338 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
of them to return in their company into England. Accordingly 
they came hack together into England, either in the year 1238 or 
two years later, Rodolphus Fresham heing provincial ; and, hy the 
protection and assistance of the said knights, they afterwards ob- 
tained a residence at Aylesford, in Kent, and another at Holney, 
near Alnwick, in Northumberland, and within a few years were 
found in the principal cities of the kingdom. 
Their numbers rapidly increased, and in 1245 they held their 
European General Chapter at their house at Aylesford, founded 
only five years before by Richard Lord Gray, of Codnor, one of the 
knights referred to in the extract I have just read from Anthony 
a Wood. At this Chapter Simon Stock, an Englishman, was 
elected the superior of the whole order. 
After the establishment of the Carmelites in Europe (perhaps the 
result of the Chapter at Aylesford), they were changed, in the year 
1247, into a mendicant order, and their rule was considerably 
altered, the difference of climate requiring a modification of their 
stricter laws, which were again further relaxed by the Popes 
Eugenius IV. and Pius II. 
The order thus became divided into two branches, the Car- 
melites of the ancient observance, and those who adopted the less 
severe rule of life. 
I should also mention, that when they first came to England, 
the dress was not white. The habit was originally white, but the 
Saracens compelled the unfortunate monks on Mount Carmel to 
wear a party-coloured dress; and for some time after they left 
Palestine, in England and elsewhere, they continued this coloured 
dress; but in 1290 the Carmelite resumed his ancient frock, and 
the White Eriar became distinguished from all others by the colour 
of his robe. 
King Edward the II. was a great friend of the order, and there 
were about forty monasteries in England and Wales. 
They were studious and learned men, and Stevens gives a cata- 
logue of the most celebrated Englishmen, who were writers, 
belonging to the Carmelites, amounting in number to no less than 
one hundred and thirty-seven.* 
I think that the character of the Carmelite rule must have con- 
siderably altered in course of time in England, and that they did 
not continue as a body long as mendicant preachers, but that they 
* Dugdale; "Monast. Angl.," vol. vi. part iii. p. 1570. 
