GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



but the convent beingjrequisitioned for a British hospital in the 

 Peninsular War, the Sisters, now greatly reduced in number, 

 according to one account, made their way back to England in 

 1810. But another authority states that a quarter of a century 

 ago, they were still at Lisbon, retaining their English nationality, 

 and the keys of their former house. About a hundred and fifty 

 years ago they were visited at Lisbon by the then Duke of Northum- 

 berland, the owner of Sion House, to whom they told the story of 

 having carried their keys about with them through all their wan- 

 derings and vicissitudes in the hope of eventually returning to 

 their old home. " But," quietly remarked his Grace, " the locks 

 have all been altered since then." Edward Walford, in " Greater 

 London," is responsible for this story, and for the statement that, 

 the Sion of Lisbon remains the real and legitimate representative 

 of the Sion of Isleworth. 



As everybody knows, Henry VIII. took drastic measures to 

 establish his supremacy when the convents were suppressed. 

 For some cause or other Sion seems to have specially incurred 

 the displeasure of the King, and it was one of the earliest of the 

 wealthier monasteries to be suppressed. 



One Thomas Bedell, writing to Secretary Cromwell on the subject 

 of the Isleworth community, and submission to the royal authority, 

 says that he finds the " lady Abbas and susters as conformable 

 in everything as might be devised "- also the Father Confessor, 

 and a certain " father Cursone," by whose influence and good 

 example he hopes " that the residue shall shortly be brought to 

 good conformite. And if not, there be two of the brethren must 

 be weded out, whiche be somewhat sediciose, and have laboured 

 busily to infect their fellowes with obstinacy against the King's 

 said title." 



The irreconcilables appear to have been two of the brotherhood, 

 named Whitford and Litell, and Bedell, in a second letter, tells 

 how, when the Queen's Almoner and other influential divines, 

 failed by argument to convert them, he himself " handled Whit- 

 ford in the garden bothe with faire words and with foule," but 

 apparently unsuccessfully, for he adds : " But he hath a brazen 

 forehead, which shameth at nothing." 



Sion, with its ample revenues and large estates in almost every 

 part of England, being one of the wealthiest of the six hundred 



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