1015] on The Archives of Westminster Abbey 461 



reason, for dwelling on the custom. Westminster School is ostensibly 

 a Tador foundation, but at the Abbey we stand by the conviction 

 that its roots are deep down in the pristine monastic soil. Every 

 Shrove Tuesday the school's selected gladiators make a fiendish 

 assault on a single pancake. What if there is surviving in this 

 custom some ancient protest of the Benedictines against being fed 

 on pancakes every day for eight weeks ? What more natural than 

 that the champion of these protestants should be led to the Lord 

 Abbot to receive the Lord Abbot's equivalent for a guinea ? 



An occasion now arose in which Colchester's powers were to be 

 put to a more enduring test. AVe are all familiar with the name 

 *' St. Stephen's " as loosely applied to Parliament House. Perhaps 

 we are not all equally familiar with the fact that the House of 

 Commons, after sitting for long years in our Chapter House at the 

 Abbey, removed itself after the Dissolution to the ancient chapel of 

 St. Stephen in the Palace of Westminster. The history of that 

 chapel does not concern us now except in so far as it is related to 

 William Colchester's career. Placed where it was, it stood within 

 the hmits of our Abbot's jurisdiction, but its Dean and his twelve 

 Prebendaries had good grounds for regarding themselves as a royal 

 foundation, and they craved the sort of independence which to-day 

 attaches to St. G-eorge's Chapel, Windsor. Our Convent resisted 

 this claim, which on the other hand was supported by the Royal 

 Court. In or about 1377 the suit was entered before the Roman 

 Curia, and some one must be appointed to take charge of our 

 Convent's interests and do the necessary " lobbying " among the 

 Pope's entouraje. Their choice fell upon William Colchester. I 

 will not go into the merits of the case which at the end of about 

 seventeen years was decided in our favour; the College of St. Stephen 

 agreed to pay to the Abbey five marks yearly, and our Abbot's right 

 to instal the Dean of St. Stephen's was upheld.* My concern in the 

 matter is to produce to you William Colchester's bill of costs,! ^"^^^ 

 to use it as a guide to his journey and his doings. 



He left Westminster on June 10, 1377, and was absent, as he 

 is careful to tell you, for two years, twenty-three weeks and three 

 days. His first business, as any traveller to-day knows, was to get 

 his papers in order, consisting in this case of royal letters "pro 

 cxpedicione cause " from the Keeper of the Privy Saal ; and he tells 

 you first that he paid 3-5. M.. to the Keeper's servant to urge his 

 master to dictate them and the like sum to the scrivener who would 

 execute them. As he sets out, you can see him reckoning up the 

 difficulties of his ordeal. It was arranged that he should go by 

 way of Avignon, for Thomas Southam, the Abbey lawyer, was still 

 there settling up Cardinal Langham's will. But the Pope was no 



* J. T. Smith, Antiqidties of Westminster, 1807, p. 100. 

 t Mun. 9256 C. D. 



Vol. XXI. (No. 109) 2 h 



