The year 1348-9 (23rd Edward III.) was long after remembered for a great pestilence, which broke out in Northern Asia, spread over Europe, and this year committed terrible ravages in London. The city graveyards became choked with corpses, and suburban cemeteries were extemporised for the wholesale reception of the dead. Nicholas, then Prior, sold to John Grey, clerk of the Corporation, a plot of ground in the outer-soken, near East Smithfield to be used as a place of burial, with the condition annexed that it should be called the Churchyard of the Holy Trinity, "which ground he (John Grey) caused, by the aid of divers devout citizens, to be enclosed with a wall of stone." It was consecrated by Ralph, Bishop of London, and a chapel built "for the honour of God," and near by King Edward built a small monastery "of our Lady of Grace," in gratitude for preservation from shipwreck in a tempest at sea.
One Sunday morning, the 11th of May, 1471, when the brethren were at Mass, they were alarmed by an attack on Aldgate. For some days arrows had been shot into the City over the wall, and the houses of the outside suburb had been burnt. The besiegers were Sir Thomas Nevil, usually called the Bastard of Fauconbridge, and his followers. He was a kinsman of the Great Earl of Warwick, who, after his defection from the cause of Edward IV., had made him Admiral of the Lancastrian fleet. Warwick had fallen a month ago at Barnet, and the Yorkist King Edward in consequence became firmly established on the throne, when Sir Thomas conceived the mad project of landing with his sailors, marching to London, and re-establishing the Lancastrian family. The Londoners shut their gates against him, but he broke down Aldgate on this Sunday morning, and several of the insurgents rushed through when the portcullis was let down, and those within were slain by the citizens, headed by Basset, Alderman of the ward. The Lieutenant of the Tower then came up with a body of troops, the portcullis was raised, and the Bastard and his followers driven into Essex, "with sharp shot and fierce fight," being pursued as far as Mile End.
The priory waxed rich, grew famous, and nourished during a period of 433 years, no doubt becoming luxurious, idle, and corrupt, like other fraternities; until at length, in 1531, the end came. King Henry VIII., wishing to reward Sir Thomas Audley, afterwards Lord Chancellor and first Baron Audley of Walden, for his service as Speaker, in the impeachment of Wolsey, cast his eye upon this Priory, sent for Nicholas Hancock, the last Prior, whom he cajoled with complimentary praises, commending his hospitality, and telling him that a man of his merit and ability deserved higher preferment, and that if he would surrender the Priory into his (the King's) hands, he should have something better. After some hesitation the Prior gave up the house, the Canons were sent to other houses of the same order, and the Priory, with all its appurtenances, bestowed on Audley.
Sir Thomas Audley determined to build himself a mansion on the site, and offered the church to any one who would take it down, but it was so strongly built that no one would undertake the cost. He then pulled it down himself, and allowed any one to have the materials who would carry them away, giving the four large bells to Stepney Church, and the five smaller to St. Stephen, Coleman Street. He then added new buildings, where he dwelt until his death, 1544, when the property passed, by the marriage of his daughter, to Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, who was beheaded 1572, and it was then called Duke's Place. It descended to their son, Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, who sold it to the Corporation, was eventually taken down, and streets built on the site. The only vestige remaining is a stone arch between 73, Leadenhall Street and 39, Mitre Court.
The Priory possessed a messuage, dovecote, and garden of seven acres, on the east side of Houndsditch, which were given to Sir T. Audley, and which he bestowed on Magdalen College, Cambridge. In the street leading thereto, one of the priors had built some cottages for bedridden people, which Stow remembered as having seen in his boyhood, the bedridden people, men and women, lying by the windows, that devout persons might see them as they passed and bestow alms upon them: which street, afterwards, according to Munday, was inhabited by "these men, or rather monsters in the shape of men, who profess to live by lending, and yet will lend nothing but upon pawns."
Stow, who lived in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft, and was buried in the parish church, speaks from personal recollection of the Prior "keeping a bountiful house for rich and poor, as well within the houses as to all comers at the gate," and, when a boy, of going to farmer Goodman, in the outer-soken, where Goodman's Fields now are, for milk at the rate of "three pints, hot from the kine, for a halfpenny."
The inhabitants of Duke's Place being left without a church, after the demolition of the Priory Church, attended that of St. Catherine Cree until the reign of James I., when Trinity Christ Church was built for them out of the ruins of the Priory, and was consecrated in 1622. It escaped the Great Fire, and has since been called the Church of St. James, Duke's Place. In Strype's time it claimed the right of solemnizing marriages without licence or proclamation of banns.