharers in this Royal prey assured the King that as he and his Predecessors Edward III. and Richard II. had by the Counsel of the Commons confiscated the Goods and Lands of the Cells or Monasteries that the Frenchmen and Normans did possess in England being worth many thousands of Gold and was not that day the richer thereby half a Mark so if he should now which God forbid fulfill their wicked desire he should not be one Farthing the richer the next Year following This demonstrative and prophetical Speech pronounced with great vehemency by the Archbishop it so wrought upon the Heart of the King that he professed he would leave the Church in better State than he found it rather than in worse And thus that Hideous Cloud of Confusion which hung over the Head of the Clergy vapoured suddenly at this time into nothing Yet did it lay the Train that Henry V. did make a sore Eruption and in Henry VIIIth's Time blew up at the Monasteries The event of which
Lalale in Ireland left himself as little Land in England as his great Grandfather left to the Monasteries and was I think the first and only Peer of the Realm not having any Land within it by the feudal Law his Barony I doubt if it had been feudal had likewise gone but by the Mercy of God a Noble Gentleman now holds the Stile of it and long may he Having sailed thus far in this Ocean we will advance yet further if it please God to give us a favourable passage and take a view of the Parliament themselves that put the wrackful Sword in the King's Hands The chief whereof was as we have said before that of the 27 Year of his Reign touching smaller Houses and that of 31 touching the greater I have sought the Office of the Clerk of the Upper House of Parliament to see what Lords were present at the passing of the Acts of Dissolution but so ill have they been kept as that the Names of 27 H. 8. were not then to be found and farther since I have not search'd for them The other of 31 H. 8. I did find and doubt not but the most of them were the same which also sate in the Parliament of 27 tho' some of them of 27 were either dead or not present in 31. Those that were present at the passing of the Bill of 31 I have here under mention'd in such order as I therein did find them and will as faithfully as I can attain unto the knowledge of them relate what after hath befaln themselves and their Posterity The Names of the Lords Spiritual who were present in the Parliament upon Friday the 23d of May 31 Hen. VIII being the 15th day of the Parliament when the Bill for assuring the Monasteries c. to the King was pass'd 1. The Lord Cromwell Vicegerent for the King in the Spiritualties and having place thereby both in the Parliament and Convocation-house above the Archbishops was beheaded the 28th of July in the next Year being the 32 of the King Confessing at his death publickly That he had been seduced but died a Papist 2. The Archbishop of Canterbury Tho. Cranmer D. D. was burnt in the Castle-ditch at Oxford 21. March 1556 3 Mary 3. The Archbishop of York Dr. Edw. Lee died 13th of Septemb. 1544. 36 H. 8. 4. The Bishop of London John Stokesley died within 4 Months after viz. 3. Septemb 1539. 5. The Bishop of Durham Cuthbert Tonstal was imprisoned in the Tower all King Edwards time for Religion and depriv'd of his Bishoprick and the same inter alia Sacrilegia non pauca saith Godwin dissolv'd and given to the King by Parliament 7 Edw. VI. but the King being immediately taken away Queen Mary restor'd both it and him An. 1 o. Parl. 2. c. 3. and Queen Elizabeth again depriv'd him and committed him to the Archbishop of Canterbury where he died in July 1559. 6. The Bishop of Winchester Stephen Gardiner was committed to the Tower 30 June 1548 in Edw. VI's time for that he had not declared in his Sermon the day before at Paul's-Cross certain Opinions appointed to him by the Council Two Years after because he approv'd not the Reformation he was depriv'd of his Bishoprick and kept in Prison all King Edward's days but restor'd by Queen Mary He died of the Gout 12. Nov. 1555 being the 3d of her Reign 7. The Bishop of Exeter John Voisey alias Horman had the Education of the King's Daughter the Lady Mary and discontented with the Reformation aliened the Lands of the Bishoprick to Courtiers or made long Leases of them at little Rent leaving scarcely 7 or 8 Mannors of 22 and them also of the least and leased or laden with Pensions Nefandum Sacrilegium saith Godwin Being suspected of the Rebellion of Devonshire about the change of Religion he was put from his Bishoprick but restor'd by Queen Mary and died 1555 Mar. 3. 8. The Bishop of Lincoln John Longland the King's Confessor died 1547 1 Edw. VI. 9. The Bishop of Bath and Wells John Clerk carried and commended in an Oration to the Cardinals the King's Book against Luther with much commendation But being afterwards sent in Ambassage to the Duke of Cleve to shew the reason why the King renounc'd his Marriage with the Lady Ann the Duke's Sister for the reward of his unwelcome Message was poison'd as they said in Germany and returning with much adoe died in England in Febr. 1540 i.e. 32 Hen. 8. 10. The Bishop of Ely Thomas Goodrick continu'd from and in 26 Hen. 8. till 1. Maii 1. Mariae 11. The Bishop of Bangor John Salcot alias Capen Abbot of Hide was consecrated 19. Apr. next before this Parliament and translated to Salisbury in August following where it seems he continu'd till Q. Mary's time 12. The Bishop of Salisbury Nic. Shaxton being consecrated 27 Hen 8. was put out July 1539 i. e. 31 Hen. 8. together with Latimer and for the same cause but recanted 13. The Bishop of Worcester Hugh Latimer made 27 Hen. 8. renounc'd his Bishoprick in July 31 of the King and was burnt with Dr. Ridley at Oxon. 16. October 1559. 14. The Bishop of Rochester Nich. Heath made 4. April before this Parliament in 31 Hen. 8. and about 4 Years after translated to Worcester was depos'd by Edw. 6. but made Archbishop of York 1 Mariae afterwards also Chancellor of England 15. The Bishop of Chichester Richard Sampson made June 5. 