690 
 
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_ Cornell University Library 
 
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 Hllchin Priory / 
 
 3 1924 008 554 606 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 Professor 
 John M. Echols 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924008554606 
 
HITCHIN PRIORY. 
 
 BY 
 
 REGINALD L. HINE. 
 
 CARLING & HALES, LTD., HITCHIN, 
 1918. 
 
OJvUi 
 
 
 
 ^ To 
 
 CAPT. RALPH DELME-RADCLIFFE. 
 
 Non haec tibi legenda mandamus : satis 
 Ero beatus si modo ipsum lenibus 
 Amicus ocellis intuebris librum. 
 
HITCHIN PRIORY: 
 
 I. 
 
 If I were emulating Blomville's 14th century manuscript of 
 the Priory, which in the year of Waterloo went to pieces between 
 the clumsy fingers of William Dunnage, Postmaster and Antiquary 
 of this town, I should no doubt be led back to the region of pure 
 fable where all Carmelite historians begin. No chronicler of that 
 time would have spared his readers the tale of Elijah, who, " under 
 the ministry of angels," was ordained the first monk on that holy 
 mountain with Jonah, Micah« and Obadiah for his first disciples. 
 Nor the account of the philosopher Pythagoras, who, according 
 to tradition, disputed on the same mountain with the prophet} 
 Daniel for thirty days and thirty nights over what was even then 
 the thorny question of the Trinity. In due course the chroniclers 
 used to touch ground about the year 1150, when Berthold, the 
 Crusader, vowed in the thick of battle that if he came through alive 
 and caused the infidels to fly he would serve thenceforth in the 
 invisible army of Christ. After wandering through Calabria he 
 came in extreme old age to Carmel, where, collecting a few hermits 
 from the hills about, he founded beside the tomb of Elijah his order 
 of Carmelites. I refrain, as Blomville assuredly would not have 
 done, from setting out the sixteen articles of the Rule which Albert, 
 Patriarch of Constantinople, a kinsman of Peter the Hermit, gave 
 them, and which, being more than human flesh could endure, were 
 relaxed by Innocent the Fourth in 1245. I also refrain from the 
 whimsical and adventurous story, which tells how two English 
 knights, John de Vesci and Richard de Grey, kidnapped a small 
 number of these Carmelite recluses and brought them over-sea to 
 found at Alnwick the first Carmelite priory in our country. 
 
II. 
 
 But so far as Hitchin is concerned, the first solid footprints 
 of history are placed in the year 1305. From near and far that 
 autumn, devout people foregathered to the dedication of our Parish 
 Church of St. Andrew, newly risen like the Phoenix from the ruin 
 which fire and hurricane had caused. Amongst them, and most 
 honoured of them all, came Richard Wellwin, Grand Prior of the 
 English Carmelites, a Hertfordshire man, who loved our country- 
 side and lingered here for the residue of his days. He died in 
 1309 and was buried in the North Chapel beneath the altar of 
 St. Peter. There being no Carmelite house within the county, it 
 is thought that he persuaded some of the wealthier sort to found 
 one here at Hitchin. At any rate, within seven years of his 
 translation the good work was commenced. By that time 
 Edward II. was proposing to grant the Manor of Hitchin, forfeited 
 sometime previously through the rebellion of John de Balliol, to 
 Robert de Ken'Hale, whose effigy lies to this day on a window sill 
 in the north aisle of our Church. For the good of his soul the 
 King wished to reserve a portion of the land for religious purposes, 
 and asked for endowments to that end. Nor did he ask in vain. 
 Though he left no boastful record for posterity to praise, and 
 looked elsewhere for his reward, the foremost benefactor was 
 undoubtedly John de Blomville, a man of wealth and family, and 
 of letters too, for it is his history of the priory and parish of which 
 we so bitterly mourn the loss. Only two fragments from its pages 
 are preserved. Next in order, and allotted equal honour by our 
 County Historians, was Adam le Rous (Adam Redhead). I 
 suspect, however, that his grant to the King in 1317 of a house in 
 Hitchin for the Carmelites to convert into a priory church was 
 :done less to the glory of God than for the safety of the donor's skin. 
 For earlier in that same year he was arrested for a crime which 
 would make the tenure of any property precarious to say the least. 
 With a Canon and a Chantry Priest of our Parish Church and nine 
 other wastrels he broke by broad daylight into a townsman's house, 
 felled his trees, cut down his corn, comprehensively assaulted and 
 beat hi^ servants, and carried away six oxen and the very timbers 
 of his house. 
 
