A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



were fifteen or sixteen hundred communicants ; that the country round 

 about was very barren, and that there was no other place of refuge for 

 honest men within eight or nine miles, and in some directions sixteen 

 or eighteen miles, that the poor of the country round were fed there 

 day by day ; that a school was kept and a master provided for the 

 children ; and that there was a daily lecture of divinity. 1 This petition 

 had the result of staving off the evil day for some eighteen months, 

 and securing the most favourable terms for the prior. But Christ- 

 church was a wealthy house of ^55 a year and was bound to go. The 

 surrender was effected on 28 November, 1539, when London and his 

 colleagues assigned the great pension of jC J 33 &f. %d. to Draper, as 

 well as the mansion of the prior's lodgings. They reported to Cromwell 

 that the prior was a very honest and comformable person, and described 

 with gusto the great value of the gold and silver plate ' mete for the 

 Kinges majestic is use.' In the same letter the visitors gloried in having 

 defaced the beautiful chantry chapel but recently erected by the 

 Countess of Salisbury for the burial of herself and her son, Cardinal 

 Pole. 2 



On 2 April, 1538, Thomas Stephens, the abbot of Beaulieu, and 

 twenty of his monks were induced to sign a surrender. The site and 

 possessions were speedily assigned to Sir Thomas Wriothesley, who was 

 controller of the king's household, and subsequently created first Earl of 

 Southampton. Its annual value was declared to be 4.28 6s. S^J. 3 



On 7 April of the same year the Austin priory of Southwick, of 

 the annual value of 314 I 7 S - Iod '-> was surrendered by the prior, 

 William Norton, and twelve of the canons. This house too was 

 originally assigned to Wriothesley. 



These surrenders of houses over the value of 200 were clearly 

 illegal, but the action of the visitors was subsequently legalized by the 

 act of 1539. 



With regard to Beaulieu, an interesting point occurred which 

 shows how many awkward questions were involved in the suppression 

 of these larger houses, and how much this monastic system tended to 

 alleviate the sternness of the criminal law of the land. On the day 

 after the visitors obtained the surrender of Beaulieu they wrote to 

 Cromwell telling him that there were thirty-two sanctuary men within 

 the bounds of the abbey who were there for debt, felony and murder, 

 and to whom had been assigned houses where they lived with their 

 wives and children. They declare that if sent to other sanctuaries they 

 will be undone, and desire to stay there for the rest of their lives. 

 On the sixteenth of the same month the ex-abbot Stephens wrote to 

 Wriothesley begging him to be a good master to the poor men 

 privileged in the sanctuary of Beaulieu for debt, and stating that they 

 had been very honest whilst he was their governor. As a cogent 



1 Letters and Papers, Henry Vlll. (1538), xiii.(i) No. 1117. 

 Ibid. (1539), ii. 597 ; Cott. MSS. Cleop. E. iv. 267. 

 8 Letters an J Papers, Henry Vlll. (1538), xiii.(i) 660. 



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