The juries themselves sat with a rope around their necks; when the Prior and the chief brethren of the Charter-house waited upon Cromwell to explain their conscientious objections to the Oath of Supremacy, loyally and faithfully, he sent them from his house to the tower; when the juries would not convict the ecclesiastics, he detained them in court a second day, and threatened them with the punishment reserved for the prisoners, unless they found a verdict for the crown; finally, he visited the jurymen in person, and by individual intimidation forced the reluctant men to find a verdict of guilty, whereupon the unfortunate monks were hanged, drawn, and quartered, with every circumstance of barbarity, suspended, cut down alive, disembowelled, and finally dismembered.[17]
Thursday, the fourteenth of November, 1539, was a gloomy day: black leaden clouds floated above, the ground was sodden with moisture, the leaves, fallen leaves, no inapt emblem, rotted in the slime, a heavy damp air oppressed the breath; the day suited the deed, for on that day the aged Abbot of Glastonbury was formally arraigned at Wells, together with his brethren the Prior and Sub-Prior, on the charge of felony,—“Robbery of the Abbey Church with intent to defraud the King.”
They might well have proceeded against him under the Act of Supremacy, but variety has charms, and this new idea of felony commended itself to the mind of Cromwell, as a good device for humbling the clergy.
Lord Russell, one of Henry’s new nobility who supplied the places left vacant by so many ruthless executions, whose own fortunes were built on the plunder of the Church, sat as judge, and there were empannelled, we are told, “as worshipful a jury as was ever charged in Wells.”
The indictment set forth that the prisoners had feloniously hidden the treasures of the Abbey, to wit, sundry chalices, patens, reliquaries, parcels of plate, gold and silver in vessels, ornaments, and money, with the intent of depriving our sovereign lord the King of his rightful property, conferred upon him by Act of Parliament.
“What say you, Richard Whiting, guilty or not guilty?”
The aged prisoner looked around him with wondering eyes; he scanned the crowded array of spectators, then the jury, who looked half ashamed of their work, and finally rested his eyes upon his judge.
“How can I plead guilty where there can be no guilt? These treasures were committed to my care to keep for God and Holy Church; it is not meet to cast them to swine; no earthly power may lawfully take to itself the houses of God for a possession, or break down the carved work thereof with axes and hammers. Am I tried before an assembly of Christian men, or before heathen, Turks, infidels, and heretics?”