OF SELfcORNE. 613 



to entreat his holiness that he would give his sanction 

 to the sentence of union. Some difficulties were started 

 at Rome ; but they were surmounted Ky the college 

 agent, as appears by his letters from that city. At 

 length Pope Innocent VIII. by a bull 2 bearing date 

 the 8th day of June, in the year of our Lord 1486, and 

 in the second year of his pontificate, confirmed what 

 had been done, and suppressed the convent. 



Thus fell the considerable and well endowed Priory 

 of Selborne, after it had subsisted about two hundred 

 and fifty-four years ; about seventy-four years after the 

 suppression of Priories alien by Henry V. and about 

 fifty years before the general dissolution of monasteries 

 by Henry VIII. The founder, it is probable, had fondly 

 imagined that the sacredness of the institution, and the 

 pious motives on which it was established, might have 

 preserved it inviolate to the end of time yet it fell, 



" To teach us that God attributes to place 



No sanctity, if none be thither brought 



By men, who there frequent, or therein dwell." 



MILTON'S Paradise Lost. 



LETTER XXV. 



WAIN FLEET did not long enjoy the satisfaction arising 

 from this new acquisition ; but departed this life in a 

 few months after he had effected the union of the Priory 

 with his late founded college ; and was succeeded in 

 the see of Winchester by Peter Courtney, some time 

 towards the end of the year 1486. 



In the beginning of the following year the new bishop 

 released the president and fellows of Magdalen College 



2 There is nothing remarkable in this bull of Pope Innocent except 

 the statement of the annual revenue of the Priory of Selborne, which is 

 therein estimated at 160 flor. auri; whereas Bishop Godwin sets it at 

 337Z. 15s. 6%d. Now a floren, so named, says Camden, because made by 

 Florentines, was a gold coin of King Edward III. in value 6s. whereof 

 160 is not one seventh part of 337Z. 15s. 6d. 







