A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



But events travelled fast in these days. The church was not 

 left to recover herself in her own way. The clouds were gathering 

 around the monastic institution, not for the purpose of purgation but of 

 extinction. When the storm broke, reform was not mentioned. The 

 destruction of the monasteries was not conceived, matured and carried 

 out in a day. The actual suppression was the outcome of long years of 

 agitation, distress, calumny, bitterness, in which the sacred name of 

 religion itself was imperilled. There is no trace in the diocese of 

 Carlisle at this time of any opposition to the exercise of the traditional 

 rights of the Crown in ecclesiastical affairs. The renunciation of papal 

 authority was an easy matter in the diocese. The parish clergy followed 

 their bishop, 1 and none of the regulars are known to have dissented 

 either in Convocation or elsewhere. But the agitation and unrest which 

 led up to all this had a serious effect on monastic communities. 



At this juncture cases arise in one of our local houses which throw 

 out as in a mirror a picture of what was going on in the nation at large. 

 In 1533 a monk of Holmcultram, Thomas Grame by name, was 

 possessed of a procuratorial office in the neighbouring church of Wigton, 

 a church appropriated to that monastery. As the profits of the office 

 were spent on his own amusements to the detriment of the house, the 

 seal was called in, but the monk remained obdurate and appealed to the 

 Roman pontiff, who ' without consent or counsel of our chapter nor yet 

 having licence from the visitors of the Cistercian Order ' pronounced 

 him capax beneficii and overruled all objections. The monks must have 

 felt now, if they had never felt before, the inconvenience of a foreign 

 authority exercising jurisdiction in the internal affairs of English houses. 

 At all events, the attachment of this monastery to Rome must have been 

 very slender indeed, when the secular arm was invoked to set aside the 

 papal decree. 2 



In the same year much more serious matters were brought to light 

 in the monastery of Holmcultram, which caused no small stir among 

 the friends and enemies of the monastic order. A short time before, 

 Gawyn Borudall or Borradale, an inmate of the house, was a candidate 

 for the vacant abbacy, but he was rejected in favour of Matthew Deveys, 

 whose election was duly confirmed. In a brief space Abbot Deveys 

 died after a short illness, which recalled to the monks the threats of 

 Borradale in the hour of his defeat. Foul play was freely discussed, 

 and the suspicion of poison rested on the rejected candidate. Borradale 

 was arrested and confined in the dungeon of Furness Abbey, where he 

 lay for nearly six months. 3 The uproar brings out many things which 

 show us how matters were working up to the desired end. The Abbot 

 of Furness, 4 the monk's gaoler, told Cromwell, the minister who had the 

 King's business in hand, that Borradale was a ' masterful man ' with 



1 Bishop Kite's declaration of the Royal Supremacy in 1534 is one of those still surviving at the 

 Record Office (Chapter House, Acknowledgments of Supremacy, s/a i. 27, Bp. of Carlisle). It is in beautiful 

 condition with an undamaged impression of his seal. 



2 L. and P. of Henry Fill., vol. vi. 781. 



3 Ibid. vi. 986. 4 Ibid. vi. 1557. 



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