349 



11 . — TTie last Will and Testament of Thomas Wandsworth, last Prior 

 of Bodmin, tvith a prefatory notice. — By Sie John Maclean, 

 F.S.A., Son. Member of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, Sfc. 



Head Mmj Uth, 1877. 



THOMAS Munday, alias Wansworth, whose last will and 

 testament I have the pleasure of bringing under the notice 

 of the Members of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, was 

 the second son of Sir John Munday, Lord Mayor of London in 

 1522>' Sir John Munday had three sons : Vincent, who founded 

 the family of Munday of Derbyshire; Thomas, who on 10th 

 May, 1534, was confirmed Prior of Bodmin ; and John, who fol- 

 lowed his brother into Cornwall, and settled at Eialton, in St. 

 Columb Minor, in the circumstances presently to be noticed. 



In what way Thomas Munday acquired the alias of Wands- 

 worth, or Wansworth as he wrote it, does not appear. Probably 

 he was either born or baptised, perhaps both, at Wandsworth in 

 Surrey, and hence derived his name, not an unusual thing with 

 the Religious of that period. He apjaears to have been a modest, 

 quiet, good sort of man, desirous of performing the duties of 

 his ofiice in an unostentatious manner. His lot was, however, 

 cast in troublous times. On his appointment as Prior he found 

 his house in a state of disorder and confusion, which he set him- 

 self at once to reform. Writing two years after he became Prior, 

 he complains that his Canons had for long continuance lived 

 unthriftily, and against the good orders of religion, to the great 

 slander of the same, as all the country could tell ; and he states 

 that for the reformation of those abuses the Bishop at his late 

 visitation had given certain injunctions, which he had commanded 

 the Prior strait to see observed ; but which, the Prior remarks, 

 are no harder than the brethren are bound to by their own rule 



* Sir John Munday was son of William Munday, of Wycombe Co. Bucks, and, 

 being a member of the Goldsmiths' Company, was appointed SheriiJ of London 

 and Middlesex in 1514, Alderman of the Ward of Aldgate 1517. and Lord Mayor 

 1522. 



O 



