PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOU) CLUB 
114 
T916 
to Sir William Kingston, dated 18 July, 1539, specifies ‘'the 
Priorye Churche there, and the Chappellys and cloister to the 
said Priorye belonging,” And, in it Henry VIII. and Anne 
Bulleyn may have prayed, side by side, when they visited 
Prior Rodley,* at Leonard Stanley from Gloucester, Aug. 6, 
1535 > during their happy hunting-days, spent at Prinknash 
Painswick, and Berkeley, but a few months before Queen, 
Elizabeth was born. 
It was but three years later that the great change came 
over the scene, and we see William, the last Abbot of Glouces- 
ter, for a bargain of clear £30, granting the bells and clock of 
the Priory Church to the parishioners (Nov. 4, 1538), repre- 
sented by the Lord of the Manor’s bailiff there, John Stradling 
(gent., 1558), Richard Selwyn,^ Robert Partridge, and John 
Towson (clothiers). Two of these bells may have been recast 
at Gloucester by R. Packe and William Chapman in 1678, the 
dedications of three of the bells are to S. Gabriel, S. Lawrence, 
and S. Peter. The very destructive fire in the village in 1686 
did not hurt the Church. 
It is probable that in the scramble for Church-properties 
many (besides the court -favourites and the Seymours) kept 
their eyes open and their pens energetic, in order to gather 
in the plums, A place as attractive as was Leonard Stanley 
with its buildings was sure of admirers ; and before the summer 
of 1536 (March 27) we find a letter dated from Berkeley {town), 
irom one Antony Budgegode to Lord Cromwell, begging that 
minister to let him have one of the three good cells in this 
county, especially either Deerhurst or Leonard Stanley. 
He complains that the farm of Hamstockes, which Cromwell 
gave him, has calmly been enclosed into the red-deer park at 
Berkeley, and that “ it has already cost him £20 to sue it out 
of Lord Berkeley’s hands.” But Cromwell was deeply tying 
himself to the demands of Kingston, and the crafty Budgegode 
obtained neither cell. 
1 Possibly, his predecessor, Richard Wolryge, 1516 — 1535. 
2 Immediate ancestor of the SeUvyns of Matson, who rapidly rose to some social position durina 
the reigns ot Elizabeth and lames. 