1536 and 28 Hen. 8. was translated to Lichfield 12. May 1543. To flatter the King he wrote an Apology for his Supremacy yet in the Year of this Parliament 31. he was committed to the Tower for relieving such as were imprison'd for denying it But it seems his Apology was written after this Commitment to recover Favour About 2 Ed. 6. he declared himself for the Pope whom he had written against and so after divers turnings and returnings he died 1554 2 Mar. 16. The Bishop of Norwich William Rugg alias Rupp made 1536 28 Hen. 8. and died 1550 about 4 or 5 Edw. 6. 17. The Bishop of St. David's William Barlow was translated hither from St. Asaph in April 1536 28 Hen. 8. and by King Edw. after to Bath and Wells fled into Germany in Qu. Mary's time and 2 Eliz was made Bishop of Chichester 18. The Bishop of St. Asaph Robert Porpey alias Werbington or Warton was made 2. July 28. Hen. 8. where having sate 18 Years and nequissimo Sacrilegio sold and spoil'd the Lands of the Bishoprick by long Leases he was by Qu. Mary An. 1. translated to Hereford where he sate almost till her death 19. The Bishop of Landaff Rob. Holgate 25. March 1537 28. Hen. S. and in the 36th of his Reign translated to the Archbishoprick of York and by Qu. Mary at her entrance committed to the Tower where within half a Year he was depriv'd 20. The Bishop of Carlisle Rob. Aldrich was elected 18. July 1537 29 Hen. 8. and died 5 Mar.
Colrane in Ireland Sir Ralph Hare to expiate this Sin of his Family gave the Parsonage impropriate of Marham worth 100 l. yearly to St. John's College in Cambridge Anno 16 and died leaving one only Child Sir John Hare who married Sir Thomas Coventry the now Lord Keeper's Daughter and hath by her she not being ... Years old ... Sons and Daughters with hope of a numerous Posterity God bless them Crab-House I have yet gotten little Intelligence of this Abbey but I hear that it was not long since John Wright's of Wigen-Hall in Marseland and that he had two Sons whereof ... his eldest Son consumed his Estate and sold the Abbey with the greatest part of the Land and died without Issue It came after to Mr. William Guybon of Watlington and is now in the hands of his Son and Heir Bromill Abbey Sir Thomas Woodhouse of Wapham 38 H. 8. purchased Bromill Abbey of the King he died without Issue and Sir Henry Woodhouse his Nephew succeeded who utterly consumed his whole Estate and selling the Abbey to John Smith Esq Suits arose thereupon which lasted many Years till the Death of Sir Henry in Nov. 1624. Mr. Smith hath only Daughters and no Son so that the Abbey is not like to continue in his Name Ex inform ipsius Jo. Smith 11 o. Nov. 1624. The Impropriation of Besthurst in Lancashire as I take it is worth 1600 l. per Annum being Sir Vrion Lea's Dereham Abbey Tho Dereham in the 33 H. 8. bought it of the King shortly after he was fetch'd out of it to the Tower about the Treason of his Brother Francis Dereham who was executed Thomas at length was delivered out of Prison he had Issue Thomas Robert John and Baldwin and a Daughter Thomas married ... and died without Issue Male Robert and John died without Issue Baldwin a decayed Merchant of London had Issue four Sons Thomas Dr. of Divinity John and Martha a Daughter non compos mentis Thomas succeeded his Uncle in the Inheritance and is now Knighted having Issue Thomas Thomas eldest Son of Sir Thomas married ... daughter of ... Scot Esque of ... in Kent she fell Lunatick in Child-Bed upon the Death of her Son ... 1623 and so continueth having yet only a Daughter Thetford Hitherto I have kept my self within my Circle let us see for our further satisfaction whether the like fortune haunted the Monasteries without it we will begin with Thetford The Monastery of the Black Nuns of St. Gregory in Thetford being the Benedictines was the Duke of Norfolk's whose Misfortunes are here before in other places too often mentioned He sold the same to Sir Richard Fulmarston Knight who died without Issue Male leaving it to his Daughter and her married to Sir Edward Clark Knight Sir Edward Clark had two Sons by her and a Son by his second Wife Sir Edward Clark Knight of St. Michael the eldest Son spent most of his Life in one Prison or other had Issue a Son Sir Henry Clark Baronet that died without Issue Male in the Life of his Father who consuming his whole Inheritance sold the chief Seat of his Blickling to the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas Sir Henry Hobart and this Monastery upon Exchange and Money to Mr. Godsalve for Buckingham-Ferry which he ... Mr. Godsalve put over the Monastery among other Lands to Mr. John Smith and Owen Shepheard and having consumed all his Estate went beyond Sea Mr. Smith and Mr. Shepheard had a long and chargeable Suit about Mr. Godsalve's Estate and sold the Monastery to Sir William Campion who now hath it but with Suit and Trouble Sir Edw. ... the elders second Son Francis died without Issue This great and eminent Family is wholly extinct as those also of Fulmarston's Godsalve's and Smith's for Smith hath no Issue Male. I must here note that this Sir Edward ... the Elder was one of the greatest Hunters by way of Concealment after Church Goods and Lands that was in his time and that sowing these unfortunate Pieces of new gotten Cloth into the Garment of his old Inheritance the new hath not only rent away the old Garment but the Family it self to which it served Pentney Priory Pentney Priory was purchased of the Kâ—ng Anno 37 H. 8. by Thomas Mildmay the Auditor whose Son Sir Thomas sold it to Francis Windham one of the Justices of the King's-Bench he entailed it first upon his own Issue then to his Brother 's Roger and Thomas the Dr. after to his Sister Coningsby and after that to Edmund and Edmund's natural Brothers all