 4 
 
Meantime his brother had bolted with the parson's 
 tithe and had wisely abjured the realm. Whether the red-headed 
 Adam won the King's pardon by his pseudo-religious donation 
 does not appear ; but it was a happy thought, and at all events the 
 Priory reaped an advantage. The third and last benefaction, so 
 far as real property went, was made some thirty-four years later, 
 or rather promised, for John de Cobham, though speedy in the 
 tongue, was very slow in the hand. Some of the four houses and 
 six acres of land, which he obtained the King's license to assign to 
 the Carmelites in 1351, were still in his own possession in 1375 ; 
 and the Prior had the mortification of seeing the King's Officer 
 seize the last portion through the license having lapsed. Mean- 
 time, in 1328, King Edward III. had come to Hitchin in the 
 course of his royal progress, t had confirmed his father's grant and 
 given the .Carmelites leave to add his arms to their conventual seal. 
 It is possible that he also endowed them with some of the 
 seven other houses and four more acres of land which they are 
 known later to have possessed. And the rest may have come in 
 the year 1402, when the Prior obtained from the Holy See full 
 remission of sins on the part of those who should make the friars 
 any benefaction at the Feast of Pentecost. 
 
 III. 
 
 Such was the royal and rather meagre foundation of Hitchin 
 Priory : a small huddle of buildings in Bridge Street and Tilehouse 
 Street, which with some ingenious alterations and additions were 
 constrained into the conventual plan and dedicated to the honour 
 of "our alone Saviour and the Blessed Virgin Mary." Though 
 only six arches of the original cloister arcade, moulded with double 
 ogees and chamfers, survive, and though the Chapter Records seem 
 to be irretrievably lost,* it is possible to reconstruct from the careful 
 inventory of Henry VIII 's. Commissioners something of the 
 general outline of the whole. 
 
 t With Wallingford, Abbot of St. Albans, who seems to have kept an unofficial 
 wife in close seclusion here. She died three years later and is also buried in the 
 North Chapel of our Church. 
 
 * Following a clue given me by Abbot, now Cardinal Gasquet, I am now having- 
 search made for them in Rome. 
 
On the site of the house occupied by Mr. C. L. Barham in 
 Bridge Street stood the timbered and tiled Gate House, which 
 gave sole entry to the Priory and formed the porter's lodge, f By 
 the left of this were three houses occupied by the lay-brethren, who 
 did the menial work of the community. On the right stood the 
 guest-house, a modest dwelling where only two might sleep ; and 
 having a little garden to itself, where a guest might labour if he 
 pleased. Passing through the gate-house, the cobbled path- way 
 led into a formal garden, out of which a visitor would turn to the 
 right and discover a massive L-shaped building, or rather four 
 buildings, under one roof, known as the " Owlde Halle." This 
 was the mansion of Adam le Rous. Facing roughly north and south, 
 the base of the letter was fully occupied by the Chapter-House, 
 while the stem pointing due west enclosed the prior's lodging and 
 "two lyttle chambers" for the friars, whose duty it was to serve 
 him day and night. From the Owlde Halle going still westward 
 one came into the cloister, of which the site can be more or less 
 distinguished to this day. On its south side it was contained by 
 the Priory Church, built fairly parallel with the street of clunch 
 and flints, and having its roof tiled, no doubt from the kiln two 
 hundred yards higher in the Tilehouse Street. From this again 
 rose a steeple cased in lead, destined one day to go into the King's 
 armoury for use in the wars with France. Within, the Church was 
 comely with carven seats and wainscoat, some alabaster figures of 
 the Saints, brasses and table tombs of deceased priors, and windows 
 glorified with medieval glass. On its north side the cloister was 
 bounded by the frater or refectory ; on the east by the 
 dormitory, and on the west by the cellarage, the kitchen, and 
 the great barn for storing the friars' hay (the "hey house " as they 
 called it). South-west of the church, and looking down the water- 
 meadows towards Charlton were built the solar and scriptorium, 
 where the brothers punned themselves and studied — ^though, 
 
 t A secret passage led to the grate-house from the main Priory building:s, for 
 use in dangerous times. Some Puritans, seeing- the direction, have scandalously 
 assumed that the passage proceeded to the nun's house at the Biggin, but it would 
 puzzle them to prove it. 
 
indeed, to study there must have been immensely hard. Just 
 think of the temptation ! How pleasant to close the book and let 
 the hours drift by dreaming over the pastures, full of sunlight, and 
 sleepy kine and red sorrel as they are to-day. Through the oriel 
 window of the great willow tree, how charming to follow the curves 
 of the river backwards to its source, and mark the moorhen glide 
 into the clumps of willow-herb, that goodly gift of God from which 
 the brethren made a wonderful soup and a medicine against two 
 and fifty ills. Once again, if a student were caught up in a thorny 
 passage, he might seek inspiration up the little path left of the 
 river, where the spring of holy water gushed from St. Winfred's 
 well. Here in that crystal stream, what medicine for the mind ; 
 what symbol of pellucidity of thought ! Still more alluring 
 must have been the sight of the convent garden right 
 below the solar ; three acres of rich soil, walled about 
 for privacy and warmth. What child of man could resist the 
 peaches ripening on the southern walls ? What friar could mark 
 the fish-ponds at its side with the shoals of merry, monastic trout, 
 gliding through the shallows, and return in peace of mind to the 
 works of Thomas Aquinas ? 
 
