THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF OLD PLYMOUTH. 
335 
Essex. But all applications were useless to save St. Mary's, the most 
beautiful cathedral and mother church of Coventry. It was pulled 
in pieces, and reduced to rubbish. And these are only a few 
instances out of numbers. 
Perhaps the spoil of the church, which doubtless was rich in 
altar plate, embroidered vestments, and costly furniture, the trea- 
sured accumulations of many generations, was thought sufficient. 
The churchwardens of St. Andrew were perhaps not so shrewd as 
the churchwardens of a church in an adjoining county, who, being 
apprehensive of a descent of the commissioners, took the precaution 
of handing over their altar plate to " Master John Trevylian, Esq., 
at all times at their need to be had of the aforesaid Master John 
Trevylian, Esq.;" and it therefore so happened that when the visi- 
tors, who were appointed to " examine what church plate, jewels, 
and other furniture was in cathedrals and churches, and to sell 
copes and altar cloths, and to deliver all the rest of the plate and 
jewels to the King's treasurer," JSettlecombe had no account to 
give, the visitors went empty away, and the parish preserved their 
patens and chalices. And to this piece of most justifiable craft 
some of the most interesting and beautiful altar plate, dating from 
very early in the thirteenth century, has been preserved to us. 
St. Andrew's church has no pre-reformation plate. Its most 
ancient possession, I believe, is a chalice, having engraved upon it 
the date 1590. After the visitors had departed, the church was 
left with naked altars, bare walls, and crippled resources, to carry 
on the work up to that time shared in by the other religious 
foundations in the town. 
And it was not long before troubles began. The amount paid 
up to the time of the surrender of Plympton Priory to the revenues 
of that establishment went to the king.* 5 
* The following is from the Valor Eccl. Hen. VIII., 1535. 
Ply m mouth cum capellis S'c'or' Budoc' Pancras' . 
Vicaria ib'm valet p. annu. cum x li p. decima pisciu. 
Et p. lana 6° agn' . . . . — Ixv — 
Et p. decimis psonal' .... viij — — 
Et p. feno . . . . — xx — 
Et p. omibs aliis decimis 6° oblac' dee vicarie p'ti?t. xj xv viij £ s. d. 
Inde solul' annuati unam, annualem pencoem Johi \xxv x ix 
priori de Plympton <£r> success' suis . . viij — — 
Et archid' Totton &° success 1 suis annuati p. pcur. — v — 
Et p. Sinod' . . . . . — iij iij 
Et p. visitacoe epo Exon' &° success' suis annuati . — — xx J 
Et rem' clare. 
In' p. X ma . . . . — lj j 
