When in 1486 she was restored to her full rights as queen-dowager she could think of no more pleasant place to live than in the monastery which had formerly sheltered her, and the Abbot’s house called Cheyneygates (the present Deanery) was leased to her for forty years. She lived there, however, but a few months, for in 1487 her lands were again forfeited and she retired to end her days in the abbey of Bermondsey.
In the summer of the year 1491, probably in the month of June, Prior Robert Essex died, and in July the Westminster students were summoned from Oxford to assist in the election of his successor. Among them was Roger Blake, and upon him fell the choice of the Convent. He survived his appointment, however, only a few weeks, and by Michaelmas George Fascet was appointed in his place.
Blake as a student at Oxford had of course held no appointment within the community, so that his election as Prior made no change in the roll of its officers. Fascet on the other hand held the two important positions of Treasurer and Monk-Bailiff as well as being Warden of the Manors. These offices thus became vacant and in addition other changes were taking place. William Mane who had held office along with Fascet both as Treasurer and Warden of the Manors had been appointed Almoner. For a short time he carried on the duties of Monk-Bailiff in place of Fascet, but the total burden must have proved too heavy to bear, and accordingly on October 12th, 1492, John Islip was chosen to hold with him the joint office of Warden of the Manors and along with Richard Newbery to succeed him and Fascet as Treasurers. At the same time Islip took Mane’s place as Monk-Bailiff and Warden of the Churches.
Islip was only twenty-eight years of age and there were twenty-three monks senior to him in a community that numbered about fifty. It argues well alike for his personal popularity and for the esteem in which his administrative abilities must have been held by both Abbot and Convent that the choice for such high offices should have fallen upon him.
Two attractive prospects were opened to him on his accession. As Monk-Bailiff he had separate apartments where his business could be transacted and where on occasion he could entertain friends. Accordingly we find in his diary for Sunday, February 10th, 1493, an entry which may be translated: I was at the High Mass but I did not sit in the Refectory because John Butler of Warwickshire and Thomas Candysse dined with me in the Bailiff’s guest-room.
Still more alluring perhaps to one in whom the life of the cloister can never have stamped out the love of the open country was the necessary duty from time to time as Treasurer of making a tour of the various properties of the monastery. It is not surprising that this should have been found necessary in his first year of office. Acquaintance with these properties was certainly to be desired and there can have been no conflict between the call of duty which would take him again into the ways of men and the cloistered conscience which would shut him from them.
St. Benedict himself indeed sanctioned occasional absence from the cloister so long as the Abbot’s leave was first obtained. The novice vowed faithfulness to the monastery of his profession but not complete or permanent seclusion within its walls, and if it be urged that such protracted absence as this of the new Treasurer would never have been contemplated by St. Benedict it might with equal truth be argued that St. Benedict could hardly be expected to foresee the acquirement of the scattered properties which made such absence necessary. In any case the Benedictine ideal of the monastery was the ideal of the self-contained family and would not be infringed in spirit at least by the necessary absence on family business of one member of it.
Accordingly after dinner on Sunday, June 30th, 1493, Islip set out on a tour which was to last nearly a month. On the first day he rode as far as Aldenham and held a court there on the Monday morning. Rising betimes on Tuesday he rode as far as Berkhampstead to mass, dined with Master John Shorne and went on to Langton for the night, where he held a court the next day. Thursday was a day of relaxation and he records that the whole of it was spent in the forest hunting in company with Master Lanxston and Master Gifford. Langton to Turweston and Banbury, Banbury to Warwick and Knowle, Coventry, Leicester, Oakham, Oundle, Huntingdon, so does he proceed, rising early and covering many miles before hearing his daily mass and breaking his fast. Offord, Langford, Ashwell, Malden, Feering, Kelvedon, Benfleet, Romford, such are some further stages of his journey. Only once did he spend more than one night in the same place, so that the tour if pleasant was by no means dilatory. He reached home again on July 24th.
He does not record what servants attended him, but the whole cost of his journey was two hundred and fifty-one marks, an average of ten marks a day, so that it is probable that such retinue accompanied him as befitted the dignity of his office and the safety of his person. That some such protection was necessary in those unsettled times will presently appear.
For the most part his tour was devoid of trouble incidental to the business aspect of it. Only at South Benfleet had he reason to suspect that anything was wrong. His suspicions were evidently corroborated after his return to Westminster, for on August 11th he returned to South Benfleet and seized the goods of William Gose who was his “farmer� or agent for the manor and parsonage there. A careful inventory and valuation was made of them, and they were reckoned to be worth just over forty-two pounds. Gose was evidently dismissed from office, for a little later Islip records the handing over of the stores of the manor to Thomas Petigrewe.