Historical sketches of old Charing. / The hospital and chapel of Saint Mary Roncevall. Eleanor of Castile, Queen of England, and the monuments erected in her memory.

by Sir James Galloway

The Establishment of the Fraternity of St. Mary Roncevall (1475).

The year 1475 marks the official commencement of the last stage of the existence of the Hospital. In that year a royal charter of Edward IV records the “foundation of a fraternity or perpetual gild of a master, two wardens and the brethren and sisters who may wish to be of the same in the Chapel of St. Mary Rounsidevall by Charyng Crosse, and of a perpetual chantry of one chaplain to celebrate divine service at the High Altar in the said chapel.” In 1478 a grant in mortmain is recorded to the Master, Wardens, Brethren and Sisters of the Fraternity of the said Chapel or Hospital, and of its property, revenues and privileges, for the sustenance of the chaplain and two additional clergy who now seem to have been required for the services of the chapel, and of “the poor people flocking to the Hospital.”

In the years following, the affairs of the Hospital seem to have been administered with energy and prudence, for we have records in 1494, 1495 and 1496 of legal proceedings concerning the property and privileges of the Hospital, in which the master and wardens vigorously upheld their position and successfully defended their rights. The litigation, which seems to have gone on intermittently chiefly for the recovery of the ancient possessions of the Hospital, appears to have been brought to a conclusion in the year 1510, when, in the Mastership of Laurence Long, the fraternity paid the sum of 20s. into the hanaper for the confirmation of the various charters granted to the fraternity by the King.

Again there seems to have been a period of comparative calm and, no doubt, of successful performance of the duties of the Hospital. The fraternity may have even thought that the storm which burst over the Church in the time of Henry VIII would leave them unharmed on account of the fulfilment of their useful functions in the community, for so late as the year 1542, while William Jenyns was Master, a record can be read giving evidence of their continuing interest and careful management of their affairs. In this year they obtained certain property and a wharf in the parish of St. Margaret, in respect of rents to be paid from a tenement called the “Shippe” and certain lands in the Parish of St. Clement Danes without Temple Bar. This, however, is the last deed recorded of the ancient community, with the exception of the final act which was very soon to take place.