Ministers in the principal kingdoms of Europe. In the year 1224, two years before the death of their founder,[1] a deputation of nine of the fraternity, four clerics and five laics, arrived in England, with letters recommendatory from Pope Honorius III. and took up their first residence in the Benedictine priory of the Holy Trinity at Canterbury, in which city five of their number soon after formed the first Franciscan convent in England.
The other four proceeded to London, and were first entertained for fifteen days in the house of the Friars Preachers, or Dominicans. Afterwards they hired a house in Cornhill of John Travers, then sheriff, where they made some small cells, and continued until the following summer, when the devotion of the citizens enabled them to remove to the site of their future residence near Newgate. Their first and principal benefactor was John Iwyn, citizen and mercer, who gave them some land and houses in the parish of St. Nicholas in the Shambles, by deed dated in the 9th Hen. III. Upon this they erected their original building. The first chapel, which became the choir of the church, was built at the cost of sir William Joyner, who was mayor of London in 1239; the nave was added by sir Henry Waleys, who was mayor during several years of the reign of Edward I.;[2] the chapter-house by Walter the potter, citizen and
- ↑ Among the other numerous errors of Mr. Stevens in his Supplementary Monasticon (adverted to hereafter) is a misprint, p. 112, of "1224" for 1226, as the date of the death of Saint Francis.
- ↑ After Walter Hervy, who was mayor of London at the accession of Edward I., there were only three mayors during the thirty-five years of his reign. Walter Hervy had been elected by the citizens in the last year of Henry III. (see the French Chronicle of London, p. 11), but for some time after the chief magistrate was elected by the aldermen only, and the office became in consequence almost perpetual. Henry Waleys was Hervy's successor for one year; then Gregory de Rokesley (presently mentioned in the text) for seven years; and then Waleys for four years; after which the king seized the liberties of the city into his own hands, and appointed a custos or warden, who continued for twelve years. Waleys was then reappointed, and died mayor in 1302; after which Sir John le Blount was mayor during the six remaining years of Edward's reign. It is very possible that Waleys and Rokesley had the credit of erecting the buildings of the Grey Friars, not because they were done at their personal expense, but by contributions of the citizens under their patronage and superintendence. Waleys was apparently an equal or greater benefactor to the house of Franciscan Sisters without Aldgate, in whose chapel his bones were laid to rest. See the note upon him in the French Chronicle of London, p. 12.
