IT cannot but be matter of surprise, as well to those who are sensibly alive to the blessings we owe to the Reformation, as to those who consider that the interests of religion were weakened by that event, that the rapacity and injustice exhibited by Henry the eighth in the destruction of the monastic institutions, and the tyrannous behaviour of his inquisitorial commissioners, should not have called forth a more determined opposition from those who appeared to be the immediate objects of royal displeasure. The abbots and priors seem in some cases to have viewed almost with indifference this bold proceeding, and frequently surrendered their houses and revenues without a murmur; but this apparent apathy, it is reasonable to conclude, could only have been occasioned by promises of future advancement if they acquiesced in the king's demand, and by threats of vengeance in case of refusal. The instance of Wakeman, abbot of Tewkesbury, who obtained a mitre for his subserviency to the ruling powers, serves to confirm this opinion; and it is remarkable that though twenty abbots were present in the house of peers on the passing of the act, in 1539, which confirmed all resignations of religious houses already made or to be made, not one of them protested against it. As the king, in some instances, made gifts of the revenues of the convents to his favourites, or sold them on easy terms, the nobility and gentry were without difficulty reconciled to the measure; and the lower classes of his subjects offered no resistance to it, as they were led to believe that the abbey lands would produce sufficient to defray the whole expenses of government, and that taxes would no longer be

necessary; stories also, attributing to the monks the most scandalous excesses, and to the nuns vicious and debauched lives, were invented and actively propagated; and the reliques of the monkish orders, which had long been objects of popular veneration, were exposed to the vulgar gaze, and their alleged miraculous properties openly derided.^[170]

Camden asserts, that there were suppressed, at different times, six hundred and forty-five monasteries, ninety colleges, two thousand three hundred and seventy-four chantries or free chapels, and one hundred and ten hospitals.

It has been calculated that the monks were proprietors of fourteen parts out of twenty of the whole kingdom; and that out of the six parts which were left for the king, lords and commons, there were four numerous orders of mendicants to be maintained, against whom no gate could be shut, and to whom no provision could be denied.

The monastery of Tewkesbury was the last of the religious houses in the county of Gloucester which surrendered to the commissioners of the arbitrary and avaricious monarch; and from an ancient manuscript, containing an account of the suppression and demolition of this abbey, which is preserved in the Augmentation Office, the following particulars were extracted by Bishop Burnet, and inserted in his History of the Reformation. This record thus commences:-

"The Certificate of Robert Southwell, esquire, William Petre, Edward Kairne, and John London, doctors of law; John Ap-Rice, John Kingsman, Richard Paulet and William Bernars, esquires, commissioners assigned by the king's majesty to take the surrenders of divers monasteries, by force of his grace's commission to them, six, five, four, or three of them, in that behalf directed, bearing date at his highness's palace at Westminster, the seventh day of November, in the thirty-first year of the reign of our most dread Sovereign Lord Henry the eighth, by the grace of God, King of England and of France, Defender of the Faith, Lord of Ireland, and in earth immediately under Christ supreme head of the Church of England, of all and singular their proceedings, as well in and of these monasteries by his majesty appointed to be altered, as of others to be dissolved, according to the tenour, purport, and effect of his grace's said commission; with instructions to them likewise delivered, as hereafter ensueth".

The surrender^[171] was made, under the convent seal, on the 9th of January, 1539.

The records and evidences belonging to the monastery were directed to be left in the treasury there, under the custody of John Whittington, knight; but the keys were delivered to Richard Paulet, receiver.^[175]

The houses and buildings assigned to remain undefaced were also committed to the custody of John Whittington, knight, and were as follow: the lodging called the Newark, leading from the gate to the late abbot's lodging, with the buttery, pantry, cellar, kitchen, larder, and pastry adjoining; the late abbot's lodging, the hostelry, the great gate entering into the court, with the lodging over the same; the abbot's stable, bakehouse, brewhouse, and slaughter-house, the almonry, barn, dairy-house, the great barn next to the Avon, the malting-house, with the garners in the same, the ox-house in the barton, the barton-gate, and the lodging over the same.

The following portions of the monastery were deemed to be superfluous: the church, with the chapels, cloisters, chapter-house, misericord, the two dormitories, the infirmary, with the chapels and lodgings within the same; the wark-hay, with another house adjoining; the convent kitchen, the library,^[176]

the old hostelry, the chamberer's lodging, the new hall, the old parlour adjoining to the abbot's lodging; the cellarer's lodging, the poultry-house, the garner, the almonry, and all other houses and lodgings not above reserved; and these were also committed to Sir John Whittington's custody.

The leads remaining upon the choir, aisles and chapels annexed, the cloister, chapter-house, frater, St. Michael's chapel, halls, infirmary, and gate-house, were estimated to be one hundred and eighty fodder.

The bells remaining in the steeple were eight poise, by estimation fourteen thousand six hundred pounds weight.^[177]

The jewels reserved for the use of his majesty were - two mitres garnished with gilt, rugged pearls, and counterfeit stones.

The silver plate reserved for the king consisted of three hundred and twenty-nine ounces, silver gilt; six hundred and five ounces, silver parcel gilt; and four hundred and ninety-seven ounces, silver white.

