ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



priories of Carlisle and Wetheral was still retained in the service of 

 religion, but the monastic features of the one and the bulk of the build- 

 ings of the other went down in the general devastation. 



Perhaps the most pathetic scene in the last act of this drama was 

 the condition of the religious men who were driven from their houses. 

 There is little doubt that all of them, or nearly all of them, had received 

 patents for an annual pension, varying from 6 to a few marks accord- 

 ing to station or age. It did not suit the royal policy to permit the use 

 of the religious habit for the remaining life of the disestablished clergy. 

 Writing of the surrender of Holmcultram, Dr. Legh told his employers * 

 that ' the monks, arrayed in secular apparel, having honest rewards in 

 their purses, are dispersed abroad in the country.' It was a high offence 

 on the part of William Lord Dacre, in the eyes of the court hack who 

 expected the grant of Lanercost, that the expelled monks were allowed 

 to revisit their old home 3 in their ' chanons cotes.' These priests were 

 forbidden to wear the ecclesiastical habit as well as to exercise the 

 sacred function. A whole brood of them was scattered broadcast in 

 the land in laymen's apparel, but unable to do laymen's work. The 

 Duke of Norfolk reported to the King, after the suppression of the 

 monasteries in the northern counties, that he had 300 monks on his 

 hands wanting capacities. A few who had served the King were 

 accommodated here and there, like Thomas Grame, the betrayer of his 

 master, who was appointed by Dr. Legh to ' the chapel called 

 St. Thomas' chapel to make him a chamber there ' one of the several 

 chapels now extinct in the parish of Holmcultram. Some, like 

 Edward Mitchell and Hugh Sewell of the priory of Carlisle, were 

 selected to fill vacancies on the new foundation in order to save their 

 pensions. But the mass of the dispossessed monks remained mere 

 pensioners without clerical employment to the end of their days. They 

 were required to show their patents periodically to their paymasters, as 

 returned convicts are obliged to report themselves to the police. If 

 they left the district where they were known, it was at the risk of 

 losing their pensions. The lists of these pensioners appear year after 

 year with monotonous regularity ; each year they grew fewer in num- 

 ber ; some of them survived the collapse of their houses for almost 

 half a century. 



The ecclesiastical legislation of Edward VI. added an important 

 contingent to the multitude of the pensioners. One of the first acts of 

 his reign was to seize the lands and endowments of the chantries, free 

 chapels, stipendiary curacies and collegiate churches throughout the 

 kingdom. It is true that the revenues of many of these institutions had 

 been granted to Henry, his father (37 Hen. VIII. cap. 4) ; but the 



the nave and sell the materials to be got by dismantling the chancel ; at which date the church took its 

 present shape ; or rather the shape as shown in Buck's print of 1739 with the groins of the chancel arches 

 in situ. 



1 L. and P. of Henry VIII., vol. xiii. pt. i. 547, 551. 



* Ibid. xiii. pt. i. 304. 



53 



