RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



The house at this time was probably within 

 the walls, and the founder may have been John 

 de Hightmede.' 'In 1297 William Lyketon 

 and Henry Wygthon bought certain lands near 

 Beverley, about the chapel of St. Elena, and 

 granted them to the friars of the order of St. 

 Francis, to build their houses ; and also they 

 conferred many other goods on them.' ' This 

 probably refers to the grant of a new site outside 

 Keldgate and near Westwood.' In 1304 Wil- 

 liam Ros of Hamlake granted to the Prior and 

 convent of Warter a bovate of land in Warter 

 in exchange for their granting to the Minorites 

 3 acres of land in Beverley, adjoining the friary.* 

 The numbers of the friars remained about the 

 same for some years. In 1299 the number 

 varied from thirty-two to thirty-six ; there were 

 thirty-eight in May 1 300 (when Edward I 

 gave them 38^. for three days' food by the hand 

 of Friar Thomas Maynard) ; thirty-four in 1 30 1, 

 thirty-eight in 1304, twenty-six in 1335, and 

 thirty-two in 1337.' 



' Afterwards for a long time this house, through 

 poverty, was almost destroyed and uninhabited, 

 until one Sir John Hotham, of Scorbrough, near 

 Leconfield, kt., almost entirely rebuilt it.' ^^ 

 Hotham gave the friars the moiety of I a. I r. 

 in Beverley in 1352 ; and an entry in the 

 town documents in 1356 may refer to the 

 rebuilding : in that year Friar John Botiler, 

 O.M., on behalf of his convent, came to the 

 gildhall and obtained leave to take sand in 

 Westwood for building purposes.^^ From the 

 time of this benefaction till the beginning of the 

 reign of Edward IV the Hothams were reckoned 

 the founders of the house, and several of them 

 were buried in the church : namely. Sir John 

 Hotham, Agnes his daughter, wife of Sir Thomas 

 Sutton, kt., and Sir Nicholas Hotham, kt.^^ 

 Others buried in the church were Sir Nicholas 

 Wake, Sir Geoffrey de Agulyon, kt.. Lady Mar- 

 garet Agulyon, Elyna widow of Sir John Sutton, 

 kt., William Kelk, esq., Robert Cause, esq., 

 John Routh, esq., Robert Routh, esq.^' Agnes 

 wife of John Kyler was buried in the cloister, 

 1380." In 1400 a chantry was established in 

 the church for the souls of Thomas Kelk and 



' Speed, Hist. fol. 1082. 



° Co//. Topog. et Gen. i v, 1 2 9 . ' Poulson, Bever/ac, jjz, 



' Pat. 32 Edw. I, m. 2. About this time Friar 

 Robert of Beverley lectured to the Franciscans at Ox- 

 ford ; Man. Franc. (Rolls Ser.), i, 553. 



« Exch. Accts. (P.R.O.), bdle. 356, no. 21 ; bdle. 

 387, no. 9 ; Add. MSS. 7966 A, fol. 25 ; 8835, fol. 

 5 ; Cott. MS. Nero, C. viii, fol. 207 ; Liber Quotid. 

 28 Ec/ui. I (ed. Topham), 25, 37. 



'° Co//. Topog. et Gen. iv, 1 29. 



" Pat. 26 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 20 ; Bever/ey Town 

 Doc. (Selden Soc), 18. 



'^ Co//. Topog. et Gen. iv, 1 29. 



" Ibid. Sir G. Agulyon or Aguyllnn granted them 

 land in Beswick ; Early Chan. Proc. bdle. 22, no. 183. 



" Poulson, Bever/ac, "j-ji ; from Lansd. MS. 896. 



his son John, the twelve keepers of the town 

 being responsible for seeing that the services were 

 duly performed." 



In the troublous times at the beginning of the 

 reign of Edward IV, Thomas Bolton, S.T.P., 

 the warden, tried to gain security for his convent 

 by granting the title of founder to Richard 

 Nevill, Earl of Warwick, and he subsequently 

 gave the patronage of the house to John Nevill, 

 Marquess Montagu. Both these having been 

 slain at Barnet in 1471, Bolton conferred the 

 title and privileges of founder on Henry Percy, 

 Earl of Northumberland.^^ The earl, who died 

 in 1489, left nothing in his will to these friars.'^ 



Bequests were made to them by Sir William 

 Vavasour, 131 1, Henry Lord Percy, 1349, John 

 de Ake of Beverley, merchant, 1398, Richard 

 Lord Scrope of Bolton, 1400, Sir William Nor- 

 manville, kt., 1449, and many others.'* Thomas 

 Walkington, rector of Houghton, in 1400 left 

 j^4 to Friar William Burn, of this house.'' Guy 

 Malyerd, mercer, of Beverley, left twenty wains- 

 cots to each house of friars here in 1486.^* 

 William Poteman, Archdeacon of the East Rid- 

 ing, left to each house a quarter of corn, 1493.^' 

 A collection of sermons and a book of 'exempla' 

 were bequeathed to the Grey Friars by William 

 Sherp, chaplain, in 1508, and a Bible by Thomas 

 Carr, vicar of Santon, in 1509.^^ 



In 1 5 16 Sir Ralph Salvayn, kt., granted to 

 them 60J. rent in Beswick.^' 



In 1522 Thomas Kodall, of South Ferriby, 

 Lincolnshire, esq., and Margaret his wife, gave 

 the friars an annual rent of 4^. for twenty-eight 

 years, probably to celebrate masses for the dead,^* 

 and the friars also received 7;. bd. a year from 

 land in Lund belonging to a chantry founded 

 by the Thway tes family in the church of Lund.^* 



Dr. George Browne, visiting the friary on 

 4 July 1534, had no difficulty in getting the 

 brethren to acknowledge the royal supremacy ; 

 but he found there one friar. Dr. Gwynborne, 

 who had written seditious libels against the king's 

 marriage, whom he sent to Cromwell with his 

 writings, describing him as 'a lunatic or in a 

 frenzy,' 'poorly booked and poorly learned.'^' 



At the beginning of October 1536 Chris- 

 topher Stapleton of Wighill, who had been ill 

 for sixteen years, was staying with his wife ^' at 



" Bever/ey Town Doc. (Selden Soc), 43. 



'* Co//. Topog. et Gen. iv, 129. 



" Test. Ebor. iii, 304 et seq. 



" l\iid. passim ; Reg. Pa/at. Dune/m. (Rolls Ser.), i, 

 333 ; Poulson, Bever/ac, 785. 



'" Wi//s and Invent. (Surt. Soc), i, 50. 



'" Test. Ebor. iv, 19. " Ibid. 81. 



^' Ibid. 115 n.; v, 219 n. 



'^ Mins. Accts. 30-1 Hen. VIII (Yorks.), no. 166. 



" Ibid. » Ibid. 



'° L. and P. Hen. nil, vii, 953. 



" Elizabeth daughter of Sir John Neville of 

 Liversedge, near Wakefield. See Chetvifynd Stapylton, 

 Tiie Stap/etons ofYor/ts/iire, 201 et seq. 



165 34 