 One other sequestered spot of this peaceful community must 
 be remembered. It stood most southerly and distant of all. 
 Through the convent garden you passed into one larger still (which 
 the Prior sometimes let), and from that again you followed the path 
 on the west bank of the river, till you came into what the friars 
 called their grove ; a sort of temple made with trees ; pillared and 
 girt round with two hundred goodly elms, as dark and secret as a 
 druid's ring. Henry's Commissioners, it is true, thought but 
 little of this grove, and valued the trees at only twopence a-piece ; 
 but one may imagine how the brothers loved this woodland 
 sanctuary. Here the Prior took his ease from the toils of 
 discipline ; here on the cool grass the sun-scorched brethren rested 
 at noon from getting in the hay ; and here at midnight one might 
 sometimes have seen a friar flee from his demon-haunted cell to 
 wrestle with God for the possession of his soul. 
 
IV. 
 
 Such then was the home of the White-Carmelites of Hitchin, 
 where they followed the three-fold rule of religion, learning and 
 labour. It was, as one of their own writers said, the Creed of a 
 lesser Trinity : contemplation for the soul : illumination for the 
 mind : and some harmless distraction for Brother Ass the Body. 
 Rising for prime at 5, they betook themselves to study or exercise 
 till 8, when High Mass was said. At 10 one of the novices rang 
 the convent bell, and the brothers filed into the one banquet 
 of the day ; itself another trinity of ' ' altum silentium — perfect 
 .silence," while the refectory reading proceeded: "clangor 
 dentium — crunching of the teeth," till the boards were cleared: 
 and then at last "rumor gentium" — the buzzing of the brethren 
 at their gossip, like a well-filled hive of bees. Thence through 
 the cloisters to the cemetery to pray bareheaded for the souls of 
 those, once their beloved companions, who had felicitiously 
 finished this life and lay there waiting a joyful resurrection ; and 
 so again to the scriptorium and their studies. Compline followed 
 in the church at 3 ; a light meal of lettuce, cheese, and the famous 
 Hitchin mead at 5 ; and an hour's audience later with their 'Prior 
 in his lodging, or in the Chapter House. By seven all 
 private devotions were said, and each friar asleep in his narrow, 
 dormitory bed, till the bell " which rang ever at midnight" called 
 him again to prayer. Thus the holy chain of worship and work 
 was brought again full circle. 
 
 I have described only the common round, but in cases of 
 special skill or special need some brethren would be otherwise 
 employed. Those, for example, whose fingers were filled with the 
 Holy Spirit would sit almost day-long in the scriptorium, copying 
 some rare manuscript commentary of the Fathers or making an 
 illuminated Psalter for the church. I have only lately brought 
 two of their vellum sheets to light, hidden in the binding of a 
 volume of his plays which the first Ralph Radcliffe (1509-1559) 
 wrote with his own hand, and gave to Henry Vlllth.* The rest 
 
 * I traced this precious volume to the Library of Lord Harlech, who kindly let 
 me keep it for some months. The plays were performed in the refectory, which 
 Ralph Radcliffe, then a schoolmaster, tum.ed into a theatre, so that bis boys migrht 
 learn more aptness and confidence in the Engrlish and Latin tongues. 
 
 8 
 
no doubt followed the accustomed fate at the time of the dissolu- 
 tion, serving as jam-pot covers, patterns for tailor's suits, and 
 stiffening for Puritan tracts. Some of the brethren, who had 
 what Nero called "the face of a schoolmaster," would instruct the 
 novices or promising lads from the town. Others would milk the 
 cows, scour the pots and pans, and, so far as man may, would 
 wrestle with the mysteries of the kitchen. f Others again would 
 tend the kine, scythe the lawns, and root out the weeds which 
 the Evil One sowed of nights in the convent garden. But the 
 hand work was not large. The Carmelites were above all a con- 
 templative order ; and those who have seen them in their white 
 cloaks, thrown over the heavy woollen habits, will not easily believe 
 them capable of agricultural labour. Besides, the Hitchin Priory 
 had only three acres of arable land, known as the "Cummin Field. " 
 What little corn they grew was ground at the King's Mill or that 
 of the Knights of St. John, both situate at Charlton. The malt for 
 their liquor, the wool for their habits, the leather for their sandal- 
 thongs and books could be got plentifully from Hitchin market, 
 then famous for all of these. About them on every hand, and 
 blending with the sweet tones of the Priory bells, was "the noise 
 of labour, the fulness of harvest, the creaking of loaded waggons, 
 the bustle of farmyards, and the beating of the anvil on the forge," 
 pictured so well in the homely lines of Francis Lucas : — 
 " Orchards well planted, stacks and mows, 
 And tillage-gear and brindled cows. 
 And sturks and colts and rude old sows, 
 Whose pigs rush everywhere." 
 But for good or ill they had chosen to dwell apart on the mountain 
 of contemplation, to follow by austerity of discipline and solitary 
 prayer the blessed example "of our alone Saviour" — a. life more 
 rigorous than farmyard work. To estimate its value is no con- 
 cern of mine, for the spirit can be judged only by God, Who sends 
 it. But here and there in our public records, enough of their 
 
 f I would commend anyone on this point to deligrht himself with the mis- 
 chances of Brother Juniper^ the self-appointed cook of his community, as related in 
 the Little Flowers of St. Francis. 
 
industry survives to disprove the oft-made accusation, that these 
 servants of the Most High lived here in sluggish ease. 
 
