TAUNTON PRIOKY. 107 



his successive steps of heartless cruelty, nauseous hypocrisy, 

 and impious wrong. There can be bardly a doubt that such 

 was written, as similar were from Glastonbury, Foimtains, 

 Lewes, and a multitude of other places. And from these 

 we may gain only too falthful a picture of the spectacle that 

 was here presented. "I told yo"^ lordshyp," writes one 

 of these miscreants to Cromwell from the last mentioned 

 locality, the great Priory of Lewes in Sussex, " of a vaute 

 on the ryghte syde of the hyghe altare, that was born up 

 xfih fo^ver greate pillars, hauing about it v chappelles, 

 whych be compased in w'*^ the walles Ixx stokes of lengthe, 

 that is fete ccx. All thys is down a Thursday & Fryday 

 last. Now we ar pluckyng down an hygher vaute, born 

 up by fower thicke & grose plllars, xiiij fote fro syde to 

 syde, abowt in circu'fere'ce xlv fote. Thys shall down 

 for o"^ second worke. As it goth forward I woll aduise 

 yo"" lordshyp from tyme to tyme; and that yo'' lordshyp 

 may knowe w*^ how many men we haue don thys, we 

 browght from London xvij persons, 3 carpentars, 2 

 smythes, 2 plummars, and on that kepith the fornace. 

 Eu'y of these attendith to hys own office : x of them 

 hewed the walles abowte, amonge the whych ther were 3 

 carpentars : thiese made proctes to vndersette wher the 

 other cutte away, thother brake & cutte the waules. 

 Thiese ar men exercised moch better then the men that 

 we fynd here in the contreye. Wherefor we must bothe 

 haue mo men, and other thinges also, that we haue nede of. 

 . . . . AtLewesthexxilijofMarch, 1537 (1539?)."* 

 "It would have made an Heart of Flint," writes a 

 witness of a different stamp, recording the spoliation of 

 Roche Abbey, " to have melted and weeped, to have seen 



* MS, Cott. Cleop. E. iv. pp. 232, 233 



