RELIGIOUS HOUSES Sir William Sherborne, chaplain of Woburn, to whom allusion has already been made. The substance of the depositions has been already given ; they recounted the events of the last few years. The abbot practically confessed all that he was accused of ; he had failed to preach the king's supremacy on divers occasions, and openly expressed his opinions on the subject to a great many people. The sub-prior had also failed to preach the king's supremacy, and had prayed publicly for the pope when he went up to Oxford to take his degree of B.D. The depositions of Dan Robert Salford, who had sent the letter up to Cromwell, and of Sir William Sherborne, who had carried it, im- plicated others within and outside of the monastery. Salford testified how the abbot had sum- moned them all to chapter and exhorted them not to forsake their house or habit, and had advised him personally, in confession, not to complain to the royal visitors against those of his brethren who had railed on the council and spoken against their oath. He gave it as his own opinion that six of these, besides the sub-prior, were papists. But the name which most frequently occurs in all the depositions is that of Dan Laurence Blunham, the sexton, who had evidently made open boast that he had never taken the oath, and never would. It was natural that when the final selection of names was made he should appear beside the abbot and sub-prior as one of the chief offenders. These three were tried at Bedford at the summer sessions, and condemned to suffer the ordinary penalties of treason. 1 They were probably executed at the end of June 3 ; tradition says that an old oak tree outside the abbey gates served them for a gallows. 3 The whole course of proceeding, from the accusation to the execution, only occupied two or three months, instead of being spread over two or three years, as has been supposed. It was an ordinary case of verbal treason under the law of 1535, and is » Controlment Roll (P.R.O.), 30 Henry VIII. Trinity term, m. 16 dors, contains the record of the attainder of Robert Hobbes, abbot of Woburn ; Ralph Barnes alias Woburn, and Laurence Blun- ham alias Peck, monks of the same house. The margin of the roll had Bedford quite clearly beside this entry, so that the trial could not well have been at Lincoln. a An estimate of the goods of the ' late attainted ' monastery of Woburn was made on 29 June, de- ducting expenses of maintaining the house till 28 June. a Dom Gasquet, Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, p. 202. parallel to the case of Friar Forrest who was hanged and burned about a month earlier ; but it is an even better illustration of the ex- treme rigour of that law. The Carthusians and Forrest, who finally refused to take the oath, after having it several times tendered to them, might perhaps be looked upon as dangerous men, and enemies to the common- wealth ; but there was little enough to fear from the monks of Woburn. The abbot in his final deposition pleaded that he did all he had done ' out of a scrupulous conscience that he then had, considering the long continuance of the Bishop of Rome in that trade being, and the sudden mutation thereof; he was ready to renounce some of his opinions 4 at once, and begged the king's mercy, and Cromwell's intercession. 5 On 27 May 8 Laurence Blunham sent in a similar plea for mercy, on the ground of his ' foolish scru- pulous mind ' ; he had indeed escaped taking the oath formally, for he did not kiss the book, being passed over in the crowd ; but now he was put out of all doubt of the truth ' by the instruction of my Lord Privy Seal.' In June 7 the sub-prior sent in his petition for mercy, also announcing himself converted, by the reading of the Obedience of a Christian Man and the Glass of Truth. But verbal treason, once committed, could not be undone. It is a pitiful story from any point of view. Robert Hobbes and his monks were no heroes : they were clear enough in their convictions and could admire the steadfastness of More and Fisher ; but when it came to the test they found it easier to admire than to imitate. Yet they were good religious ; the character of the abbot in particular is a very attractive one, B and if he had fallen upon happier times 4 e.g. the invalidity of holy orders conferred since the breach with Rome. 6 This final deposition of the abbot is not with the others, but in Cott. MS. Cleop. E iv. f. 89 ; but it refers in detail to all the points of accusation contained in the other depositions, and is placed at the end of them in the L. and P. Hen. VIII. " L. and P. Hen. VIII. xiii. pt. 1, No. 1086. 7 Ibid. x. 1239. This petition is clearly out of its place in 1536. It is only dated June; but it alludes to a conversation with William Sherborne, chaplain of Woburn, who said in May 1538 that he only came to assist at the chapei ' last mid- summer.' 8 We may note his constant exhortations of his brethren to unity and charity, those keynotes of the religious life ; his gentleness and reasonableness in dealing with such a man as William Sherborne (' Sir William, I hear that you are a great railer. I pray you teach my cure the Scripture of God, 369 47
