RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



bed from the town for Dr. Carne and myself. 

 Cattle none, but a few milch kine ; grain 

 none ; vestments few. The abbot has sold 

 everything in London, and doubtless within a 

 year would have sold the house and lands for 

 white wine, sugar, burrage leaves, and ' seke,' 

 whereof he sips nightly in his chamber till 

 midnight. For money to despatch the house- 

 hold and monks we must sell the copes and 

 bells, and if that will not suffice, even the 

 cows, plough oxen and horse ; the church we 

 stir not. The grain crop is the fairest I have 

 seen, and there is much meadow and wood- 

 land. Because of the hay harvest we retain 

 the carters and ploughmen. To-day we 

 despatch the monks who are desirous to be 

 gone. Yesterday when we were making sale 

 of the vestments in the chapter house, the 

 monks cried a new mart in the cloister and 

 sold their cowls. Bissham, 22 June.' * 



In the same letter Dr. Layton refers to 

 John Cordrey as 'a very simple man, the 

 monks of small learning and less discretion.' 



Whatever the cause the king's royal foun- 

 dation was doomed, and on 19 June 1538, 

 only six months after his establishment, the 

 abbot again made surrender.^ With this 

 broken man ended the long line of the abbots 

 of Chertsey.^ 



» L. and P. Hen. VIII. vol. xiii. pt. i, 1 239. 



2 Ibid. 1218. 



' Two references to John Cordrey occur after 

 his deprivation. The payment to him of a pension 

 of j£33 6s. Sd. for the last half year ending Mich. 

 30 Hen. VIII. among the treasurer's accounts 

 {Aug. Office). And in connection with a bill of 

 complaint of Jane Bastyan for a certain tenement 

 or brewhouse within the parish of Chertsey, which 

 she claimed against Mary Merrye, tenant in pos- 

 session, by right of a lease of the late abbot of 

 Chertsey to one Leonard Henry of Chertsey, by 

 whom the interest in the estate was sold to the 

 plaintiff. The indenture, dated January 1529, 

 was to have taken effect at Michaelmas last "^past. 

 The defendant suggested that the deed exhibited 

 by the plaintiff was secretly drawn up by the abbot 

 at the time of the dissolution ' with intent to de- 

 ceive the King's Majesty of his good and perfect 

 right in the premises vidthout the consent or as- 

 sent of the convent, and without their knowledge 

 and agreement.' (Aug. Off. Proc. ^.) A writ 

 was issued for the case to be tried to determine 

 whether the indenture in question was made, 

 sealed and delivered with the knowledge and assent 

 of the late monastery, and whether the date it 

 bore was the correct one. The witnesses were 

 two former inmates of the late abbey, one of whom 

 deposed to the effect that he remembered Leonard 

 Henry, servant of John Cordrey, and brought up 

 in the monastery from his childhood, obtaining a 

 lease of the abbot by indenture under the common 

 seal which was deposited in the chest whereof the 



Abbots of Chertsey 

 Erkenwald,* 666 

 Ceolnod,^ occurs 787 

 Beocca,' occurs end of ninth century 



Ordbright,' 964 



Daniel, circa 1025 



Siward,^ consecrated bishop of Rochester 



1058 

 Wulfwold," occurs 1072, died 1084" 

 Odo," 1084-92 deposed 

 Ralph Flambard,'''' 1092 

 Odo," 1 1 00 re-elected 

 William," circa no6 

 Hugh," 1 107 

 Daniel 



Aymer,^' occurs 11 66 

 Bertan 



Martin,'^ ii97 

 Adam,^^ circa 1206 

 Alan,'' 1223 



John de Medmenham,^" 1261-70 

 Bartholomew de Winton,^^ 127 0-1307 

 John de Rutherwyk,^^ 1307-46 

 John de Benham,^^ 1346-61 

 William de Clyve,^* 1361-70 



abbot kept the key, for which seal Leonard Henry 

 paid los. to be divided amongst the convent after 

 the custom of the house. He further deposed that 

 the deed shown him by the Commissioners was 

 that very true deed and seal of the abbot and con- 

 vent above referred to, delivered about a year 

 before the suppression of the house. The other 

 witness corroborated the statement of the first 

 (Aug. Off. Misc. Bks. III. f. 4). Probably this 

 deed was not surrendered to the king's Com- 

 missioners viiih the other muniments of the 

 house. 



4 Cott. MS. Vitel. A. xiii. f. 20. 



5 Birch, Cart. Sax. i. 349. 



« Cott. M.S. Vitel A. xiii. f. 34. 



' Anglo-Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i. 222-3. 



8 Ann. Man. (Rolls Ser.), ii. 187. 



9 Hist, of Church of York (Rolls Ser.), iii. 13. 



^^ His death is recorded ^«gfo-5ax. Chron. (Rolls 

 Ser.), i. 352 ; Ann. Mon. (Rolls Ser.), ii. 34. 

 " Ann. Mon. (Rolls Ser.), ii. 37. 



12 Ibid. 



13 Ibid. p. 40. 



" Cott. MS. Vitel. A. xiii. f. 55. 



1= Wharton's Anglia Sacra, ii. 297. He was a 

 physician. Hist, of Church of York (Rolls Ser.), 

 ii. 143. 



18 Red Book of the Exch. (Rolls Ser.), i. 198. 

 17 Ann. Mon. (Rolls Ser.), ii. 65. 



13 Cott. MS. Vitel. A. xiii. f. 92. 



19 Pat. 7 Hen. III. m. 4. 



20 Ibid. 45 Hen. III. m. 7. 



21 Ibid. 56 Hen. III. m. I. 



22 Ibid. I Edw. II. pt. i. m. 18. 



23 Ibid. 21 Edw. III. pt. i. m. 7. 



24 Ibid. 35 Edw. III. pt. iii. m. 14 



63 



