From the above period to the present time, the weekly allowance to the master and sisters has been gradually advancing, but not in proportion to the advance in the price of the necessaries of life; at least not so during the present reign, and especially this latter part of it. For the last fifty years the weekly allowance of the sisters, has been from 3s. 6d. of 4s. to 5s. till the commencement of the present year [1810] when it was advanced from 5s. to 7s. and the master’s allowance from 7s. to 10s.—This pleasing change in the situation of these pensioners has been ascribed to the laudable and humane exertions of the present acting governor and treasurer, Edmund Rolfe Elsden Esq., who is supposed to have acquitted himself, in this situation, more respectably and commendably than any of his predecessors, for the last fifty years at least. Besides advancing the weekly allowance of the pensioners, he has also put the hospital itself and premises in a state of thorough repair, at the expence of 400l. or more. All this he has been enabled to accomplish by advancing the rent of the lands according to their present value: and it is expected that he will be able soon to make an additional augmentation to the weekly allowance and comforts of the poor pensioners, whose concerns he so laudably superintends. Till he was appointed to this situation their condition was very miserable, and every year getting worse and worse, with little or no hope of amendment. In short, Alderman Elsden, in the character of acting governor and treasurer of our Magdalen Hospital, has deserved well, not only of the pensioners of that home, but also of the public at large. His successors it is hoped will not fail to profit by his praiseworthy examples and it is to be wished that the managers of all similar charities would make a point of acting in like manner. Very different, indeed, by all accounts, has been the conduct of too many, if not of most of those entrusted with the superintendence and management of our charitable institutions throughout the kingdom, by which they have proved themselves utterly unworthy of the confidence reposed in them, and rendered their very names and memories detestable in the eyes of all honest men.
[550] Mackerell, 194, &c.
[553a] The builder or founder, probably, of the old parsonage house there, which has the name still over the door: in which case, that house must have stood between 3 and 400 years.
[553b] Parkin 164, 165.
[554] The author of the Norfolk Tour, speaking of the Red Mount, gives the following account of the said king’s visit to this place—
“When Edw. IV. and his brother, the duke of Gloster, fled before the great earl of Warwick, on passing the Washes in Lincolnshire, at an improper time, they lost their baggage and money; and arriving at Lynn, October 2. 1470, [other accounts say 1469] lodged one night in this building, which the historian erroneously calls a castle.” [But the historian was, perhaps, more correct than his corrector.]
[555a] But though the said chapel is confessedly an ecclesiastical structure, there might be once about it erections of a military, or castellated character, which would account for its obtaining the name of a castle.
[555b] Beauties of England, vol. xi. p. 294.
[556] “What led to the great celebrity which this place obtained for centuries, was the widow lady of Ricoldie Faverches founding, about 1061, a small chapel in honour of the virgin Mary, similar to the Sancta Casa, at Nazareth. Her son confirmed the endowments, made an additional foundation of a Priory for Augustine canons, and erected a conventual church. At the dissolution, the annual revenues of the monastery were valued, according to Speed, at 446l. 14s. 4d. That its wealth should have been immensely great, is not surprising, when the fame of the image of our Lady of Walsingham is taken into the account; for it was as much frequented, if not more, than the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket, at Canterbury. Foreigners of all nations came thither on pilgrimage; many kings and queens of England also paid their devoirs to it; so that the number and quality of her devotees appeared to equal those of the Lady of Loretto, in Italy.—The celebrated Erasmus represents it as a place of such transcendent splendor as would lead one to suppose it the seat of the gods. The monks had contrived to persuade many, that the galaxy in the heavens was a miraculous indication of the way to this place: hence that was called Walsingham Way.”—See Beaut. Engl. xi. 313.
[558] Having again touched on the subject of the Gilds, the author begs leave here to correct an inaccuracy or error that escaped him in mentioning St. Ethelred’s Gild at page [439]. It now appears to him that this fraternity took its name from a female personage, named St. Etheldreda; and he has, since the above page was printed off, observed the following notice of it in Parkin (134.)—“John Alcock, bishop of Ely, June 3, 1490, granted 40 days pardon, or indulgence, to all the brethren and sisters of the guild of St. Etheldreda, in St. Nicholas’s chapel of Lynn, at the altar of St. Etheldreda the most holy virgin, there founded, and to all who should hear mass at the said altar, and to all who said quinquies before the said altar, the Lord’s prayer and the Salutation quinquies. Reg. Alc. Ep. El.”—So great, in the said bishop’s time, was the encouragement to enter into St. Etheldreda’s Gild, and to hear mass at her altar, or say quinquies before it!