The following ornaments^[178] were reserved for the king's use: one cope of silver tissue, with one chesible, and one tunicle of the same; one cope of gold tissue, with one chesible, and two tunicles of the same.

After reciting a number of small debts, owing to and by the monastery, this record of the commissioners concludes with the following account of ecclesiastical livings in the gift of the abbot:-

Total, twenty-one parsonages and twenty-seven vicarages.

The lands and possessions of the monastery were, shortly after the dissolution, granted to various persons.

King Henry the eighth, in the thirty-sixth year of his reign, in consideration of the several sums of £.2280. 19s. 3d. and £.591. 13s. granted to Thomas Stroud, Walter Erle and James Pagett, gentlemen, the site of the abbey of Tewkesbury, with the buildings, gardens, orchards, &c. within its precinct; and also various other messuages, lands, fisheries, liberties, &c. to be held of the king by the twentieth part of a knight's fee, paying £.1. 11s. 0¼d. annually. This property for many generations continued part of the possessions of the Earls of Essex; but the present earl, in the year 1824, disposed of the principal portion of it by auction, and it is now vested in a number of proprietors.

The Earls of Essex were also proprietors of other considerable estates, in Tewkesbury, Walton Cardiff, Ashchurch, Tredington, Fiddington and Cheltenham, which had been the property of the abbey of Tewkesbury.

A messuage, in the tenure of John Jefferys, was granted to Richard Andrews and Thomas Hisley; and one hundred and sixty-four messuages to John Pollard and Arthur Barte, 36 Hen. VIII. - A messuage, lands and tenements, were granted to John Bellow, 37 Hen. VIII. - Tenements, called Amner's Orchard, and other lands in Tewkesbury, and tithes of SulMead and Dole-Meadow, and tithes in Swelle, were granted to Daniel and Alexander Perte, 7 Edw. VI. - Four acres in the Oxleys, lands in Barton-street, and at Brockhampton near Tewkesbury, were granted to Christopher Hatton, 18 Eliz. Other lands in Tewkesbury were granted to Richard Robson, 6 Eliz. - The tithes of Brithwood, in Tewkesbury, were granted to John Fernham, 22 Eliz. - Lands called Hannocks, &c. and two mills on the Avon, were granted to Edw. Haslewood and Edw. Tomlinson, 23 Eliz. - Parcels of meadow in Amesham and Rushmead, in Tewkesbury, were granted to Geo. Salter and John Williams, in trust for Sir Baptist Hickes, 7 Jas. I.^[179]

A fishery in the Severn, parcel of the abbey, was leased to Richard Brush, 30 Hen. VIII. at fifteen shillings per annum; and lands called Water-drawing, near the abbey mill, and Le Piller and the Mill Ham were let to John Hereford, esq. for sixteen shillings the clear yearly value.^[180]

In the "Account of the Crown's Minister or Receiver of the dissolved Monastery of Tewkesbury", 33 Hen. VIII. now in the Augmentation Office, among various other entries, are the following:- "Five shillings for a chamber in Tewkesbury, lying and being within the church-yard of the same town, demised to Thomas Parker and his assigns, &c. - Also three shillings and four-pence for another chamber there demised to Hugh Whittington and John Hickes and their assigns, &c. Also, two other chambers there together, situate near the belfrey, with a small garden adjoining, demised at a rent of eight-pence to Thomas Witherston and Richard Pulton and their assigns, &c."

The pension allowed to the abbot of Tewkesbury would be of itself a sufficient proof of the great riches of the monastery, as those pensions were generally apportioned to the worth of the house; though they were sometimes increased in consequence of no irregularities or vices being discovered by the visitors, and perhaps more frequently where the king's mandate was quietly submitted to. Few abbots received so large a pension as four hundred marks; though the abbot of St. Edmundsbury, on account of the virtuous conduct of himself and his house, and in order to induce him to surrender the immense riches appertaining to that celebrated monastery, had a pension of five hundred marks yearly assigned to him. These pensions were allowed during life, or until the parties could obtain benefices or preferment in the church: that of the abbot of Tewkesbury soon ceased, for, two years afterwards, he was appointed bishop of Gloucester; but a considerable number of the monks were alive and unbeneficed in 1553, and subsisted on their pensions. Willis^[181] gives the following

list of those pensioners: Robert Cirecester, £.13. 6s. 8d.; Phill. Cardiff, £.8.; Tho. Newport, £.7.; John Welneforde, Richard Wimbole, Tho. Twining, William Stremish, Robert Aston, John Gates, Tho. Bristow, John Hertland, Tho. Thornborough, Hen. Worcester, Richard Cheltenham, Thomas Stanwey, and John Aston, each £.6. 13s. 4d.^[182]

It seems that most of the buildings which were at first designed by the commissioners to remain uninjured, were afterwards by some means destroyed: Willis, in his History of Mitred Abbeys, says, they were burnt down by the visitors, in consequence of the opposition they met with from the monks; but as there appears to be no ground for supposing that any remarkable hostility was evinced towards the commissioners by the abbot or monks, it is more probable that they were destroyed by an accidental fire during the demolition of those parts which were deemed superfluous.

[Image] TEWKESBURY ABBEY CHURCH North Side.