pasture for the maintenance of the tilth, but also no common pasture ne woods belonging to the same; for the which cause also my said Controller would not sue, saving that it lieth so nigh unto him; beseeching your lordship, that if hereafter he espy any better thing in the country that he may have your favour therein; and I doubt not in this his small preferment, but that his neighbours shall perceive, that the King's Majesty doth not forget those that bear his Grace their true hearts and fidelity. If your lordship would be so good as to show these my letters unto the King's Majesty, declaring the considerations thereof, I trust his Highness will tender my suit, if it were a greater matter; for his Highness will gladly help his faithful subjects if his Grace have information of them, and except his Grace be informed of them, he cannot help the trusty subjects he hath. Thus, my lord, most heartily fare you well. At Forde, the 28th of February. Your own ever to command, To the Right Honourable and my singular good lord, my Lord Privy Seal. T. Cantuarien. CCX. TO CRUMWELL h. After most hearty commendations to your lordship: for- Mss. asmuch as I am informed, that your lordship intendeth to Cotton, Cleop. E.iv. depose the Prior of the Charter House within the Isle of fol. 212. Original. Axholme, this shall be to desire you to permit the said Prior still to continue in his room, for I am about, through h [The direction of this letter has been lost, but there can be little doubt of its having been addressed to Crumwell, as Vicar General.] i [In Lincolnshire. "By Milwood Park side," says Leland, "stood the "right fair monastery of the Carthusians." The site of it was granted, 32 Hen. VIII, to Mr. John Candish," who hath now turned the monastery to a goodly manor place." Leland Itin. vol. i. p. 32. Its yearly revenues at the dissolution were worth 2371. 15s. 2d. according to Dugdale. It was therefore not suppressed among the lesser monasteries in 1536. See Tanner, Not. Mon.; Letters cxXXIV. CXLV.] the help of such friends as I have in those parties, to procure T. Cantuarien. MSS. House, ster; Crum ence. Original. CCXI. To CRUMWELL. My very singular good Lord, I heartily commend me unto Chapter- you; and thank you in like manner for your pains taken Westmin- with my folk and my letters divers and many times; and well's Cor- now I am driven to desire you to take further pains. So it respond is, that one Symone Cornethwaite, dwelling with my Lord Russell, did sue a cause of matrimony in the Arches against one Anne Barker, daughter to William Barker of Cheswicke, and brought the mother, and divers other witness, with the confession of the maid, to justify his intent; and then the maid was sequestered, lest any violence should be used towards her, unto the house of Master Vaghan in Chepe side; and in very deed, at the special request of my lord of Sussex, I heard the matter myself one day at Lamebethe, and thought it necessary that the maid should continue still in sequestration till the matter were tried. And this suit depending, one William Brydges, brother to Sir John Bridges, took out the maid from the sequestration, and married her before day without any banns asked, or any license or dispensation obtained, and in the time forbidden m, k [Some reader of this Letter has affixed to it the date of 1537; but it seems rather to belong to 1538, this being the year in which the Carthusian Priory of Axiholm in Lincolnshire was surrendered. See Burnet, Ref. vol. i. App. B. iii. No. 3.] [Probably the same Sir John Bridges who was created Lord Chandos by Queen Mary, in 1554, for the more honourable reception of the Prince of Spain. See Strype, Memorials, vol. iii. p. 119.] m [The times forbidden to matrimony by old canons, and by the custom of England, were from Advent Sunday till a week after Epiphany; from Septuagesima Sunday till a week after Easter; and from Ascension day till Trinity Sunday. Comber. "Quando clauditur within three days afore Christenmas last, and hath ever since lien by her, and keeps her in a secret corner in Master Ambrose Barker's house; and she is declared accurst for violating of the sequestration, and is so denounced at Poule's Cross, and at divers other places, and so hath continued forty days; and this notwithstanding, he keeps her still, more like a rebellion than an obedient subject to the laws and good order of this realm: and swears great oaths, that he will keep her in spite of any man. Now my desire is, for the zeal I do know that you bear unto justice, and the evitation of notorious sin, it may please you to send for the said William Bridges by privy seal or otherwise, commanding him to bring the woman with him. And then you to sequester her to some honest indifferent house, till the matter be tried whose wife she is. And otherwise to correct him for his misdemeanour in this behalf, as shall be thought good to your lordship. In which doing I doubt not but you shall please God highly; and cause other to beware of such misdemeanour in the King's realm. As