250 License to convert Malmsbury Abbey into a Parish Church. 
Master William Stumpe, Esq.,! who by gift and grant of the King’s 
Majesty, and of full right possesses all the site, circuit, and precinct, 
of the late Monastery of the town of Malmsbury aforesaid, and 
also all the Nave of the Conventual Church, late of the same 
Monastery, in respect that the aforesaid parish church of St. Paul 
of Malmsbury is fallen even unto the ground, and is not fit to 
receive the people for divine service, Hath granted all the said Nave 
of the late Conventual Church to be perpetually converted to the 
use of divine services; We favourably granting your petition in this 
respect, by the authority of the aforesaid Parliament of England, 
which in this behalf we enjoy, by tenor of these presents indulge 
you that ye freely and lawfully may hear divine offices, and parti- 
cipate in sacraments, and all and singular sacramental rites, within 
the aforesaid Nave, so that the consent of those who have interest 
in the premises be thereunto had, and the right of all others be 
saved, any ordination to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding. 
Dated in our Manor of Lambeth, under our seal for Faculties on the 
20th day of the month of August, in the year of our Lord 1541, 
and in the 9th year of our consecration. 
Jo. Hueues, Doctor of Laws. 
Nicuotas Worron, SrepHen VaucuHan, Clerk of 
Commissary.2 the Faculties of the King’s 
Majesty. 
EK. W. 
1 For some account of Master William Stumpe who turned Malmsbury Abbey 
and its offices into a Cloth Factory, see page 140. He was also the pur- 
chaser, from the Crown, of Charlton and other Estates of the Monastery. He 
died 1563: and his grand-daughter Elizabeth, being an only child and heiress, 
carried them by marriage into the family of Knyvett. 
2 Of this Nicholas Wotton, Izaak Walton thus makes honourable mention in 
his Life of Sir Henry Wotton. ‘‘He was Doctor of Law, and sometime Dean 
both of York and Canterbury; a man whom God did not only bless with a long 
life, but with great abilities of mind, and an inclination to employ them in the 
service of his country: as is testified by his several employments, having 
been sent nine times ambassador unto foreign princes, and by his being a Privy 
Counsellor to King Henry VIII., to Edward VI., to Queen Mary, and Queen 
Elizabeth. He was also by the Will of King Henry VIII. made one of his 
Executors, and chief Secretary of State to his son Edward VI. Concerning 
which Nicholas Wotton I shall say but this little more: that he refused (bein g 
offered it by Queen Elizabeth) to be Archbishop of Canterbury, and that he 
died not rich, though he lived in that time of dissolution of Abbeys.” 
