82 l'AI'ER.S, ETC. 



is the subject of our present research rising hastlly durlng 

 the first part of its existence iuto a position of wealth and 

 power, and then fov a series of generationa dispenslng with 

 a high and liberal hand the manifold blessings of which it 

 was the favoured depositorj. Age after age it has been 

 entering into the ecclesiastical life of England, an integral 

 portion of the mighty whole, and niaking its presence feit 

 in conformity with the great purposes for which it had 

 received its being. A change has now arrived. By 

 this tinie Taunton had received its last Prior, and the 

 House its last legitimate master. From this point, 

 then, the spectator must be invited to look upon a 

 far dlfFerent picture. There is from the nature of things 

 an unhappy uecessity forced upon the writer, who endea- 

 vours to rescue from oblivion the annals of any one 

 of our old Rellgious Houses. The histories which are 

 the result of such reverent care difFer oftentimes in all 

 possible ways, so far as the records of good deeds can be 

 unlike each other ; but the last chapter of the tale, the last 

 fearful scene, is the same in all. The same demoniac 

 passions, the same sacrilegious wills, the same accursed 

 hands, prompted the outrage and perpetrated the crime. 

 Glastonbury, and Taunton, and Muchelney, and Cleeve, 

 and Buckland, and Crewkerne, and Montacute, and 

 Athelney, and hundreds of others — all teil of the same 

 remorseless tyrant, the same fawning band of greedy 

 courtiers, and the same atrocious spirit of wrong, robbery, 

 and murder, all the more abominable and disgusting from 

 the pretence of religion with which it was invested. 



Little more than a year had elapsed after the annexation 

 of Staverdale to Taunton, when the Opposition of the 

 clergy to the king's matrimonial speculations brought about 

 the severance of the Anglican Church from the spiritual 