which dying without Issue it came to Thomas Windham Esq Son of Sir Henry Windham who in Anno 1622 sold it to Sir Richard Ballache Knight and he in Anno 1631 to Judge Richardson The Abbey of Radegundis at Bradefalk in Kent by Dover is now Sir Tho. Edolph's Knight who did lately build a fair House upon the Site of the Monastery and it hath fallen down three times his two Brothers lunatique Ex relat Mrs. Meares qui duxit Vxorem Edw. Pegton Baronet St. Lawrence-Abbey by Canterbury now in the hands of Edolph lunatique whose Grandfather was also lunatique his Grandfather first purchased the Abbey Shirburn Shirburn-Abbey some time a Cathedral-Church yet belonging to the Bishop of Salisbury saith Cambden p. 214. impres 1610. Sir John Horsey having no Issue left for Name sake to Sir Ralph Horsey of Cambridgeshire the Monastery and Parsonage of Shirburn who wasting much his Estate sold them to Mr. Stikles and he to my Lord Digby about 1620. The Castle and the Manner was assigned from the Bishop of Salisbury to Queen Elizabeth and by her to Sir Walter Rawleigh after beheaded then it came to Prince Henry who died shortly after then it came to the Earl of Somerset who being attainted the King granted it to my Lord Digby The Bishoprick being void Toby Matthew should have had it but would not take it upon Sir Walter Rawleigh's conditions but Henry Cotton accepting and performing them his Son was born blind who notwithstanding was made a Minister had 3 or 4 Parsonages and was Canon in Salisbury yet died a Beggar Hale's-Abbey Hale's-Abbey and Manour for the most part viz. 500 Acres granted to the Lord Admiral Seymor in fee 19 Aug. 1. Edw. 6. He beheaded it returned to the King Edw. who 12 June reg 4. granted all with the 500 Acres to the Lord Marquiss who 16 June eodem Anno leased it to Hodgkins for 21 Years at 159 l. 16 s. but as it seems came again to the Crown for Q. Eliz 18 July reg 7. leased it again to Hodgkins for 21 Years at 159 l. 16 s. Woods Regalities c. excepted ut videtur Hodgkins had three Sons all died poorly but he gave his Estate to his Daughter married to Hobby St. Ousey given by King Edward to Thomas Lord Darcy and ... slain at St. Quintins John had Issue Thomas Lord Darcy whose
the rest are which remain to us at this day together with the Monasteries and other Houses of Religion and intended Piety were by King Henry VIII in a temper of indignation against the Clergy of that time mingled with insatiable Avarice sacked and rased as by an Enemy It is true the Parliament did give them to him but so unwillingly as I have heard that when the Bill had stuck long in the lower House and could get no passage he commanded the Commons to attend him in the Forenoon in his Gallery where he let them wait till late in the Afternoon and then coming out of his Chamber walking a turn or two amongst them and looking angrily on them first on one side then on the other at last I hear saith he that my Bill will not pass but I will have it pass or I will have some of your Heads and without other Rhetorick or Perswasion returned to his Chamber Enough was said the Bill passed and all was given him as he desired First In the 27th Year of his Reign all Monasteries c. not having 200 l. per Annum in Revenue then in Anno 31 all the rest through the Kingdom in An. 32. cap. 24. the Hospitals and Hospital Churches of St. Johns of Jerusalem in England and Ireland with their Lands and Appurtenances and in Anno 37. cap. 4. all Colleges Free-Chapels Chauntries Hospitals Fraternities and Stipendiary-Priests made to have continuance for ever being contributary to the payment of First-fruits Tenths c. what should have been next God knows Bishopricks I suppose and Cathedral-Churches which had been long assailed in the time of R. II. H. IV. and H. V. but the next Year was the time of his account to Almighty God which as it is said he passed in great penitency for his Sins It is to be observed that the Parliament did give all these to the King yet did they not ordain them to be demolished or employed to any irreligious Uses leaving it more to the conscience and piety of the King who in a Speech to the Parliament promised to perform the Trust wherein he saith I cannot a little rejoyce when I consider the perfect truth and confidence which you have put in me in my good doings and just proceedings for you without my desire and request have committed to my order and disposition all Chauntries Colleges and Hospitals and other places specified in a certain Act firmly trusting that I will order them to the Glory of God and the Profit of the Common-wealth Surely if I contrary to your expectation should suffer the Ministers of the Churches to decay or Learning which is so great a Jewel to be minished or the poor and miserable to be unrelieved you might well say that I being put in such a special Trust as I am in this Case were no trusty Friend to you nor charitable to my Emne-Christen neither a lover of the publick Wealth nor yet one that feared God to whom account must be rendred of all our doings doubt not I pray you but your expectation shall be served more godly and goodly than you will wish or desire as hereafter you shall plainly perceive So that the King hereby doth not only confess the Trust committed to him by the Parliament in the same Manner that the Act assigns it viz. to be for the Glory of God and the Profit of the Common-wealth but he descendeth also into the particulars of the Truth as namely for the maintenance of the Ministers and Advancement of Learning and Provision for the Poor So likewise in the Statute 27. Henry VIII c. 28. the Preamble doth expresly ordain that the Lands Houses and Revenues should be converted to better Uses as appears fully in the Preamble which because it is omitted in the printed Edition of the Statutes shall here follow out of the Record For as much as manifest Sins c. vid. Monast. Angl. T. 1. p. But notwithstanding