RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



Rotherham. Again, in the cases of the abbey of Welbeck and the priory of 

 Worksop the visitors singled out four in each house as guilty of vile offences, 

 and yet seven of these were pensioned and the eighth retained in a vicarage ! 

 If the Comperta were true, the action of the granters of pensions and preferments 

 was worse than that of the accused. 



As to the pensions, they seem as a rule to have been granted to 

 the superiors only of the smaller religious houses which were dissolved in 

 1536—7. Thus the Prior of Blyth was the only one of that house who 

 obtained any pension, and the like was the case with the Prioress of Broad- 

 holme. The Act of 1536, which was supposed to extinguish all those that 

 had a less income than jTaoo a year, was made an engine in over fifty cases 

 throughout England and Wales for the exacting of all that was possible 

 out of the monasteries by encouraging the smaller houses to contract out 

 of its provisions by big fines ; for the Crown agents must have been well 

 aware that all were really doomed. In three Nottinghamshire instances 

 this policy was successfully achieved. Newstead paid to the Crown 

 j(^233 6s. Sd., Beauvale ^166 1 3J. 4</., and Wallingwells ^(^66 1 3J. 4^. 

 for this short-lived exemption from destruction. 



Many members of the suppressed religious communities throughout 

 England received no pensions, and such was certainly the case in Notting- 

 hamshire. Moreover, when once a pension was granted, the amounts were 

 subject to deductions on account of all subsidies granted to the king by 

 Parliament. A tenth part was withheld for that cause in the first year after 

 the general dissolution. Two years later a fourth part was abstracted from 

 the pensions of ' all the late religious persons having ^20 and upwards,' and 

 when the half-year was due, on 25 March 1543, the religious only received 

 one quarter of the annual payment.** 



There was also a definite reduction of 4^. on each quarterly payment 

 made by the officials of the Augmentation Office in London, or by the royal 

 receivers of monastic properties appointed in different parts of the county. 

 The expense, too, of journeys to obtain the money, either personally or by 

 attorney, was considerable. 



By the time that Edward VI came to the throne a great scandal in 

 connexion with not a few of these pensions became apparent. Pressing 

 necessity, or the cajoling of unprincipled speculators, had caused various of 

 the disbanded religious to part with their pension, securing patents or 

 certificates for small sums of ready money, ' supplanting them to their utter 

 undoing.' To stop this evil an Act was passed in 3 Edward VI ' against the 

 crafty and deceitful buying of pensions from the late monasteries.'* By 

 this Act it was provided that all who had bought pension patents were to 

 restore them within six months. The same statute, to check the notorious 

 arrears, ordered all officials and receivers to pay all pensions on demand under 

 a penalty of ^5 ; and if they demanded more than the legal fee they were to 

 forfeit ten times the amount taken. 



To secure the due working of this Act and to check further pension 

 scandals, commissions of inquiry were eventually appointed for each county. 

 The majority of the reports of these commissioners are extant at the Public 



' Harl. MS. 604, fol. 108. 

 ' Act 2 & 3 Edw. VI, cap. 7. 



2 81 II 



