40 



Mr. R H. Scott. 



We now come to the original buildings on the actual site of ti. 

 Observatory, and we find in Crisp the following statement : — 



" It was in the year 1414 that Henry V, to expiate, as it has been 

 said, the crime by which his family had attained to the crown of 

 England, namely, the dethronement and murder of the unfortunate 

 Richard II, founded here a ' famous ' religious house for forty monks 

 of the Carthusian order, under the name of ' The House of Jesus of 

 Bethlehem at Sheen,' by which name it was incorporated, and one 

 John Wydrington constituted the first prior. 



At the same time that Henry founded this noble priory, he like- 

 wise built and endowed another one at ' Syon ' on the opposite bank 

 of the river, where the present Syon House now stands; this he 

 dedicated to St. Bridget, for sixty nuns of that order." 



Crisp says, " There is in the British Museum an old work, in which 

 mention is made of these two ' relygious houses,' and that ' it is there 

 stated they were founded for the reason that a constant succession of 

 holy exercises should be kept up night and day to the end of time, so 

 that when the devotions at one convent had been concluded, at the 

 other they should instantly begin. 



" Shakespeare had learned from the works of old chroniclers and 

 historians -the reasons given for the institution of these two (houses), 

 as in his ' Henry V ' he makes the king, prior to the battle of 

 Agincourt, utter the following words : — 



" < Not to-day, O Lord, 

 O, not to-day think thou upon the fault 

 My father made in compassing the crown ! 

 I Richard's body haye interred anew, 

 And on it have bestowed more contrite tears 

 Than from it issued forced drops of blood. 

 Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay, 

 Who twice a day their withered hands hold up 

 Toward Heaven, to pardon blood ; and I have built 

 Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests 

 Still sing for Richard's soul.' 



" These buildings of Sheen and Syon were both of them stately 

 edifices, and were as nobly endowed." 



In 1541 the monastery, along with others, was suppressed.* 



* Extract from Archseologia Soc. Antiq., Lond., vol. xx, App. pp. 575, 576 : — 

 "June 8, 1820. William Bray, Esq., Treasurer, exhibited to the Society an 

 impression from the seal of the Carthusian Priory, which formerly existed at Shene, 

 near Richmond, in Surrey ; appended to an indenture between John Bokyngham, 

 prior of that house, on the one hand, and John and Joan Rede, of Lewisham, in 

 Kent, on the other, respecting a garden or toft in East Greenwich, dated in the 

 22nd year of Henry the Sixth. 



" The impression of the seal is small, of an oval shape, and has a representation of 

 the Adoration of the Shepherds in the area. At bottom are the arms of France and 