these fair Pretences and Projects little was performed for Desolation presently followed this Dissolution the Ax and the Mattock ruined almost all the Chief and most magnificent Ornaments of the Kingdom viz. 376 of the lesser Monasteries 645 of the greater sort 90 Colleges 110 Religious Hospitals 2374 Chantries and Free-Chapels All these Religious Houses Churches Colleges and Hospitals being about 3500 little and great in the whole did amount to an inestimable Summ especially if their Rents be accounted as they are now improved in these days Among this Multitude it is needless to speak of the great Church of St. Mary in Bulloign who upon the taking of that Town in Anno 1544 he caused to be pulled down and a Mount to be raised in the place thereof for planting of Ordinances to annoy a Siege I will not be so bold as to father that which followed upon this that preceded but the Analogy of my Discourse and the Course of this History do lead me to relate what happened after this 1 to the King himself 2 to his Children and Posterity 3 to them that were Agents in the business 4 to the Crown it self 5 to the whole Kingdom generally 6 to private Owners of these Monasteries particularly 1. First Then touching the King himself The Revenue that came to him in ten Years space was more if I mistake it not than Quadruple that of the Crown-lands besides a Magazine of Treasure raised out of the Money Place Jewels Ornaments and Implements of Churches Monasteries and Houses with their Goods State and Cattle First-fruits and Tenths given by the Parliament in the 26th of his Reign Together with a Subsidy Tenth and Fifteenth from the Laity at the same time To which I may add the incomparable Wealth of Cardinal Wolsey a little before confiscated also to the King and a large Summ raised by Knight-hood in the 25th of this Reign A Man may justly wonder how such an Ocean of Wealth should come to be exhausted in so short a time of Peace But God's blessing as it seemeth was not upon it for within four Years after he had received all this and had ruined and sacked 376 of the Monasteries and brought their Substance to his Treasury besides all the goodly Revenues of his Crown he was drawn so dry that the Parliament in the 31st was constrained by his importunity to supply his wants with the Residue of all the Monasteries of the Kingdom 645 great ones and illustrious with all their Wealth and Prince-like Possessions Yet even then was not this King so sufficiently furnished for building of a few Block-houses for defence of the Coast but the next year after he must have another Subsidy of 4 Fifteens to bear out his Charges And least it should be too little all the Houses Lands and Goods of the Knights of St. John at Jerusalem both in England and Ireland Had not Ireland come thus in my way I had forgotten it but to increase the Floods of this Sea all the Monasteries of Ireland likewise
flowed into it by Act of Parliament the next year following being the 33d of his Reign to the Number one and other of But as the Red-sea by the miraculous Hand of God was once dried up so was this Sea of Wealth by the wastfull Hand of this Prince immediately so dried up as the very next year viz. Regni 34. the Parliament was drawn again to grant him a great Subsidy for in the Statute-book it is so stiled and this not serving his turn he was yet driven not only to enhance his Gold and Silver-money in Anno 36 but against the Honour of a Prince to coin base Money and when all this served not his turn in the very same year to exact a Benevolence of his Subjects to their grievous Discontent Perceiving therefore that nothing could fill the gulf of his effusion and that there was now a just cause of great expence by reason of his Wars at Bulloign and in France they granted him in the 37th Year 2 Subsidies at once and four Fifteens and for a Corollary all the Colleges Free-Chapels Chantries Hospitals c. before-mentioned in Number 2374. upon confidence that he should dispose them as he promised solemnly in the Parliament to the Glory of God who in truth for ought that I can hear had little part thereof The next year was his fatal Period otherwise it was much to be feared that Deans and Chapters if not Bishopricks which have been long levelled at had been his next design for he took a very good Say of them by exchanging Lands with them before the Dissolution giving them rackt Lands and small things for goodly Manners and Lordships and also Impropriations for their solid Patrimony in finable Lands like the exchange that Palamedes made with Glaucus much thereby encreasing his own Revenues as he took 72 from York besides other Lands Tenements Advowsons Patronages c. in the 37th of his Reign which are mentioned particularly in the Statute 37. Henry VIII cap. 16. He took also 30 and above as I remember in the 27th Year from the Bishop of Norwich whom he left not that I can learn one Foot of the goodly Possessions of his Church save the Palace at Norwich and how many I know not in the 37th Year also from the Bishop of London I speak not of his prodigal Hand in the Blood of his Subjects which no doubt much alienated the Hearts of them from him But God in these eleven Years space visited him with 5 or 6 Rebellions In Lincolnshire Anno 28 and 3 one after another in Yorkshire Anno 33 one in Somersetshire Anno 29 and again in Yorkshire Anno 33. And though Rebellions and Insurrections are not to be defended yet they discover unto us what the displeasure and dislike was of the common People for spoiling the Revenues of the Church whereby they were great losers the Clergy being mercifull Landlords and bountifull Benefactors to all Men by their great Hospitality and Works of Charity Thus much touching his own Fortunes accompanying the Wealth and Treasure gotten by him as we have declared by confiscating the Monasteries wherein the prophetical Speech that the Archbishop of Canterbury used in