Short Studies on Great Subjects

by James Anthony Froude

'He did again call us together,' says the next deposition, 'and lamentably mourning for the dissolving the said houses, he enjoined us to sing "Salvator mundi, salva nos omnes," every day after lauds; and we murmured at it, and were not content to sing it for such cause; and so we did omit it divers days, for which the abbot came unto the chapter, and did in manner rebuke us, and said we were bound to obey his commandment by our profession, and so did command us to sing it again with the versicle "Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered. Let them also that hate him flee before him." Also he enjoined us at every mass that every priest did sing, to say the collect, "Oh God, who despisest not the sighing of a contrite heart." And he said if we did this with good and true devotion, God would so handle the matter, that it should be to the comfort of all England, and so show us mercy as he showed unto the children of Israel. And surely, brethren, there will come to us a good man that will rectify these monasteries again that be now supprest, because "God can of these stones raise up children to Abraham."'

'Of the stones,' perhaps, but less easily of the stony-hearted monks, who, with pitiless smiles, watched the abbot's sorrow, which should soon bring him to his ruin.

Time passed on, and as the world grew worse, so the abbot grew more lonely. Desolate and unsupported, he was still unable to make up his mind to the course which he knew to be right; but he slowly strengthened himself for the trial, and as Lent came on, the season brought with it a more special call to effort; he did not fail to recognise it. The conduct of the fraternity sorely disturbed him. They preached against all which he most loved and valued, in language purposely coarse; and the mild sweetness of the rebukes which he administered, showed plainly on which side lay, in the abbey of Woburn, the larger portion of the spirit of Heaven. Now, when the passions of those times have died away, and we can look back with more indifferent eyes, how touching is the following scene. There was one Sir William, curate of Woburn Chapel, whose tongue, it seems, was rough beyond the rest. The abbot met him one day, and spoke to him. 'Sir William,' he said, 'I hear tell ye be a great railer. I marvel that ye rail so. I pray you teach my cure the Scripture of God, and that may be to edification. I pray you leave such railing. Ye call the pope a bear and a bandog. Either he is a good man or an ill. Domino suo stat aut cadit. The office of a bishop is honourable. What edifying is this to rail? Let him alone.'

But they would not let him alone, nor would they let the abbot alone. He grew 'somewhat acrased,' they said; vexed with feelings of which they had no experience. He fell sick, sorrow and the Lent discipline weighing upon him. The brethren went to see him in his room; one Brother Dan Woburn came among the rest, and asked him how he did; the abbot answered, 'I would that I had died with the good men that died for holding with the pope. My conscience, my conscience doth grudge me every day for it.' Life was fast losing its value for him. What was life to him or any man when bought with a sin against his soul? 'If the abbot be disposed to die, for that matter,' Brother Croxton observed, 'he may die as soon as he will.'

All Lent he fasted and prayed, and his illness grew upon him; and at length in Passion week he thought all was over, and that he was going away. On Passion Sunday he called the brethren about him, and as they stood round his bed, with their cold, hard eyes, 'he exhorted them all to charity;' he implored them 'never to consent to go out of their monastery; and if it chanced them to be put from it, they should in no wise forsake their habit.' After these words, 'being in a great agony, he rose out of his bed, and cried out and said, "I would to God, it would please him to take me out of this wretched world; and I would I had died with the good men that have suffered death heretofore, for they were quickly out of their pain."'[T] Then, half wandering, he began to mutter to himself aloud the thoughts which had been working in him in his struggles; and quoting St. Bernard's words about the pope, he exclaimed, 'Tu quis es primatu Abel, gubernatione Noah, auctoritate Moses, judicatu Samuel, potestate Petrus, unctione Christus. Aliæ ecclesiæ habent super se pastores. Tu pastor pastorum es.'

Let it be remembered that this is no sentimental fiction begotten out of the brain of some ingenious novelist, but the record of the true words and sufferings of a genuine child of Adam, labouring in a trial too hard for him.

He prayed to die, and in good time death was to come to him; but not, after all, in the sick bed, with his expiation but half completed. A year before, he had thrown down the cross when it was offered him. He was to take it again—the very cross which he had refused. He recovered. He was brought before the council; with what result, there are no means of knowing. To admit the papal supremacy when officially questioned was high treason. Whether the abbot was constant, and received some conditional pardon, or whether his heart again for the moment failed him—whichever he did, the records are silent. This only we ascertain of him: that he was not put to death under the statute of supremacy. But, two years later, when the official list was presented to the Parliament of those who had suffered for their share in 'the Pilgrimage of Grace,' among the rest we find the name of Robert Hobbes, late Abbot of Woburn. To this solitary fact we can add nothing. The rebellion was put down, and in the punishment of the offenders there was unusual leniency; not more than thirty persons were executed, although forty thousand had been in arms. Those only were selected who had been most signally implicated. But they were all leaders in the movement; the men of highest rank, and therefore greatest guilt. They died for what they believed their duty; and the king and council did their duty in enforcing the laws against armed insurgents. He for whose cause each supposed themselves to be contending, has long since judged between them; and both parties perhaps now see all things with clearer eyes than was permitted to them on earth.

We also can see more distinctly. We will not refuse the Abbot Hobbes a brief record of his trial and passion. And although twelve generations of Russells—all loyal to the Protestant ascendancy—have swept Woburn clear of Catholic associations, they, too, in these later days, will not regret to see revived the authentic story of its last abbot.

FOOTNOTES:

[Q] From Fraser's Magazine, 1857.