98 Mr. N. F. Robarts’s 
when in 1408 Henry took for his household expenses all the 
revenues of alien priories and the income of all vacant bishoprics 
and abbeys. 
No doubt the parent priory of La Charité raised protests 
against this fruitful source of income passing out of its pos- 
session; and indeed we learn a little later, in 1457, that the 
Abbot of Cluni sent over three monks to the King, to substantiate 
his claims to the House of Bermondsey. 
The ambassage was unsuccessful; the King would hardly give 
them a hearing ; one of the monks died here, the other two re- 
turned home, one of them having first written the following 
letter to the Abbot of St. Albans :— 
‘*‘ For the rest, be it known to you, my Lord, that after having 
spent four months and a half on our journey and following our 
Right with the most serene Lord the King and his Privy Council, 
we have obtained nothing; nay, we are sent back very dis- 
consolate, deprived of our Manors, our Pensions alienated, and 
what is still worse, we are denied the obedience of all our Monas- 
teries, which are 88 in number: nor did our Legal Deeds, nor 
the Testimonies of your Chronicles avail us anything, and at 
length after all our pleading and expenses, we return home 
moneyless, for in truth after paying what we have eaten and 
drunk, we have but five crowns left, to go back about 260 leagues. 
But what then? We will sell what we have, we will go on; and 
God will provide. Nothing else occurs to write to your Paternity ; 
but that as we entered England with joy, so we depart thence 
with sorrow; having buried one of our Companions—viz. the 
Archdeacon, the youngest of our Company. May he rest in 
Peace. Amen.” 
Poor monks! Henry VIII. was not the only king who found 
it advantageous for himself and the commonwealth to reduce the 
powers and revenues of the religious orders. 
In 1888 the church of this house appears to have been dedicated 
afresh, with several of its numerous altars. The cloister and re- 
fectory were either built or rebuilt by Prior Dunton‘in 1880, who 
covered the nave of the church with lead, and made new with 
glass the windows of the presbytery in 1887. 
In 1897 the prior and convent had a grant of the hundreds of 
Brixton and Wallington (which then included Croydon}, with the 
return of writs, &c., within the same, which was afterwards con- 
firmed to them by letters patent of King Henry VI. 
In 1430 Abbot Thelford covered the cloister with slate, ‘‘ cum 
petra vocata slat.’’ This is interesting as being, as far as I know, 
the first time the use of slate is recorded. One wonders whether 
they were Horsham slates, or Welsh. 
The various transactions respecting property in Surrey appear 
to have been as follows :— 