 V. 
 
 On their bede-roll are some shining names, not only famous in 
 their day and generation, but still remembered, though but faintly, 
 in our own. To mention only a few, there was Brother Hugo, a 
 very learned and illegible writer, whose mental activities remind 
 one of Lydgate, his contemporary ; it was said that his collected 
 works heaped up a waggon, that hardly two oxen could draw.t 
 
 Again, there was Thomas Walden (1377-1430) who, though 
 not formally canonized, has always been reckoned amongst the 
 saints of the Carmelite order. Born at Saffron Walden, he spent 
 part of his youth here before proceeding to Oxford, and laid the 
 foundation of that learning (Doctor Authenticus they styled him), 
 which was to make him famous throughout Europe. Such was his 
 power of persuasion and controversy (Princeps Controversistarum — 
 another of his titles) before the Councils of Pisa and Constance in 
 1409 and 1415, that when the Provincial of the Carmelites died 
 they appointed him to the office, though only 42 years of age. And 
 such his knowledge and relentless activity where heresy was in 
 question, that he was made Grand Inquisitor for England.* After 
 a famous sermon at Paul's Cross, Walden was chosen by Henry 
 Vth. to be his confessor, and afterwards entrusted with many 
 matters of state. It was at his master's wish that he went in 1419 
 to make peace between the King of Poland and Michael, the 
 Grand-master of the Teutonic Knights ; and it was in his arms in 
 1422 that Henry breathed his last. He preached the funeral 
 sermon at Westminster on November the 6th that year. For the 
 last eight years of his life, Walden served the young king, Henry 
 VI. as tutor and father-confessor, and died upon a journey with 
 him at Rouen in 1430 ; leaving, in spite of a stirring life, no less 
 
 t " He led an honest life," says Bale, " devoted to the arts and sought the light 
 of truth in the midst of Egyptian darkness. He slept little at any time and never 
 ceased to arouse the sleeping multitude of men by the power of his orations and 
 night-thoughts. Even as a fish in a, muddy stream, so he lived, yet preserved always 
 the sweet flavour of piety. He died in 1340." 
 
 * He tells in his chronicle how, bein^ at the trial of one, Taylor, for heresy, the 
 latter outrageously declared that " a spider is more worthy of reverence than the 
 Mass ; ^nd straightway (says Walden) a great spider of horrid aspect came down 
 from the roof by its very thread and sought to enter the mouth of the blasphemer. 
 There was present Thomas, Duke of Exeter, then Chancellor of the Kingdom, who 
 saw the prodigy.'* 
 
 lo 
 
than fifty-one works, some of ten or twelve books each, to serve 
 for a lasting monument. His Doctrinale and his collection of 
 documents relating to the early Lollards are read as classics to 
 this day. 
 
 Finally, there was Peter Stokes, whose Carmelite contempla- 
 tions led on to worldly disputations, and almost won him a martyr's 
 crown. The story of his life is told rather prettily by John Bale, 
 himself a Carmelite, though he renounced his vows "for love of 
 his sweet Dorothy." It seems that after years of preparation in 
 Hitchm Priory, Brother Peter packed up his best theses and rode 
 away to Oxford in 1382, "aspiring to the degree of Doctor of 
 Divinity. ' ' Incidentally he wanted to have a fling at the Lollards, 
 whose intellectual home was there. Already he was well-known 
 to them, for he had preached fifty sermons against them, and Wiclif 
 himself had nick-named him "the little white dog," because he 
 barked and worried at them incessantly in his books. So when 
 Peter stood up in the Senate at Oxford and claimed his degree, 
 there was a most disorderly scene. The Lollards, led by Nicholas 
 of Hereford, and backed by Rigge, the Chancellor of the Uni- 
 versity, shouted him down and tried to stir up an insurrection. In 
 an interval of comparative quiet, Peter produced a complete list 
 of their heresies, which he had got a scrivener beforehand to write 
 out, and declaimed it at full voice. Then one, Crumpe, continued 
 the battle on his side ; a cantankerous Irishman and something of 
 a Cistercian, though not much. Bale calls him "a master of 
 fallacies, a false priest, a weeping fox, a wine-bibbing enemy of the 
 Lord," and so on.) Between them they created such a tumult that 
 Crumpe was suspended and Peter's doctorate was disallowed. 
 Nothing daunted, however, they set out for London, shewed their 
 grievances to Archbishop Courtenay, and the King's Council, and 
 returned "like Saul, the fierce, armed with royal authority" and 
 general warrants against all the Lollards. That very day, 
 Nicholas of Hereford, the Arch-Lollard, was preaching the Uni- 
 versity Sermon, but Peter "durst not for his life " stop his mouth 
 with the Archbishop's edict, because the Chancellor had packed 
 the church with two hundred of his soldiers. Next day, however. 
 
