The Last Abbot of Glastonbury: A Tale of the Dissolution of the Monasteries

by A. D. Crake

Notes.

Note A, [P. 2].—Antiquities of Glastonbury.

The town of Glastonbury is a place, whose historical traditions stretch back to a very remote antiquity. It was known to the early Britons as “Inis Avalon,” or the Isle of Apples, for that fruit was said to grow spontaneously on the rich soil. Thus Camden writes, or rather translates an ancient ode:—

“O Isle of Apples; truly fortunate,

Where unforced fruit, and willing comforts meet;

For there the fields require no rustic hand,

But Nature only cultivates the land:

The fertile plains with corn and herds are proud,

And golden apples smile in every wood.”

The cluster of hills was (as the name “Inis Avalon,” or “Insula Avalonia,” implies) once an island, surrounded by water from the inlet, we now call the Bristol Channel.

It was not conquered by the English or West Saxons, until the year 658, when Kenwalk [Cenwealh] of Wessex, defeated the Britons after a hard fight, and drove them across the Parret, but it was Christian long before it was English, for it is certain that it was a centre of Welsh Christianity from the earliest times.

Ancient legends relate that S. Philip the Apostle, anxious both to spread the knowledge of the Gospel, and to provide for the safety of his friend Joseph of Arimathæa, exposed to danger from the hatred of the Jews, combined these ends by sending him to Britain with eleven brethren, and some add that S. Mary Magdalene accompanied him.

They were greatly tossed by the waves, and buffeted out of their course, so that they landed on the Isle of Avalon, where Arviragus, the king, received them kindly; and gave them permission to build a Church, which they did, dedicating it to the Blessed Virgin, a dedication afterwards forgotten, for it was finally dedicated to S. Joseph himself, and under the name “Vetusta Ecclesia,” most carefully encased with stone and preserved by subsequent architects, until the great fire in 1184.

It is also recorded that the landing of the Saint and his companions took place at the northern side of Wirral Hill, at a place called in old maps, “The Sea Wall;” the exact spot was anciently identified by a hawthorn tree, which sprang from the staff S. Joseph struck into the ground when he landed. Many trees propagated by grafts from this wonderful tree still exist; they flower at Christmas in honour of the Nativity.

The legend adds, that S. Joseph brought with him a most priceless treasure, “The Holy Grail,” the very chalice in which the Saviour administered the Sacrament of His Blood.

The Cup, the Cup itself, from which our Lord

Drank at the last sad Supper with His own;

This, from the Blessed Land of Aromat—

After the day of darkness, when the dead

Went wandering over Moriah—the good Saint,

Arimathæan Joseph, journeying brought

To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn

Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our Lord.

Tennyson.—The Holy Grail.

The original Chapel, built, according to tradition, by S. Joseph and his companions, stood at the west end of the great Abbey Church. It was 60 feet long by 20 broad, and, whatever we may think of the tradition, was doubtless one of the oldest churches in Britain; under its altar S. Joseph was said to lie buried.

Furthermore we are informed that the Ambassador, sent by Pope Eleutherius in answer to the petition of King Lucius, landed here, and revived the faith, when it was becoming decayed; but the whole legend of King Lucius is rejected by modern historians.

Here also it is said that S. Patrick, after the conversion of Ireland, retired in his seventy-second year, and ruled as Abbot for thirty-nine years, dying in the year 472, in the one hundred and eleventh year of his age. He was buried in S. Joseph’s Chapel.

Here also S. David, the patron Saint of Wales, is said to have ended his days; he wished to reconsecrate the Vetusta Ecclesia, or Chapel of S. Joseph; but our Lord appeared to him in a vision, and informed him that He had consecrated it Himself.

Here King Arthur, the hero of a hundred fights, and a thousand myths, was said to be buried with his Queen Guinevra. His heroic deeds, in the defence of his country, against our pagan forefathers, have been sung by many Bards of old, but by none more sweetly than by our greatest living poet. Thus he describes the parting scene with the brave knight, Sir Bedivere, after the hero’s last great battle with his treacherous nephew, Mordred, at Camlen in Cornwall:—

“But now farewell, I am going a long way,

With these thou seest, if indeed I go,

(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt,)

To the island valley of Avilion,

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,

Nor ever wind blows loudly, but it lies

Deep meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns,

And bowery meadows, crowned with summer sea,

Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.”

But the hope was vain; he went to Avalon to die.

