In 1587, the Abbey was dissolved, the last Abbot, Thomas Stephens, with twenty out of the thirty monks, signing the deed of surrender.[1] Stephens was pensioned off with a hundred marks; and some of the monks received various annuities and compensations for their losses. So fell the monastery of Beaulieu, and its stones went to build Henry VIII.'s martello tower at Hurst, and its lead to repair Calshot,[2] to fight against the very Power which had raised it to its glory.
Nothing could be more beautiful than its situation on the banks of the Exe, formed by the tide more into a lake than a river. On every side it was sheltered: on the north by rising ground and the woods of the New Forest, and on the east again by the Forest and more hills, from whence an aqueduct brought down the water for the use of the monks; and on the south and west all was guarded by the river.
To this day the outer walls are in places standing, with the water-gate covered with ivy. And inside is the abbot's house, placed amongst its own grounds, surrounded by elms. Above
- ↑ The following list of books at Beaulieu, quoted, with some omissions, by Warner (vol. i. p. 278) from Leland (Collect. de Rebus Brit., vol. iv. p. 149), taken just before the dissolution, will show what was in those days an average ecclesiastical library:—The Life of Archbishop Anselm, by Edmerus the monk, bound up with the Life of Bishop Wilfrid; Stephanas on Ecclesiasticus; Stephanus on the Book of Kings; Stephanus on the Parables of Solomon; John, Abbot of Ford, on the Canticles; Damascenus on the Acts of Balaam and Josaphat; a small book of Candidas Arrian; a small book of Victorinus, the Rhetorician, against Candidas; three books of Claudian, respecting the Stale of the Soul, to Sidonius Apollinaris; Gislebertus on the Epistles of St. Paul; Prosper on a Life of Contemplation and of Activity.
- ↑ Ellis's Letters, second series, vol. ii. p. 87. For Henry VIII.'s enforcement of Wolsey's levies on Beaulieu, see State Papers, vol. i., part ii., p. 383.
