The dissolution of the monasteries

by Francis Aidan Hibbert

No sooner was the Act passed than a most unseemly scramble for the spoils began. Petitions flowed in to Cromwell and other people of influence, begging, often in the most abject way, for favours. The rights of Patrons and Founders were in theory respected by the Act (Art. viii), but obviously little could be done for such persons when the monasteries disappeared. Obviously all religious and spiritual privileges and benefits vanished, and rights of nomination were valueless when there was no house to which to nominate. The clause was an elaborate pretence. How little the moral rights of founders were regarded is shown in the case of Ronton.

On April 2nd, 1536, Sir Simon Harcourt wrote to Cromwell:[132] “I am informed that it is enacted in Parliament that certain religious houses shall be dissolved. There is a little house of canons in Staffordshire, called Ronton, built and endowed by my ancestors, to the intent they might be prayed for perpetually, and many of them are buried there. I would gladly be a suitor for it to the King, but I dare not, as I know not his pleasure. I beg you will be a mediator to the King for me, that the same house may continue, and he shall have £100 and you £100 if you can accomplish it, and £20 fee out of the said house. If the King is determined to dissolve it, I desire to have it, as it adjoins such small lands as I have in that county, and I and my heirs will pay so much as the rent of assize cometh to, and give you 100 marks.” Sir Simon Harcourt evidently realized the state of affairs thoroughly well, and equally thoroughly understood the sort of man to whom he was writing. Sincerely as he desired the continuance of the burial-place of his ancestors, he knew that Cromwell would recognise no such filial sentiments, so he boldly offered him the large bribe of £100. But a more powerful suitor was in the field. On April 27th Henry Lord Stafford wrote urging his claims.[133] “I beg you will use means with the King that I may have the farm of the Abbey of Rantone if it be dissolved. It is within four miles of my house, and reaches my park pale, and I will give as much for it as any man. I heard that the Queen had moved the King to have me in remembrance for it, and he was content, saying it was alms to help me, having so many children on my hands. I heard that George Blunt endeavours to obstruct my suit.” Next day he wrote to the Earl of Westmoreland begging him to use his influence with the secretary on his behalf, and, failing Ronton, he asks for the house of the White Ladies at Brewood, urging “it is only £40 rent by year, and is in great decay.”[134] Stafford’s suit, thus supported, found more favour than that of poor Simon Harcourt. Richard Cromwell, “honeying at the whisper of a lord,” wrote to Lord Stafford on May 15th[135]: “As to the Abbey you wrote about, my uncle says he will not fail to obtain it for you when the surveying of the Abbeys is at an end.” Stafford had not obtained the house in March of the following year, for Harcourt made a brave fight for it. Later we shall find Lord Hastings asking for Burton.

But squires and lords were not the only people who interested themselves in the dividing of the spoils. Bishop Roland Lee was as forward as any in urging his claims. On April 29th, 1536, he wrote to Cromwell[136]: “Remember my suit for the Priory of St. Thomas (Stafford), of which not only the King, but you, shall have a certain sum. If that cannot be, I trust, as the demesnes came from the Mitre, I may have the preferment of the house and the demesnes for one of my kinsfolk.” He failed to obtain the Priory at once, though he made repeated efforts. On June 27th of this year he wrote[137]: “Though your suit for the Priory of St. Thomas in my behalf cannot stand, yet as you mind my preferment to the farm of the demesnes, I thank you. I desire them only for quietness, not for advantage”; and he wrote again on April 3rd, 1537.

The Priory of Stone contained many tombs of the Staffords, and Lord Stafford evidently hoped the house would escape. But the glory of his family had departed and he had no real influence. The Prior was William Smith, and he does not appear to have had any suspicion that his house was soon to come to an end. Even while the Visitors were making their investigations, if, indeed, any investigation at all was made in the great majority of cases, he was engaged in the business of his house. In his financial transactions with his Bishop he found the latter more worldly-wise than he was himself. Bishop Roland Lee sold him timber out of Blore Park and received the payment. But, being better informed of the trend of events, he prevented many of the trees from being felled and delivered to the dying Priory. On February 19th William Smith wrote urgently to Lee,[138] “Touching the timber in Blore Park which I bought and paid for to my lord, 40 trees are still standing, as the bearer can show. If I have not the said timber I know not where to be provided for my great work now in hand. I shall intreat you for your pains.” Several months later, Henry Lord Stafford wrote to Cromwell telling him “that the Prior of Stone hathe good hope that his howse schall stand, whereof all the contree is right glad, and praye fulle hertily for your lordeship therfore.” The Earl of Shrewsbury, however, had designs on it, and sought the assistance of Scudamore in obtaining it, bringing himself to address his letter “To my hertly biloved fellow John Skydmore, oon of the gentylmen vsshers of the Kynge’s most honourable Chamber.”

