It is here we get a clue, I think, to this extreme severity; these three leading Churchmen had all got involved in a treason plot. The Pilgrimage of Grace had very recently been suppressed. It had been assisted with money by various monasteries, and it would seem that these three great houses were specially compromised. Froude states this distinctly, speaking in the first instance of the Abbot of Glastonbury (History of England, Vol. III., ch. 16, p. 240):—
"An order went out for enquiry into his conduct, which was to be executed by three of the visitors, Layton, Pollard, and Moyle. On 16 September (1539) they were at Reading, on the 22nd they had arrived at Glastonbury ... the Abbot was placed in charge of a guard, and sent to London, to the Tower, to be examined by Cromwell himself, when it was discovered that both he and the Abbot of Reading had supplied the northern insurgent with moneys."
For this there could be no pardon. The insurrection had been too nearly successful. The principal leaders had suffered, and now their three supporters followed. Hugh Faringdon had not allowed the King's supremacy, but this might have been overlooked; he had been very favourably reported by London to Cromwell. But now the law took its course, that horrible and terrible death assigned to high treason.
Froude describes the aged Abbot of Colchester drawn through the town that dismal November morning; dragged to the top of Glastonbury Torre, there hanged, drawn, and quartered. It cannot be doubted that an equally ghastly scene was enacted at Reading. As accomplices in both instances, two monks were executed along with their principal.
The execution is supposed to have taken place here in front of the inner gateway, which still survives, and is a place of resort for the Berkshire Archæological Society. It may equally well have been at Gallows Common beyond Christ Church which was for long the ordinary place for executions. It would appear from St. Mary's registers that even in the eighteenth century twice in the year batches of prisoners were sent off there to the gallows: if so, the long and sad procession, as at Glastonbury, would traverse the whole length of the town. It was a most awful reverse of fortune. Both in 1532, and in 1535, we read of his receiving a gilt cup from the king as a New Year's present. He had even been on the commission for investigating how a manifesto from the leader of the insurrection in Yorkshire had got into circulation at Reading; but that fatal gift of money, which Cromwell had traced home to the Abbot of Glastonbury, and also to Abbot Hugh, was an act beyond pardon. He had been the king's favourite abbot, but was now convicted of high treason, and the sentence took its course.
"He leaves a name which long time will avail
To point a moral, and adorn a tale."