This story was sung by the Welsh Bards to King Henry II. on his journey to Ireland in 1177, and interested him so deeply, that he recommended a search for the remains, and that they should be (if found) exhumed and re-interred in the Church, as a more fitting resting place. This wish was carried out after that king’s death by his nephew, Henry de Soliaco, then Abbot, in 1191, and in the spot indicated by the Bards, the remains were found both of Arthur and his queen. Geraldus Cambrensis, who was present, relates the scene, and says that a stone was found with a leaden cross bearing the inscription,—“Hic pace sepultus rex Arthurus, in insula Avalonia,”—and beneath it the remains of the hero king, which were of giant proportions, and of his queen, mingled in the same coffin. In the large skull were three wounds, and in the cavity occupied by the queen’s remains a tress of fair yellow hair, which being touched fell to pieces. The remains were duly honoured by a black marble mausoleum in the Church.

When more than eighty years had passed away, the greatest of the Plantagenets, Edward the first, and his Queen Eleanor kept the festival of Easter at Glastonbury, and the tomb was opened for their inspection; when the king commanded the hallowed relics to be exposed before the high altar, for the veneration of the people, ere they were recommitted to their resting place; there to rest, until the tyrant—

“Cast away like a thing defiled

The remembrance of the just.”

We have dwelt upon these old legends, not without pleasure, as recorded chiefly by William of Malmesbury, on the authority of a “Charter of S. Patrick,” and an ancient British historian whose writings were then extant, but whose name he does not hand down to posterity.

But the Charter is pronounced by Archbishop Usher to be the forgery of a Saxon monk, and historians in general, consider the truth of the legends, hitherto recorded, as doubtful as those of the kings of Rome, or of the Trojan war.

Still, there can be little doubt in a candid mind, that these ancient myths enshrine many facts, that in the early British times, nay in the very infancy of Christianity, Glastonbury was a centre of light under its earlier name, “the Isle of Avalon,” and that the site of S. Joseph’s Chapel, or the “Vetusta Ecclesia,” is that of one of the oldest, or perhaps the oldest Christian Church in Britain.

We have already seen that the English Conquest had advanced as far as Glastonbury by the year 658. Sixty years afterwards, Ina, King of Wessex, after building the first Church in Wells, by the advice of Adhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, (in which diocese the new conquests were incorporated until the foundation of the See of Wells by Edward the Elder in 909,) rebuilt the monastery on the Isle of Avalon, which by that time, owing to the subsidence of the sea, had either ceased, or was fast ceasing to be an island; save, so far as it was encircled by the waters of the river Brue and its tributary streams, with the marshes they formed. So long as the English had remained heathen they had destroyed all the Churches and monasteries they found; now that they, the West Saxons, had become Christian they respected the Churches and monks, and thus they became great benefactors of Avalonia, or as the English called it, “Glæstingabyrig,” or “Glastonbury.”

Ina died at Rome, whither he had gone, after resigning his crown, in all the “odour of sanctity.”

The monastery was burnt by the Danes in the following century, and restored by the great Saint Dunstan, as described in the author’s earlier tale, “Edwy the Fair, or the First Chronicle of Æscendune.” Here King Edgar died, and was buried; here, as recorded in a later tale of the writer, “Alfgar the Dane, or the Second Chronicle of Æscendune,” the murdered Edmund Ironside was solemnly interred.

The first Norman Bishop, was one Turstinus, or Tustain, and a testy Abbot was he; he had a dislike to the ancient Gregorian music, and bade his English monks sing Parisian tones; but they clung to their old melodies; they had obeyed their foreign tyrant in other things, but would not give up their Gregorians; so the Abbot called in Norman soldiers to coerce the unwilling songsters, and there was a terrible riot in the Church, for the Normans did not respect the sanctity of the place, and slew many monks therein, so that after the conflict ended many arrows were found sticking in the Crucifix over the high altar.

The plain Saxon edifice of Ina looked mean to men accustomed to the Norman abbeys, and therefore Tustain rebuilt the greater portion.

The well known fighting Bishop, Henry of Blois, brother of King Stephen, was appointed Abbot of Glastonbury in 1126, and Bishop of Winchester in 1134, retaining the earlier appointment also till his death in 1171. He rebuilt the monastery from the very foundations, (says an old chronicler) as well as a large palace for himself.

But in the year 1184, on the 25th of May, a terrible fire destroyed the whole monastery, save the bell tower, and a chapel and chamber, built by Abbot Robert (A.D. 1172). Henry the Second, then king, immediately issued a charter, beginning with the words, “Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap,” and announced, that in order to lay up treasure in heaven, he and his heirs would restore and raise it to greater glory than before.

He built the Church of S. Mary, commonly called S. Joseph’s Chapel, on the site of the Vetusta Ecclesia, with “squared stones of the most perfect workmanship, profusely ornamented,” and it was consecrated by Reginald the Bishop, on S. Barnabas’ Day, 1186.