the Parliament 6. Henry IV. seemeth performed That the King should not be one farthing the richer the next Year following II. What happened to the King's Children and Posterity Touching his Children and Posterity after the time that he entered into these Courses he had two Sons and three Daughters whereof one of each kind died Infants the other three succeeding in the Crown without Posterity His base Son the Duke of Richmond died also without Issue and as the Issue of Nebuchodonosor was extinct and his Kingdom given to another Nation the 68th Year after he had rifled the Temple of Jerusalem and taken away the holy Vessels so about the same period that King Henry VIII began to sack the Monasteries with their Churches and things dedicated to God was his whole Issue extinct Male and Female base and legitimate and his Kingdom transferred to another Nation and therein to another Royal Family which is now His Majesty's singular happiness that had no hand in the like depredation of the Monasteries and Churches of that Kingdom there committed by the tumultuous if not rebellious Subjects Contrary as it seems to the good liking of our late Sovereign King James who as is reported said that if he had found the Monasteries standing he would not have pulled them down not meaning to continue them in their superstitious Uses but to employ them as Chorah's censers to some godly purposes Wherein most piously he declared himself both in restoring as I hear some Bishopricks and divers Appropriations in Scotland and also by moving the Universities of England to do the like as by his gracious Letter doth appear which shall here following be expressed in the end So his Grandfather King James the 4th of Scotland when he was solicited by Sir Ralph Sadler then Embassador from King Henry to augment his Estate by taking into his Hands the Abbies James refus'd saying What need I take them into mine Hands when I may have any thing I require of them And if there be Abuses in them I will reform them for there be a great many good Which was a wise answer and if King Henry had done the like here he might have had an immense and ample Revenue out of the Monasteries and old Bishopricks while they enjoyed their Lands being a third part of the Kingdom as appears by Doomsday-Book by way of First-fruits Tenths Pensions and Corrodies yearly that he should never have needed at any time to ask one Subsidy of his Subjects To return where we left off having spoken of the extinguishment of the Issue of King Henry whereof the immortally renown'd Princess Queen Elizabeth was the golden period Let us cast our Eyes upon the principal Agents and Contrivers of this Business III. What happen'd to the Principal Agents The Lord Cromwel was conceived to be the principal mover and prosecutor thereof both before and in the Parliament of 27 and 37 Hen. VIII and for his good service impenso impendendo upon the 18th of April before the beginning of the Parliament of 31 which was on the last of the Month he was created Earl of Essex and his Son Gregory made Lord Cromwell yet e're the Year was past from the end of the Parliament of 31 he fell wholly into the King's Displeasure and in July 32 he was attainted and beheaded professing at his Death that he had been seduc'd and dy'd a Catholick His Son Gregory Lord Cromwell being as I said made a Baron in the life time of his Father and invested with divers great Possessions of the Church supported that new risen Family from utter ruine but his Grandchild Edward Lord Cromwell wasting the whole Inheritance sold the head of his Barony Oukham in Rutlandshire and exchanging some of the rest all that remained with the E. of Devonshire for
the meanest of the People to Shop-keepers Taverners Taylors Tradesmen Burghers Brewers Grasiers and it may be supposed that as Constantine the Great seeing the inconvenience of the multitude of Comites of his time distinguished them as Eusebius reporteth into three degrees making the latter far inferior to the former so may it one day come to pass among these of our times and it shall not want some precedent of our own to the like purpose Vide Glossarium in voc Comes pag. 109. IV. What hath happened to the Crown it self It now remaineth to shew how the Lands themselves thus pulled from the Church have thriven with the Crown and in the Hands of the King his Heirs and Successors truly no otherwise than the Archbishop I spake of so long since foretold For they have melted and dropt away from the Crown like Snow yet herein that Snow leaves moisture to enrich the Ground but those nothing save dry and fruitless Coffers for now they are all gone in a manner and little to speak of remaining for them to the Treasury for my own part I think the Crown the happier that they are gone but very unhappy in their manner of going for as Sampson going out of Gaza carried with him the Gates the Bars and Posts of the City leaving it thereby exposed to Enemies weak and undefenced so those Lands going from the Crown have carried away with them the very crown-Crown-Lands themselves which were in former times the glorious Gates of Regal Magnificence the present and ready Bars of Security at all Necessities and like immoveable Posts or Hercules Pillars in all the transmigrations of Crown and Kingdom had to our Time 1000 Years and upward remained fixed and amor ... to the Scepter These I say are in effect all gone since the Dissolution the new Piece hath rent away the old Garment and the Title of terra Regis within Dooms-day Book was generally the Targett in every County is now a Blank I fear in most of them But his Majesty hath a great Fee-farm reserved out of the greatest part of both of them 40000 l. a Year they say out of the Crown Lands and 60000 l. out of the Church Lands I confess it makes a goodly sound yet is it but froth in respect of the solid Land which is deemed to be more than ten times if not twenty times as much