ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



In 1535 a commission was issued. The commissioners in the case of 

 St. Andrew's Priory, Northampton, included Dr. Richard Layton, arch- 

 deacon of Buckingham, and certain laymen. A formal confession ^ was 

 made by the monks in the presence of the commissioners ; but the faults 

 admitted, whatever they may have been, did not debar the brethren from 

 receiving pensions, while the prior was later chosen as the first dean of the 

 newly constituted see of Peterborough. A letter from one of the commis- 

 sioners to Cromwell ends by saying : ' We have practised with the poor men 

 for their pensions as easily as the king's charges and as much to his grace's 

 honour as we could devise.'^ 



The income of this house was >C4o° ^ year, and the pensions allowed 

 made a total of ^36 3J-. 4</., without those of the prior and sub-prior. The 

 rest went to the king and the rents probably increased, if we may credit the 

 statement of one of the commissioners that the prior's predecessors ' pleasured 

 much in odoriferous savours, as it should seem by their converting the 

 rents of their monastery that were wont to be paid in corn and grain, into 

 gilly-flowers and roses.' " 



Dr. London, the commissioner who reported as to the friars and the 

 nuns, was of worse character even than Layton, and after convictions for 

 perjury and worse offences died at last in 1543 in the Fleet Prison.* His 

 evidence consequently requires thorough sifting, and carries little weight. 

 According to him, John Goodwin, the prior of the Austin Friars, knowing of 

 his approach divided ^^30 among the brethren ; but the commissioner, hearing 

 what had happened, imprisoned the delinquent and got back about 40J. of the 

 money. ^ 



The Carmelite Friars of the town were reported as being so much in 

 debt that all they had would not clear it off, and London complained gene- 

 rally of the poverty of the churches of the friars and the coarseness of their 

 surroundings. Later he admitted that the town of Northampton and the 

 villages round were falling into decay, and that many attributed the cause to 

 the destruction of the four friaries.' The friars at this time had certainly 

 fallen away from their original fervour, but this unconscious testimony to 

 their poverty and to their goodness to the poor deserves note. Dr. London 

 gave a good report of the Cluniac nuns of Delapre. He received the 



' L. and p. Hen. VIII, xiii, pt. i, No. 396. 



' Ibid, xiii, pt. i, Nos. 405, 407. A report addressed to Cromwell by all the commissioners (Ibid. pt. i, 

 405) states that the prior Francis Leycetour and sub-prior specially asked to have their cases submitted for 

 Cromwell's consideration, and accordingly were respited ; that the other members of the chapter were 



pensioned as follows : — 



Age 



31 



Thomas Smyth 

 Thomas Gowlestone 

 Robert Marten 

 James Hopkyns 

 Richard Bunbery 



29 



27 

 31 



and that John Rote, aged thirty-six, was given the vicarage of St. Giles's, Northampton, with 

 instead of a pension, the commissioners saying that though nominally of the value of £-, it is ' of so smale 

 valew that evere of them haveying his pension shalbe in better case than he.' When the religious pension 

 roll of Philip and Mary was drawn up, Thomas Bettes the sub-prior was receiving ^S per annum, the three 

 last on the original list £z ly. 4<2'. e.ich, and Gowlestone ^^4, while Richard Cooke, a name not mentioned 

 before, was also receiving ^^4 (Pension Roll Phil, and M.ary, Add. MS. 8,102). 



' L. and P. Hen. nil, pt. i. No. 407 ; cf. No. 404. 



' Narrative of Reformation (Camd. Soc), p. 35 ; Strype, Eccl. Memoirs, i, 175. 



» Cott. MS. Cleop. E iv, fol. 227. * Cromwell Corresp. (P. R. O.), xxiii, 69-96. 



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