In a previous chapter were described the various buildings of a monastery and the mode of life of its inmates. And at the end of the chapter reference was made to the gradual loss of those high ideals which had been the origin of the many hundred monasteries that existed in our country at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The results of that loss will now be described.
The benefits to the country at large arising from the establishment of these religious houses had been great. They served as hotels for the rich and as almshouses for the poor. The Cistercian monks were pioneers in agriculture. Both monks and friars got together libraries of books—that at Meaux Abbey contained 324 volumes in 1539—and were mostly diligent scribes. Thus they helped to spread the means of learning.
But by the beginning of the sixteenth century many Houses had outlived their usefulness. Their inmates had decreased in numbers until only six monks remained where sixty had once been. Laxity of discipline crept in with this decrease of numbers. Hence it seemed right to suppress the small and useless religious houses, and to apply their revenues to other useful purposes.
This was the thought in the minds of both Cardinal Wolsey and the Pope of Rome when in 1524 the one applied for a certain Papal Bull and the other granted it. It was to the effect that various small monasteries to the annual value of three thousand ducats should be suppressed, and their revenues used to endow the new ‘Cardinal College’ which Wolsey was then planning to build at Oxford. Four years later permission was granted to suppress others to the annual value of eight thousand ducats. In the following year King Henry VIII. was given permission to suppress others to the annual value of ten thousand ducats, and to apply their revenues to the foundation of new cathedrals.
‘Very right and proper,’ you will probably think. ‘The money was going to be put to a better use.’ Yes, but these suppressions might point out to some unscrupulous adviser of the King a means whereby large supplies of money could easily be obtained; and if the King happened to be in need of money and was not very scrupulous as to the manner in which that money were obtained, it might become a very dangerous precedent.
| Photo by] | The Gateway of Kirkham Priory. | [H.F. Farr |
This is just what it did become. King Henry VIII. was not a particularly scrupulous man in more ways than one, and his chief adviser after Cardinal Wolsey’s death was particularly unscrupulous. Acting on the advice of Thomas Cromwell, Parliament, at the close of 1535, ordered a ‘Visitation’ of the monasteries throughout the country, and the presentation of a report based on the results of this. Accordingly, two ‘Visitors’ were appointed, who in the short space of six weeks visited, or were said to have visited, eighty-eight monasteries in the dioceses of Coventry, Lichfield and York.
| Photo by] | [C.W. Mason |
| Ruins of the East End of the Church of Kirkham Priory. | |
The report presented to Parliament was named The Black Book, and its nature was such that in February, 1536, Parliament ordered the suppression of all monasteries that had an annual income of less than £200. As a result 376 religious houses were suppressed, their inmates were transferred to the larger houses or left to shift for themselves, and their lands, to the annual value of £32,000, were forfeited to the King. All the monasteries and nunneries in the East Riding thus came to an end except those at Kirkham, Meaux, Watton and Bridlington, whose annual incomes amounted to £269, £299, £360 and £547 respectively.
In most parts of the country this suppression of the smaller monasteries caused no great stir. Undoubtedly some of them needed suppression. Undoubtedly, too, the report which got about, that the confiscation of the wealth of the religious houses would provide so much money for the government that there would thenceforth be no taxes for the common folk to pay, tended to prevent an outcry from being raised by the people. But in two counties there were rebellions. The first, in Lincolnshire, proved of little account; but the second, which had its origin in Yorkshire, was a formidable rising to which was given the name of The Pilgrimage of Grace.
In this rising all the north of England was concerned. The great Abbeys of Yorkshire exercised a powerful influence over the minds of the people, and a widespread religious ferment broke out. Lord Darcy, Earl of Holderness, Sir Robert Constable of Flamborough, Sir Thomas Percy, brother of the Earl of Northumberland, and many other northern nobles threw in their lot with the rebellious commoners. Soon forty thousand men were enrolled under the command of Robert Aske, a Westminster lawyer and brother of John Aske, the lord of the manor of Aughton-on-Derwent.