knows our Lord, who preserve you as myself. Amen. At Forde, the 14th day of March. Your own ever assured, To my very singular good lord, my Lord Privy Seal, these be given. T. Cantuarien. CCXII. To CRUMWELL. My very singular good Lord, in most hearty wise I com- Mss. mend me unto your lordship. And whereas there is suit Chapter House, made unto me for one Sir William Chevenay, Parson of WestminKyngston, besides Canterbury, which being a very impo-well's Cortempus nuptiarum, et quando aperitur, nota in his versibus se"quentibus: Aspiciens veterem, circum, qua, quis, benedicta. "Conjugium vetat Adventus, Hilariusque relaxat. "Septuagena vetat, octavum Pasche relaxat." Crum ence. Original. respond- tent man, above fourscore years of age, and also blind, is not able in his own person to discharge his cure, and would very gladly have license to abide with his friends and kinsfolks, and would find an honest priest in the meantime to discharge his cure; forasmuch as he is not able, besides the finding of the priest, to keep house of the same, the benefice being of so small valure, as I am credibly informed that it is; these shall be, therefore, to desire you to be good lord unto the said parson in this his suit unto your lordship, that he may be discharged of the Act concerning residence", if it may be. And he shall pray during his life (which is not like to pass one year) for the preservation of your good lordship. Thus right heartily fare you well. From Canterbury, the 16th day of March. Your own assured ever, To my very singular good lord, my T. Cantuarien. MSS. ster; CCXIII. TO CRUMWELL. My very singular good Lord, in my most hearty manner I commend me unto your lordship: and where I am inWestmin- formed, that one Sandwhych, a monk of Christ's Church in Crumwell's Canterbury, and Warden of Canterbury College in Oxfortho, Corres- doth sue for the preferment of the Prior's office in the said Original. house of Canterbury: these my letters are most effectuously to desire your lordship, if any such alteration be P, to pondence. n [Stat.21 Hen. VIII. c. 13.] [Canterbury College in Oxford was at this time subject to the Benedictine Priory of Christ Church, Canterbury, and was chiefly occupied by student monks of that order. As a parcel of their possessions it was granted, 33 Hen. VIII, to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, but was transferred, 38 Hen. VIII, to the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church, Oxford. Tanner, Not. Monast. See, for an account of its foundation, Lewis, Life of Wiclif, chap. 1.] P[No alteration seems to have taken place; for at the dissolution, Thomas Goldwell was still Prior of Christ's Church, Canterbury, (having held the office for twenty-three years,) Richard Thornden was bear your favour and aid to the Warden of the manors of the said house, a man of right honest behaviour, clean living, good learning, good judgment, without superstition, very tractable, and as ready to set forward his prince's causes, as no man more of his coat; and in that house, in mine opinion, there is no meeter man. I am moved to write to your lordship in this behalf, inasmuch as I consider what a great commodity I shall have, if such one be promoted to the said office, that is a right honest man and of his qualities; and I insure your lordship the said room requireth such one; as knoweth God, who ever preserve you. From Canterbury, the 17th day of March. Your own ever assured, To my very singular good lord, my T. Cantuarien. Lord Privy Seal. CCXIV. TO CRUMWELL. Chapter ster; Crum ence. Ori My very singular good Lord, in my most hearty wise I MSS. commend me unto your lordship; signifying to the same, House, that according to the effect and purport of your letters to Westminme directed concerning Friar Forest, the Bishop of Wur-well's Corceiter and I will be tomorrow with your lordship, to know respondWarden of the manors there, and William Sandwich was Warden of ginal. Canterbury College, Oxford. Somner, Antiq. of Canterbury, by Battely. Sandwich, alias Gardiner, became one of the prebendaries of the new Chapter at Canterbury. He was a vehement opposer of the reformation, and was one of the chief contrivers of the charges brought against Cranmer in 1543. See some specimens of his sermons in Strype, Cranmer, p. 103; and his humble submission to the Archbishop, ibid. App. No. 33. Richard Thornden also was a prebendary on the new foundation, and deeply implicated in the combination against the Archbishop. He was Bishop Suffragan of Dover, was a persecutor under Queen Mary, and died in the last year of her reign. Henry Wharton accuses Strype of confounding him with John Thornton, Prior of Dover, and Suffragan to Archbishop Warham; but there is no such confusion in the passages which he cites, and this and a former Letter strongly confirm Strype's statement of R. Thornden's being specially favoured by Cranmer. See Strype, Crunm. p. 62; Wharton, Observations on Strype's Cranmer, p. 258; Cranmer's Declaration concerning the Mass; (vol. iv. p. 1.) |