488 
ANTIQUITIES 
maintain h'ls station ; as old age was then coming fast upon 
him, and the increasing anarchy and misrule of that declining 
institution required unusual vigour and resolution to stem 
that torrent of profligacy which was hurrying it on to its 
dissolution. We find, accordingly, that in 1478 he re- 
signed his dignity again into the hands of the V^'^hop. 
REG. WAYNFLETE. TOL. 55. 
May 14, 1478. Peter Berne resigned the priorship. 
May 16, the bishop admitted his resignation in manerio 
suo de Waltham,^^ and declared the priorship void ; " et 
priorat. solacio destitutum esse;'' and granted his letters 
for proceeding to a new election : when all the religious, 
assembled in the chapter-house, did transfer their power 
under their seal to the bishop by the following public in- 
strument. 
In Dei nomine Amen," &c. a.d. 1478, Maii 19. In 
the chapter-house for the election of a prior for that day, 
on the free resignation of Peter Berne, having celebrated 
in the first place mass at the high altar " De spiritu sancto/' 
and having called a chapter by tolling a bell, ut moris est; 
in the presence of a notary and witnesses appeared person- 
ally Peter Berne, Thomas Ashford, Stephen Clydgrove and 
John Ashton, presbyters, and Henry Canwood,^ in chapter 
assembled ; and after singing the hymn Veni Creator 
Spirit us,'' cum versiculo et oratione ' Deus qui cor da ; ' 
declarataque licentia Fundatoris et patroni futurum priorem 
eligendi concessa, et constitutione consilii generalis que 
incipit ^ Quia ^propter ' declaratis ; viisque per quas possent 
ad hanc electionem procedere," by the decretorum doctorerrij 
whom the canons had taken to direct them — they all and 
every one dixerunt et affirmarunt se nolle ad aliquam 
viam procedere : " — but, for this turn only, renounced their 
^ Here we see that all the canons were changed in six years ; and 
that there was quite a new chapter, Berne excepted, between 1472 and 
1478 ; for, instead of Wyndesor, London, and Stratfeld, we find Ashford, 
Clydgrove, Ashton, and Canwood, all new men, who were soon gone in 
their turn off the stage, and are heard of no more. For, in six years 
after, there seem to have been no canons at all. — G. W. 
