RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



stated that Father Robynsone had been chosen 

 ' discrete ' for their convent of Richmond to 

 the said chapter. Laurence voted against 

 him, knowing he was not in favour with 

 the king, and recorded a conversation alleged 

 to have taken place in which Robynsone 

 defended his action and utterances, and 

 said he would never take any promotion at 

 the king's hands. In another communication 

 from Laurence to Cromwell, he stated that 

 he was forbidden to write to the king or 

 Cromwell under pain of imprisonment, but 

 proceeded to traduce his brethren, and 

 promised to ' communicate v/W x;«« with the 

 latter.' Laurence did his best to make 

 further mischief later in the same year by 

 writing again to the king and to Cromwell. 

 His letter to the former begins by saying that 

 he was in the greatest anguish of heart, for his 

 father minister (the superior) had put him 

 out of office for his communications, saying 

 ' I will not obey the king but the religion.'^ 



Richard Lyst, a lay brother of the Green- 

 wich Observants, wrote at great length to 

 Cromwell on February 1533, stating that 

 in less than three quarters of a year five of 

 the brethren had gone over the walls out of 

 our religion, namely three from Greenwich 

 and two from Richmond ; little credit how- 

 ever can be given to any of his statements.^ 



In spite of all remonstrance, the divorce of 

 the king was announced on 23 May i533> 

 and on i June Anne Boleyn (to whom 

 Henry had been secretly married some 

 months before) was crowned at Westminster. 

 One of the boldest to rebuke Henry was Friar 

 Peto of the Observants, who had been trans- 

 ferred from the priory of Richmond to that 

 of Greenwich. In May, at the latter house, 

 Peto preached a sermon of singular vigour 

 and plainness as to sin in high places. Henry 

 ordered Dr. Curwin, afterwards Archbishop 

 of Dublin^and Bishop of Oxford, to answer 

 him in the same place on the following Sun- 

 day, and attended to hear the confutation. 

 But, at the end of the sermon. Friar Elstow 

 answered Curwin from the rood-loft to the 

 king's discomfiture.* On the Monday Peto 

 and Elstow were brought before the council, 

 and apparently escaped with a severe repri- 

 mand and exile. 



John Coke, clerk to the Merchant Adven- 

 turers at Antwerp, wrote to Cromwell in June 

 1533, stating that Peto and other friars of 



1 L. and P. Hen. VIII. iv. 1259, 1260. 



2 Ibid. 1738, 1739. 



3 Ibid. vi. 168. 



' The story is told with much graphic detail in 

 Stowe's Annals. 



Richmond, Greenwich and Canterbury were 

 at Antwerp, writing books against the king's 

 marriage with Queen Anne ; he had got 

 hold of three of their letters which he en- 

 closed. ° 



This is not the place to enter into the re- 

 markable story of Elizabeth Barton, ' the holy 

 maid of Kent,' a nun of St. Sepulchre's, Can- 

 terbury, and her supposed revelations and 

 ecstasies.' But the Observants of Richmond 

 were among those accused of conniving with 

 her denunciation of the king's conduct. 

 Father Hugh Rich, the warden or minister 

 of the Richmond friars, was imprisoned for a 

 long time on this charge. On Sunday, 23 

 November 1533, ^^■> together with the nun 

 and several other priests and two laymen, 

 was placed on a high scaffold at St. Paul's 

 Cross to do public penance. Dr. Capon, the 

 bishop-elect of Bangor, was the preacher, and 

 specially blamed the two Observant friars, 

 Hugh Rich and Richard Risby of Canter- 

 bury, for maintaining the quarrel of Queen 

 Catherine against the king.' After the ser- 

 mon the nun and her companions were taken 

 back to the Tower. Eventually Father Rich 

 and the rest, were condemned unheard by a 

 special act of attainder and executed as traitors 

 at Tyburn on 5 May 1534. It is said that 

 Fathers Rich and Risby were twice offered 

 their lives if they would accept Henry as 

 supreme head of the English Church.* 



The Friars Observant and the Carthusians 

 were foremost among the small minority of 

 the religious of England who offered serious 

 opposition to the Act by which the papal 

 authority over religious houses was transferred 

 to the king, and his supremacy in the church 

 openly proclaimed. All the houses were called 

 upon to sign a formal assurance of their accep- 

 tance of the change. 



Notwithstanding the execution of their 

 warden for refusing to recognize the suprem- 

 acy of Henry, the majority of the Richmond 

 Observants remained steadfastly opposed to 

 the new order of religion. Rowland Lee, one 

 of the king's chaplains, lately preferred to 

 the see of Coventry and Lichfield, together 

 with Thomas Bedyll, the clerk of the coun- 

 cil, were commissioned by Henry to make a 

 final effort to bring about the submission 

 of the Richmond Observants. Lee and his 

 companion wrote to Cromwell saying they 



6 L. and P. Hen. Fill. vi. 726. 



6 The best account is that given in Gasquet's 

 Henry Fill, and the English Monasteries, i. 1 10-50. 



7 L. and P. Hen. Fill. vi. 1460, and vii. 72. 



8 Gasquet, Henry Fill, and the English Mon- 

 asteries, i. 150. 



117 