 It 
 
he had a public debate with Repingdon, another ring-leader, and 
 was putting him to confusion when twelve students came in, dis- 
 playing armour and weapons beneath their gowns. Then for the 
 second time the little white dog turned tail and fled (" otherwise," 
 he says to the Archbishop, " I should have been murdered in my 
 chair "), this time back to his kennel at Hitchin, leaving the Arch- 
 bishop and twenty divines to stamp out the conflagration he had 
 caused. The rest of his life he passed peacefully at Hitchin, 
 completing a treatise on the Superior Clergy, some translations of 
 Holy Writ into the vulgar tongue, and some lively pamphlets 
 against those who had deprived him of his degree. In the year 
 1399, he "closed his last day," and was buried in his robe and 
 scapulary, a garment so sacred that the Virgin Mary had promised 
 to visit purgatory for the relief of those who had worn it. 
 
 VI. 
 As with most of the religious orders in England, the decline set 
 in about the close of the 15th century. By that time the fervour of 
 the wonderful 14th century was spent. The Wars of the Roses 
 had set men murmuring at the futility of the Faith. First John 
 Ball, and then the Lollards, had preached against the pride and 
 privilege of the clergy. In this county especially the Lollards 
 had been strong. Moreover, the immorality of the mendicants 
 had made the name of " friar" stink in the nostrils of the nation. 
 The common people — already aware of their coming inde- 
 pendence — preferred to give their money to the guilds which they 
 managed for themselves, or to found chantries where their names 
 might be more exalted. For a time the brethren were saved the 
 pinch of poverty, though that, indeed, should not have troubled their 
 ascetic order. There were yet in Hitchin a number of people — 
 chiefly widows and old men of the devouter sort — ^to befriend them 
 in their need. No more lands and tenements came their way, but 
 the bequests of money were still frequent. In 1509 John 
 Middleton gave them £6 13s. 4d. (worth £100 of our money) "to 
 keep an yerely obit or anniversary solempenely by note for my 
 soule," and forty shillings more "to the reparacion of the church of 
 
 13 
 
the said Freres and of the housyng thereto belonging." Seven- 
 teen years before, Sir John Sturgeon,* the King's Munitioner and 
 a terrible profiteer (twice convicted) bribed them with 13/4 "to 
 pray for my soul and for that of Edward IV." ; rather poor pay- 
 ment for two such inveterate sinners. From Edward Moody 
 (1504), whose son twenty years after saved the great despoiler's 
 life when he fell head-first into the Hiz, they received two quarters 
 of malt ; and. from another cheery soul they had a butt of red 
 Gascony wine. ■ Sometimes the gifts were personal, as in 1501, 
 when the Widow Drake not only gave £6 13s. 4d. "of good 
 money " to the " House of Friars," but 20s. to Sir John Durrant, 
 the then Prior, and 40s. to " Frier Plummer," her favorite. Even 
 with these doles, which could be multiplied by ten, the Prior could 
 not make ends meet. On the 17th October, 1508, the nine brethren 
 who were left, sorrowfully signed away the convent garden for the 
 space of 99 years ; and little dreaming of their fate, gave the usual 
 covenant for quiet enjoyment. The grant is counter-signed by 
 Robert Love, the Provincial of the English Carmelites, who also 
 sprang from Hitchin. Two other benefactors should be named. 
 On September 3rd, 1530, King Harry was staying as usual at 
 Moormead in the hunting season ; being told of their distress he 
 sent 40s. to the friars, whom so soon he was going to dissolve. 
 Of the last benefaction in 1531 the original acknowledgment sur- 
 vives ; a precious document, more lovely in its phrasing than any 
 I have seen, and reflecting a beauty of holiness which shone not 
 seldom in the hearts of these Carmelite friars. I ask no apology 
 for transcribing it in full. "Friar John Butler, local Prior and 
 servant of the Brethren of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 
 Mother of God, of Mount Carmel in the Convent of Hitchen to 
 our well-beloved in Christ John Rogmer and Anne his wife Greet- 
 ing, and wishing them to merit heavenly kingdoms by the assistance 
 of prayers. We most diligently observing and commending in the 
 Lord the sincere devotion which you have to our order for the 
 reverence of Christ and the blessed glorious Virgin Mary by whose 
 title our said order is more particularly distinguished and with 
 respect to those things especially which regard the health 
 
 * His carven tomb lies in fragments behind the altar of our Trinity Chapel, and 
 really ougrht to be pieced toerether and set up in the Church. 
 
