"REBUS[37] MEA."
SITTING XXXIII. 17th June, 1908.
"I, Johannes Lory, Master mason of ye Guild of St. Andrew, carving of ye gargoyle of St. Benedick, came downe from my laddere and walked, for it was colde and in Octobere. Then turning backe I saw my worke was like unto our Abbot, and soe I carved anew and made it proper. Of a truth it was our Abbot, and soe sayd they who looked. It was not my intent, but soe it was, and methinks our goode master ye Abbot knew not. Of a veritie it was most like, and soe wee left it.
"Seek it of a morning when the sun shines not; ye shal see the more truthfully. I meant no despyte, God wot."
Script obtained at Oxford. F.B.B. And J.A. (Present, B. Blackwell and Miss D. Sayers.) 25th August, 1917.
No previous questions. After a short passage in Latin, which cannot be deciphered:
"Wolsey the Cardinal housing me with the King, and did appoint me Abbot, olde man that I was.
"Here was the Hall that he builded in this town in Chancellorium.
"I have said I came to Oxford, and Wolsey the Cardinal did make me Lord Abbot in ye Hall that he had builded. I was old and infirm, and came not on my palfrey, but they carried me on my litter, and soe I, the old man, did become Abbot in mine old age. Would God I had not been so; then had my death been otherwise.
"Know ye the Hall which he ybuilded? It was where ye now lie.
"I came not on ye palfrey. At ye Abbey of Westminster I lay a long tyme, for I was sick. And with ye Cardinal came I to Oxford, and he made me Abbot, I not willing. I sleeped at Westminster. There saw I the King and would know why he desired me for a friend, I being Treasurer of mine Abbey. And soe yt was to be."
The day before this sitting (Friday, 24th August) I was in the Bodleian during the morning, and looked at Dugdale's Monasticon, from which I made the following extract: "On Beere's death, 47 monks devolved the election of their Abbot to Cardinal Wolsey, who declared Richard Whiting, then Chancellor of the House, their Abbot." I had not shown this to J.A., nor had there been any reference to Whiting in our conversation. The reference to this episode in the script obtained on the following day would therefore seem to involve an element of pure mental telepathy, of an entirely subconscious nature since the matter was not in my thoughts at the time of the sitting.—F.B.B.
SITTING XVA. 1st February, 1908
This record has not been included in the general series, as the subject-matter proved to be quite foreign to anything hitherto appearing, or having reference to Glastonbury. It is given as a specimen of the "intrusions" which from time to time broke the continuity of the main subject of the writings.
First, a spiral coil was drawn, followed by some letters or characters not possible to decipher. Next a lozenge or rectangle; then a larger oblong surmounted by a semicircle, as if to indicate a domed building, a ramped line running at an angle therefrom; and finally, a cross. Then the following: