un u 9 m U 
ON THE CHARTERS OF CLEEVE ABBEY. 69 
of the sufferers as we may, and to these no reference has 
been intended in the previous remarks, one thing is cer- 
tain. It was not their religious opinions which brought 
upon them the frown of disfavour, and at length the storm 
of perseeution and destruction. It was their possessions 
and not their precepts, their rents and not their religion, 
their money and not their morality, which caused their 
fall. 
The tyrant, like another of earlier date, first killed, 
and then took possession. We find, however, that soon 
afterwards a courtier was quite ready to appropriate 
the spoil, in the person of Robert Earl of Sussex. He 
was previously known as Robert Ratcliffe, baron and 
viscount Fitz-Walter ; was created Earl of Sussex on 
the 28th December, 21st Hen. VIII, and in the 33rd 
of the same reign was made Lord High Chamberlain for 
life. He was one of the peers who presented the ar- 
ticles against Cardinal Wolsey, and subscribed the letter 
to the Pope, representing the certain loss of his supre- 
macy unless he decided against Queen Katharine. Be- 
sides the Abbey of Cleeve, he obtained the College and 
Chantry of Attleburgh, in Norfolk, and died the follow- 
ing year, 1542. * 
The original grant is abstracted in Dugdale, p. 731, 
note b, from the Originalia, 29 Hen. VIIL, of which ab- 
stract the following is a translation :— 
(F.) “The King on the 30th day of January granted 
to Robert Earl of Sussex, the reversion of the house and 
site of the late Abbey of Clyve, and all the messuages etc. 
in the parishes of Old Cliffe, London, Bylbroke, Wasshe- 
ford, Hungerford, Golsyngeote, Roodwater, Leigh and 
* See Banks’s “Dormant and Extinet Baronage,” 4to. Lond. 1809., vol. 
iii, p. 696. 
