RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



sufficient warrant for them to proceed.' Though 

 ejected that year there must have been some 

 further delay, for the nuns were still in posses- 

 sion three months from the last date given. The 

 poor prioress Joyce, ' a right sad matron,' accord- 

 ing to Dr. Tregonnell, in her despair not only 

 offered to buy her house off the king for 2,000 

 marks, but offered Cromwell 1 00 marks to buy 

 him a gelding, with an additional promise (it is 

 to be feared of small attraction) that if he would 

 save her house he should have her life-long 

 prayers and those of all her sisters.- Cruel as it 

 may seem, it was probably as well that the poor 

 lady did not obtain her desire, as further delay 

 could only have proved a treacherous delusion. 



Before the end of the year the work of destruc- 

 tion was accomplished. The prioress, to whom was 

 granted a pension of ;^20, with her nine nuns 

 and twenty-six dependents, was turned out ; plate 

 was seized to the value of (j2.C) 45., furniture, 

 vestments, and other ornaments and goods of the 

 church and buildings ;^400, lead torn from the 

 roofs £\\o, and ^1 for the broken metal of two 

 hand bells.* 



Prioresses of Catesby 



Margaret Rich,* elected 1245, ^1'^^ 1257 

 Felicia,5 occurs 1259, died 1275 

 Mabel,^ elected 1275, resigned 1284 

 Isolda Hastings,? elected 1284-5, resigned 



1290-1 

 Biblisia,8 elected 1 290-1, died 1291 

 Joan of Northampton,^ elected 1291, died 



1311 

 Joan of Ludham,i° elected 131 1, resigned 1338 

 Alice of RoUeston,!! elected 1338, died 1344 

 Katherine de Boydon,'- elected 1344, died 



1349 

 Orabel of Raundes,'' elected 1349, died 1361 



Joan Fabian,!* elected 1 36 1, died 1370 



Joan Ashby,i5 elected 1370 



Elizabeth Swynford,!^ elected 1405 



Agnes Terry,^? died 1431 



Agnes Allesby,!^ elected 1452-3 



Isabel Benett,!^ occurs 1468 



1 L. and P. Hen. Fill. x. 121 5. 



2 Ibid. X. 383. 



3 Mins. Accts., (Aug. Off.), 27-28 Hen. VIII. i 73. 

 ■* Line. Epis. Reg. Roll of Grossetete. 



5 Madox, Form. Anglic, ccxxiii. 



« Line. Epis. Reg. Roll of Gravesend. 



7 Ibid. Roll of Sutton. 



8 Ibid. Inst, of Sutton, f. 47. » Ibid. f. 51. 

 W Ibid. Inst, of Dalderby, f. 120. 



11 Ibid. Inst, of Burghersh, f. 224. 



13 Ibid. Inst, of Beck, f. 65d. 



15 Ibid. Inst, of Gynwell, f. I4ld. 



14 Ibid. f. 186. 



16 Ibid. Inst, of Bokyngham. 



1' Ibid. Inst, of Beaufort, f. I26d. 



17 Ibid. Inst, of Gray, f. 105. 



18 Ibid. Inst, of Ch.id\vorth, f 5od. 



19 Anet. D. A 5021, B. 2725. 



Amabilia,^" occurs 147 1 



Joan,-' occurs 1495 



Joyce Bekeley,^^ occurs 1510, surrendered 1 563 



The pointed oval seal ad cauiai of the 

 priory taken from a cast at the British Museum,-^ 

 with an indistinct and imperfect impression, re- 

 presents the Virgin seated on a throne in a 

 canopied niche, the Child on her left knee. In 

 base under a trefoiled arch the prior in prayer to 

 the left. 



10. THE PRIORY OF SEWARDSLEY 



At Sewardsley or Sewersley, in the parish of 

 Easton Neston, Richard de Lestre, lord of the 

 manor, founded a small Cistercian nunnery in 

 the reign of Henry II.-* According to a deed of 

 the twelfth century the founder notified to 

 Robert, bishop of Lincoln, that he had granted 

 lands in Sewardsley and VVimandesley, etc. to 

 the priory of Sewardsley, with leave to turn 

 three oxen, ten cows, and two hundred sheep 

 into his pasture, the sisters promising in return 

 to use his counsel in the reception of nuns and 

 to admit none except through him.-° The house 

 continued under the patronage of his successors 

 in the manor. In 1 260-1 the Prioress Florence 

 was admitted by the bishop with the approval of 

 Sir Robert de Paveley the patron.^' By his will 

 dated 1240 William de Paveley left his body to 

 be buried at the convent and bequeathed to the 

 house his palfrey and trappings or two marks, 

 and all his apparel and armour, including his 

 breastplate, lance, helmet, sword, and leggings, 

 together with two oxen. He also bequeathed 

 among other gifts to religious houses half a mark 

 to the pittance of this convent.-' 



The endowment of the priory was but small ; 

 the Valor of Henry VIII. gives its gross value 

 at ;^i8 1 1 J. 2^.; out of this the prioress and con- 

 vent had to pay f^\ 13;. i,d to the chaplain 

 celebrating in the conventual church, and the 

 clear income of the house amounted to only 

 £\i 6s. "jd.^^ Bishop Sutton in 1293 wrote to 

 the prioress and convent desiring them to receive 

 again Isabel, daughter of the late Philip de Covele, 

 knt., who in a secular habit had gone to the 

 bishop of London representing that fifteen years 

 previously she had taken the habit of a nun at 



so Ibid. B. 1028. 



21 Inq. p.m. 10 Hen. VIII. No. 62. 



22 Karl. MS. 6964, f. 139. 



23 B. M. Ixix. 67. 



2+ Dugdale, Men. v. 729. 



25 Cal. And. D. B. 3299. 



26 Line. Epis. Reg. Roll of Gravesend. 



27 Madox, Form. Angftc. p. 424. For lights about 

 his corpse he left 6/. id., one mark for oblations on 

 the day of his burial, two marks for distribution to 

 the poor, and for a stone to be placed over him the 

 comparatively meagre sum of 20a'. 



23 ralor Ecd. (Rcc. Com.), iv. 328. 



125 



