A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



making offerings ° suggests that money was 

 then needed for building. The fact that in 

 1318" and 1321^^ the prior was borrowing 

 points in , the same direction, though the 

 extortions of the abbot from the cells at that 

 time 2' would account for debts. 



The prior in May 1309 went abroad," pro- 

 bably to obtain the pope's confirmation of the 

 election of Abbot Hugh de Eversden. Another 

 prior, Nicholas de Flamstead, a notably good 

 and able man, accompanied Richard de Wal- 

 lingford, abbot-elect, to the papal court in 

 1327.** His connexion with the priory seems 

 then to have terminated. As cellarer of the 

 abbey he came to the priory in 1 33 1 to make 

 provision for the entertainment there of the 

 justices of Trailbaston.2' 



As far as can be judged, the house throughout 

 the 14th century was quietly prosperous. It 

 was one of the three cells to give a present 

 to Abbot Richard in 1327,^° and made its con- 

 tribution to the expenses incurred by Abbot 

 Thomas de la Mare in obtaining the substitution 

 of a fixed annual payment for the sums due to 

 the king and pope, when some cells had to be 

 excused owing to debt.'* Yet it was not among 

 the richest of the St. Albans cells : its share of 

 the above yearly payment was fixed by Abbot 

 John de la Moote (i 396-1401) at 30J., the 

 smallest but one.^^ 



The house in 1461-2** was extremely unlucky 

 in its prior, Thomas Walden. The payments 

 made to him within this time and not entered 

 in his accounts amounted to ^50 at least, and 

 the goods ^* ahenated by him, not counting 

 jewels, to ^46 more. The priory was ill able to 

 stand such malversation of its funds. The 

 accounts for 1488-9 show that the receipts, 

 j^ii5 los. oji., did not quite cover expenses,^ 

 and in 1497-8 the income of ^^90 los. i\d. barely 

 sufficed.^* 



The priors during this period were not always 

 well chosen. John Bensted," prior in 1489, 

 apparently left the house £iz poorer than he 



^^ Lincoln Epis. Reg. Memo. Dalderby, fol. 44. 

 It was a ratification of the indulgence granted by the 

 Bishop of Spoleto while papal nuncio in England. 



2^ Cal. Close, 1313-18, p. 596. 



2^ Ibid. 1 3 1 8-23, p. 3 60. 26 Qgjf^ Abbat. ii, 1 30. 



2' Cal. Pat. 1307-13, p. 112. 



2* Gesta Abbat. ii, 186-7. 



29 Ibid. 222. 30 Ibid. 187. " Ibid. 456. 



32 Ibid. 468. Hatfield Priory paid the same, 

 Beaulieu 6/. id. ^ Mins. Accts. bdle. 865, no. 15. 



^ Among these were 3 bowls, 6 spoons, a silver 

 ' poudyrbok,' 2 towels, i o napkins, 2 candelabra, 

 a pair of sheets, a portifory and certain muniments. 



3* Mins. Accts. Hen. VII, no. 1696. 



'" Rentals and Surv. R. 277. 



'^ John Bensted, gentleman, son of Edward Bensted, 

 esq., master of the game, was received as a monk at 

 St. Albans 1 1 July 1470, and was then fifteen years 

 old (Jicg. of St. Albans, ii, 90). 



found it." WiUiam Waterman, prior a little 

 later, had a suit brought against him in Chancery 

 for appropriating plate valued at 20 marks and 

 ^5 in money entrusted to him by a widow named 

 Alice Newbury.** He declared that she had 

 given them to him to reimburse him for paying 

 her debts, but this she absolutely denied, 

 though she acknowledged she owed him 5 marks 

 which she professed herself ready to pay on the 

 restoration of her property. Even if the case 

 against Waterman was not so bad as it seems, 

 it was not to his credit.*" 



The proportion of income spent in law and 

 travelling expenses in 1497-8, j^ii i6j. out of 

 ^90 loj-., is also rather significant, considering the 

 past record of the prior, William Dyxwell." The 

 receipts in 1525-6,^85 1 5 j. 9 J J., were jf 5 above 

 the expenditure, *2 but whether the financial 

 soundness of the house was due to wise admini- 

 stration is doubtful. The convent apparently 

 numbered only four, including the prior,** and 

 ^42 had been spent on the kitchen and hospice," 

 so that unless food was at famine prices hospi- 

 taHty there must have been on a lavish scale. 



The grant of the priory and its property by 

 the king to Anthony Denny on 9 February 

 1538 *^ appears to prove that the house was then 

 already dissolved. Yet from a settlement about 

 the tithes of Amwell it was presumably still in 

 existence in July 1539*' ; if so its end was no 

 doubt delayed till the fall of St. Albans. 



Its possessions, in 1297 worth about 5^30 or 

 j^40 a year,^' were reckoned in 1535 to be of the 

 clear annual value of ^72 i\s. %\i.^^ 



3' Sir Edward Bensted, kt., directed in his will in 

 I 5 17 that j£i2 should be delivered to the Prior and 

 convent of Hertford in recompense of such money 

 and goods as his brother John Bensted found there at 

 his first coming (W. F. Andrews, ' Sir Edward 

 Bensted, kt.,' East Herts. Arch. Soc. ii [z], 190). 

 3* Early Chan. Proc. bdle. 151, no. 27-30. 

 *" There is probably little to be said in his favour. 

 He was one of the two monb of St. Albans who 

 behaved with disgraceful violence to Elizabeth Webbe, 

 Prioress of Sopwell, in removing her from office 

 (ibid. bdle. 181, no. 4). « See St. Albans. 



*2 Aug. Off. Misc. Bks. cclxxii, fol. 77. 

 ^' A stipend of £^ was paid to the prior and 40/. 

 each to three other monks, a mark extra being given 

 to the one who had charge of the church of St. John. 

 ** It is headed expenses of the hospice, but it 

 clearly corresponds to the payments for the kitchen and 

 prior's hospice or guest-house of the earlier accounts. 

 " Pat. 29 Hen. VIII, pt. ii, ra. 19. 

 ^ Add. Chart. 35315. It may be noted that the 

 commissioners in March 1537 did not take the sur- 

 render of the house, but sent the prior to the Court 

 of Augmentations (Land Rev. Rec. bdle. 66, no. 3). 

 *' The property mentioned in Pofie Nich. Tax. 

 (Rec. Com.) amounts to ^29 13/. i ly., but it does 

 not include the church of Amwell, which appears, 

 however, at that time to have been appropriated to the 

 priory and was worth /12 (Harl. MS. 60, foL 30). 

 « ralor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), i, 45 i. 



420 