 «3 
 
of souls, as far as we can with God, we desire to repay 
 you a good office. Therefone by these presents we grant 
 you perpetual participation (as well during life as after death) in 
 all the Masses, Fasts, Vigils, Prayers, Preachings, Abstinences 
 and all other good works which the clemency of our Saviour shall 
 mercifully vouchsafe to be performed by our brethren in the said 
 Convent. Adding moreover and granting of our special grace, 
 that when the memory of our obits shall be recited in our Con- 
 ventual Chapter, the same shall be done for you in every respect 
 which is commonly accustomed to be done for the deceased brethren 
 of our Order. In Witness whereof the seal of my office of Prior 
 is annexed to these presents. Given in our Council aforesaid 
 
 Anno Domini 1531." To dwell on such a document 
 
 is a danger. It puts a man out of love with his own day. It makes 
 him heart-sick for that something in the world which is no longer 
 to be found. 
 
 VII. 
 
 It was just three years later that the first blow fell ; and to the 
 friars it was by no means unexpected. They had known some 
 time that the King's blind lust would overturn the world. They 
 were soon to watch with envy the magnificent courage and 
 martyrdom of the Blessed More and the Carthusians of London. 
 With envy, I say, for they had received secret orders from their 
 own Provincial to seek no crown of martyrdom, but to be obedient 
 to the King.* On the 5th May, 1534, the King's Messenger rode 
 through the gate-house and summoned the brothers to take the 
 Oath of Supremacy. It was a lengthy document to which he had 
 that same morning obtained the signatures of the Priors of King's 
 Langley, Aylesbury, Dunstable and Bedford, and was still to carry 
 to the Franciscans of More — no mean feat of horsemanship and 
 persuasion for one day. The document, as the historian Burnet 
 noted, is a priceless relic, because in Mary's reign (1557), Bishop 
 Bonner had a commission to collect and destroy all writings in 
 contempt of the Holy See, and did his work so thoroughly that this 
 
 * John Bird, the last Provincial, played a sorry if not a craven part ; and so 
 pleased the Kingr with his course of sermons agrainst the Pope's Supremacy that he 
 was appointed the first bishop of the new diocese of Chester. 
 
 '4 
 
sex-partite oath is the last but one that survives. In brief, John 
 Butler, on behalf of Hitchin Priory, "professed, testified and 
 vowed to perform entire, inviolate and constant faith, respect and 
 obedience towards his lord. King Heriry VIII., and towards his 
 most serene consort. Queen Anne, and towards the holy and pure 
 matrimony lately contracted, done and consummated between 
 them. Also to account the Bishop of Rome, who in his bulls 
 usurps the name of Pope and arrogates to himself the dignity 
 of High Priest of no greater authority than any other bishop in 
 England." With a touch of irony the form concludes by stating 
 that the Prior "subscribed not by compulsion but by choice." 
 
 Another five years of prayer and intercession, five anxious, 
 interminable years, each day dreading what the next might bring, 
 each day's sky more ominous than the last, with clouds mustering 
 for the final storm. Then, as if with a flash of lightning, they 
 found that all the time they had been harbouring an Iscariot in their 
 midst. Their own tenant, Thomas Parys, was in the pay of 
 Cromwell, singled out in the Secret Service to inform against the 
 friars, and to invent immoralities where otherwise no information 
 could be laid. Through the State Papers one can follow him 
 almost daily, spying treacherously into the convents of every 
 county, signing his reports "Your assuryd beydesman and ser- 
 vant," and closing each with a petition for the spoil, like a hungry 
 jackal picking the friar's bones. It was he who, finding nothing 
 else to lay against his landlords, suggested to Secretary 
 Wriothesley that he should examine Prior Dove, of the Calais 
 Carmelites, who had as a young man served some years in this 
 community. Accordingly some twenty-three searching questions 
 were sent over the water, and evidence taken on commission ; the 
 main point being to prove that Dove had attended the sermons of 
 one Damplip (a rather appropriate name for a frothy, rhetorical 
 preacher) "who came lately out of Germany."* This having 
 
 * Among-st other wild thing's, this preacher said of the sacrament of the altar, 
 "It is not in a knave priest to make God," and of the miracle of the mass, "A 
 mouse would as soon eat the body of God as any other cake." For such sayings he 
 was put to death, but not before he had set Cranmer against Cromwell, and almost 
 lost Calais by constant insurrection. 
 
