36 BOROUGH OF LEWISHAM. 
alien priories. The monks were allowed 1s. 6d. a week and David 
le Graunt was placed in charge of the Priory of Lewisham for the 
security of the realm, lest, the lands being on the banks of the 
Thames, the aliens might convey intelligence by sea to the enemy. 
This was the pretext that was made from time to time, and during 
the reigns of Edward II, Edward III and Richard II Lewisham 
was frequently taken into the king’s hands, the king acting as 
owner and presenting to the vicarage on any vacancy occurring. 
It is not surprising, therefore, to find that the Prior of Lewis- 
ham, acting for the abbot, let the manor on lease whenever he 
could do so. In 1295 Lewisham was leased in this way to Sir 
William de Carletone for three years at an annual rent of £90, 
which was to be paid to the king if he was at war with France 
and to the prior if peace was concluded. 
In 1337 the alien priories were seized by reason of the war 
with France, but were formally restored in 1361, and in that year 
Christo Cossimio, Prior of Lewisham, obtained the King’s licence 
to visit Flanders and to take with him two attendants, 1 bow, 
20 arrows, 1 pipe of salted beef, 8 bacons, and three barrels of 
beer for his use and that of his household. 
In 1380, money being required for the French wars, Lewisham 
was again taken into the King’s hands, and a survey was made by 
which the goods were valued at £27 12s. 6d. and the annual 
revenue at 67 marcs. The manor was placed in charge of Sir 
Nicholas Brember for life at an annual rent of 80 marcs. He was 
an alderman of the City of London and was knighted with William 
Walworth when Wat Tyler was slain. After serving as Lord 
Mayor he was concerned in plots against the Duke of Gloucester, 
and was finally executed with an axe of his own design on 
18th February, 1388. His successor in 1399 was John Norbury, 
squire and treasurer to the king, and an adherent of Henry IV. 
These frequent seizures of their property must have in part 
prepared the monks of Ghent for the final catastrophe. In 1414, 
when Henry V was getting ready for the campaign in France 
which led up to Agincourt, the Commons petitioned him to con- 
sider the case of the alien priories by means of which, they urged, 
the State was impoverished by money being sent out of the 
kingdom to the head houses abroad. They therefore desired the 
King to take these possessions of the foreigner once for all into 
his own hands. 
Henry acceded to the request in a Parliament held at Leicester, 
and in spite of the protests of the Abbot of Ghent, Lewisham and 
Greenwich, which through some 500 years had been in his 
possession, passed away finally, never to return. 
Lewisham was not, however, to remain for long part of the 
possessions of the Crown. Henry was engaged in founding a 
Carthusian priory at Shene, in Surrey, and in 1415 Lewisham and 
Greenwich were settled upon that house as part of its endowment, 
and for 116 years the Prior of Shene was Lord of the Manor, 
