A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 
funds were devoted to superstitious uses. Every gild had its altar where 
a priest was maintained to sing mass for the good estate of the brethren 
and sisters while living and for the repose of their souls after death. 
They were found in Bedfordshire at Blunham, St. Paul’s Bedford, 
Biggleswade, Dunstable, Eaton Socon, Houghton Regis and Luton ;* 
their favourite dedication was to the Holy Trinity. The richest and 
best known of these was the Gild of the Trinity at Luton ; records of 
its expenses, etc., are still preserved among the MSS. of the Marquis of 
Bute.” The object was to maintain a priest and poor brethren. The 
gilds of Eaton and Dunstable also had funds set apart for distribution to 
the poor and other charitable purposes. 
There are scarcely any records to help us to form an opinion as to 
how far the teaching of the Lollards was known or welcomed in Bed- 
fordshire. Ata time when Bishop Buckingham complained that heresy 
was rife in Northamptonshire,’ when Leicestershire was the centre of 
Wycliffe’s teaching, it is difficult to believe that Bedfordshire remained 
untouched. ‘There was however only one prosecution in this county re- 
corded by the Lincoln registers: that of John Langeley, vicar of Pullox- 
hill, in 1417." His arrest is noted, but nothing further. 
There is the same want of detailed information for the first half of 
the sixteenth century as for the fifteenth ; so that it is impossible to 
gather any clear impression as to the state of popular feeling in Bedford- 
shire with regard to the many and great changes which were taking 
place. In a county where so much land and so large a proportion of 
the churches belonged to religious houses, there must surely have been 
strong feelings either for or against the dissolution; but very little is re- 
corded. We possess however one vivid picture of the way in which the 
Act of Supremacy was discussed, not only amongst the religious but 
amongst some of the clergy and laity in one part of Bedfordshire. The 
depositions of the abbot of Woburn and others at the surrender of the 
abbey in 1538° contain references to many well known people. The 
abbot had evidently discussed the subjects of the supremacy, the royal 
divorce, the death of More and Fisher, the suppression of the smaller 
monasteries, quite freely with all his neighbours ; with Sir Francis Bryan, 
though he was in the king’s service, and inclined to the new learning ; 
with Lord Grey of Wilton and Lady Grey of Wrest (with whom he 
never could agree); with Sir Francis Bryan’s physician; with the 
parson of Milton Bryan, some doctors of Cambridge and the warden of 
Toddington Hospital. All these people had listened to his arguments, 
1 All in Chant. Cert. i. The gild of Dunstable also occurs in Ing. a. gq. d. 19-23 Henry 
VI. No. 81. It maintained (Chant. Cert. 4) a house with three chambers containing beds for 
poor travellers passing through Dunstable ; and four tenements under the same roof for brethren of the 
gild fallen into poverty, where they might dwell without paying rent. That of Eaton (ibid.) had 
merely a distribution of money to the poor. 
2 Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 207. 
3 Linc. Epis. Reg., Memo. Buckingham, 393 (1392). 
4 Ibid. Memo. Repingdon, 184 (1417). 
5 L. and P. Hen. VIII. xiii. pt. 1, No. 981. The depositions were taken 11 and 12 May 1538; 
the abbey having been surrendered 8 May. 
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