[173] When I wrote this passage and an earlier passage in p. 23, I did not think how near my worst fears were to being accomplished. The organist's house at Wells, more strictly the house of the Informator Puerorum (see above, note 25), a house of the fifteenth century, stands to the south-west of the church, and was connected by some smaller buildings with the west wall of the cloister. The north gable, with a singularly elegant window of two lights, formed a striking object in crossing the Cathedral green, and held no mean place among the general group of buildings of which the church was the centre. For a long time past the building had been in a disgraceful state, and a munificent private offer to repair it was, for what reasons no man can guess, refused. Since that time, the buildings which connected the main body of the house with the cloister have been pulled down. This was a senseless act; for, though they had been much patched and mutilated, ancient portions still remained, and, in any case, their presence kept the house in its proper position as part of a whole. At last, on the night of April 12th, 1870, the ancient roof of the house, which still remained, fell in, damaging the gable and shattering the tracery of the window. How this came to pass there is no distinct evidence, but it is believed on the spot not to have been wholly accidental. Thus it is that our antiquities are daily perishing, because, while a taste for them and an appreciation of their value is daily spreading, those whose duty it is to preserve them are often those who have the least feeling for them. In the present case the damage which has been already done is the result of wilful neglect, but the complete destruction of the building would be a further act of wanton barbarism. I am by no means certain that the house could not even now be saved by a careful repair; but even if destruction has gone too far for that, what remains ought to be kept as a well-preserved ruin, and not to be swept away for any frivolous private purpose.
[174] In this point of view the history of Wells is well worthy of the care of students of municipal history. The number of boroughs which arose under the shadow of abbeys, as at Saint Alban's and Bury Saint Edmund's (on which last see Mr. Green's papers, published in Macmillan's Magazine in the course of 1869), is not small; but of Bishops' boroughs there are not many. Durham and Salisbury (see above, p. 3) are the nearest examples, but their history is not exactly the same as that of Wells. Coventry, a still greater city, grew up under the shadow of an Abbey which became a Bishoprick.
[175] Catalogue of Bishops, p. 307.
[176] This was done in the year 1526 by authority of a bull of Pope Clement the Seventh; see, for instance, the account of Daventry Priory, in Northamptonshire, in the Monasticon, v. 176.
[177] This was in 1414. A list of the houses suppressed is given in the Monasticon, viii. 1652. Among them was the Priory of Stoke Courcy, in our own county, which was a dependency of the Abbey of Lonley in Maine. Most of the estates of these monasteries went to the various foundations which grew up in the fifteenth century, as several of the Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, the College of Eton, to which Stoke Courcy went, and Saint George's Chapel at Windsor. It should be noticed that this suppression took place under King Henry the Fifth and Archbishop Chicheley, than whom there certainly never was a more religious King or Primate in England. We have here the closest parallel to the disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Church.
[178] The suppressions under Henry the Eighth were the most complete contrasts to the suppressions under Henry the Fifth. The small portion of the monastic estates which went in any way to the public service, in the foundation of bishopricks and colleges and in providing for the defence of the coast, was a trifle compared with the boundless wealth which was squandered and gambled away among Henry's minions, to say nothing of the wanton and brutal desecration of churches and consecrated objects.
[179] We should always distinguish between the two suppressions of Henry the Eighth's reign. The suppression of the lesser monasteries was done legally by Act of Parliament. The greater monasteries were suppressed by extorting from each Abbot and Convent an illegal surrender, which surrenders were afterwards confirmed by Act of Parliament. But Abbot Whiting never surrendered, so that the seizure of Glastonbury Abbey was simple robbery. The Abbot was of course really hanged for refusing to betray his trust. The nominal charge on which he was condemned by commissioners sent to "try and execute" him—the thing being thus arranged beforehand—was a ridiculous pretence of his having robbed the goods of the monastery, that is, having tried to save them from those who wished to rob them. This should be borne in mind, as I have seen it said over and over again that the Abbot was hanged for denying the King's supremacy, which the Abbot and Convent of Glastonbury, like other Abbots and Convents, had acknowledged long before.
[180] See above, p. 46.
[181] The list of Deans in Anglia Sacra, i. 590, says, "vir laicus, decanatum Wellensem ab anno 1537 pessimo exemplo tenuit. Capite plexus est 1540. 28. Julii."
[182] See Hook's Lives of Archbishops, viii. 18.