and this being but succus redditus a sick and languishing Rent will grow daily as our Rents of Assess have already done to be of lesser worth as the price of Lands and Commodities increase and rise higher but I hear there is ... thousand pounds a Year of the Crown-lands gone without any Reservation at all and above ... thousand likewise of the Church Lands and to tell the truth which my self do well know a great proportion of the Fee-farm Rents themselves are likewise aliened already but mihi Cynthius aurem vellit I must launch no further V. What happened to the whole Kingdom generally What the whole Body of the Kingdom hath suffered since these Acts of Confiscation of the Monasteries and their Churches is very remarkable let the Monks and Friers shift as they deserv'd the good if you will and the bad together my purpose is not to defend their Iniquities the thing I lament is that the Wheat perish'd with the Darnel things of good and pious Institution with those that abused and perverted them by reason whereof the Service of God was not only grievously wounded and bleedeth at this day but infinite Works of Charity whereby the Poor were universally reliev'd thro' the Kingdon were utterly cut off and extinguish'd many thousand masterless Servants turn'd loose into the World and many thousand of poor People which were constantly fed clad and nourished by the Monasteries now like young Ravens seek their Meat at God Every Monastery according to their Ability had an Ambery greater or little for the daily relief of the Poor about them Every principal Monastery an Hospital commonly for Travellers and an Infirmary which we now call a Spittle for the sick and diseased Persons with Officers and Attendants to take care of them Gentlmen and others having Children without means of Maintenance had them here brought up and provided for which course in some Countries and namely in Pomerland as I hear is still observed tho' Monks and Friers be abandoned These and such other Miseries falling upon the meaner sort of People drove them into so many Rebellions as we spake of and rung such loud peals in the King's Ears that on his Death-bed he gave back the Spittle of St. Bartholomew's in Smithfield lately valued saith Stow at 308 l. 6 s. 7 d. and the Church of the Gray-Friers valued at 32 l. 19 s. 7 d. with other Churches and 500 Marks a Year added to it to be united and called Christ Church founded by King Henry 8. and to be Hospitals for relieving the Poor the Bishop of Rochester declaring his Bounty at Paul's Cross on the 3d of Jan. and on the 28th day following the King died viz the 28 Jan. This touching the Poor VI. What happened to private Owners of the Monasteries particularly I turn now to the richer sort and shall not need to speak of the Clergy whose irreparable Misery Piers Ploughman foresaw so many Ages before saying That a King should come that should give the Abbat of Abingdon such a blow as incurable should be the Wound thereof Their Misery and Wrack is so notorious as it needs no Pen to decypher it nor will I speak of the loss that the Lay-men our Grandfathers had by this means in their right of Founders and Patronage Meantenures Rents-services Pensions Corrodies and many other Duties and Privileges whereof some were saved by the Statutes yet by little and little all in effect worn out and gone Those I say I speak not of for that they are Wounds grown up and forgotten but of one instead of all that immortal and incurable Wound which every day bleedeth more than other given to us and our Posterity by the infinite number of Tenures by Knights service in capite either newly created upon granting out of these Monasteries and Lands or daily raised by double Ignoramus in every Town almost of the Kingdom For as the Abbies had Lands commonly scattered abroad in every of them in some greater or lesser quantity according to the Ability of their Benefactors so the Leprosie of this Tenure comes thereby as generally to be scatter'd thro' the Kingdom And whereas before that time very few did hold on that manner besides the Nobility and principal Gentlemen that were owners of great Lordships and Possessions which from time to time descended intirely to their Heirs and were not broken out into small parcels amongst inferiour Tenents and mean Purchasers Now by reason that those Abby Lands are minced into such infinite numbers of little Quillets and thereby privily sown like the Tares in the Parable almost in every
Man's Inheritance very few not having their Tenure certain from the King by Patent can assure themselves to be free from this Calamity The truth is that originally none held in Capite but Peers of the Realm who were therefore called the King's Barons and such as by this their Tenure as appears by the Council of Clarendon 10 Hen. 2. had the privilege to sit in the King's House and to hear and judge all Causes brought before the King and to be of his great Council And tho' afterwards the meaner of them were neglected yet King John was tied by his great Charter to call them all to Parliament where the Knights of the Shires in that respect have their place at this day I am too prone you see to run out of my way into this Discourse but to hold me nearer to my Center I cannot but admire what mov'd the Parliament in 27 Henry 8. cap. 27. to enact that a Tenure in Capite by Knights Service should be reserv'd to the King upon their granting out of their Abbies and their Lands as tho' it were some singular benefit to the Commonwealth It may be they conceiv'd that according to the Project of the Parliament at Leicester in 2 Hen. 5. that the King should thereby have a perpetual means to support a standing Army or to have it ready whensoever need required and so ease the Subject of all Military Contribution O how far was that great School of Wisdom deceived or what hath that Art of theirs produc'd other than as if some Scholars had bound