That Cromwell’s ‘most bounden beadsman’ faithfully kept his promise we see to-day in the condition of Bridlington Priory. What we call the ‘Priory Church’ is merely the nave of the church of the Augustinian Priory. Chancel and transepts have equally disappeared. So have the cloisters, chapter house, frater, dorter, Abbot’s house, and the numerous farm buildings which once stood within the Priory walls. Of the walls themselves nothing remains but the ‘Bayle Gate.’
A worse tale has to be told of the wilful destruction of the other monasteries, nunneries, and friaries in our Riding.
Of Kirkham Priory, on the bank of the river Derwent, there are remains only of the once beautiful gateway, the cloister court, and the east end of the church. What is now the Swine parish church was once the chancel of the nunnery church. Of the Black Friary at Beverley there are remains of the boundary wall. The oriel window of the Prior’s house is to be seen built into the modern ‘Watton Priory,’ and a few stones of the Priory of Haltemprice are built into a farmhouse which now occupies part of its site. Of the great Abbey of Meaux—founded in 1150 by William le Gros, Earl of Holderness, in redemption of a vow that he would make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and rebuilt four times during the next hundred years—there now remains not one stone in place above ground. And of the Friaries once flourishing in Hull nought remains but their mere names.
| Photo by] | [C.W. Mason |
| All that remained of Meaux Abbey in 1900. | |
‘Even where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, even there shall the dogs lick thy blood also, O King.’ Such was the text which a certain Grey Friar used when he had occasion to preach before King Henry. A bold man he must have been thus to take his fate into his hands. What the fate of Friar Peto actually was is not recorded, but we know that the Grey Friars and the Carthusian Monks were treated with particular brutality.
Of the monks of the London Charterhouse five were hanged at Tyburn, and their bodies afterwards cut up. Ten were removed to Newgate on May 29th, 1537. Sixteen days later the following report was issued:—
| There are departed | 5 |
| There are even at the point of death | 2 |
| There are sick | 2 |
| There is healed | 1 |
Later on all but one are reported as dead, and three years afterwards that one was hanged at Tyburn. With his name we are already acquainted—‘Sir Thomas Johnson, otherwise called Bonadventure.’ Surely never was monk given a less appropriate name than his turned out to be.