The demands of Aske and his followers were:—
(1) The restoration of the suppressed monasteries;
(2) The expulsion of counsellors of low birth from the King’s court;
(3) The holding of Parliament and of a Court of Justice at York as well as at London.[45]
Thus the rebellion had both a religious and a political aspect, but the former was that which was most apparent. The suppression of the smaller monasteries was to be followed by the closing and pulling down of the smaller parish churches, and the church plate was to be confiscated as had been that of the abbeys and priories. That was—so people said—the intention of Thomas Cromwell, the counsellor of low birth against whom their second demand was aimed. So the men of the North were up in arms in defence of their religious liberties; and as they marched behind the processional crosses brought from their parish churches, they wore on their sleeves a roughly-made badge of the ‘five wounds of Christ.’
Badge of the Pilgrimage of Grace.
The letters ‘I G’ stand for the Latin
words Itinerarium Gratiae—the
Pilgrimage of Grace.
Robert Aske had been crossing by the ferry from Brough to Barton at the close of the ‘long vacation’ of 1536 when he was told by the boatmen that the Commons were ‘up’ in Lincolnshire. Another London barrister, William Stapleton, the son of Sir Brian Stapleton of Wighill, similarly heard of the Lincolnshire rising while he was waiting at Hull to cross the river. He had been staying with his eldest brother, ‘a very weake, craysid and ympotent man’, in the Grey Friary at Beverley. This was apparently a much-frequented health resort; for his brother was ‘lying there for chaunge of ayer as he had doon the somer before from Maye till after Mydsommer.’
It was three o’clock on the morning of October 5th when Christopher Stapleton’s servant brought word to William that
all Lyncolnshere was up from Barton to Lincoln ... and that Grauntham way was stopped as well as Lincoln, so that no man could passe to london vntaken.
So William Stapleton had perforce to remain waiting in Hull.
Meanwhile Robert Aske was sending out letters to the men of the East Riding, and on Sunday, October 8th, the town bell at Beverley was set ringing and the townsmen ‘took oathe to the comons.’ Then
with greate noyse, showtes, and cryes they made proclamation everye man to appere at Westwood grene the morrowe after with suche horse and harnes as they had upon payne of death.
Great was the alarm of the ‘weake, craysid’ Christopher at these doings, and he gave orders to his people that they should keep themselves within doors. But his wife had determined otherwise, and went out to talk over the hedge and learn what was happening. ‘Where is your husband and his folkes that he cometh not as other dooth?’ she was asked, and her reply made quite clear which way her sympathies lay. ‘They be in the freers, goo pull them oute by the heddes.’
Christopher Stapleton’s wife had evidently paid more heed to the advice of a certain Carthusian monk, ‘Sir Thomas Johnson, otherwise called Bonadventure,’ who was at that time an inmate of the Grey Friary, than she had to the commands of her husband.
The lady’s suggestion came very near being carried out on the following morning. But appearances were saved by William Stapleton and his brother Brian’s coming out on the ‘Westwood grene’ to take their oath, while ‘certayne honnest men’ were sent to record the oath of Christopher. Whereat Christopher’s wife and the Carthusian monk were ‘very joyous and merye,’ while outside on the ‘grene’ there were unanimous cries: ‘Maister William Stapulton shelbe our Captayne.’
William Stapleton thus became one of the leaders of the insurgents. By his orders Hunsley beacon and Tranby beacon were fired; men came in from Newbalde and North Cave, Brantyngham, Cottingham and Hassell; and a small army of nine thousand marched to Wighton Hill, there to meet Robert Aske, who had ‘raysed all Howdenshire and Marshelande.’
Following the plan of campaign decided upon at Weighton, Aske with the main part of the army of insurgents marched to York, which surrendered on October 16th, and thence to Pontefract, which he captured four days later. Meanwhile Stapleton laid siege to Hull, encamping his men close to the Beverley Gate. The city was being held for the King by Sir Ralph Ellerker and Sir John Constable, neither of whom would hear of surrender; for they were determined, as Sir John Constable put it, rather to ‘dye with honneste than lyve with shame.’
