240 ST. Michael's mount. 



tlie people demanded a return to the state of things ordained 

 by the " Six Articles" of Henry VIII, at any rate until the hoy 

 King should be of full age. We cannot here trace their 

 temporary success, their defeat on Clifton Heath by Lord Russell 

 on the 7th of August, 1549, and the ultimate capture and 

 execution of Arundell and several others. Their demands seem 

 extravagant to our modern ideas, for they asked, amongst other 

 things, that all who would not worship the elevated host should 

 suffer as heretics, that aU preachers should pray for souls in 

 purgatory, that auricular confession should be insisted on as a 

 necessity, aud that the services should be in Latin, and the 

 common people be forbidden to read the Bible. But whether 

 they were right or wrong in making such demands, surely they 

 were right in resisting any effort to thrust opposite doctrines on 

 them against their will. The doctrine of the time that men could 

 believe what they would ; and that, therefore, their wills must be 

 coerced for the sake of uniformity, is one so alien to modern ideas 

 that we are apt to misjudge the parties to these old-time quarrels. 



After the execution of Humphry Arundell the Crown granted 

 a lease of the Mount and its appurtenances to John Milton, of 

 Pengersick. In 1599 the Crown sold to Thomas Bellett and John 

 Budden the fee simple, describing it as " All that farm of Saint 

 Michael at the Mount, and the site of the mansion house, or 

 capital messuage, called Saint Michael's Mount; also the priory 

 of Saint Michael's Mount, in Cornwall." The property passed 

 through the Earls of Salisbury and the Bassets of Tehidy to the 

 present owners, the St. Aub}Tis. Referring to the remains of the 

 monastery itself, little can be said, so entirely has the face of the 

 building been changed by its conversion into a dwelling house. 



William of Worcester describes the church in 1478 as 30 

 steps long and 12 steps wide, and the newly built chapel as 20 

 steps long and 10 steps wide. Leland's Itinerary enables us to 

 identify the site of this chapel. " Withyn the sayd ward is a 

 court strongly walled, wheryn on the south syde is the chapel of 

 S. Michael, and yn the east syde a chapel of our Lady," i.e. the 

 chapel of St. Mary, our Lady, is now represented by the drawing 

 rooms, entered from the yard through a very pretty square-headed 

 doorway of Catacleuse stone corresponding in date with 