their Masters for to whip them soundly and I suppose they have had their fill of it long e're this time But these Tenures by being by this means multiply'd in such excessive manner the Kings former Officers that before could span their Business with their Hand could not now fathom this with both their Arms. The greater Harvest must have greater Barns and more Labourers and therefore in 32 Hen. 8. cap. 46. and 33 Hen. 8. cap. 22. and 39. the Court now called of Wards and Liveries with the Orders Officers and Ministers thereto belonging was erected What is thereby fallen upon the Subject I need not relate heavy Experience makes it generally known and generally felt one while by Wardship and Marriage another while by suing out Livery and Ouster se main by Pardons of Alienation Concealments Intrusions respite of Homage and other Calamities accompanying this Tenure almost innumerable consuming the Fruit of the Wards Lands for many Years and as sometimes I have seen for many Ages the Grandfathers Fathers and Sons Inheritance militant together in this Court the Mother equally lamenting the Death of her Husband and the Captivity of her Child the Confiscation of his Lands for the 3d part of his Age and the Ransom of his Person before he can enter into the World the Family oftentimes so ruin'd and impoverish'd as if at last it recover yet it stands tottering and lame for a long time after Marriage is honourable and instituted by God in Paradise do you think that a Man by the Word of God may be compelled to pay for a Licence to marry I doubt the Schoolmen would not so determine it nor did any civil or moral Nation of old admit it the Custom rose from the barbarous Goths and Loâ—gobards and yet I confess not without reason as the Genius of their Nation did then lead them and by their Example all others where they conquered It was an impious manner of those times to hold Malice and Enmity one Family against another and against their Friends and Alliances from one Generation to another our Ancestors called it deadly feude the Feudists feudam and Tacitus in his time noteth it of Germans saying Inimicitias mutuo ponunt suscipiunt It was therefore of urgent necessity that the Lord should be well assur'd that his Tenant married not unto any Family that might be either in feud with him or in alliance with them that were and to prevent that danger as appears by the Charter of Hen. 1. cap. 4. the Lord would have him bound not to marry without his consent for which in the beginning the Tenant gave his Lord some small matter as munus honorarium but from thence it grew afterwards to Nundinaria gratissima And as Bondmen used to pay to their Lords Chiefage for their Marriage so the Tenants by Knights Service which in the Feudal Law is called Feudum nobile is likewise subject to this brand of Servitude and more grievously in some respect But I reverence the Law I live under and hath been so long receiv'd and practis'd all I aim at is only to shew in the course of my Argument the Evils that have either fallen newly upon us or been encreased since the Confiscation of the Churches and Church-patrimony which if it be not offensive I may say doth seem to be foretold 800 Years since by one Egelzedus an Hermit who assigned three Causes of those Evils viz. First Effusion of Blood 2ly Drunkenness and 3ly Contempt of the House of God telling us farther That we should know the time of the fulfilling this Prophecy by the various fashions and mutability of Apparel that should be in use the very ear-mark of the Age we live in How this Contempt of the House of God worketh upon the Sacrilegious Instruments thereof is to be seen in the Particulars before recited to which if I should run higher into former Ages or further from home in other Countries I might tire you with thousands of Examples But for a Conclusion mark this by the way that as England hath not been faulty alone in this kind of Transgression so other Nations offending in like manner have likewise tasted of the same Corrections or others like them Scotland after the rasing of their Monasteries hath had the Royal Throne removed from them and placed in another Kingdom The Low-Countries harrassed with a continued War of 60 Years and more The Palsgrave beaten out of his own Dominions and living now with his Royal Wife and Children in lamentable Exile to which may be added as concurring with the usual Infelicity of meddling with Church Lands that the Palsgrave having attained the Crown of Bohemia and seizing the Ecclesiastical Livings there for maintenance of his Wars as the Report goes he was presently cast out both of that Kingdom and of his other Inheritance Having mentioned this unfortunate Prince I must add also another accident that befell him in this kind The State of the Low Countries while he lived in Exile among them gave unto him as a place of Recreation the Abby of Regutian near Vtrecht where intending a sumptuous Building he drew out thereof such Materials of Stone and Timber as might be usefull to his new Designs and making a Store-house of the Abby-Church laid them up there to be in readiness It chanc'd that the truly noble Lord Craven returning out of Italy where my Son was very happily fallen into his Company
