RELIGIOUS HOUSES Eleanor de Wynton, elected 1332,'" occurs 1344" Margery de Honilane, occurs 1354*^ Constance Somersete, occurs 1385,*' died i398« Joan, occurs 1399** Alice Wodehouse, occurs 1458 Alice Ashfield, occurs 1466*' Alice Trewethall, occurs 1488 and 1497-8 Elizabeth Stamp, occurs 1512°" and 1518,* resigned 1528 '^ Mary Rollesley, elected 1529,"^ surrendered 1538 A seal in the Augmentation Office represents St. Helen standing under the Cross, which she embraces with her left arm, and holding in her left hand the three nails of the Passion. On the right, opposite to the empress, is a multi- tude of women with extended arms and upraised countenances. Beneath is a trefoiled niche, and under it a woman's (?) head and left arm in the same attitude as that of the figures above. The legend is : — SIGILL . MONIALIVM . SANCTE . HELENE LONDONIARVM 94 HOUSE OF CISTERCIAN MONKS 4. EASTMINSTER, NEW ABBEY, OR THE ABBEY OF ST. MARY DE GRACIIS In 1350 King Edward III founded in the parish of St. Botolph without Aldgate a mon- astery to be called St. Mary of Graces in honour of the Virgin, to whose mediation he attributed his escape from many perils by land and sea.^ The site was a place called the New Church- yard of Holy Trinity, because it had been ac- quired by a certain John Corey, clerk, from Holy Trinity Priory for a burial ground during the plague.^ St. Mary's was made subject to Beaulieu Regis,' and from this abbey came the five Cistercian monks ^ who under Walter de Santa Cruce,' as president, formed the convent of the new foundation. The original endowment consisted of some lands and tenements in East Smithfield and '° Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. i, 28. She was sub-prioress. »' Harl. Chart. 44, F. 45.
- ' Cal. Pap. Letters, iii, 528 ; Sharpe, Cal. of Letter
Bk. G. 44. "' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. i, 27. " Doc. of D. and C. of St. Paul's, A. Box 25, No. 1 106. She is here called Constance only. ^ Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. i, 28. '« Doc. of D. and C. of St. Paul's, A. Box 77, No. 2046. She seems to have resigned before 1466, for a nun of this name witnessed a lease then. Add. MS. 15664, fol. 230. " Ibid.
- Doc. of D. and C. of St. Paul's, A. Box 76,
No. 20I2. «'CoX, op. Cit. 12. '"Ibid.
- " Chiktie, Some Account of Parish Clerks, 38.
" L. and P. Hen. Fill, v, p. 9 n. " Ibid. " Ibid, xiii (2), 908. "Cox, op. cit. 15. Cf. imperfect example attached to Harl. Chart. 44, F. 45. ' Add. Chart. 39405. An inspeximus in the reign of Henry VIII. °- Stow, Surv. of Land. (ed. Strype), ii, 13. ' Cal. of Pat. 1422-9, p. 89. Inspex. of patent of 1351. Tower Hill which, like the site, had been bought by the king of John Corey,* and a sum of 20 marks to be received annually from the tellers of London for their ferma-gilda.' In 1358, however, the income thus derived being found insufficient, the king ordered 40 marks a year to be paid to them out of the Exchequer until he should provide otherwise for them, but he stipulated at the same time that another monk should be added to their number.* He moreover granted to them in 1367,' together with some small rents in London, the advow- sons of St. Bartholomew's the Little and of Allhallows Staining,^" and two years later he gave them lands, tenements, and rents in London worth about 60 marks a year which had been forfeited to the crown under the Statute of Mortmain." But the king must have felt that the income of the abbey fell far short of the thousand marks with which he had intended to endow it,^^ and towards the end of his reign he took steps to supply the de- ficiency. Before his death " he granted to the abbey the fiiversion of the manors of Westmill, Little Hormead, and Meesden, co. Herts., with the • Add. MS. 15664, fol. 138, a transcript of Rot. Pat. 32 Edw. Ill, pt. I, m. 20. The k ng asked that some mon!;s might be ent: from Beaulieu in I 35 I. Cal. of Pat. 1422-9, p. 8 . ' He had been abbot of Garendon and came to St. Mary Graces at the king's request in 1350. Cal. of Pat. 1348-50, p. 560. ° These were given by the king in August, 1353. Add. Chart. 39405. ' Ibid. 8 Add. MS. 15664, fol. 138. ' Add. Chart. 39405. '" This church was appropriated to them by the bishop of London, February, 1 368. Lond. Epis. Reg. Sudbury, fol. 105 and 1 06. " Add. Chart. 39405. " Cal. of Pat. 1388-92, p. 364. " In the fiftieth year of his reign. Newcourt, Repert. Eccl. Lond. i, 837, 847 ; Chauncy, Hist, oj Herts. 330. 461
