The abbey plate and jewels had disappeared.
General tendency in the monks to plunder.
The king, he told the magistrates, desired most of all things that indifferent justice should be ministered to the poor and the rich, which, he regretted to say, was imperfectly done. Those in authority too much used their powers, “that men should follow the bent of their bows,” a thing which “did not need to be followed.” The chief cause of all the evils of the time was “the dark setting forth of God’s Word,” “the humming and harking of the priests who ought to read it, and the slanders given to those that did plainly and truly set it forth.” At any rate, the fact was as he described it to be; and they would find, he added, significantly, that, if they gave further occasion for complaint, “God had given them a prince that had force and strength to rule the highest of them.”[493] For the present no further notice was taken of their conduct. There is no evidence that any magistrates were deprived or punished. The work which they had neglected was done for them by others, and they were left again to themselves with a clearer field.[494] One noticeable victim, however, fell in this year. There were three, indeed, with equal claims to interest; but one, through caprice of fame, has been especially remembered. The great abbots, with but few exceptions, had given cause for suspicion during the late disturbances; that is to say, they had grown to advanced age as faithful subjects of the Papacy; they were too old to begin life again with a new allegiance. Information had transpired—I do not know the precise nature of it—to persuade Cromwell that the Abbots of Reading, Colchester, and Glastonbury were entangled in some treasonable enterprise or correspondence.[495] The charges against the Abbot of Reading I have been unable to find. The Abbot of Colchester had refused to surrender his house, and concealed or made away with the abbey plate, and had used expressions of most unambiguous anxiety for the success of the rebellions, and of disappointment at their failure.[496] They were both executed. On the first visitation of the monasteries, Whiting, Abbot of Glastonbury, received a favourable character from the visitors. He had taken the oaths to the king without objection, or none is mentioned. He had acquiesced generally, in his place in the House of Lords, in Cromwell’s legislation, he had been present at one reading at least of the concluding statute against the Pope’s authority;[497] and there is no evidence that he distinguished himself in any way as a champion of the falling faith. In the last parliament he had been absent on plea of ill health; but he appointed no proxy, nor sought apparently to use on either side his legitimate influence. Cromwell’s distrust was awakened by some unknown reason; but both to him and to those who had spoken previously in his favour, it seemed, according to their standard of appreciation, sufficiently grounded. Perhaps some discontented monk had sent up secret informations.[498] An order went out for an inquiry into his conduct, which was to be executed by three of the visitors, Layton, Pollard, and Moyle. On the 16th of September they were at Reading: on the 22d they had arrived at Glastonbury. The abbot was absent at a country house a mile and a half distant. They followed him, informed him of the cause of their coming, and asked him a few questions. His answers were “nothing to the purpose;” that is to say, he confessed nothing to the visitors’ purpose. He was taken back to the abbey; his private apartments were searched, and a book of arguments was found there against the king’s divorce, pardons, copies of bulls, and a Life of Thomas à Becket,—nothing particularly criminal, though all indicating the abbot’s tendencies. The visitors considered their discoveries “a great matter.” The abbot was again questioned; and this time his answers appeared to them “cankered and traitorous.” He was placed in charge of a guard, and sent to London to the Tower, to be examine by Cromwell himself. The occasion of his absence was taken for the dissolution of the house; and, as the first preliminary, an inventory was made of the plate, the furniture, and the money in the treasury. Glastonbury was one of the wealthiest of the religious houses. A less experienced person than Layton would have felt some surprise when he found that neither plate, jewels, nor ornaments were forthcoming sufficient for an ordinary parish church. But deceptions of this kind were too familiar to a man who had examined half the religious houses in England. He knew immediately that the abbey treasure was either in concealment or had been secretly made away with. Foreseeing the impending destruction of this establishment, the monks had been everywhere making use of their opportunities of plunder. The altar plate, in some few instances, may have been secreted from a sentiment of piety—from a desire to preserve from sacrilege vessels consecrated to holy uses. But plunder was the rule; piety was the exception. A confession of the Abbot of Barlings contains a frank avowal of the principles on which the fraternities generally acted. This good abbot called his convent into the chapter-house, and by his own acknowledgment, addressed them thus:—
Address of the Abbot of Barlings.
“Brethren, ye hear how other religious men be intreated, and how they have but forty shillings a piece given them and are let go. But they that have played the wise men amongst them have provided aforehand for themselves, and sold away divers things wherewith they may help themselves hereafter. And ye hear also this rumour that goeth abroad that the greater abbeys shall down also. Wherefore, by your advice, this shall be my counsel, that we do take such plate as we have, and certain of the best vestments and copes and set them aside, and sell them if need be, and so divide the money coming thereof when the house is suppressed. And I promise you of my faith and conscience ye shall have your part, and of every penny that I have during my life; and thereupon,” he concluded, “the brethren agreed thereunto.”[499]
Appropriation or concealment of plate regarded as felony.
Discovery of the Glastonbury plate which had been concealed by the abbot.
The motive, if good, could not excuse the fact.
Evidence of treason found against the abbot,
Which need not be called in question.