RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



minicans, prior provincial of that order, for an 

 intercommunion of prayers and devotions be- 

 tween the Carthusians and Dominicans, both in 

 life and in death.'^ 



Edwrard IV in 1462 granted to the Prior and 

 Convent of Beauvale 24 marks yearly from the 

 customs of the port of Kingston on Hull, in 

 exchange for a grant of two tuns of the better 

 red wine of Gascony at this port at All Saints 

 tide, which had been made by Edward III. But 

 in 1465 the charge of 24 marks a year on the 

 Hull customs was exchanged for the like charge 

 on the fee farm and increment on the town of 

 Derby at the hands of the men or bailiffs of that 

 town.^^ 



The Falor Ecctesiasticus of 1534 gave the 

 annual value of this priory as ^^227 8i., and the 

 clear value ^i()() 6f. The appropriated churches 

 at that time were those of Greasley and Selston, 

 Nottinghamshire ; Farnham, Yorkshire ; Bonby 

 and a pension from St. John's Stamford, Lin- 

 colnshire. The temporalities were chiefly in 

 Nottinghamshire, but there was an income of 

 ;^I2 ly. \d. from Etwall, Derbyshire, in ad- 

 dition to the j^i6 from the town of Derby. 

 Among the outgoings was the payment of 

 Z']s. 4^. a year to Sir John Chaworth for the 

 passage of coal over his lands.^' 



Maurice Chauncey's beautiful and pathetic 

 account of the last days of the English Carthu- 

 sians, who were practically unanimous in reject- 

 ing the supremacy of Henry VIII in matters 

 ecclesiastical, makes special mention of the part 

 taken by the superior of this Nottinghamshire 

 house.^* Soon after the king's new title of 

 ' Supreme Head ' had been formally adopted by 

 the council, early in 1535, Robert Lawrence, the 

 Prior of Beauvale, and Augustine Webster, Prior 

 of Axholme, came to visit and consult with their 

 brethren at the London Charterhouse. Lawrence 

 had been a member of the London house, and 

 had been transferred to Beauvale as its superior 

 at the time, five years previously, when John 

 Houghton, Prior of Beauvale, was summoned to 

 take charge of the mother house of the English 

 province. The three priors determined to fore- 

 stall the visitations of the royal commissioners, 

 and sought a personal interview with Cromwell ; 

 but the Lord Privy Seal, on learning the purport 

 of their visit, refused to listen to any pleadings, 

 and at once sent them from his house to the 

 Tower as rebellious traitors. 



A week later, namely on 20 April, the priors 

 were interrogated before Cromwell, when they 

 stoutly refused to take the oath of supremacy and 



" Eccl, Doc. K.R. bdle. 6, no. 47. 



^ Pat. I Edw. IV, pt. iv, m. 23 ; pt. vi, m. 36 ; 

 S Edw. IV, pt. i, m. 13. 



'^ Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 156. 



" Chauncey, Commeittariolus de vitae ratione et mar- 

 tyris Cartusianorum, largely cited and translated by 

 Froude, Hist, u, chap. 9. 



reject the authority of anyone except the king 

 over the Church of England.^^ Whilst in 

 prison the three superiors were again closely 

 examined ; the depositions record their several 

 opinions in much the same language. The 

 Prior of Beauvale declared that he could ' not 

 take our sovereign lord to be supreme head of 

 the Church, but him that is by God the head of 

 the Church, that is the bishop of Rome, as 

 Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine teach.' '"' 



Thereupon a special commission was appointed 

 to try these three Carthusians, as well as a Brigit- 

 tine monk of Syon who had been imprisoned on 

 a like charge. On 26 April they underwent 

 another examination in the Tower by Cromwell 

 and other members of the Privy Council. On 

 28 April they were indicted before a jury on the 

 charge of openly stating on the 26th that the 

 king was ' not supreme head in earth of the 

 Church of England.' Lawrence and his three 

 companions pleaded not guilty to the novel 

 charge of verbal treason. The verdict of the 

 jury was deferred till the following day.^' 



The jury were unable to agree to condemn 

 the four accused, notwithstanding the all-em- 

 bracing nature of the statute, on the ground 

 that they did not act ' maliciously.' The judges, 

 however, instructed them that whoever denied 

 the supremacy, did so ' maliciously,' and that the 

 use of that word in the Act was ' a void limit 

 and restraint of the construction of the words 

 and intention of the offence.' On the jury still 

 refusing to condemn them, Cromwell used vio- 

 lent threats against them, with the result that at 

 last they found them guilty and received great 

 thanks ; ' but they weie afterwards ashamed to 

 show their faces, and some of them took great 

 [harm] from it.'^* 



The prisoners were condemned to death and 

 conducted back to the Tower. On 4 May 

 Prior Lawrence of Beauvale, with his two fellow 

 priors, as well as the Brigittine father and John 

 Hale, vicar of Isleworth, were done to death at 

 Tyburn, in the midst of a vast crowd, among 

 whom were a great number of lords and courtiers. 

 The condemned were all drawn to the place of 

 execution in their respective habits, and every- 

 thing seems to have been arranged to make their 

 death an awful example of the king's power over 

 the religious and ecclesiastics of his realm. To 

 each of the victims, as he mounted the scaffold, 

 a pardon was offered if he would accept Henry 

 as supreme head of the Church, but all rejected 

 the offer. The details of the execution were 

 even more ghastly and revolting than was usual 



'' L. andP. Hen. VIII, viii, 565(1). 

 " Dep. Keeper's Rep. iii, App. ii, 238. 



' Ibid. 566. 



^' Arundel MSS. clii, fol. 308 Froude doubts 

 Cromwell's threats to the jury, but Chauncey gives a 

 similar account. See the whole story of the treat- 

 ment of the Carthusi^'s in Gasquet, Hen. VIII and 

 the Engl. Moti. i, chap. vi. 



107 



