kept Christmas here with his Court. [1] In 1300 the founder died at Ashridge, [2] and his heart, embalmed in a casket, was placed beside that of St. Thomas de Cantilupe in the Conventual Church ; other parts of his body were buried separately here and at Hailes. [3]
In 1307 the rector and brethren of Ashridge received the custody of the hospital of St. Thomas of Aeon in London [4] ; but in 1315 it was alleged that they had obtained this by falsehood and suppression of the truth, during the absence of the master, and it was taken away from them. [5] They were cited at the same time to appear before the pope in person or by proxy to clear themselves of this charge, and to bring all papers relating to the suit between them and the master of the hos- pital. [6] It does not appear that they re- covered possession of it.
In 1323 there was a suit with the Prior of St. Bartholomew's, London, who finally sur- rendered to the brethren all his rights in the church of Hemel Hempstead.[7] In 1346 a chantry was founded in the conventual church for the soul of Sir Bartholomew Burghersh, at the appropriation of the church of Am- brosden.[8] After the Great Pestilence the endowment of the house was found to be so diminished in value as to be quite insuffi- cient ; and in 1376 the Black Prince increased it so considerably that he was reckoned as the second founder. At the same time the stat- utes were revised, and the house set on quite a new footing. From this time forward the ordinary number of the brethren was twenty, [9] and even at the dissolution there were still seventeen.
In 1380, just after the re-modelling of the house, the rector, Ralf of Aston, claimed on behalf of his convent to hold one half of the roads or paths that led from Redbourne to Hemel Hempstead, and the Abbot of St. Albans ceded this without making any diffi- culty. Afterwards, on examination of the evidences, it was found that those rights had belonged from time immemorial to the abbey, but it was too late to take back what had been formally granted, and the monks of St. Albans had to endure their loss with as good a grace as they might, while ' the brethren ' of Ash- ridge, says the chronicler, ' gloried in the success of their fraud.' It is of course pos- sible that the whole transaction might have been very differently described by a chronicler of Ashridge : it is given by Walsingham from the point of view of his own house. [10]
In the year 1381 the brethren of Ashridge suffered considerable losses on their manors at Berkhampstead and Hemel Hempstead, from the violence of the revolted peasantry, who extorted from them new charters of liberty, and treated them and their property in much the same way as they had the monks of St. Albans and the canons of Dunstable.[11] It may have been partly in consequence of this as well as other causes that they found them- selves ' overwhelmed with great necessity ' in 1413, when the Bishop of Winchester granted them the church of Ivinghoe, and a clerk of his household gave them 100 towards the rebuilding of the choir. [12]
During the last years of its existence, the conventual church was a notable place of pil- grimage in the county ; and those convicted of heresy were sometimes ordered to do their penance there, or even to pass some time in the monastery itself.[13] The last rector, Thomas Waterhouse, assisted at the trial of the relapsed heretic, Thomas Harding of Chesham, who was condemned to death in 1532.[14] He signed the Acknowledgment of Supremacy in 1535 [15] and surrendered his house 6 November, 1539, [16] receiving byway of pension the rectory of Quainton.[17]The rest of the brethren, sixteen in number, re- ceived benefices or pensions of 6 or 7 a year ; two of them were living in 1552 as in- cumbents of Ayot St. Peter and Dachworth, and both of these were married. [18] The old rector himself lived till 1554, and seems to have held steadily to the religion in which he had been bred,bequea thing to several churches at his death the vestments which he had con- trived to keep as personal property all through the reign of Edward VI. There was until
- ↑ Ann. Mon. (Rolls Ser.), iii. 363.
- ↑ Walsingham, Hist. Angliae, i. 80.
- ↑ Todd, History of Ashridge, 9-10.
- ↑ Pat. 1 Edw. II. pt. i., m. 8.
- ↑ Ibid. 8 Edw. II. pt. ii., m. 9.
- ↑ Cal. of Pap. Letters, i. 573.
- ↑ Close, 17 Edw. II. m. 28d.
- ↑ Linc. Epis. Reg. Inst. Bek, 137d.
- ↑ Todd, History of Ashridge, 15.
- ↑ Gesta Abbatum Mon. S. Albani (Rolls Ser.), iii. 262.
- ↑ Ann. Mon. (Rolls Ser.), iii. 417.
- ↑ Todd, History of Ashridge, 21.
- ↑ Foxe, Acts and Monuments, iv. 244, 580.
- ↑ Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Longland, 169.
- ↑ P.R.O. Acknowledgment of Supremacy, No. 3.
- ↑ Todd, History of Ashridge, 25 ; from the register, which states that it was in the same year as the execution of Cromwell ; and on St. Leonard's Day.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Exch. Mins. Accts., Bdle. 76, No. 26. It is assumed that other pensions were similar to these two, which are £6 and £7.
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