CHAPTER VI.
ISLIP IN PUBLIC LIFE.
The personality of the Abbot of Westminster can seldom have been a matter of indifference to the reigning Sovereign. The mere proximity of Court and monastery would alone be sufficient to ensure some degree of friendship or provoke some measure of antagonism, and instances are not wanting of both. But when it is remembered that the Abbey church was the place of burial of many and the place of coronation of all the Kings; that it contained the saintly relics of one and owed its very structure to another, it is not surprising that at times Abbot and King should be brought together in intimate contact.
When Islip first became Abbot every circumstance combined to bring such contact about. Henry VII. was half ready with the plans for his new chapel and Islip’s enthusiasm as a builder must already have been obvious. It may be supposed that Islip had already attracted the royal notice by his share in the matter of the proposed translation of Henry VI., and the King’s assent to his election would seem to have been given readily enough if we may judge by the relative lack of delay in issuing the royal writs that dealt with the Abbot’s temporalities.
One small incident suggests that the new Abbot soon became on intimate terms with the King. Islip’s cook had evidently a reputation for the excellence of his marrowbone puddings, for presents of such to the Lord Chamberlain and others of his friends were not infrequent. Before Islip had been Abbot for six months we find in his household accounts the record of the purchase of “ij marybons for ij podyngis for the Kyng.� The cost was only two pence, but in skilled hands the value was evidently more. The present of a buck from one to the other would be a matter of no surprise, but there is a certain intimacy, indefinable perhaps but none the less real, implied in so trivial a gift as that of a marrowbone pudding.
A few weeks later the Abbot’s steward notes that “the Kingis grace dyned at Cheynygate.� The cost of the entertainment was only 17s. 4d. and the fare provided was by no means elaborate. It was on a Friday so no meat was served, and the only purchases unusual to the Abbot’s accounts were wine and strawberries which together cost 3s. 8d., a barrel of ale for 2s. and a “potell of wyne for to Sowse ffysche wt.� for 4d. The endowment of the King’s new chapel and the services to be performed in it when finished would have been a topic of interest to both and in itself have provided sufficient matter for conversation. A further instance of friendly relations may be found in the royal presents to Islip of two tuns of wine yearly which began in the year 1501.
Islip’s first entry into public life, so far as can be discovered, must date from his appointment in 1504 as treasurer of the hospital of the Savoy, then about to be rebuilt by Henry VII. It does not appear that the Abbot had any particular share in the work beyond the actual guardianship of the funds. The money came to him in sealed bags which were probably deposited in the undercroft of the Chapter House. He might not deliver them over without the royal warrant in Henry’s lifetime or an order signed by seven at least of Henry’s executors after his death. In 1512 he had as much as ten thousand pounds in his keeping, the last instalment of which he paid over late in the year 1515 when his connection with the hospital came apparently to an end.
The trust which Henry VII. placed in him was continued by his successor, and in September, 1513, Islip appears as a member of the Privy Council of Henry VIII. Thomas Wolsey had been appointed to the Council two years before. The Abbot and the future Cardinal must, however, have been acquainted at an earlier date, for in 1505 Wolsey had been appointed a chaplain to Henry VII. In 1507 the Abbot and Convent had granted to Sir Richard Empson the parsonage and adjoining gardens of St. Bride’s, Fleet Street, and when Empson fell the grant was given to Wolsey, who thus became a tenant of the Abbey. Moreover both Islip and Wolsey were among the personal friends of Sir Reginald Bray, a favoured adviser of Henry VII.
Reference has been made elsewhere to Islip’s legal training. This was doubtless responsible for his appointment in 1510 as a trier of petitions of England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland, an office which he continued to fill in the years that followed. In 1519 Wolsey deputed him along with others to hear the causes of poor men depending in the Star Chamber, while in 1512 and subsequent years his name appears on the Commission of Peace for the County of Middlesex.
Among the minor activities of these years may be included Islip’s work in 1524 as a Collector for Middlesex on behalf of the loan for the war with France, and in 1526 as a Commissioner of Sewers from East Greenwich to Gravesend, work in which he was associated among others with Sir Thomas More and Lord Cobham. It is interesting to note in the Navy List for 1513 the Abbot of Westminster as part owner of the ship Kateryn Fortileza, doubtless one of that gallant squadron which swept the Channel under Sir Edmund Howard and blockaded the port of Brest.
Little record remains of any activity Islip may have displayed in Parliament. As a mitred abbot he was summoned to the assembly which met early in 1515, and there is some evidence to shew that in 1523 he was not a silent member, but his record in this connection is to be sought in the work of Parliament in general rather than in individual effort.