274 History of the Priory of Monkton Farley. 



rents. The danger attending this foreign connection was great, 

 and often fatal ; for whenever war broke out between France and 

 England, the King of England instantly seized upon the English 

 estates, and stopped the supplies; that is, in fact, suppressed the 

 houses by confiscation for the time. On peace being restored, they 

 were sometimes given back. Several of our Kings dealt thus with 

 the Alien Priories, and Henry Y. dissolved them altogether, at 

 least those whose revenues had gone entirely to France. No won- 

 der, therefore, that English monasteries were always discontented 

 with this foreign yoke, and were anxious to shake it off; that both 

 Lewes and Farley were eager to be quit of their Clugniac superior 

 in Burgundy, for it was a bond that continually threatened to put 

 an end to themselves altogether. Farley was often in peril. Edward 

 I., being in search of money for his wars, caused inquiry to be made 

 into the actual degree of connection of this house with Clugni 

 (through the intermediate step of Lewes). A commission was 

 appointed to ascertain whether the monks here were English or 

 under the power of the King of France. It was found that they 

 paid no actual tax or pension to any subject of the French King, 

 except so far as this : that, whenever the Abbot of Clugni happened 

 to come to England to make a formal visitation here, his expenses 

 were paid, and the monks professed to him. This was not consi- 

 dered to amount to so close an affinity as to bring them within the 

 rule, and so they escaped. This was in 1296, and the King's deed 

 is dated 25th January, at Castelacre, a Clugniac Priory in Norfolk. 

 But the Crown officers kept their eye upon them, and, two years 

 afterwards, in 1298 (26 E. I.) found another excuse for further 

 inquiry. The monks of Farley had lately become possessed of the 

 manors of Allington and Slaughterford, near Chippenham. Those 

 estates had been originally given by King Stephen to the foreign 

 Abbey of Martigny, in the valley of the Phone, above the Lake of 

 Geneva, and that Abbey had exchanged them for other lands with 

 the house at Farley. The Crown pronounced that by this exchange 

 the intentions of its predecessors had been defeated, and it seized 

 the two estates ; but, upon re-consideration, and after some pacific 



