[63] On the other hand classical learning became more esteemed. It is impossible not to see in the florid verses of Whethamstede and in his prose (loaded with classical allusion and metaphor) an early appearance of the Renaissance spirit in England. Verse and prose are alike worthless, but show a striving after something better than mediaeval monastic writing. The tendency becomes more marked in his work after his visit to Italy in 1423, where he was certainly influenced by the early Humanist movement.
[64] The town of St. Albans was apparently something of a Lollard centre. Sir John Oldcastle lay in hiding there, and when in 1414 William Murlee (one of his followers) was hanged and burnt, the convent firmly believed that he had planned to put them every one to death (Walsingham: Hist. Angl. II, 298–299). See, too, the account of the proceedings at the Synod held by Whethamstede in 1429 (Amundesham I, 222–3): for commission to put down heresy (Amundesham II, 23). The Abbot’s bitterness extended to any departure from orthodoxy, and Pecock was an object of his special dislike.
[65] E.g. He instituted and endowed ‘a common chest,’ to which resort was to be made only at times of great financial necessity. He also created the office of ‘Master of the Works,’ to whom he assigned regular funds with which the Master was to keep the Abbey buildings in repair and put up new structures when required.
[66] Riley, for instance, thought it probable that Whethamstede was the Duke of Gloucester’s political adviser, and that his resignation of the abbacy in 1440 was due to the waning of ‘Good Duke Humphrey’s’ popularity before the rising star of Beaufort. ‘When ... the contending rivals had been alike removed by the impartial hand of death, we find him emerging from his comparatively obscure position as a pensioned monk of the Abbey, and on the first opportunity attaining the Abbacy once more’ (Amundesham II, liv).
[67] ‘His (Whethamstede’s) counsels,’ says Riley, ‘seem to have been sought with equal eagerness by the two great heads of the antagonistic parties of the politics of the times, the intriguing and ambitious Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, and his ... nephew, the Duke of Gloucester’ (Amundesham I, xv).
[68] Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1436–1441, p. 422.
[69] The King is found nevertheless in 1549 spending Easter at the Abbey and lavishing gifts upon the Abbot.
[70] Whethamstede I, 396. The St. Albans chronicles make a valuable contribution to political history for the years 1450–1461. For this the coincidence of two decisive battles being fought at St. Albans is responsible.
[71] Newcome, p. 374. Clutterbuck: History and Antiquities of the County of Hertford I, Appendix I, pp. 527–46, for a copy of Edward IV’s charter.
[72] For the growth of Episcopal hatred, see Amundesham I, p. 73–82, 142–195, and 300–408.