An easy way to effect the capture of the town was pointed out by one of Stapleton’s men, who said that
with one barell of pyche fiered and sent downe with the tyde he would sett on fyer all the shippes in the haven.
But Stapleton would have none of such methods, and, much to the disgust of the more unruly of his men, he even forbade the firing of the windmills near the Beverley Gate.
The leader of this besieging force was a strict disciplinarian. He would allow no pillaging, and gave orders that every man must pay honestly for what he took. But ‘spoylinges and prevy pickinges’ did happen, nevertheless;
wheruppon he badde watche and take some therewith, and prove what he shuld doo. And theruppon they toke one Barton a fletcher whiche the said William had put in trust to kepe their vittall, and also one nawghty fellow a saynetewary[46] man of Beverley and a comen picker taken with picking muche thinges.
Wheruppon ... he cawsed to take the same twoo, and made them beleve they shulde dye, and theruppon assigned a freer to them being in his companye, advysing them to make them clene to God ...; after the whiche so doon the said William callid for one Spalding a waterman and in the presence of all men causede them to be called oute, and the seyntuary man was tyed by the middell with a rope to thende of the bote and so haled over the water and seuerall tymes put downe with the oore over the hedde. And thother seeing him thought to be so handiled, howbeit at the request of honest men he being a howsekeper, he was suffered to goo unponyshed and so bothe bannyshed the hoost.
| Photo by] | [C.W. Mason |
| Howden Church from the South. | |
| Showing how the east end of the church has been destroyed. | |
A very satisfactory mode of punishment it turned out to be. For after this ‘there was never spoile in the company of the said William.’
The conclusion of the Pilgrimage must be briefly told. The defenders of Hull finally surrendered on honourable terms. Aske, after taking Pontefract, went south to Doncaster, where negotiations were opened with the Duke of Norfolk, Commander-in-Chief of the King’s forces. As a result of these negotiations Aske was granted a safe-conduct to visit the King in London, and returned home on January 8th, with a promise that the King would visit York next Whitsuntide and hold there a Parliament at which all grievances should be considered. Satisfied with this success Aske disbanded his men.
All might now have gone well. But unfortunately for those who had been concerned in the rebellion, a certain Sir Francis Bigod and John Hallam, a servant of Sir Robert Constable, formed plans for seizing the towns of Scarborough, Beverley, and Hull, and beginning the rebellion again. Their attempts failed, and were made the occasion of a withdrawal of the terms previously offered by the King, and the taking of ruthless measures to stamp out the insurrection.
The results of the Pilgrimage of Grace proved terrible for the ringleaders. Robert Aske was decoyed to London, arrested, tried at Westminster, exhibited as a traitor in each of the towns where he had been welcomed as a deliverer of the people, and finally hanged, drawn, and quartered at York. Sir Robert Constable was hanged in chains on the Beverley Gate of Hull, Lord Darcy was beheaded on Tower Hill, Sir John Bulmer was hanged at Tyburn, and his wife was burnt at the stake. The abbots of Fountains, Rievaulx, and Jervaulx, together with the Prior of Bridlington, were also hanged at Tyburn; and an excuse was thus made for the forfeiture of their Houses to the King.
| Photo by] | [C.W. Mason |
| Howden Church—Ruins of the Chapter House. | |
When, in 1536, the decree for the suppression of the smaller monasteries was issued, Parliament thanked God that ‘in divers and great solemn monasteries of the realm, religion is right well kept and observed.’ The Abbots of some of these were induced to surrender voluntarily—‘willingly to consent and agree’ to the destruction of their Abbeys and the confiscation of all their property. The Abbots of others were convicted of high treason, and their Abbeys declared forfeited. One hundred and fifty surrendered during 1538–9, and by 1540 all had been suppressed.