In these circumstances there was much uncertainty as to the extent to which the Act would literally and fully be carried out, and how far influence might succeed in nullifying it.

In due course another band of royal agents was let loose upon the land to carry out the work of dissolution. The “Instructions for the King’s Commissioners” are exceedingly minute. For each county an Auditor and Receiver was to be appointed, with one of the clerks of the late visitation, and to these were to be joined “three other discreet persons to be named by the King.” These were to visit each condemned house and exhibit the Statute of Dissolution to the head and his brethren. The inmates were then to be required to make on oath a full disclosure of the state of their affairs, to surrender their charters and seal, plate, and other effects. Such of the monks as were willing to take “capacities” were to be referred to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chancellor, and were to be rewarded for their complacency; the rest were to be transferred to other houses. Orders were to be given that the monks were to cease receiving any income except such as was absolutely necessary, but they were to continue “to sow and till their grounds as they have done before,” and the Superior was referred to “the Chancellor of the Augmentation for his yearly stipend and pension.” But evidently the agents were prepared to accept favourable offers. Henry Lord Stafford, writing to Cromwell on March 12th, 1537, says: “The Commissioners will be in Staffordshire on Sunday next. The Prior of Stone thinks his house shall stand, whereof the country is glad; so my suit is in vain unless your Lordship help me to the Priory of Rontone, for which I was first suitor: howbeit Sir Simon Harcourt makes great labour for it”; and he proceeds again to plead his poverty and his large family, mentioning that he had twelve children.[139]

The Commissioners in Staffordshire dissolved three out of the nine houses which came within the scope of the Act, namely Ronton, Stone, and Trentham. The majority were spared, some, as we have seen, through the intervention of powerful or interested friends, but all on payment of large sums.[140] For instance, Hulton, having paid £66 13s. 4d., obtained a grant of exemption on October 1st, 1536, the Abbot being Edward Wilkyns; Rocester’s grant was made on March 11th, 1537, and its payment £100; Tutbury, per Arthur Meverell, received its license on May 3rd; Croxden, per Thomas Chawner, on the 2nd of July, by payment of £100; St. Thomas’, Stafford, per Richard Whyttewall, on July 4th, by payment of £133 6s. 8d. On April 3rd, Robert Burgoyn had written to the Bishop, who so earnestly had desired the Priory: “According to your desire ... I have forwarded letters from the Chancellor of the Augmentations to Mr. Scudamore to survey the lead of the late house of Canons beside Stafford,”[141] which shows how narrowly the house escaped, even for a time, the clutches of Roland Lee and Cromwell, for though he spoke of it as “the late house,” it did not surrender till October, 1538. Lee kept up his persistent begging for it to the end.

The Grant of Exemption obtained by Croxden is given in the Appendix. It gives the King’s new title, “Supremum Caput Anglicanae Ecclesiae,” in its most offensive form, without the qualifying words, but it will be noticed that it is couched throughout in general terms. There is nothing in it which is peculiar to the particular house concerned. Everything would apply equally well to any other house. It looks as though the Commissioners went on their circuit provided with a supply of such general forms, having blanks for the names of houses and of abbots, which they were prepared to issue whenever they thought fit, that is, whenever a sufficiently large pecuniary inducement could be offered. That there was no genuine intention to allow any of the religious houses to continue permanently was speedily shown.

But for the present the elaborate grants for continuance served their turn, and allayed public dismay. No echo of the Pilgrimage of Grace was heard in Staffordshire, although that dangerous rising began near the north-eastern border of the county. It rolled northwards, and Lord Stafford was so entirely satisfied that he carried out the difficult and costly process of transferring his family monuments from the dissolved Priory at Stone to the Austin Friary at Stafford. He evidently had no idea that Commissioners would destroy that house, too, in a few months.

It was, of course, entirely to the interest of the agents of the Dissolution to conceal the real scope of their intentions, for the threatened monks naturally tried sometimes to keep back part of their cherished possessions and to save the sacred vessels and vestments from the profane uses to which they were likely to be put. The Act of Dissolution had foreseen the danger and had made all sales and leases of lands effected “within one year next before the making of this Act,” “utterly void and of none effect”; while all ornaments, jewels, goods and chattels which the houses possessed “at the first day of March in the year of our Lord God 1535 or any time sithen whensoever” were declared the property of the King. The Prior of Stone and some of his neighbours, who, as we have seen, resented the suppression of the house, attempted to save something.