A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



a cross-aisle beside the middle cross aisle of the 

 minster church." The Castle standeth stately on 

 the north-east side of the Minster, and Wear runneth 

 under it. 



Leland adds some words as to recent im- 

 provements at the castle, which would be 

 those of Fox, and then concludes : ' The building 

 of Durham Town is meetly strong, but it is 

 neither high nor of costly work.' Obviously 

 Leland had no eye for anything outside the 

 peninsula itself. 



Leland had no anticipation of the great 

 changes which even then were setting in. 

 Tunstall the bishop was very little in Durham. 

 When the supremacy was agitated in 1532, 

 special messengers came to Durham as well 

 as to Auckland and Stockton to seize any 

 ' books bearing on the king's cause.' i" In- 

 cidentally, we find how ill furnished the castle 

 was, for the visitors found ' such a little house- 

 hold stuff.' Tunstall soon came down, and 

 in Durham preached the king's supremacy 

 very convincingly. In the next year or two, 

 the people of Durham had to witness the 

 visits of royal commissioners and the virtual 

 suspension of the bishop's powers in his own 

 capital." Then came the monastic visitation 

 at the end of 1535, but the visitors could find 

 no flaw in the morality of Durham Abbey, 

 though certain local superstitions were held 

 up to ridicule. All the royal action was a 

 blow to the bishop's power, and still more 

 severe was the act of resumption in 1536, 

 which was the greatest diminution of the jura 

 regalia that any bishop had yet suffered. *- 



Before the year was over, the first act of the 

 Pilgrimage of Grace had been carried out, 

 which was not entirely a religious demonstration, 

 but largely, as one of the leaders said, a rising 

 ' under Captain Poverty.' " The Durham in- 

 surgents bore away the banner " of St. Cuthbert 

 as their ensign. 



The rising collapsed about March 1537, 

 when Norfolk held his assize in Durham castle,*^ 

 an event of great significance, for here was the 

 royal power over-riding the paramount authority 

 of the bishop in Durham. ** A year later came 

 a catastrophe which meant more to the trades- 

 men and inhabitants of Durham than any 

 diminution of episcopal independence. The 

 shrine of St. Cuthbert was despoiled in March 

 1538, close to the spring feast and fair of the 



• The nine altars which form an eastern transept. 



1* Earls of Westmorland and Cumberland to Crom- 

 well on 2 May, L. and P. Hen. VIII, v, 986-7. 



" V.C.H. Dur. ii, 31-2. 12 Ibid. 163. 



" L. and P. Hen. Fill, xii (i), 615. 



" It was broken in the fray ; cf. Dur. Acct. R. 

 (Surt. Soc), 483. 



15 See Engl. Episcopal Palaces (Piovince ofYork), 157. 



" r.C.H. Di,r. ii, 163-4. 



saint, and the very centre of the arch upholding 

 the fabric of mediaeval Durham at once fell in." 

 It was a loss of means to very many in the 

 city, and even of subsistence to some. A year 

 before, another rebellion would have been the 

 result, but men had learnt to fear the king's 

 mailed hand, which after the Pilgrimage of Grace 

 had hit hard. A horseman on the London 

 road said to a man of Durham : '* 'Is there 

 none that grudgeth with such pulling down of 

 abbeys in your country ? ' To this the wayfarer 

 replied : ' I trust no, for if there be any such 

 they keep it secret, for there hath been so sore 

 punishment.' In 1539, a conversation in Dur- 

 ham Castle gives a glimpse of the reign of 

 terror that had set in when at dinner in hall 

 one present declared that the Prior of Mount 

 Grace would never surrender his charterhouse." 

 But he did, and, before the year was out, the 

 great Benedictine abbey of Durham had sur- 

 rendered,-" an event which, to the speaker in 

 the hall that day, would have seemed unthink- 

 able. 



So the shrine was despoiled of the saint's 

 body, and the abbey came to an end. To the 

 citizens of Durham it must have seemed as if 

 the glory of Durham had departed. But it 

 was intended to re-constitute the foundation 

 on a secular basis, and an interim constitution 

 was drawn up.^* Under this, the prior acted 

 as guardian, the estates and property were 

 administered by his direction, and the household 

 carried on by a sufficient staff until the details 

 were settled with much debating and alteration 

 of plan. No doubt the people of Durham were 

 given to understand that a new and, perhaps, 

 a better order was designed. For the present 

 it was ordered that all debts and e.xpenses should 

 be duly paid. All superfluous servants were 

 to be discharged with six months' wages in 

 advance. It is probable that a large amount 

 of the abbey plate went up to London ' for 

 the King's majesty's use.' As for the church 

 services, daily matins at 6 and Mass of Our 

 Lady were ordered to be sung according to the 

 use of Sarum."^ 



1' See further below, p. 29. 



IS L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (2), p. 277. 



13 L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (2), 750. 



^o The correct year is 1539 and not 1540 as generally 

 given — e.g., V.C.H. Dur. ii, 32. 



^1 The directions to commissioners are given in 

 Harl. MS. 539, fol. 147-50, from which the account 

 in the text is given as a supplement to V.C.H. Dur. 

 ii, 32. 



^"^ Various schemes were propounded between 

 1539 and 1541. At one stage it was proposed to 

 found what was virtually a university in Durham 

 with readers of humanity, divinity, physic, etc. 

 There were also ' alms for poor householders ' to 

 the sum of ,^66 13/. \d. yearly. (Aug. Off. Misc. 

 Bk. xxiv.) 



28 



