“Articles and instructions” for special commissioners were issued “concerning the embezzling and taking [away] of certain plate, jewels, ornaments, goods, and chattels of the late monastery of Stone ... whereupon as well William Smyth, late Prior of the said house, James Colyer, James Atkyn, Sampson Greswike, Geoffrey Walkeden, and Hugh Rathebone, and all such other persons as Thomas Woodall, bringer hereof, shall name, are to be examined.”[142] The specific charges are as follows, so far as they can be traced, for the document unfortunately exists in a fragmentary form only: “Whether Colyer received a shrine, four standing cups, and two silver salts; whether Atkyn received certain sheep and cattle since the said fourth day of February; whether Greswike since the fourth day of February hath of the said house ...,” and there the paper ends. February 4th was the day on which the Session of Parliament which had passed the Act of Dissolution had opened.
In the Augmentation Accounts for 1538 we find “A parcel of £20 due from James Colyer for the surplus value of a shrine of silver-gilt mortgaged to him by the Prior of Stone, part of which was paid 5 of June, 30 Henry VIII, £13 6s. 8d.”[143] The Abbot of Dieulacres secured blank forms with the Convent seal before it was taken from him, and on these he subsequently made out ante-dated leases. Bishop Lee reported to Cromwell that the Prior of St. Thomas at Stafford was making “unreasonable waste,” which probably means that he had realized the uselessness of economy in the face of imminent dissolution.
The fines for continuance were exceedingly heavy and must have pressed very hardly on the houses which were called upon to raise such large sums. They appear to have been roughly calculated at a year’s income,[144] and no doubt they account in no small measure for the indebtedness which subsequently was charged against some of the houses.
Moreover, the officials looked for bribes and presents, and we may be sure they required to be well entertained when they visited the monasteries, to judge from their own large expenditure on “cates.”[145] The houses were impoverished by direct methods as well. Prior Richard, of St. Thomas’s, Stafford, was ordered to give the lease of a church at Audlem in Cheshire, belonging to the Priory, to a nominee of Cromwell’s. He protested against the unfairness, though he was unable to avoid compliance. “It is,” he says,[146] “in the occupation of five poor farmers there by lease,” but he had to give Cromwell’s nominee a fifty years’ lease in reversion, in consideration of Cromwell’s “goodness,” and the lessee was to pay six shillings and eightpence, whereas they could have had 40 marks from another. He adds that last Midsummer he paid Cromwell £60 and now sends £20 more.
The same policy of crippling the Abbeys was pursued even towards Burton, which did not come under the Act. On August 15th, 1538, the Abbot of Burton-on-Trent wrote to Cromwell[147]: “On the 12th of August I received the King’s letters and yours in favour of Mr. Robert Everest, one of the servers of the Chambers, for the tithe of the parsonage of Allstrye, Warwickshire. That tithe is so necessary for our house that we cannot do without it, and was appropriated under the broad seal of England because we had not corn sufficient for hospitality. You write that Sir Thomas Gresley, lately deceased, had it. But that is 34 years ago, and he only had it then because the Abbot was indebted to him.”
The following letter from the Abbot of Burton is addressed “to the Ryght Worshipful Maister Holcroft the Kynge comycyoner at Lenton delyver this:”[148]
“Mayster Holcroft I enterlye recomend me vnto you beseching God that I may once be able to surrendre vnto you condygne thanks for thys youre goodness wyche have dymynysshed parte of the charges wyche by yor (scored through) comyssyon you myght have put me to, And as touchyng youre request of this brother and the lame chylde, god wyllyng I shall so accomplysshe hyt as shall both please yor mastership & content the partyes beyng not only in this thyng but also in all other redy at my prynces comandement and to my small power shew yor mastershippe pleasure pryng you accordyng to yor w’tyng of good word and lawfull favor Thus oure lorde have yor mastershippe in his kepyng to his pleasure and youre comfort from Burton the xviiith day of Maye
“Yors assuryd
“Willm Abbot there.”
The friaries for some time were left to themselves. They were poor and had few inmates, and their houses were not settled in pleasant situations, with broad estates reaching “to my lord’s park pale.” They were, indeed, within or near the walls of the towns, and, consequently, were of little interest to the aristocracy.