 IS 
 
failed, Parys, who badly wanted some of the Priory property, and 
 subsequently stole it, dropped his wiliness and tried a bolder stroke. 
 He told Cromwell that " Hitchen was amongst those few houses of 
 friars which have any substance of lead. " That sort of ponderous 
 and metallic argument was far more likely to move Cromwell, for, 
 as one of our Priory papers bitterly remarks, he was merely a 
 blacksmith's son. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 On the 16th October, 1539, Sir William Coffyn* and Henry 
 Crouch, two more of Cromwell's minions, entered the Priory, 
 summoned a chapter-meeting of the brothers, now reduced to 
 five, and shewed them the commission of their master. There it 
 was, fresh from the Palace of Westminster the day before, signed 
 by Thomas Crumbwell (sic), and sealed with the Privy Seal. 
 After impudently reciting that "the house of the White Friers 
 within our town of Hytching remayneth at this present in such state 
 that it is neyther used to the honour of God or the benefite of our 
 common wealth ' ' the document naively announced that the King 
 "mynded for the conversion of it to another purpose, to take it 
 into our hands," and then gave the usual directions as to the form 
 of the surrender. At the request of the Prior a day's grace was 
 allowed ; and that evening the last mass was sung, the Prior's last 
 blessing given, and the last prayers said in the cemetery for the 
 souls of the departed. It would need a reverend and tender pen 
 to tell the hours of that night. By the morning the Prior had with 
 his own hands written out the deed of surrender as we see it to this 
 day, in sentences very different from Cromwell's brutal style, and 
 even wishing "to the most excellent King Henry and to all the 
 faithful in Christ salvation in the Everlasting Lord." At the 
 foot and beneath their prior's hand four of the brethren signed ; but 
 
 *In the State Papers he is called " a very gentleman " ; but the same volumes 
 charg-e him with " withholding- a lady's hawk, a poor man's riding saddle," and 
 a large landed estate which Jie retained by bribing the judges with two casks of 
 wine. Also he " made privy labour to be of the Order of the Garter, and would give 
 much money to have it." He won his knighthood for his services in helping to 
 suppress the Lincolnshire rebellion. 
 
 i6 
 
the fifth, Alexander Sandye, after writing his christian name, 
 repented of the deed and struck the pen firmly through — the act of 
 a brave man, for it must have lost him his liberty if not his life. 
 Then the Priory seal was affixed for the last time,* and the piety 
 and humble endeavour of 222 years brought utterly to an end. 
 To the friars, in spite of their outward submission, it must have 
 seemed as though Anti-Christ had come ; as it did to their brothers 
 in distress at Royston Priory, who gathered in one of the inns and 
 signed the weird prophecy, "that the kyng shall not lyve a month 
 after the feast of the nativitie of Saynt John Baptiste except he do 
 amende his condicions ; and further that after the said tyme an 
 horse of Xs price shalbe able to bear all the noble bloode of Eng- 
 land." Here there was no such idle beating of the air, for the life 
 of contemplation makes the buffets of this world a little matter 
 beside the immanence of God. At the same time a curious retribu- 
 tion does seem to have fallen upon the three main agents concerned 
 in the ruin of our Priory. In less than two months Sir Wm. Coffyn 
 paid the penalty of a mortal and sinful man. His widow begged 
 Cromwell to tell the King that "he died of the great sickness, full of 
 God's marks over all his body." The following year Parys was 
 deserted by his wife, and by her attainder in 1542 lost all her 
 fortune of lands, chattels and 1,500 sheep. As for Crouch, he 
 made a miserable muddle of his after life, fell into hopeless arrears 
 with the King's money, and was finally despatched by the Privy 
 Council. 
 
 The next day, so instant was the King's command, the 
 brothers went out into the inhospitable world ; I had almost said 
 " into the everlasting night," for not a vestige of their fate remains. 
 A kindlier fortune fell to Prior Butler, for a Chantry Priest of the 
 Parish Church had lately died, and the guild or brotherhood of St. 
 Mary, in whose gift it was, graciously offered the vacancy to him. 
 In the Chantry certificate of 1547, we catch the last glimpse of him, 
 
 * Two kneeling- friars beneath the figure of the Blessed Virgin and the Child. 
 In the field on either side of her a flowering branch. Right and left the shields of 
 Edward the Second and Edward the Third. The matrix of the seal of the 15th 
 century circular form is still at the Priory in the careful keeping of the Radcliffe 
 family. An illustration of the Seal is shewn at the end of this history. 
 
 17 
 
' ' an old man of sixty years with no other living but the service of 
 the Fraternity, namely, vi^- xiiis- iiijd.. I have seen one petition 
 of his to Thomas Cromwell a year or two before, "begging your 
 Lordship's goodness to consider my grievous sorrows," but 
 nothing came of it, nor any pension till 1553, when the old faith 
 was restored. 
 
 The moment the friars were gone, Coffyn and Crouche (again 
 what appropriate names for these human vultures) stripped the 
 lead, bells ^nd glass from the Priory Church, so that the steeple 
 crashed through the timbered roof and, amongst other damage, 
 "foure lyttle graven-stones were brused and broken." To 
 the informer Parys, were given the Friars' Grove, some ruinous 
 buildings for the enlargement of his house, and all the "plate, 
 jewelles, ornaments, copes and other implements." These last, 
 however, were in trust for the King, to be sold by auction and the 
 proceeds entered in a Book of Remembrance and paid to the Court 
 of Augmentation. But though I have made diligent search I can- 
 not trace the " accomplysshement of his Accomptes," which Parys 
 promised for the ' ' iiiith day of next terme. ' ' It is a pity, for it still 
 further darkens his character, and deprives us of much detail of the 
 goods and chattels of the friars and the interior of their church. 
 
