ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 357 



LETTER XXIV. 



BISHOP WAYNEFLETE'S efforts to continue the priory still 

 proved unsuccessful ; and the convent, without any canons, and 

 for some time without a prior, was tending swiftly to its dissolution. 



When Sharp's alias Glastonbury's priorship ended does not 

 appear. The bishop says that he had been obliged to remove some 

 priors for mal-administration ; but it is not well explained how that 

 could be the case with any unless with Sharp, because all the others 

 chosen during his episcopate died in their office, viz., Morton and 

 Fairwise ; Berne only excepted, who relinquished twice voluntarily, 

 and was, moreover, approved of by Wayneflete as a person of in- 

 tegrity. But the way to show what ineffectual pains the bishop 

 took, and what difficulties he met with, will be to quote the words of 

 the libel of his pro:tor, Rudolphus Langley, who appeared for the 

 bishop in the process of the impropriation of the Priory of Selborne. 

 The extract is taken from an attested copy. 



" Item that the said bishop, dicto prioratui et personis ejusdem 

 pie compatiens, sollicitudines pastorales, labores, et diligentias 

 gravissimas quam plurimas, tarn per se quam per suos, pro reforma- 

 tione premissorum impendebat ; et aliquando illius loci prioribus, 

 propter malam et inutilem administrationem, et dispensationem 

 bonorum predict! prioratus, suis demeritis exigentibus, amotis ; 

 alios priores in quorum circumspectione et diligentia confidebat, 

 prefecit ; quos tamen male se habuisse ac inutiliter administrare, 

 et administrasse, usque ad presentia tempora post debitam inves- 

 tigationem, &c., invenit." So that he despaired with all his 

 care : " statum ejusdem reparare vel restaurare: ; et con- 

 siderata temporis malicia, et preteritis timendo et conjecturando 

 futura, de aliqua bona et sancta religione ejusdem ordinis, 

 &c., juxta piam intentionem primevi fundatoris ibidem habend. 

 desperatur." 



William Wainfleet, Bishop of Winchester, founded his college of 

 Saint Mary Magdalene, in the University of Oxford, in or about the 

 year 1459 ; but the revenues proving insufficient for so large and 

 noble an establishment, the college supplicated the founder to aug- 



