The Dissolution of the Abbey. 



In 1537, the Abbey was dissolved, the last Abbot, Thomas 

 Stephens, with twenty out of the thirty monks, signing the deed 

 of surrender.* Stephens was pensioned off with a hundred 

 marks ; and some of the monks received various annuities and 

 compensations for their losses. So fell the monastery of 

 Beaulieu, and its stones went to build Henry VIII. 's martello 

 tower at Hurst, and its lead to repair Calshot,f to fight against 

 the very Power which had raised it to its glory. 



Nothing could be more beautiful than its situation on 

 the banks of the Exe, formed by the tide more into a lake 

 than a river. On every side it was sheltered : on the north 

 by rising ground and the woods of the New Forest, and on 

 the east again by the Forest and more hills, from whence an 

 aqueduct brought down the water for the use of the monks ; 

 and on the south and west all was guarded by the river. 



To this day the outer walls are in places standing, with the 

 water-gate covered with ivy. And inside is the abbot's house, 

 placed amongst its own grounds, surrounded by elms. Above 



* The following list of books at Btaulieu, quoted, with some omissions, 

 by Warner (vol. i. p. 278) from Leland (Collect, de Rebus Brit , vol. iv. 

 p. 149), taken just before the dissolution, will show what was in those 

 days an average ecclesiastical library : The Life of Archbishop Anseliu, by 

 Edmerus the monk, bound up with the Life of Bishop Wilfrid; Stephanas 

 on Eeclesiasticus ; Stephanus on the Booh of Kings ; Stephanus on the 

 Parables of Solomon ; John, Abbot of Ford, on the Canticles ; Damascenus 

 on the Acts of Balaam and Josaphat ; a small book of Candidus Arriun; 

 a small book of Victorinus, the Rhetorician, against Candidas ; three 

 books of Claudian, respecting the State of the Soul, to Sidonius Apollinurix ; 

 Gislebertus on the Epistles of St. Paul; Prosper on a Life of Contemplation 

 and of Activity. 



f Ellis's Letters, second series, vol. ii. p. 87. For Henry VIII.'s 

 enforcement of Wolsey's levies on Beaulieu, see State Papers, vol. i., part ii., 

 p. 383. 



K fir, 



