A HISTORY OF LONDON It is possible that additions were made throughout the century : the glazing of the windows was done at the cost of various people who were not all contemporaries,^* and the choir stalls were the gift of Margaret Segrave, countess of Norfolk, about 1380.^' The convent buildings were enlarged a little after 1360, an alteration made necessary by the numbers that joined the order.'" In 131 5 and 1325 there were seventy-two inmates of the friary ,^^ and in 1 346 the king had to check the influx of foreign friars into the London house,'^ ostensibly in the interests of the English brothers, but possibly in the fear of spies. There is also proof that about a hundred friars died at the time of the Black Death, for recent excavations on the site of the old burial- ground led to the discovery of a pit evidently made at the time of an epidemic, and about a hundred bodies in this had upon them the leaden crosses used by the Franciscans, but in this case not inscribed with the formula of absolution, and showing other signs of hasty construction.^' It would perhaps be difficult to overrate the influence of the Grey Friars, particularly in the fourteenth century. Queen Isabella chose as her confessor one of this convent, Roger Lamborne, a man of good family,'* and as the gifts of Gilbert de Clare to the church are said to have been made at the prompting of his confessor, Geoffrey de Aylesham, so the gene- rosity of Margaret, countess of Norfolk, may have been partly due to Friar William de Wood- ford.'^ Roger Conway of the convent of Worcester received a papal licence in 1355 ^o reside in London, for the spiritual recreation of himself and of the many English nobles coming to the friary." He is interesting not only as a spiritual adviser of the fashionable world, but as having answered the tract of the archbishop of Armagh against the mendicant orders.'* The " See Mr. Shepherd's notes on the donors of win- dows, op. cit. 259-62. Sums were bequeathed to the fabric of the church in 1 36 1 and 1436. Sharpe, Cal. of Will!, ii, 49, 481. " Harl. MS. 544, fol. 48. She gave ail the material, and the making cost her 350 marks besides. '" Monum. Francisc. (Rolls Ser.), i, 512, " Little, op. cit. 441, n. 1. " Cal. of Close, 1346-9, p. 150. " The Antiquary, Hi, 72. " Monum. Fraiicisc. (Rolls Ser.), i, 541. He was her confessor in 1327, and still held the office in 1343. Little, op. cit. 2, 37 ; Cal. Pop. Letters, Vu, 88. Either before or after his time John Vye, also friar of this house, was her confessor. E. B. S. Shepherd, op. cit. 269. " Monum. Tranche. (Rolls Ser.), i, 514. ^ Her connexion with him is shown by 3 grant she made to the Minoresses for the term of the life of ' her well-beloved father in God William de Wydford.' Cal. of Pat. 1381-5, p. 452. " Little, op. cit. 239. " Wadding, Ann. Minorum, viii, 127. regard in which the house was held is also testified by the persons of high rank '^ and the prominent citizens*" who chose the church as a place of burial. The popularity of the Grey Friars with the rich and powerful was doubtless one of the reasons for the vehement attacks made on them, although the attitude towards them can be suffi- ciently accounted for when one remembers that they continued the practice of begging while they had given up a life of poverty, and any doubt on this last point vanishes after seeing the list of property stolen from John Welle,*^ a Minorite dwelling in London, 1378. Their shortcoming in this respect was the immediate cause of WyclifFe's hatred. No definite part in this controversy can be ascribed to the London house, for it was only after 1390 that Friar Woodford, WyclifFe's opponent, lived there.*^ During the reign of Henry IV the part played in political affairs by some of the English Fran- ciscans*' must have caused all of the order to be looked at askance by the court. Hence perhaps the reason why it was not to noble patrons such as those who built their church, but to a London citizen, the celebrated Richard Whittington,** that they owed the new library, begun in 142 1 and completely finished in about four years. In like manner it was to the efforts of two inmates of the convent, William Russell *' the warden and Thomas Winchelsey, that they were in- debted for most of the improvements in the convent buildings. " See list printed by Mr. Shepherd from the Cotton MS. in the article in Arch. Journ. lix, 266-85 • Queen Margaret d ied 1 3 1 8 ; Queen Isabella died 1357; Queen Joan of Scotland died 1362 ; the heart of Queen Eleanor of Provence ; Beatrice, duchess of Brittany, daughter of Henry III ; Isabella, countess of Bedford, daughter of Edward III ; John de Hastings, earl of Pembroke, died 1389 ; Margaret de Redvers, countess of Devon, died 1292 ; John, duke of Bour- bon, died 1433 ; James, Lord Saye and Sele, died 1450 ; Richard Hastings, Lord Willoughby and Wells, died 1503 ; Walter Blount, Lord Mountjoy, K.G., 1474, &c.
- ° Gregory de Rokesley, mayor, died 1291 ; John
Philpot, mayor, died 1384; Nicholas Brembre, mayor, died 1399; Stephen Jennyns, mayor, died 1 523. Arch. Journ. lix, 266-85.
- ' Little, op. cit. 78.
" Ibid. 247. But Shirley, the editor of Netter's Fasciculi Zizaniorum (Rolls Ser.), thinks that Woodford may have delivered a course of theological lectures which touched on WyclifFe's opinions at the Grey Friars of London in 1 3 8 1 . " Stow, Annals (ed. 161 5), 327. Eight grey friars were hanged at London and two at Leicester, all of whom had published that King Richard was alive. According to the chronicler Richard II had as confessor a Franciscan named William Apledore. Ibid. 287.
- Monum. Francisc. i, 579. The total expense was
^^556 16/. 8^., of which Whittiugton contributed X400.
- » Ibid. 520.
504