The great king only lived three more years, and after his death the further restoration went on but slowly, so that it was not until one hundred and nineteen years had passed away, that the great Abbey Church of S. Peter and S. Paul, which figures in our story, was completed and dedicated, in the year 1303, in the days of Abbot Fromont, and the reign of Edward the First.

The Abbey is said to have suffered grievously in the earthquake which shook the country in the third year of Edward the first, 1274.

The eight Abbots who succeeded in order, carried on the work of beautifying and enlarging until Richard Beere, 1493-1524, the last Abbot but one, finished by erecting the king’s lodgings for secular clergy.

Then when all was “as perfect as perfect could be,” so far as the outward structure, came the terrible fall our story records.

Note B, [P. 11].—Lad and Lass.

“The old good wife’s well hoarded nuts

Are round and round divided,

And many lads’ and lasses’ fates

Are there that night decided;

Some kindle quickly, side by side,

And burn together trimly,

Some start away with saucy pride

And jump out o’er the chimney.”

Burning the nuts is a famous charm. They name the lad and lass to each particular nut, as they lay them on the fire, and accordingly as they burn quietly together, or start from beside one another, the course and issue of the courtship will be.—Brand’s Popular Antiquities.

Note C, [P. 11].—Fetches.

These are the exact figures and resemblances of persons then living; often seen not only by their friends at a distance, but many times by themselves; of which there are several instances in Aubrey’s Miscellanies. These apparitions are called “Fetches,” and in Cumberland “Swarths;” they most commonly appear to distant friends and relations at the very instant preceding the death of a person whose figure they put on; but sometimes there is a greater interval between the appearance and death.—Grose apud Brand.

Note D, [P. 25].—Coupled between two Foxhounds.

“Sir Peter Carew, being a boy at about the date of the tale, and giving trouble at the High School at Exeter, was led home to his father’s house at Ottery, coupled between two foxhounds.”—Hooker’s Life of Sir Peter Carew.

Note E, [P. 31].—The Parchments.

The Abbot’s connection with “The Pilgrimage of Grace” has never been proved, but it is scarcely unjust to assume, as is done in the text, his general sympathy with the movement. Froude says it was discovered that he and the Abbot of Reading had supplied the northern insurgents with money.

“Treason doth never prosper, for this reason

That if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

Thus, had the northern movement succeeded, it might generally be acknowledged to be as justifiable as the similar popular risings of 1642 and 1688; it failed, and the story has been written by the victors.

Note F, [P. 38].—The Last Celebration.

The account of this last celebration is taken from the touching and affecting narrative of Maurice Channey, a survivor of the Carthusian monks, who suffered in 1535, mutatis mutandis. Locality and names being changed, the story in the text is a narrative of facts. It will be found in the ninth chapter of Froude’s Henry VIII.

Note G, [P. 73].—Death of Abbott Whiting.

For the purposes of the story the writer has taken some little liberties with the traditional account of the martyrdom, which here he supplies, beginning with the trial at Wells:—

“When he arrived at Wells, the old man was informed that there was an assembly of the gentry and nobility, and that he was summoned to it, on which he proceeded to take his seat among them, the habits of a long and honourable life clinging to him even after his imprisonment. Upon this the crier of the court called him to the bar to answer a charge of high treason. “What does it all mean?” he asked of his attendant, his memory and probably his sight and hearing having failed. His servant replied that they were only trying to alarm him into submission, and probably this was the opinion of most who attended the court, as well as the jurors. “As worshipful a jury,” writes Lord Russell to Cromwell, “as was charged here these many years.” And there was never seen in these parts so great an appearance as were at this present time, and never better willing to serve the king. He was soon condemned, though he appears not to have understood what had happened, and the next day, Nov. 15th, 1539, he was taken to Glastonbury in his horse-litter.

“It was only when a priest came to receive his confession as he lay, that he comprehended the state of things; then he begged that he might be allowed to take leave of his monks before going to execution, and also to have a few hours to prepare for his death.

“But no delay was permitted, and the old man was thrust out of the litter on to a hurdle, upon which he was rudely dragged through the town to the top of the hill which overlooks the monastery, where he took his death very patiently, in the manner described in the text.”—Rev. J. H. Blunt’s Reformation of the Church of England, p. 349-350. (From original authorities.)

Note H, [P. 78].—English Farmers.

“My father was a yeoman and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of three or four pounds by the year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled as much as kept half-a-dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find the king a harness with himself and his horse. I remember that I buckled on his harness when he went to Blackheath field. He kept me to school or else I had not been able to have preached before the king’s majesty now. He married my sisters with five pounds or twenty nobles each, having brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbours and some alms he gave to the poor, and all this he did of the said farm.”—Latimer’s Sermons, p. 101.

