The monks of the Charterhouse, 1534-1535.
The inmates of the London Charterhouse, who might well have been left to enjoy their quiet seclusion from the world, were startled by a visit from the king's commissioners calling upon them to take the oath. The manner of their reception by John Houghton, the prior, and his brethren and subsequent proceedings are graphically described by Maurice Chauncy,[1177] one[pg 391] of the inmates, who was more compliant than his brethren to the king's wishes, and thereby saved his life. The prior and Humphrey Middlemore, the procurator of the convent, were committed to the Tower for counselling opposition to the commissioners. There they were visited by the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London, who persuaded them at last that the question of the succession was not a cause in which to sacrifice their lives for conscience sake. The result was that after a while Houghton and his companion declared their willingness to submit. On the 29th May the commissioners received oaths of fealty from Prior Houghton and five other monks, and on the 6th June Bishop Lee and Sir Thomas Kitson, one of the sheriffs, received similar oaths from a number of priests, professed monks and lay brethren or conversi belonging to the house.[1178] The oaths of obedience to the Act were given under reservation "so far as the law of God permitted," and for a time the monks were left in comparative quiet, some few of them, of whom Cromwell entertained the most hope of submission, being sent, by his direction, to the convent of Sion.[1179]
The Act of Supremacy, 1534.
Execution of Houghton and others, 1535.
The exhortations of the "father confessor" were not without some measure of success, several of the Carthusians being induced to alter their opinions as to the king's demands. The seal of doom, however, was fixed on the order by the passing of the Act which called upon its members to renounce the Pope and acknowledge the royal supremacy.[1180] Fisher and More denied the king's title of Supreme Head of the Church, and were committed to the Tower. At this crisis there came to London two priors of Carthusian houses established, one in Nottinghamshire and the other in Lincolnshire. They came to talk over the state of affairs with Houghton. An interview with Cromwell, recently appointed vicar-general or king's vicegerent in matters ecclesiastical, was resolved on. The king might possibly be prevailed upon to make some abatement in his demands. Cromwell, however, no sooner discovered the object of their visit than he committed them to the Tower as rebels and would-be traitors. As they still refused to acknowledge the king's supremacy in the Church, in spite of all efforts of persuasion, they were brought to trial, together with Father Reynolds of Sion, on a charge of treason. A verdict of guilty was, after some hesitation on the part of the jury, found against them, and they were executed at Tyburn (4 May, 1535), glorying in the cause for which they were held worthy to suffer death. Houghton's arm was suspended over the gateway of the London Charterhouse, in the fond hope that the rest of the brethren might be awed into submission. This atrocious act of barbarism had,[pg 393] however, precisely the opposite effect to that desired. The monks were more resolute than ever not to submit, and not even a personal visit of Henry himself could turn them from their purpose.[1181] Three of them were thereupon committed to prison, where they were compelled to stand in an upright position for thirteen days, chained from their necks to their arms and with their legs fettered.[1182] They were afterwards brought to trial on a charge of treason, convicted and executed (19 June).
The fate of the remaining monks is soon told. In May, 1537, the royal commissioners once more attended at the Charterhouse, when they found the majority of its inmates prepared to take the oath prescribed. Ten of them, however, still refused, and were committed to Newgate and there left to be "dispatched by the hand of God," in other words to meet a painful and lingering death from fever and starvation. The following month the remnant of the community made their submission, and the London Charterhouse, as a monastic institution, ceased to exist.
Execution of Fisher and More, 1535.
Fisher and More were now brought from the Tower, where they had lain six months and more, and convicted on a similar charge of treason. Their sentence was commuted to death by beheading. Fisher was the first to suffer (19 June, 1535). His head was set up on London Bridge and his body buried in the churchyard of All Hallows, Barking. More suffered a few weeks later (6 July). His head, too, was placed on London Bridge, but his body was buried in the[pg 394] Tower, whither the remains of Fisher were afterwards carried. On the 15th December the Court of Aldermen publicly condemned a sermon preached by Fisher "in derogation and diminution of the royal estate of the king's majesty."[1183]
The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536.
When, in the following year (1536), the smaller monasteries—those of less than £200 a year—were dissolved by Act of Parliament, and the inhabitants of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, taking fright lest the king and Cromwell should proceed to despoil the parish churches, set out on the Pilgrimage of Grace, Henry sought the City's aid. On the 10th October a letter from the king was read before the Court of Aldermen, desiring them to dispatch forthwith to his manor of Ampthill, where the nobles were about to wait upon his majesty, a contingent of at least 250 armed men, 200 of which were to be well horsed, and 100 to be archers.[1184] The mayor, Sir John Allen,[1185] lost no time in issuing his precept to the livery companies for each of them to furnish a certain number of bowmen and billmen, well horsed and arrayed in jackets of white bearing the City's arms. They were to muster in Moorfields within twenty-four hours. The Mercers were called upon to furnish the largest quota, viz., twenty men; the Grocers, Drapers, Tailors and Cloth-workers respectively, sixteen men, and the rest of the companies contingents varying from twelve to two.[1186] The Court of Aldermen at the same time took[pg 395] the precaution of depriving all priests and curates, as well as all friars dwelling within the city, of every offensive weapon, so that they should be left with nothing but their "meate knyves."[1187] The king sent a letter of thanks for the city's contingent.[1188]