Issue-Male of his Father and Grandfather failing his Daughter is married to Sir Thomas Savage At the latter end of Q. Mary's days Callis being taken Sir Hugh Paulett took down the Bells of the Church of Jersey and sending them to St. Malo's in Britain 14 of them were drowned at the Entry of the Harbour and at this day it is a By-word in those Parts when a strong â—ast-Wind bloweth there that the Bells of Jersey ring Ex relatione Mri. Bandivell Decani ib. Traveling through Cambridgeshire and passing through a Town there called Anglary I saw certain ruinous Walls which seemed to have been some Monastery hereupon I asked one of the Town if it had not been an Abbey he answered me yes I demanded of him whose it was he said one Mr. Foulkes I asked him further how long he had had it he said his Father a Londoner bought it then I desired to know of him what Children he had the Man answered me none saying further that he had a Son who displeasing him once as he was grafting threw his grafting Knife at his Son and therewith killed him Passing also another time through Suffolk I fell in company of a Gentleman-like Man who by way of Discourse there had been in the Parts we there were about 20 Justices of Peace when he was young and that at the present time there were not above three He named also divers of the Families decayed some in Estate others for want of Issue-Male and some by Misfortune I having a jealous Eye upon it asked if they were not setled upon Church-land he answered me yes as Sir Michael Stanhope at Oxford-Abbey Sir Anthony Wingfield at Leveringham-Abbey both which died one without Issue the other without Issue-Male Sir Anthony Playford at Playford-Abbey Mr. Brown at Lawson-Abbey where he was murthered by his Wife she burnt and her Man hanged Mr. Ford at Batley-Abbey who disinherited his eldest Son c. saying further that that Part was Church-land belonging to the Abbey of St. Edmundsbury and called it St. Ethelreds Liberty 30 Sept. 16 9. In the Sermon of John Bishop of Ely at the Funeral of Dr. Andrews Bishop of Winchester 11 Nov. 1626 at the Church of St. Saviours in Southwark Now before I come to his last End give me leave to tell you that privately he did much find fault and reprove three Sins too common and reigning in this latter Age. 1. Vsury c. 2. Symony c. 3. The third and greatest was Sacrilege which he did abhorr as one principal Cause among many of the foreign and civil Wars in Christendom and Invasion of the Turks wherein even the reformed and otherwise the true Professors and Servants of Christ because they took God's Portion and turned it to publick profane Uses and to private Advancements did suffer just Chastisement and Correction at God's Hand And at home it had been observ'd and he wish'd that some Man would take the pains to collect how many Families that were rais'd by the Spoils of the Church were now vanish'd and the Place thereof knows them no more Of Sacrilege touching Bells It is reported in our Histories and I have spoken of it before in the proper place that King Edgar leading his Army into the parts of Glamorgan for suppressing a Rebellion of the Welshmen some of his Soldiers among other spoil took away the Bell of St. Ellutus and hanged it about an Horse's Neck And it is noted upon this that King Edgar sleeping in the Afternoon saw one in a Vision that smote him on the Breast with a Spear and that thereupon he restored both the Bell and the other spoil yet died within nine days folowing Holl. p. 161. If the Vision be fabulous I maintain it not tho' we have a Precedent for it in the Ecclesiastical Histories about the Death of Julian the Apostate But the Mythology may be that Edgar abounding with Devotion was stricken in Conscience with the Spear of Repentance for this Sacrilege and that notwithstanding his Restitution his Life was taken from him very shortly after I shall make a great Leap from thence to these latter Ages but I can go no further than where Authors and my reading carry me Only for our Fathers times I shall report what I have faithfully received by Tradition When I was a Child I speak of about threescore Years since I heard much talk of the pulling down of Bells in every part of my Country the County of Norfolk then common in Memory And the summ of the Speech usually was that in sending them over Sea some were drown'd in one Haven some in another as at Lyn Wells or Yarmouth I dare not venture upon Particularities for that I then hearing it as a Child regarded it as a Child But the truth of it was lately discover'd by God himself for that in the Year ... he sending such a dead Neipe as they call it as no Man living was known to have seen the like the Sea fell so far back from the Land at Hunstanton that the people going much further to gather Oysters than they had done at any time before they there found a Bell with the Mouth upward sunk into the ground to the very Brim They carried the News thereof to Sir Hamon le Strange Lord of the Town and of Wreck and Sea-rights there who shortly after sought to have weighed up and gained the Bell but the Sea never since going so far back they hitherto could not find the place again This Relation I receiv'd from Sir Hamon le Strange himself being my Brother-in-law Such other Reports I have often in times past heard touching some other parts of that Kingdom but as I said I then regarded them not and will not therefore now speak any thing of them But dining one day at Lambeth with the most Reverend Father in God George the late Archbishop of Canterbury it pleased his Grace in way of Discourse to tell me That being in Scotland and lodging at his first entrance in Dunber he viewed the Church there and understanding that there was never a Bell in the Steeple demanded the reason of the Minister Who not pleas'd with the Question answer'd somewhat scornfully That it was one of the Reformed Churches implying thereby that the Reformed Churches had no Bells Then going to Edinborough he found no Bell in all the City save one only in the Church of St. Andrew and enquiring there also of the reason it was told him That the rest were pull'd down and shipp'd to be carried into the Low-Countries but were all drowned in Leigh Haven Such havock in pulling down Bells and defacing otherwise of Churches had no doubt proceeded furiously throughout all England if Queen Elizabeth in An. 2. of her Reign had not by her Proclamations and course of the Star-Chamber very severely prevented the same At the end of Qu. Mary's days Callis being taken Sir Hugh Paulett pull'd down the Bells of the Churches of Jersey and sending them to