Note I, [P. 93].—The Abbey Church.

Add this sentence accidentally omitted from the text:—

“There, in that desecrated spot, reposed the ashes of the mighty dead; there, if tradition may be believed, rested the hero king Arthur, the defender of the land against the English invasion, the hero of a hundred fights, the subject of a thousand myths; there rested the holy bones of him who had afforded his Saviour the shelter of a tomb, but whose own resting place was thus defiled; there lay S. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland; there, S. David, the patron Saint of Wales; there, S. Dunstan, whose bones were said to have been brought hither, after the sack of Canterbury by the Danes in 1012.[59] So highly had this spot been reverenced, that Kings, Queens, Archbishops and Bishops, had given large donations to the Abbey, that they might secure a resting place amongst the hallowed dead. Here lay the mournful historian, Gildas; here the venerated remains of the Venerable Bede; here lay King Edmund, the victim of the assassination at Pucklechurch; here King Edgar, the magnificent; hither, amidst a nation’s tears, they bore the heroic Ironside to his rest—and now! ’twas enough to make an angel weep—and a mortal wonder whether the nation had ceased to reverence its ancient greatness; or indeed to believe in Him Who is the God to Whom all live, whether men call them dead or not; and Who has taught us to reverence the sleeping dust, wherein His Spirit once moved and energized.”

Note J, [P. 117].—The Gubbings.

The Gubbings were a kind of gipsy race who infested Dartmoor, and who were united in a confederation under one whom the people called the “King of the Gubbings.” Old Fuller (p. 398) writes:—

“They are a peculiar of their own making, exempt from Bishop, Archdeacon, and all authority, either ecclesiastical or civil. They live in cotes (rather holes than houses) like swine, having all in common, multiplied, without marriage, into many hundreds. During our civil wars no soldiers were quartered upon them, for fear of being quartered amongst them. Their wealth consisteth in other men’s goods; they live by stealing the sheep on the moors, and vain it is for any to search their houses, being a work beneath the pains of any sheriff, and above the power of any constable. Such is their fleetness, they will outrun many horses; vivaciousness, they outlive most men, living in ignorance of luxury, the extinguisher of life. They hold together like bees; offend one, and all will avenge his quarrel.”

Note K, [P. 135].—The Black Assize.

“Among the memorable events of these times, in which innocent Catholics were everywhere made to suffer, is that which took place in the city and university of Oxford. One Rowland Jenks (a bookseller), was arraigned as a Catholic (for the publication of some unlicensed books against the changes in religion), found guilty, and being but one of the common people, was condemned to lose both his ears. But the judge had hardly delivered the sentence, when a deadly disease suddenly attacked the whole court; no other part of the city, and no persons, not in the court, were touched. The disease laid hold, in a moment, of all the judges, the high sheriff, and the twelve men of the jury. The jurymen died immediately, the judges, the lawyers, and the high sheriff died, some of them within a few hours, others of them within a few days, but all of them died. Not less than five hundred persons who caught the same disease at the same time and place, died soon after, in different places outside the city.”—Rushton’s Continuation of Sanders, Book iv., Cap ix.

Note L, [P. 232].—Demolition of Abbeys.

The reader may wonder that men should have been found, so ready to plunder the house of God; so greedy, as the country people everywhere showed themselves, to share in the plunder of the Church.

The following extract from “Ellis’ Original Letters,” is much to the point, and will at least enlighten us as to their motives, which were of the earth, earthy:—

“I demanded of my father thirty years after the suppression, (that would be in the time of Elizabeth) which had bought part of the timber of the Church, and all the timber in the steeple, with the bell frame, with others his partners therein (in the which steeple hung eight or nine bells, whereof the least but one could not be bought at this day for twenty pounds, which bells I did see hang there myself, more than a year after the suppression), whether he thought well of the religious persons, and of the religion then used, and he told me ‘yea,’ for he said, ‘I did see no cause to the contrary.’ ‘Well,’ said I then, ‘how came it to pass, you were so ready to destroy and spoil the thing that you thought well of?’ ‘What should I do,’ said he, ‘might I not, as well as others, have some profit of the spoil of the abbey? for I did see all moved away, and therefore I did as others did.’ Thus you may see, as well as they who thought well of the religion then used, as they which thought otherwise, could agree well enough, and too well, to spoil them. Such an evil is covetousness and mammon, and such is the providence of God to punish sinners in making themselves instruments to punish themselves and all their posterity, from generation to generation. For no doubt there have been millions that have repented the thing since, but all too late.”