40 Bradford-upon- Avon. 
From a.p. 1500—1600. 
We have now arrived at the time of the Reformation. Our 
Abbess’ rule, which had lasted in all for more than 500 years, was 
to come to a close. In 1535 the smaller monasteries were surren- 
dered to King Henry VIII. Five years afterwards the royal. 
exchequer was filled to overflowing by the addition of the estates 
of the larger monasteries. Shaftesbury was surrendered March 23rd, 
1539, and with it, of course, went Bradford and its dependencies. 
The king, who had thus been immensely increasing some of his 
earthly possessions, had meanwhile been getting rid of others— 
divorcing one wife, beheading a second, and losing a third shortly 
after giving birth to a son. Perhaps it was a happy escape 
for our Wiltshire fair one, Jane Seymour, that she was thus early 
removed from her high, yet perilous position. The king, we are 
told, was inconsolable, and ‘continued in real mourning for her 
even all the festival of Christmas.” Two months, however, before 
Christmas, he had offered his hand to another. | 
But his queens were not the only persons who got into trouble 
with Henry VIII. A worthy Vicar of Bradford, William Byrde 
by name, fell under his Grace’s high displeasure. He was chaplain 
to the Lord Hungerford. The reason alleged for his getting into 
disgrace was, that he said to one that was going to assist the king 
against the rebels in the north,—‘“‘I am sorry thou goest; seest thou 
not how the king plucketh down images and abbeys every day ? 
And if the king go thither himself, he will never come home again, 
nor any of all them which go with him, and in truth, it were a 
pity he ever should come home again.”’ And at another time, upon 
one’s saying,—‘‘I ween all the world will be heretics in a little 
while,” —Byrde said,—“ Dost thou marvel at that ? I tell thee it’s no 
marvel, for the great master of all is a heretic, and such a one as 
there is not his like in the world.” 
By the same act the Lord Hungerford was attainted. The crimes 
specified are, “that he, knowing Byrde to be a traitor, did entertain 
him in his house as his chaplain; that he ordered another of his 
chaplains, Sir Hugh Wood, and one Dr. Maudlin, to use conjuring, 
