88 PAPEHS, ETC. 



Hertford, better known as Duke of Somerset. Anies- 

 bury, in Wiltshire ; Maiden Bradley, in the same county ; 

 Ottery, in Devon ; Wimborne, in Dorset ; Shene, in Sur- 

 rey ; Sion, in Middlesex, and several other religious houses, 

 were bis fearful sbare of the general plunder. It will not 

 be amiss to add that, in common with the other receivers 

 of these lands, the hand of God feil heavily upon him. He 

 was one of the most unfortunate of mankind, and ended his 

 life on the block in the year 1552. Five years before the 

 suppression Thomas Yve, the Abbot of Muchelney, and 

 his Convent, had pledged a considerable quantity of plate, 

 in goblets, cruets, pastoral staffj censer, spiee plate, candle- 

 sticks, &c, to Sir John Baker and Richard Rakeclyffe, of 

 Exeter, for one hundred pounds of lawful English money.* 

 This sum was, I believe, expended by them on various 

 buildings, foreseeing, doubtless, as they did, the rapidly 

 gathering storm, and knowing that everything that was 

 moveable would soon be at the merey of unscrupulous and 

 greedy inquisitors, whose very mission within their conse- 

 crated precinets was one of hardly disguised robbery and 

 studied spoliation. The attempt, however, to remain 

 masters of their own, however ingenious and reasonable, 

 was frustrated by the spirit of wholesale confiscation which 

 presently exhibited its tendencies in the complete annihila- 

 tion of multitudes of religious establishments. Like hun- 

 dreds of other Houses, Muchelney Abbey feil under the 

 spoiler's hand, and left little except its name to teil how 

 pious kings gave, and holy men served God ; and how, in 

 a faithless age, and for their own bad purposes, a monarch 

 tyrannized, courtiers coveted, and a whole land was 

 seduced, tili wrong had gone too far for remedy. 



Thomas Yve, as I before stated, was the last Abbat. 

 * Carl. Offio, Augment. 





