RELIGIOUS HOUSES and clear account of its last days. From the depositions taken in May 1538 1 it may be gathered that there were at least thirteen monks besides the abbot, all of whom were clerks ; there were perhaps others also who were not mentioned by name, and most pro- bably, on the analogy of other houses, a few lay brothers. There seems to have been no prior at the time ; the most prominent person after the abbot was the sub-prior; a ' bowser' or bursar had succeeded the old cellarer ; among minor officials the sexton and the ' chaunter ' or precentor are named, and one monk was secretary to the abbot. Three ' young gentlemen ' and their schoolmaster had been recently boarders in the house ; and a former abbot of Warden, for reasons un- known, preferred to spend his last days at Woburn. The abbot, Robert Hobbes, 2 had much friendly intercourse with the gentry of the neighbourhood, and had been the guest of Sir Francis Bryan at Ampthill ; the Bishop of Lincoln was often a near neighbour when he visited his manor at Woburn ; so that, in one way and another, the house was well known, and its deficiencies would have been easily observed. But there can be no doubt whatever that it was in excellent order, and the rule well kept. Though the abbot's views as to the religious controversies of the time were shared by few of his brethren, they nevertheless yielded him due obedience to the last. The bursar and the secretary might marvel that he kept a dangerous and reactionary book in the abbey 3 ; but the one copied it and the other laid it by, according to their obedience. And on the abbot's side there was all the consideration on which the rule of St. Benedict lays such stress ; the peni- tential exercises from which he hoped so much were dropped as soon as he saw that they were offered by unwilling hearts and lips, and his rebukes were always mild and fatherly. Cross-examined by the king's com- missioners, the monks reported the words of their superior, and gave their own opinions ; but only two had really laid information against him, and not even these had any per- « L. and P. Hen. Fill. xiii. pt. i. 981. The following account of the abbey and of the trial is entirely taken from this source. a In 1533, with the abbots of Fountains and Pipewell, he had been appointed to visit the monastery of Vaudey, and had some difference of opinion with Cromwell as to the best means of reforming the house (£. and P. Hen. VIII. vi. 778-9)- 3 A treatise collated from the fathers, by Sir John Mylward of Toddington, called De Potestate Petri. sonal complaint to make. 4 During the whole trial, indeed, no word of accusation is raised against the personal character of any of the monks ; and, so far as we can gather, the divine offices were performed with care and reverence to the last. The house fell for purely political reasons. The full account of its tragic ending is found in the State Papers, and the story has been told more than once. 6 But there has been a good deal of confusion about the dates of the various stages of proceeding 6 ; it seems there- fore best to set down the events quite simply in the order in which they occurred, and to let them speak for themselves. In 1 534—5 7 there was a preliminary visi- tation by Dr. Petre, who administered the oath of supremacy to the whole convent, or- dered the delivery of all papal bulls to him- self, and the erasure of the pope's name from all service books. These orders were carried out ; but the abbot, as he afterwards con- fessed, had the bulls copied before he delivered them, and also expressed a wish to some of his monks that the pope's name might be struck out with a pen and not erased. He did not however press the latter point. 8 During the three years that followed, the new laws and the great events of the time, political and religious, were much discussed in the monastery, and there was a tendency amongst the monks to fall into two parties. It seems however to have been no more than a tendency ; there were only two " who were ♦ One monk, John Grace, said that he had once petitioned the abbot for better bread for the con- vent, and that the answer had been, ' If they like not this, let them go farther and fare worse. The world is open now, but I trust that it will not long hold thus.' They are the only ungentle words alleged of the abbot ; perhaps something in the circumstances may have rendered them quite necessary. s Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects (ed. 1878), i. 431-41 ; followed by Canon Dixon, History of the English Church ; Dom Gasquet, Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, ii. 191- 202. • All these assume that the depositions were taken in 1536, whereas they are dated clearly 11 and 12 May 30 Henry VIII. The chroniclers Speed and Stow both put the abbot's name in th» list of those who were executed after the Pilgrimage of Grace, with which he had no connection what- ever. Burnet improves upon this by saying that he joined the rebels and was taken in arms amongst them. 7 Alluded to in the abbot's first deposition. 8 From the deposition of Dan Croxton. 8 Dan Robert Salford and Dan Croxton ; the former had sent up a letter to Cromwell by Sir 367
