ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



question, and could not be ignored in his schemes of reform. In the 

 new statutes for Winchester it was expressly stated that the monastery 

 of St. Swithun was dissolved in order that, inter atia, ' the youth of the 

 realm may be educated in good letters to the advancement of the Chris- 

 tian faith and piety.' It was also Cranmer's desire and intention to 

 make use of the cathedral establishments as theological colleges, with 

 readers in divinity, Hebrew and Greek, and a body of students. This 

 brave project, so far as Winchester was concerned, dwindled down to 

 the ordering, in 1 544, that twelve poor scholars in theology should be 

 constantly maintained in the two universities, six at each, by the dean 

 and chapter. The total outlay ordered would have amounted to about 

 100. For the support of these students the king re-granted to the new 

 body, from the great spoils of the monastery, the manors of Westmeon, 

 Nursling, Milbrook, Avington and Hoddington. Speedily however 

 repenting himself of this trifling fulfilment of his pledge to assist 

 education made so solemnly in the statutes, the king in less than a 

 twelvemonth insisted on the surrender by the dean and chapter of 

 these very manors. With their surrender these shadowy students of 

 divinity vanish into space, having never had aught but a birth on paper. 



A few remarks may be here added as to the subsequent history of 

 the religious houses of the county, though somewhat out of chrono- 

 logical order. Amongst the five or six religious houses re-established 

 during Mary's reign was that of the Franciscan Observants at South- 

 ampton. Mr. Baigent has been able to prove this from bequests in 

 wills of the year 1558, which show that not only were there ' brethren 

 of St. Francis' Rule ' in the town, but that they were using their old 

 church dedicated to St. Francis. 1 



It is interesting to note with regard to Dame Elizabeth Shelley, 

 the last abbess of St. Mary's, Winchester, that it is one of the instances 

 in which the head of a convent managed to gather together a few of 

 the dispossessed nuns to live with her in a quasi-community life. The 

 abbess died in 1 547, leaving twenty shillings to each of the seven nuns 

 who were apparently living with her at the time of her death. Agnes 

 Badgecroft, who had been sub-prioress of St. Mary's, died during the 

 Marian reaction (1556). By her will she left 'my professed ring to the 

 Blessed Sacrament to be sold, and to buy therewith a canopy for the 

 Sacrament.' It would appear that the same thing occurred with the 

 disbanded ladies of the convent of Wherwell : the last abbess, Morpheta 

 Kingsmill, by her will of 1569, left bequests to seven of her old com- 

 munity, who were probably living with her at the time of her death. 8 



The religious pension list was carefully revised in Mary's reign. 

 The original results, arranged by counties, are in the British Museum. 

 The following is an abstract for Hampshire : The monks or canons of 

 the suppressed houses then receiving pensions were Beaulieu, 8 ; St. 

 Swithun, i ; Christchurch, 14 ; Hyde, 11 ; Breamore, i ; Southwick, 5. 



1 Abbot Gasquet's Henty Fill, and the English Monasteries, ii. 483. * Ibid. ii. 476-8. 



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