 IX. 
 
 For seven years the Priory lay desolate, and its buildings fell 
 into extreme decay. Most pathetic reading is the inventory of 
 its condition by "xii. honeste, dyscrete and most substancyallmenne 
 of the parisshe of Hychen," in 1546, when two court-sychophants 
 and land-jobbers, Herdson and Watson, purchased of the King.* 
 ' ' All the buyldinges are verrye Ruynowce both in tymber and tyle 
 for lack of Reparacions, insomuch that sutch as hath any estate 
 of them hath forfeted theire leases, openly affyrmyng that they had 
 
 * The twelve good men and true found the priory to be worth only £6 18s. Od. 
 by the year. Dugdale gives the value at suppression at £13 14s. Od. Nothing 
 seems to be known of Watson, but Herdson was a skinner by trade and reputation. 
 He was the same year appointed comptroller of the King's Customs and Subsidies 
 in the Port of London. JHe and Watson gave the King ;£1,541 for the Priory and 
 other lands, and made huge profits by selling in small lots. 
 
 i8 
 
rather forgowe their interest thereof than occupy according to their 
 covenants to repayre. As for the gardens they are but as yardes 
 and voyde places of grounde ; nevertheless foreasmuche as thei 
 have in auncyent tyme-past born the name of garden plottes we 
 have charged and entered them as sutcTie." They report the 
 mansion house in good repaire for the reason that Ralph Radcliffe, 
 a poor schoolmaster, playwright and scholar of Jesus College, 
 Cambridge, had for some years lived there and started a private 
 school. Though of noble family and acquainted with the King, 
 it is due solely to his own brains and hard work that he was able 
 two years later (1548) to buy the estate and afterwards add acre to 
 acre as his pupils increased.* 
 
 If I were asked by a stranger where the old Priory was, I 
 should wave my arms wide over all the town. In the present 
 mansion, built by John Radcliffe, a merchant-adventurer of 
 Aleppo, Smyrna and Bagdad, about the year 1775, there is little 
 •old work to show.f But between 1539 and 1546 the old Priory 
 was used as a quarry for the town. Anyone then building a new 
 house took his carts that way. So in the Cock Hotel, in the old 
 Red Lion, in the gabled house by the Exchange Yard destiroyed in 
 1899, and in the timbered shop at the south entry to the church, 
 there is or was whole tons of carved or moulded stone. So, too, 
 if we did but know it in a hundred houses more ; their faces may be 
 Georgian, but their hearts are Tudor to the core. It is scarcely too 
 fanciful to say that though the friars and their faith may be for- 
 gotten, their "works" still uphold our town! 
 
 Be it tempting as it may, it is not for the historian to moralise 
 on "the old, far-off, unhappy things" of centuries ago. I have 
 heard some good folk bring against the friars that same terrible 
 indictment, which the poet Verhaeren put into the mouth of Christ 
 himself : — 
 
 * I am often informed that th'e original grant was to the Radcliifes, and that being 
 in possession of " Priory" lands they suflFered the usual punishment in failure of male 
 issue. Neither statement is true. They bought for good money of the original 
 grantees, and have enjoyed the normal run of straight successions. It was not till 
 late in the 18th century that the male line became extinct. 
 
 t Apart from the six arches of the cloister arcade I named before. The 
 stone of the present south front was quarried from Highdown. 
 
 19 
 
' ' You rot in torpid ease 
 Behind a sleepy world of pieties, 
 Drowsing the slow, monotonous hours away, 
 You sluggardize. Far off the trumpets blow 
 War on my cross, whose wide arms long ago 
 Embraced the world and pressed it to my heart ; 
 You play an ever-shrinking, sterile part. 
 You stifle boundless ardours, virgin powers. 
 The tongues of flame, which on my faithful few 
 At Pentecost descended." 
 
 ■1 here are those on the other hand who say that the heart of 
 England will never be whole again till the old order is restored. 
 But the student of history, for all his reverence to the past, cannot 
 fail to see the gradual evolution and amelioration of the human lot. 
 There is nothing steady in one stay. Though it move slowly like 
 the river Hiz, yet the world moves on. The only hope for man 
 is to take the old stones and build anew after a better fashion. 
 "Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul." It were a 
 child's part, or a poet's merely, to weep because here not one 
 stone lieth on another, because instead of the Friar's Grove the 
 nettles flourish in thousands, because of all the former sanctity and 
 splendour only a fragile memory plays over a fleeting stream, 
 
 "Whose harmless fish monastic silence keep."