RELIGIOUS HOUSES 
and clear account of its last days. From the 
depositions taken in May 1538+ it may be 
gathered that there were at least thirteen 
monks besides the abbot, all of whom were 
clerks ; there were perhaps others also who 
were not mentioned by name, and most pro- 
bably, on the analogy of other houses, a few 
lay brothers. There seems to have been no 
prior at the time ; the most prominent person 
after the abbot was the sub-prior ; a ‘ bowser’ 
or bursar had succeeded the old cellarer ; 
among minor officials the sexton and the 
‘chaunter’ or precentor are named, and one 
monk was secretary to the abbot. Three 
“young gentlemen’ and their schoolmaster 
had been recently boarders in the house ; and 
a former abbot of Warden, for reasons un- 
known, preferred to spend his last days at 
Woburn. The abbot, Robert Hobbes,” had 
much friendly intercourse with the gentry of 
the neighbourhood, and had been the guest 
of Sir Francis Bryan at Ampthill ; the Bishop 
of Lincoln was often a near neighbour when 
he visited his manor at Woburn; so that, in 
one way and another, the house was well 
known, and its deficiencies would have been 
easily observed. But there can be no doubt 
whatever that it was in excellent order, and 
the rule well kept. Though the abbot’s 
views as to the religious controversies of the 
time were shared by few of his brethren, 
they nevertheless yielded him due obedience 
to the last. The bursar and the secretary 
might marvel that he kept a dangerous and 
reactionary book in the abbey* ; but the one 
copied it and the other laid it by, according 
to their obedience. And on the abbot’s side 
there was all the consideration on which the 
rule of St. Benedict lays such stress ; the peni- 
tential exercises from which he hoped so 
much were dropped as soon as he saw that 
they were offered by unwilling hearts and 
lips, and his rebukes were always mild and 
fatherly. Cross-examined by the king’s com- 
missioners, the monks reported the words of 
their superior, and gave their own opinions ; 
but only two had really laid information 
against him, and not even these had any per- 
1 LZ. and P. Hen. VIII. xiii. pt. i. 981. The 
following account of the abbey and of the trial is 
entirely taken from this source, 
2 In 1533, with the abbots of Fountains and 
Pipewell, he had been appointed to visit the 
monastery of Vaudey, and had some difference of 
opinion with Cromwell as to the best means of 
reforming the house (L. and P. Hen. VIII. vi. 
778-9). 
3 A treatise collated from the fathers, by Sir 
John Mylward of Toddington, called De Potestate 
Petri. 
sonal complaint to make. During the whole 
trial, indeed, no word of accusation is raised 
against the personal character of any of the 
monks; and, so far as we can gather, the 
divine offices were performed with care and 
reverence to the last. 
The house fell for purely political reasons. 
The full account of its tragic ending is found 
in the State Papers, and the story has been 
told more than once.® But there has been a 
good deal of confusion about the dates of the 
various stages of proceeding ® ; it seems there- 
fore best to set down the events quite simply 
in the order in which they occurred, and to 
let them speak for themselves. 
In 1534-5 7 there was a preliminary visi- 
tation by Dr. Petre, who administered the 
oath of supremacy to the whole convent, or- 
dered the delivery of all papal bulls to him- 
self, and the erasure of the pope’s name from 
all service books. ‘These orders were carried 
out; but the abbot, as he afterwards con- 
fessed, had the bulls copied before he delivered 
them, and also expressed a wish to some of 
his monks that the pope’s name might be 
struck out with a pen and not erased. He 
did not however press the latter point.® 
During the three years that followed, the 
new laws and the great events of the time, 
political and religious, were much discussed 
in the monastery, and there was a tendency 
amongst the monks to fall into two parties. 
It seems however to have been no more than 
a tendency ; there were only two® who were 
4 One monk, John Grace, said that he had once 
petitioned the abbot for better bread for the con- 
vent, and that the answer had been, ‘ If they like 
not this, let them go farther and fare worse. The 
world is open now, but I trust that it will not long 
hold thus.’ They are the only ungentle words 
alleged of the abbot; perhaps something in the 
circumstances may have rendered them quite 
necessary. 
5 Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects (ed. 
1878), i. 431-41; followed by Canon Dixon, 
History of the English Church; Dom Gasquet, 
Henry VIII. and the English Monastertes, ii. 191- 
202. 
6 All these assume that the depositions were 
taken in 1536, whereas they are dated clearly 11 
and 12 May 30 Henry VIII. The chroniclers 
Speed and Stow both put the abbot’s name in the 
list of those who were executed after the Pilgrimage 
of Grace, with which he had no connection what- 
ever. Burnet improves upon this by saying that 
he joined the rebels and was taken in arms amongst 
them. 
7 Alluded to in the abbot’s first deposition. 
8 From the deposition of Dan Croxton. 
® Dan Robert Salford and Dan Croxton; the 
former had sent up a letter to Cromwell by Sir 
367 