The sale of the Abbey lands realised a sum of money equal to £8,500,000 in the money of to-day, and the value of the plunder from the shrines—gold, silver gilt, and silver crosses, chalices, and candlesticks—was not less than another million pounds. The total cash value to the King amounted to nearly £15,000,000 in our money. Of this huge sum about one-half was spent on public purposes—the foundation of new bishoprics, the building of schools, and the organisation of harbours and other national defences.[47] The remainder went into the pockets of the King’s courtiers, many of whom rose from comparative poverty to a position of wealth.
What the Suppression meant to the religious houses of the East Riding may be judged from the following letter, written in 1538 by a servant of Thomas Cromwell to his master:—
Pleasythe your good Lordshipp to be advertysed. I have taken downe all the lead of Jervayse,[48] and made itt in pecys of half-foders, which lead amounteth to the numbre of eighteen score and five foders,[49] with thirty and foure foders, and a half, that were there before. And the said lead cannot be conveit, nor caryed unto the next sombre, for the ways in that contre are so foule, and deep, that no carrage can passe in wyntre. And as concerning the raising and taken downe the house, if itt be your Lordshipps pleasure I am minded to let itt stand to the Spring of the yere, by reason of the days are now so short it wolde be double charge to do itt now. And as concerning the selling of the bells, I cannot sell them above 15s. the hundreth,[50] wherein I would gladly know your Lordshipps pleasor, whether I should sell them after that price, or send them up to London. And if they be sent up surely the carriage wolbe costly frome that place to the water. And as for Byrdlington I have doyn nothing there as yet, but sparethe itt to March next, bycause the days now are so short, and from such tyme as I begyn I trust shortly to dyspatche itt after such fashion that when all is fynished, I trust your Lordshipp shall think that I have bene no evyll howsbound in all such things, as your Lordshipp haith appoynted me to doo. And thus the Holy Ghost ever preserve your Lordshipp in honor. At York this fourteenth day of November by your most bounden beadsman.
That Cromwell’s ‘most bounden beadsman’ faithfully kept his promise we see to-day in the condition of Bridlington Priory. What we call the ‘Priory Church’ is merely the nave of the church of the Augustinian Priory. Chancel and transepts have equally disappeared. So have the cloisters, chapter house, frater, dorter, Abbot’s house, and the numerous farm buildings which once stood within the Priory walls. Of the walls themselves nothing remains but the ‘Bayle Gate.’
A worse tale has to be told of the wilful destruction of the other monasteries, nunneries, and friaries in our Riding.
Of Kirkham Priory, on the bank of the river Derwent, there are remains only of the once beautiful gateway, the cloister court, and the east end of the church. What is now the Swine parish church was once the chancel of the nunnery church. Of the Black Friary at Beverley there are remains of the boundary wall. The oriel window of the Prior’s house is to be seen built into the modern ‘Watton Priory,’ and a few stones of the Priory of Haltemprice are built into a farmhouse which now occupies part of its site. Of the great Abbey of Meaux—founded in 1150 by William le Gros, Earl of Holderness, in redemption of a vow that he would make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and rebuilt four times during the next hundred years—there now remains not one stone in place above ground. And of the Friaries once flourishing in Hull nought remains but their mere names.
| Photo by] | [C.W. Mason |
| All that remained of Meaux Abbey in 1900. | |
‘Even where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, even there shall the dogs lick thy blood also, O King.’ Such was the text which a certain Grey Friar used when he had occasion to preach before King Henry. A bold man he must have been thus to take his fate into his hands. What the fate of Friar Peto actually was is not recorded, but we know that the Grey Friars and the Carthusian Monks were treated with particular brutality.
Of the monks of the London Charterhouse five were hanged at Tyburn, and their bodies afterwards cut up. Ten were removed to Newgate on May 29th, 1537. Sixteen days later the following report was issued:—
| There are departed | 5 |
| There are even at the point of death | 2 |
| There are sick | 2 |
| There is healed | 1 |
Later on all but one are reported as dead, and three years afterwards that one was hanged at Tyburn. With his name we are already acquainted—‘Sir Thomas Johnson, otherwise called Bonadventure.’ Surely never was monk given a less appropriate name than his turned out to be.