A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



ment '" was made simply to increase Wolsey's 

 income with an almost cynical disregard for 

 the monastery's rights and welfare. The car- 

 dinal's residence as head engaged in the 

 administration of the house was out of the 

 question, an occasional visit was all that could 

 be expected.*^ Naturally the connexion with 

 so powerful a person as W'olsey was not devoid 

 of advantages. Before he held the abbey, 

 it is said, the king's purveyors had been accus- 

 tomed to have 300 or 400 qrs. of wheat yearly 

 from the town and hberty, an infraction of the 

 charter of Edward IV which Wolsey would not 

 allow. '^ He intervened also on behalf of the 

 privileges of the house when the clerk of the 

 market of the king's hospice tried to exercise 

 his functions in the town while Henry was 

 staying at the abbey.*' But the benefits 

 received by the monastery, which were appa- 

 rently all comprised in the cardinal's protection 

 and the plate he presented to the convent,^* 

 sink into insignificance before the drawbacks 

 of the position. So little attention was paid by 

 V\'olsey to the affairs of the house that in his 

 time the abbey was involved in debts amounting 

 to 4,000 marks through one of its officials, 

 Robert Blakeney.'^ The utter selfishness of his 

 attitude was strikingly displayed when he fell 



*" The mandate for restitution of temporalities of 

 7 Dec. 1521 (I. and P. Hen. Fill, iii, 1843) recites 

 that the abbey had been commended to Wolsey by 

 the pope, but as a matter of fact certain formalities 

 had not been completed at the death of Leo X, and 

 the papal bull was not issued until 8 Nov. 1522 

 (Rymer, Foed. [Orig. ed.], xiii, 775). Pope Adrian 

 in May had given Wolsey leave to receive the 

 revenues of St. Albans as if it had been already 

 granted in commendam (L. and P. Hen. Fill, iii, 2260). 



*^ It has been doubted whether he ever stayed 

 there, but he probably did once or twice. The pay- 

 ments of William Seyntpeir on the king's business 

 in 1524 include costs of riding to the More and 

 St. Albans to get money from the cardinal (Z. and P. 

 Hen. VIII, iv, 1 67). It seems probable that Wolsey 

 was at St. Albans in 1526, for the accounts of the 

 receiver-general of the abbey from Michaelmas 1525 

 to Michaelmas 1526 include maintenance of the 

 dean, sub dean, chaplains, clerks and boys of the 

 cardinal's chapel for seven weeks and four days in 

 August and September (Aug. Off. Misc. Bk. cclxxii, 

 fol. 64). The king seems to have stayed at the abbey 

 at some time (Dugdale, Mon. ii, 207), possibly in 

 1525 (I. and P. Hen. VIII, iv, 1736 [12]; Aug. 

 Off. Misc. Bk. cclxxii, fol. 63 d.), and if so the cardinal 

 would certainly have been there. 



^- Articles on which he was convicted under the 

 Statute of Praemunire (Dugdale, Mon. ii, 207). 



^' Dugdale, Mon. ii, 207. 



^ It consisted of a basin and ewer, parcel gilt, two 

 standing pots of silver, parcel gilt, two salts with one 

 cover, gilt, and a standing cup with cover, gilt {L. and 

 P. Hen. VIII, iv, 6748). 



'* In a letter of 1535 this is said to have happened 

 in the last abbot's days (ibid, ix, 1155). 



into disgrace. In 1529 he granted an annuity 

 of 200 marks out of the abbey's lands to Viscount 

 Rochford, Anne Boleyn's brother,*' and if it 

 be argued that in this matter he could not help 

 himself, that excuse cannot be urged for his 

 attempt to get a pension for himself from St. 

 Albans.*' He resigned the abbey to the Idng 

 on 17 February 1530,** but the house was not 

 treated as vacant until his death at the end of 

 the year.** 



Robert Catton, Prior of Norwich, became 

 abbot in March 1531."' A condition of the 

 appointment to the abbacy seems to have been 

 the cession of La Moor Manor to the Crown,'* 

 and this was done in September by the abbot,** 

 who received in exchange the property of the 

 priories of Pr6 and Wallingford which had been 

 suppressed by Wolsey. An annual fair of three 

 days at St. Albans and the advowsons of the 

 church of Aston Rowant and chapel of Stoken- 

 church, CO. Oxon., granted by Henry to the 

 abbey in October 1 5 3 2,'' may have been intended 

 to make the bargain fairer. 



Catton, though ready enough to oblige those 

 in authority, offered some resistance to the 

 attempt made in 1534 to obtain the fee farm of 

 one of the monastery's manors for William 

 Cavendish, Cromwell's servant. Such a grant, 

 he told Cromwell, might cause a claim from the 

 donor's heirs and the loss of the manor to the 

 abbey ; if this difficulty were overcome, he 

 would do what Cromwell wanted.'* The in- 

 denture was drawn up, but Cavendish in the end 

 was baulked by the convent, who, in spite of 

 Dr. Lee's persuasions, refused to seal a deed so 

 prejudicial to their house.'* 



The rehgious changes had some supporters 

 at the abbey : the archdeacon was praised to 

 Cromwell in the spring of 1535 as one of the only 

 two in the hberty to manifest the full truth in 

 their preaching." But it is not hkely that 

 many were as ardent as he in the cause, or the 



«8 L. and P. Hen. VIII, iv, 61 15. 



6' Ibid. 6181, 6182, 6224. 



** Ibid. 6220. 



*» 29 Nov. (Cavendish, Life of Cardinal Wolsey 

 [Dent's ed.], 243-8). The convent asked for leave to 

 elect on 3 Dec. i 530 (L. and P. Hen. VIII, v, 28 [ii]). 



'» L. and P. Hen. VIII, v, 28 (i). 



'1 ' Clause declaring the obligation that if A. B. 

 prior of St. Albans be elected abbot of that monastery, 

 within twenty days after he shall suffer .... all 

 that shall be devised by the king's council for the full 

 assurance of the manors of More and Tyttenhanger 

 to the king's use' (ibid. 78). 



'^ Ibid. 405. The agreement was made in 

 September, in November the abbot ceded the 

 manors, and in December received the property in 

 exchange (ibid. 275 ; 627 [24]). 



'3 Ibid. V, 1499 (26-7). 



'■* Ibid, vii, I I 25. 



" Ibid. 1 249. 



'* Ibid, viii, 407. 



410 



