A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



Abbot Carter's treason/ The tenants of the lordship of Holmcultram 

 testified to overt acts of rebellion. Thomas Grame, the monk who had, 

 on the recommendation of Sir Thomas Wharton, previously intrigued 

 for the abbacy on the death of Abbot Ireby, and who had so recently, 

 with the connivance of the pope, defied the monastery in the matter of 

 the Wigton office, came forward to tighten the noose on the neck of his 

 late superior, and did not leave a single loophole through which the 

 doomed man could escape. Before the King's pardon after the first in- 

 surrection, and after the King's pardon at the second insurrection, the 

 abbot was at the head of the insurgents. In dealing with the abbot, 

 when his treason was so public, one would have expected at least the 

 ordinary formalities of a regular trial. But justice did not suit the tor- 

 tuous methods of the royal agents. Sir Thomas Wharton repaired 

 ' sekerethly ' with his confederates to the abbey, examined some witnesses 

 procured by Dan Thomas, and afterwards boasted to Cromwell that he 

 was able to depart from the abbey without the abbot's knowledge of his 

 proceedings. 1 As the King had as yet no legal authority to dissolve the 

 abbey, notwithstanding the abbot's treason, Holmcultram being one of 

 the larger houses exempted by the statute, Gawyn Borradale, the late 

 suspect for poisoning Abbot Deveys, was appointed the last abbot with 

 the object of making a free surrender. The final act was not long de- 

 layed. 



There was little now to be done but to take possession of the houses 

 and granges of the expelled monks. Before the royal commissioners 

 started on their visitation, Cromwell was flooded with applications from 

 all parts of the country for a share of the spoils. To these he paid 

 little heed as long as the King's affairs sped to his liking. When it 

 became necessary, as he told the King, ' to clinch the business and make 

 the settlement irrevocable ' that is, to pass a confirmatory Act and to 

 make legal the surrender of the greater monasteries the most useful of 

 the large landowners had their applications graciously entertained. To 

 write of the dismantling of the monastic nouses in Cumberland, the 

 stripping of the lead roofs, melting the bells, the sale of the contents of 

 dormitories and kitchens, the desecration of the altars, the holy vest- 

 ments and all the instrumenta ecclesiastica of the conventual churches, 

 would be a melancholy chapter of diocesan history. The church of 

 Holmcultram was spared on the supplication of the inhabitants of that 

 district. It was their parish church, they pleaded, and little enough to 

 hold them all, being eighteen hundred ' houselynge' people; and it was 

 their place of refuge as well, their only defence against their Scotch 

 neighbours. 3 Dr. Legh, with infinite magnanimity, allowed the church 

 to stand till the King's pleasure was known. 4 The property of the 



1 Cotton MS. Caligula, B. iii. 285, 286. 



2 L. and P. of Henry Fill., vol. xii. pt. i. 1259 (i.). 



> Cotton MS. Cleopatra, E. iv. 243 ; Ellis, Original Letters, 1st ser., ii. 90. 



4 It does not appear that the fabric of the conventual church was hurt in any way at the suppression 

 of the abbey. The dilapidation of the chancel or choir in 1602 was the occasion of certain negotiations 

 between the bishop and the University of Oxford for its repairs. In 1724 a faculty was issued to rebuild 



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